Contemporary Poetry of Iran
Naser Naseri; Sakineh Sherafati
Abstract
The Use of Vocabularies in Symphony of the Deadby Abbass Maroufi: from the language and Gender PerspectivesNaser Naseri1/ Sakineh Sharafati21 Assistant professor of Persian Language and Literature, Islamic AzadUniversity, Khouy Branch, Khouy, Iran (corresponding author), E-mail:nasernaseri43@gmail.com2 ...
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The Use of Vocabularies in Symphony of the Deadby Abbass Maroufi: from the language and Gender PerspectivesNaser Naseri1/ Sakineh Sharafati21 Assistant professor of Persian Language and Literature, Islamic AzadUniversity, Khouy Branch, Khouy, Iran (corresponding author), E-mail:nasernaseri43@gmail.com2 M.A student of Persian Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University,Khouy Branch, Khouy, Iran, E-mail: shahdeadab@gmail.comAbstractLanguage is considered as one of the fundamental elements in fiction writing.One of the important issues in investigating language is paying attention tothe relationship between gender and language. Most researchers believe thatthere is a significant difference between the men and the women language andwriting. This article aimed at examining men and women language differencesin the scope of the use of vocabularies from language and gender perspectivesin the "Symphony of the Dead" written by Abbass Maroufi. The authors havetried to analyze the differences in the vocabularies used by women and menin this novel including variables such as color words, taboo words (vulgar andnon-vulgar), swear words, affirmations , moderators, imperative andauthoritative words, affective traits and words in the dialogues among thenovel characters according to the linguistic scientific rules. Although AbbassMaroufi has created a language proportionate with his protagonists’ gender,he has not succeeded in the creation of a language proportional with hisprotagonists in some cases due to inattention to the scientific findings ofsociolinguists, especially in terms of the relationships between language andgender.Keywords: Abbass Maroufi, “Symphony of the Dead”, gender, malelanguage, female language40 Persian Language and Literature, Vol. 71, Issue 238, Fall & Winter 2018- 2019Abbass Maroufi, as a contemporary fiction writer, playwright andjournalist, was born on May 17th, 1957in Sangsar, Semnan. He studieddramatic arts at Tehran University. “Sociolinguistics is a field whichstudies the relationship between the language and the society and also,the relationship between the linguistic usage and social structures(Trudgill, 1976:1)”. One of the fundamental issues in sociolinguisticsis gender. In this research, the dialogues among the protagonists in thisnovel have been studied in terms of language and gender in the scopeof vocabularies including variables such as taboo words (vulgar andnon-vulgar), swear words, affirmations , moderators, imperative andauthoritative words, affective traits and words. Taboo words areunpleasant and violent ones the use of which is considered rude andindecent in the society. Linguists believe that women tend to use politeand cultured forms of language innately and in contrary, men tend touse taboo words. The statistics show that women use taboo words muchless than men, i.e. 12.7% for women and 87.3% for men. Swear wordsare phrases that a speaker uses for more emphasis, when it is probablethat the hearer considers them with doubt. The results of the researchby Gom (1981) indicated that, contrary to the common belief, men usethe swear words more than women. The studies showed that men swearwith 19 swear words compared with women with 3 swear words, andthe color words used by women are more diluted than the ones used bymen. The color words employed by women are 70% higher than thoseused by men as 30%. These findings are consistent with the linguisticstheories. Moderators are linguistic forms that express the speaker’suncertainty. The frequency of the application of these words in maledialogues is 75% and it is 25% in female dialogues, contrary to theLakoff and Fishman and other linguistics research results. Themoderators have not been used correctly in the dialogues among thecharacters in this novel. The writer could not have used the moderatorsproportionate with the characters gender. Affirmations (shortresponses) are phrases depicting the positive attention of the hearer tothe speaker. Examining the affirmations in this novel showed that themake characters have used 80% and the female characters have used20% affirmations.Linguists describe the male language as authoritative and imperativeand the female language as supportive and participatory. Theauthoritative language data in this novel depict that the maleauthoritative language use was 75% and the female one was 25% andThe Use of Vocabularies in Symphony of the Dead… 41the writer has succeeded in the application of the authoritative andimperative forms consistent with the linguists’ theories.ConclusionAbbass Maroufi, the writer of the Symphony of the Dead, has beensuccessful in use of taboo words, swear words, color words andauthoritative and imperative language and this application is consistentwith the linguistic studies; however, he was unsuccessful in theapplication of the variables of moderators and affirmations andconsistency with the linguists standards.
