بررسی تأثیر «جنسیت» و «سن» بر کاربرد «تردیدنماها» در گفتار فارسی زبانان (مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
درجه علمی: نشریه علمی (وزارت علوم)
آرشیو
چکیده
هدف از پژوهش حاضر تحلیل و طبقه بندی «تردیدنماها» و بررسی تأثیر دو عامل «جنسیت» و «سن» بر کاربرد این مقوله زبانی در گفتار روزمره زنان و مردان فارسی زبان است. به منظور نیل به هدف مذکور، یک پرسشنامه محقق-ساخته طراحی و به صورت تصادفی بین 523 زن و مرد فارسی زبان در 4 گروه سنی مختلف (15-25 سال، 26-35 سال، 36-45 سال و بالای 45 سال) توزیع شد. به لحاظ روش شناسی، پژوهش حاضر میدانی و از نوع پیمایشی است و از مؤلفه های کیفی و رویکرد کمّی بهره می گیرد. پس از استخراج انواع تردیدنماها از گفتار گویشوران مذکور از طریق پرسشنامه، به دسته بندی و توصیف آن ها پرداخته شد و در ادامه، بر مبنای آرای هایلند (1996) و وارتالا (2001) و با بهره گیری از آزمون های آماری تی، توکی و آنووا به تحلیل تردیدنماها پرداختیم. یافته ها و نتایج تحلیل های آماری حاکی از آن است که زنان بیشتر از مردان از «افعال گواه نما» برای نشان دادن تردید استفاده می کنند و میزان کاربرد «افعال قضاوتی» در مردان بیشتر از زنان است. همچنین، نتایج نشان داد که به لحاظ آماری میان استفاده از انواع تردیدنماها، شامل «افعال قضاوتی»، «افعال وجهی» و «گواه نماها» در گروه های سنی مختلف تفاوت معناداری وجود دارد و گویشوران زبان فارسی فقط پنج دسته از انواع تردیدنماهای مورد نظر هایلند و وارتالا را در گفتار روزمره خود به کار می گیرند.A Gender- and Age-Based Study of “Hedges” in the Speech of Persian Speakers
Abstract
The present research aims to examine and classify "hedges” through investigating the effect of “gender" and "age" on the use of this linguistic category in the everyday speech of Persian speakers. To this end, a researcher-made questionnaire was designed and randomly distributed among 523 Persian speakers in 4 different age groups (15-25, 26-35, 36-45, and 45 years and older). As far as it is concerned to the methodology, it is questionnaire-based survey benefiting from the qualitative components and quantitative analysis. The theoretical framework was based on Hyland’s (1996) and Varttala’s (2001) classifications of hedges. The statistical tests including T-test, ANOVA, and Tukey were used for data analysis. The findings showed that women used “evidential verbs” more than men to show their uncertainty, while the opposite was true for “judgmental verbs”. Furthermore, the statistical analysis revealed that there was a significant difference in the use of “judgmental, modal, and evidential verbs” among participants in different age groups. Finally, the results indicated that Persian speakers used only five groups of Hyland’s and Varttala’s hedging classifications in their everyday speech.
Keywords: Hedges, Gender, Age, Hyland’s Model, Persian
Introduction
Language, as a means of communication, is continually influenced by the society, that’s why the reflection of social variables in our everyday speech is inevitable. Among different social factors, the sociolinguist researchers have far investigated the correlation between “gender”, “age” and some linguistic categories, such as “hedges” to examine the men and women’s linguistic features. The notion of “hedges” was first introduced by Lakoff (1973: 471) to describe “words whose job is to make things more or less fuzzy.” On the other hand, Hyland (1996: 3) points out “a hedge is … any linguistic means used to indicate either a lack of complete commitment to the truth of a proposition or the desire for not expressing that commitment categorically”. Since then, hedging has been investigated by the linguists and different views have been expressed about this linguistic category. Nevertheless, not much research in the Persian language has been conducted to investigate the effect of “gender” and “age” on the use of “hedges” in the everyday speech of Persian speakers (see Amouzadeh and Zareifard, 2019).
The present paper sets out to study a gender- and age-based investigation of “hedges” in the speech of Persian speakers and to find the answers to the following questions: 1) How does “gender” affect the use of “hedges” in the everyday speech of Persian speakers? 2) What is the effect of “age” on the use of “hedges” in men and women’s speech? 3) Which types of “hedges” do the Persian speakers use in their everyday speech?
Materials and Methods
The present study is a field survey research benefiting from the qualitative components and the quantitative approach. The aim of the research is to do a sociolinguistic analysis of “hedges” focusing on the “gender” and “age” of the Persian-speakers. To this end, a researcher-made questionnaire was designed and randomly distributed among 523 Persian speakers in 4 different age groups (15-25, 26-35, 36-45, and over 45 years old). The theoretical framework of the research is based on the classification of hedging proposed by Hyland (1996) and Varttala (2001). An integrated classification of both views was proposed for data collection, in which the hedges were categorized in 6 types as follows: 1) judgmental main verbs; 2) evidential main verbs; 3) adverbs; 4) adjectives; 5) nouns; and 6) modal verbs. Moreover, the examples of hedges included in the questionnaire were selected through interviewing with the Persian speakers and randomly gathered from 6 Persian novels as follows:1) Sag va Zemestan-e Boland; 2) Sang-e Sabour; 3) Jazireh Sargardani; 4) Savushun; 5) Hekayat-e Golha-ye Raziyan; and 6) Fereydoon Se Pesar Dasht.
Since no hedges were found for the categories of nouns and adjectives, it was attempted to extract a comprehensive list of different hedges in the spoken Persian through including an open question in the questionnaire. Subsequently, the statistical tests, including T-test, ANOVA, and Tukey, were used to analyze the data.
Discussion of Results and Conclusion
The present paper was carried out to measure the dependence or the correlation between gender and the use of hedges in men and women’s speech and to identify the different types of hedges used by the Persian speakers. As with gender, the findings showed that there was no significant difference between the men and women in the use of hedges (P=0.68>0.05). The results are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1- The total amount of use of hedges in men and women’s speech
Gender
N
Average
SD
SE of the average
T
DF
Significance level
Hedges
female
264
3.2050
.58064
.03574
-.410
521
.682
male
259
3.2273
.66237
.04116
Despite the fact that the total amount of use of hedges between the men and women did not differ significantly, the one-by-one analysis of the questioned hedges showed that “gender” was an effective factor regarding the two particular hedges of “goman mikonam” and “engar/engari” (P<0.05). The results also indicated that the female participants used “engar/engari” more frequently than their male peers in their everyday speech, while the opposite was true for “goman mikonam”. To be more precise, the men used judgmental main verbs more frequently compared to the other types of hedges to express their uncertainty, while the women used the category of evidential main verbs more than the others.
In response to the second question, the results revealed that the difference between the age groups in using hedges was not significant as the p-value of the ANOVA test was more than 0.05 (see Table 2).
Table 2- The total average use of hedges in different age groups
Age group
N
Average
SD
F
Significance level
15-25
108
3.3194
.61815
1.915
.126
26-35
167
3.2268
.57978
36-45
125
3.1260
.67772
45 and older
123
3.2022
.61457
Additionally, the individual analysis of hedges showed that the usage of “shayad” “be nazaram/be nazar mirese,” “engar/engari”, “goman mikonam”, and “migan/mesle inke” was significantly different among the different age groups. Consequently, the Tukey test was carried out to evaluate the use of hedges between each two age groups. The two-by-two comparison of the age groups indicated that the participants aged 15-25 years used the modal verb “shayad” and the judgmental verb “be nazaram/ be nazar mirese” more frequently than the participants over 45 years old. The youngest group used the evidential verb “engar/engari” more than the participants aged 36 years and older. It was also found that the oldest group used “goman mikonam” more than the other age groups to express hedges in their everyday speech. However, there was no significant difference in the usage of the evidential verb “migan/mesle inke” among different age groups.
Moreover, it was revealed that the Persian speakers only used 5 types of hedges in their everyday speech. Besides, some participants had mentioned the phrase “inshallah” to express their tentativeness. As the phrase is equivalent to the conditional sentence “god-willing” in Persian, it might be considered as an example of hedges in the category of nouns.
Finally, the results showed that women used evidential verbs more than the men to express their uncertainty, while the opposite was true for judgmental verbs. Furthermore, it was found that there was a significant difference in the use of judgmental, modal, and evidential verbs among the participants in different age groups and the Persian speakers used only 5 types of Hyland and Varttala’s hedging classifications in their everyday speech.
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