Papers by Sayyed Rahim Moosavinia
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jul 1, 2018
To become clear, the concept of madness, the hows and whys that follow the recognition of it need... more To become clear, the concept of madness, the hows and whys that follow the recognition of it needs a discerning view. Thereupon, this research is going to study the madness of the main character of the short story-Diary of a Madman‖ written by Nikolai Gogol in which he meticulously illustrates how a madman's mind operates. A pivotal concept to be dealt with is the power of unconscious, which according to Sigmund Freud has a considerable influence on the psychic system. Freud maintains that if the Ego is not able to keep a balance between its demands and the unconscious desires, Psychosis happens. In madman's case, it is Schizophrenia. The madman shows abnormalities like hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and disorganized behavior which are all symptoms of schizophrenia. Each symptom will be discussed in detail through the study. Another issue which is worth being elucidated is the madman's place in Lacanian Orders. Jacques Lacan depicts psyche's development in three orders or phases: The Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. In this research the focus will be on the imaginary order as the madman shows signs of being stuck in this phase without any positive movement toward the next, the symbolic. According to Lacan, psychosis is the consequence of the incapability in entering the symbolic order. Accordingly, this research will study the madman's psychosis and his situation in the psychic world.
Teaching English Language, Oct 1, 2016
This study investigated the generic structures and linguistic features of English and Arabic acad... more This study investigated the generic structures and linguistic features of English and Arabic academic book blurbs from different disciplines. The study also examined appraisal markers in the blurbs within the appraisal framework to identify the main attitudinal markers that book blurb writers use to construe and negotiate attitudes with their intended readers. To carry out the aims of the study, 300 English and 300 Arabic blurbs from different disciplines in social sciences were selected. The findings of the study demonstrated that the generic structure of academic blurbs in English differ from that in Arabic. As for the appraisal markers, the findings revealed that both English and Arabic blurb writers widely deploy appraisal markers. The results showed that within the attitude category, appreciation markers were widely used and highly dominant. Within the engagement system, heteroglossic resources were higher than monoglossic ones and for graduation resources, they were widely used by both English and Arabic book blurb writers.
Lord Jim is an attempt by Joseph Conrad to contemplate on the failure of the dreams of a man whos... more Lord Jim is an attempt by Joseph Conrad to contemplate on the failure of the dreams of a man whose romantic beliefs in classical heroism and manner of conduct finally brings about his bafflement. In fact, this writer is trying to mirror that one's lack of knowledge in case of the "how to be of life", or his inability to vision the modern world practically from an authentic viewpoint holds him from being conscious enough about his real existence, resulting in a tragedy: a death associated with ambiguity, absent-mindedness and fury. To be more specific, the present study intends to investigate Jim's Romance, his character-as well as that of the other important characters-and the strategies or techniques applied by Conrad, to reflect the failures of such a romantic viewpoint. "To be, or not to be: that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by oppos...
Research in Applied Linguistics, 2018
In light of the Bakhtinian heteroglossia and authorial hybrid construction, the present study set... more In light of the Bakhtinian heteroglossia and authorial hybrid construction, the present study sets out to argue how the assimilation of alien stylistics into the realm of social and ideological discourse may transcend the limits of the centralizing logos prevalent in the orthodox poetics. In so doing, first, an analysis of the Bakhtinian concepts is provided to renegotiate his argument on the aesthetic and rhetorical capacities of the prose fiction vis-a-vis the totalitarian poetic discourse. Accordingly, as an innovation, this study suggests that the subversive potentiality of a text stems from both its carnivalesque interrelatedness with a dominant culture and its capability to transcend the limits of the said culture and to revitalize its synchronic and diachronic affiliations to other cultures. To confirm this, a good array of examples is drawn from novelistic texts. In Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum, the protagonist’s mocking attitude towards centripetal fatherhood and his going a...
Houshang Golshiri is among the Iranian leading creative and imaginative fiction writers who manag... more Houshang Golshiri is among the Iranian leading creative and imaginative fiction writers who managed to open up new horizons in Iranian fiction. Hence he could be claimed to be an innovative avant-garde short story writer with unique stylistic characteristics. Although inspired by fiction writers such as Alavi, Sadeqi, Golestan and Sa'edi in the techniques of narration, Golshiri nonetheless stands out among his Iranian peers in creating the sense of indeterminacy, discovery, and the adequate use of polyphonic narration. Thus, he may justifiably be called a well-established paragon of the relevant views and techniques employed by the preceding generations. On the other hand, Golshiri's style in writing short stories (in terms of polyphony), itself based on Bakhtin's dialogical heteroglossia and uncertainty, seems to be worthy of investigating from post-modernist and phenomenological points of view. The present paper uses such a framework to analyze a corpus of eleven short...
Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2017
Of the many dilemmas facing the assessment of literary competence, one is the extent to which lan... more Of the many dilemmas facing the assessment of literary competence, one is the extent to which language should constitute part of the target construct intended to be measured. Some argue for the construct-irrelevance of language and hence recommend that it be eliminated or minimized in favor of an exclusive focus on literary competence. In practice, this does not seem to be the case, as language proficiency considerations seem to creep into assessment, clouding assessment outcomes. The current study sought to examine students' perceptions of the degree to which knowledge of language constitutes part of the construct of literary competence in two departments of English and Persian literature. To this end, a total of seventy students in two poetry courses, one in the English department and the other in the Persian, responded to a questionnaire designed to gauge their perceptions of the extent to which language competence constitutes a component of the literary competence. Data were...
The aim of this paper is to examine Creon’s character in Jean Anouilh’s Antigone and view how Ano... more The aim of this paper is to examine Creon’s character in Jean Anouilh’s Antigone and view how Anouilh through his subtle changes has made a powerful ruler out of the ancient tyrant. Since Sophocles presented Antigone at the festival of Dionysus in 441 B.C , Creon became an example of a tyrant ruler. He is 1 known as a stone hearted ruler with a commonplace mind, and narrow sympathies (Winngton Igram, 1980: 127) The only motives he can understand are lust for power and greed for money. However, Jean Anouilh in the midst of World War II, surprisingly adapts Sophocles’ Antigone, and presents a different picture of Creon. Jean Anouilh sympathizes with Creon, and many critics especially the German audience came to admire him and saw him as the real hero of the play (Robert Loppe de, 1968: 79).
This study investigated the generic structures and linguistic features of English and Arabic acad... more This study investigated the generic structures and linguistic features of English and Arabic academic book blurbs from different disciplines. The study also examined appraisal markers in the blurbs within the appraisal framework to identify the main attitudinal markers that book blurb writers use to construe and negotiate attitudes with their intended readers. To carry out the aims of the study, 300 English and 300 Arabic blurbs from different disciplines in social sciences were selected. The findings of the study demonstrated that the generic structure of academic blurbs in English differ from that in Arabic. As for the appraisal markers, the findings revealed that both English and Arabic blurb writers widely deploy appraisal markers. The results showed that within the attitude category, appreciation markers were widely used and highly dominant. Within the engagement system, heteroglossic resources were higher than monoglossic ones and for graduation resources, they were widely use...
Budapest International Research and Critics Institute (BIRCI-Journal) : Humanities and Social Sciences, 2019
This paper attempts to analyze the mentioned novel based on postcolonial studies in Arundhati Roy... more This paper attempts to analyze the mentioned novel based on postcolonial studies in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. The concepts that can be mentioned in this novel are history, diaspora, hybridity, the role of women in Indian society, globalization, resistance and orientalism. These concepts are used from postcolonial theorists, Edward W. Said and Homi K. Bhabha.Prominent issue is the role women in Indian society, because there are several female characters, such as Ammu, Rahel, and so on in TGST. Economic growth causes change in Ayemenem. It becomes a globalized community. Postcolonial resistance is an important issue in the novel. When Roy uses English language which it is a colonial language, she does a kind of resistance against colonization itself. Roy refers to the children’s life as a means of resistance.
Arabic Language, Literature & Culture, 2019
From the fifteenth century to the twentieth century, the Europeans colonized the lands in other c... more From the fifteenth century to the twentieth century, the Europeans colonized the lands in other continents. In the nineteenth century, the main political purpose promoted the newly-born genre named 'novel'. In developing the dominance of colonization, writers played a main role. Knowledge and power are the dominating themes that overrule the deep nature of imperialism and literature. These themes indicate the superior literature, culture and tradition as the standard form of acceptance. Colonization is a period of time. This is history itself. In the result of the colonization, the migration and transition were not avoidable issues. Therefore, in this displacement, the new identity has been made. People's customs, cultures and beliefs are mixed with colonizers' unconsciously. India is a multicultural country. There are many various cultures in this country. And also during the colonization and the dominance of Britain over India, the changes were made in its customs and cultures. Arundhati Roy is an Indian writer and female activist. The plot of Roy's novel is made from the ancient history of the Syrian-Christian community and the complex intermixture of their faith with local Hindu social structures. In such society, people married other people with different beliefs. The present research intends to analyze the mentioned novel based on postcolonial studies. The concepts that can be mentioned in this novel are history, diaspora, hybridity, the role of women in Indian society, globalization, and resistance.
Applied Linguistics Research Journal, 2018
The problem of distinguishing between narrator and implied author has always been challenging in ... more The problem of distinguishing between narrator and implied author has always been challenging in the field of narratology. Implied author is generally defined as the ideology which rules the intellectual realm of the society in which the author lives and the narrator or in one sense the voice which narrates the story. The narrator could exchange position from a third person-omniscient or-limited omniscient point of view to a first person one narrating through the eyes of one of the characters in the story. In this paper, we try to examine the ruling ideology through the act of narration of the story and thus assess the degree of being the same of the narrator and the implied author as representing the ideology ruling the narration. An attempt here is to show that the narrator has been, to a high degree, inflicted with ideology of British complacency and pride, biblical penetration and racism. A biographical and inter-textual study of Agatha Christie also shows that she is known for her somehow belittling attitude toward the colonized people or as called today, the third world. In her Death on the Nile; for example, Poirot's arrogance while dealing with Egyptians is palpable.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 2013
Irish National Drama is very sensitive when it comes to the issue of English Colonization, coloni... more Irish National Drama is very sensitive when it comes to the issue of English Colonization, colonial forces, independence and the matter of post-colonial. In fact, a kind of Irish consciousness is present in all the dramas of this nation and all playwrights in this trend-even indirectly or by implication-have tried to portray these matters through their works. This study is an attempt to prove the claim that even a playwright like Samuel Beckett, whose works have been written out of the canon of Irish Literature because of living on exile, adopting another language or semi-taboo labels like Absurdism, Universality and Placlessness, can be read in light postcolinalism. To this aim, two of Beckett's plays Waiting for Godot and End Game are chosen here as the representative and put into explication.
Edward Said is regarded as the originator of colonial discourse theory. He deploys Michel Foucaul... more Edward Said is regarded as the originator of colonial discourse theory. He deploys Michel Foucault’s notion of discourse to accomplish his project in Orientalism and emphasizes Foucault’s notion of discourse and its relation to power, rendering discourse a carceral system. Although Said explicitly expresses the similarity between Orientalism and Foucault’s discourse theory, it seems he implicitly suggests that the carceral quality of Foucault’s idea affects his formulation of Orientalism. This study examines the validity of Said’s understanding of Foucault and shows that Said’s construction of Orientalism is based on an imperfect image of Foucault. Argument here is to postulate that Foucault’s discourse theory provides space for resistance and his theorization of power helps the idea of struggle in discursive practices. Besides, Foucault himself is trapped in a discourse produced by Said. This study casts light on Foucault’s theory of discourse and modifies this misreading.
Studies in Literature and …, 2011
Critics unanimously regard Said's Orientalism as the cornerstone of postcolonial canon. It was th... more Critics unanimously regard Said's Orientalism as the cornerstone of postcolonial canon. It was this celebrated work that generated other related books and materials. Orientalism is a Western style for Orientalizing the Orient, i.e. how from knowledge of the Orient particularly from nineteenth century the Orient is defined by a set of recurring images and clichés and how afterwards this knowledge of the Orient is put into practice by colonialism and imperialism. Orientalism is affiliated with the representation of the Self or Occident and the Other or Orient in which the Self is privileged and has upper hand to define, reconstruct the passive, silent and weak Other. For Said, this geographical line made between the Occident and the Orient is arbitrary and numerous Western scholars, orientalists such as Burton, Lane, Lyall, Massignon, among others and literary figures like Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Austin, Flaubert, Kipling, Conrad, etc. contributed to the shaping of this discourse about the Orient and/or misrepresenting the Orient. Orwell as a Western writer was born in India and served five years in Indian Imperial Police in Burma and one of his major concerns during his life was the issue of imperialism and colonialism which is reflected in many works such as Burmese Days, Shooting an Elephant, Marrakech and Hanging. One characteristic which is shared among these western works and similar ones is the author's conflicting feelings within them about the Orient and Orientals through Western's lens. In this study, the relationship of the representer or Westerners and the represented or Easterners is fully expounded in Burmese Days in the light of Said's Orientalism.
k@ta, 1999
To become clear, the concept of madness, the hows and whys that follow the recognition of it need... more To become clear, the concept of madness, the hows and whys that follow the recognition of it needs a discerning view. Thereupon, this research is going to study the madness of the main character of the short story-Diary of a Madman‖ written by Nikolai Gogol in which he meticulously illustrates how a madman's mind operates. A pivotal concept to be dealt with is the power of unconscious, which according to Sigmund Freud has a considerable influence on the psychic system. Freud maintains that if the Ego is not able to keep a balance between its demands and the unconscious desires, Psychosis happens. In madman's case, it is Schizophrenia. The madman shows abnormalities like hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and disorganized behavior which are all symptoms of schizophrenia. Each symptom will be discussed in detail through the study. Another issue which is worth being elucidated is the madman's place in Lacanian Orders. Jacques Lacan depicts psyche's development in three orders or phases: The Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. In this research the focus will be on the imaginary order as the madman shows signs of being stuck in this phase without any positive movement toward the next, the symbolic. According to Lacan, psychosis is the consequence of the incapability in entering the symbolic order. Accordingly, this research will study the madman's psychosis and his situation in the psychic world.
This study is an attempt at a colonial and postcolonial reading of Joseph Conrad s Lord Jim. It i... more This study is an attempt at a colonial and postcolonial reading of Joseph Conrad s Lord Jim. It is specifically focused on the narrative strategies used in the novel. In other words, it investigates the connection between the narrative strategy and a possibl s novel. For the introduction, a brief review is an analysis of the overall politics in Lord Jim. Finally, the study considers the employment of narrative devices and several narrative voices in Lord Jim. It goes on to distinguish between Marlow (the character-narrator of the story), the frame narrator, and other voices in the novel in order to shed light on the narrative structure and its relation to the colonialist discourse in the novel. In parallel with this examinatio s role as the s voice and other voices, is analyzed to see where he might stand in the narration of Lord Jim.
TESL-EJ, 2010
This study began with the supposition that teaching English drama through dramatic performance co... more This study began with the supposition that teaching English drama through dramatic performance could enhance English literature students' knowledge of drama at university level. The research was conducted over a whole academic semester with 60 intermediate students enrolled ...
Research in Applied Linguistics, 2017
Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a futuristic, science fiction novel that chronicles the ... more Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a futuristic, science fiction novel that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans, projecting the United States’ colonial and immigrant past on to a symbolic future. Bradbury’s use of language is mostly picturesque and sensory. The present paper applies a text-oriented analysis of stylistic elements that construct meaning in the text and evoke the novel’s themes, using the analytic model developed by Leech and Short (2007). The study’s focus is on the lexical category—general lexicon, nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs—of chapters that are stylistically representative of Bradbury’s descriptive and metaphorically-rich style.
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Papers by Sayyed Rahim Moosavinia