Word Choice: An Approach to the Personality Analysis of Qeysar Aminpour

The choice of words and the representation of their structure and function are of great significance in linguistics. Based on the two principles of selection and collocation, each word finds unique linguistic-semantic features and conceptual-cognitive actions; and readers can understand both the text and the writer via their knowledge of the words. This study analyzes linguistic-semantic features and conceptual-cognitive actions of the words employed in Qeysar Aminpour’s poetry and views them as a personal representation of the poet based on Daniel Nettle’s table of five personality patterns. The results of the study show that Qeysar’s personality is multifaceted. In his Breathing the Morning, he is an extrovert due to such features as passion, excitement, and sociability. In Sudden Mirrors, he becomes prudent because of his perfectionism, mental organization, goal-orientedness, and social interactions. In Flowers Are All Sunflowers, he turns into an open-minded figure following his imagination, creativity, belief in the supernatural, and mystical and artistic tendencies.  And in The Grammar of Love, traits like aversion to social pains, kindness and lovingness, and attraction to morality makes him introvert and compliant.
 
1. Introduction
With the advent of cognitive science into linguistics, the importance of text has given way to an approach that seeks the meaning of a phrase in the background knowledge network in mind and language, prefers semantic flexibility to one-dimensional meaning and knows the word as a unit of thought. In this regard, psychologists believe that the frequency and word choice of each poet reflects the dimensions of his personality. Attention in this field is necessary in literature research, and the works of Qeysar Aminpour can be studied from this perspective. The scope of this research is the word in Aminpour's poems with the aim of recognizing his thought and personality, and the research question is: What kind of personality is determined by analysis on word choice of Qeysar Aminpour's poems?
 
2. Theoretical Framework
2-1. The Relationship between Language and Personality
With the development of cognitive sciences, sensory experiences nature has been changed to the conceptual and mental process, and a connection was made between the structure of language and the mind, and it was said that personality is the specific patterns of thinking and behavior that determine one's way of interacting with the world. Language, as a symbol of thought, is an emerging linguistic personality.
 
2-2. Types of Personality
Personality makes sense based on the role the individual plays in society. Galton's model of personality is appropriate for the study of personality in the literature fields, and Daniel Natel presents a table of big five dimensions of personality based on language in the evolution of Galton's theory.
 
   Table 1- Big Five Personality Dimensions of Daniel Natel.




Personality Trait


Low Score


High Score




Extroverted


Isolated, silent, seeking peace


Sociable, good mixer, passionate, easy-going, active, outdoorsman, outgoing, emotional




Neurosis


Constant in excitement and emotions, thoughtful, empathetic, happy


Prone to stress, terrified, full of guilt, sad, obsessive, shy, multiple and short-lived marriages




Forethoughtful


Spontaneous, inattentive, careless


Organized, self-governing, subject to rules, perfectionist, with the power to organize, disturbed by changes, purposeful, adherent, efficient




Compatible


Militant, distrustful, anti-social, self-centered, incapable of lovemaking


Reliable, empathetic, disgusted with assault, using kind and relaxing words, helpful, balanced, patient, generous, family-friendly, fascinated by moral virtues




Open-minded


Realistic, practical, conventional


Creative, strong imagination, mysterious, disgusted with traditions, opposed to institutions of power, believe in supernatural, interested in artistic pursuits




 
2-3. Cognitive Ability of Words: The basic principles of cognitive semantics of words are:
2-3-1. Semantic-linguistic characteristics: The most important characteristics of each word in terms of implication and semantic characteristics are: 1) Words markedness, 2) Objective and subjective words, 3) General and specific words, 4) Explicit and implicit words/meanings.
2-3-2. Conceptual-cognitive actions: The semantic system based on cognitive approaches are:     1) Archetype theory: which is based on categorization and acts as a mental dictionary and our ontological support and pays attention to perceptual, motor, role-playing and purposeful aspects of phenomena, 2) Encyclopedia of meaning which is the cognitive reserve of a person. That is, one understands a phenomenon based on experience and in a completely conceptual way.
 
3. Methodology
The method of this research is descriptive-analytical and the units of the analysis are the words in the poems of Qeysar Aminpour and the data analysis is based on the table of big five personality traits of Daniel Natel in order to analyze the poetic character of Aminpour.
 
4. Research Results and Discussion
4-1  . Semantic-linguistic Characteristics of Words
(1) Words’ Markedness: Marked words in "The Morning Breath" are divided into three categories based on the implicit meanings and ideological system of the poet: 1) war 2) religion 3) nature, and most of them are idealistic. Markedness in "The Sudden Mirrors" is based on the realities of social life and has three categories: 1) emotional 2) religious 3) social. "Flowers are all sunflowers" is also in the same three categories. The difference is that in the field of religious words, the poet emphasizes the behavioral and empirical dimension instead of the belief dimension, and in the field of social words, he chooses two distinct types of words: 1) citizenship rights and machine life, and 2) Mysticism tendencies. The markedness of words in “The Grammar of Love" is similar to the last two sets, but the predominant aspect is emotional markedness.
(2) Objective and subjective words: The use of objective words makes Qeysar's poems emotional and visual, and reflects his subjective words, philosophical and ontological thoughts.
(3) General and specific words: Most of the words in Qeysar's poems are general and indicate generality and originality and are related to his ideology. Specific nouns are less used and the poet uses them to testify his claims and in line with the discourse of the text.
(4) Explicit and implicit words/meanings: Explicit meanings, lexical meanings and implicit meanings depend on special situations and are based on emotional and social aspects, and Qeysar uses the implicit meanings from most of the words.
 
4-2  .Conceptual-Cognitive Action of Words
(1) Archetype: Qeysar conceptualizes the phenomena naturally and based on experience, and categorizes them through a set of intrinsic features. His view of about two-thirds of the words is role-playing, perceptual, and emotion-based. Qeysar's dynamic view point is mostly seen in ideological terms, and his purposeful view is immaterial and based on compassion.
(2) Encyclopedic words: From an epistemological point of view, in Qeysar's word choice, life follows a vague, unsuccessful, polluted, forced and doubtful path, and although time and life do not act according to his ideals, he shows compatibility and patience to give meaning to life and time with love and poetry.
 
5. Conclusion
Qeysar’s personality is extroverted in “The Morning Breath” due to the predominance of ideological words and traits such being a good mixer, passion, indefatigability, and excitement; But in “The Sudden Mirrors”, according to social and human ideals and the characteristics of perfectionism, mental organization, purposefulness, and variability, the forethoughtful personality is seen. In “Flowers are all sunflowers”, because of the choice of general words and creativity, imagination, pain, critical views, mystical and artistic tendencies, he has an open mind and his character in “The Grammar of Love”, is introverted and consistent due to regret, sorrow and frustrations and characteristics of trustworthiness, lovemaking, helpfulness, patience, family-loving, and moral virtues, and the most prominent dimension of Qeysar's personality among all these dimensions is his compatible personality.
 
Select Bibliography
Albertazzi, L. 2006. “Which Semantics?”, in Albertazzi, Liliana(ed.), Meaning and cognition. Amsterdam Philadelphia: John Benjamin, Publishing company.
Aminpour, Q. 2010. Full Collection of Poems. Tehran: Morvarid. [in Persian]
Aminpour, Q. 2014. Full Collection of Poems. Tehran: Morvarid. [in Persian]
Evans, V. & M. Green. 2006. An introduction to cognitive linguistics. Edinburgh University Press.
Fotouhi, M. 2013. Stylistics of theories, approaches and methods. Tehran: Sokhan. [in Persian]
Lakoff J. and Johnson, M. 2016. The metaphors we live by. Tranlation by: Agha Ebrahimi, H. Tehran: Elm. [in Persian]
Natel, D. 2014. Recognizing Personality Types. Translation by: Shekholeslam, A. Tehran: Atayi. [in Persian]
Safavi, K. 2007. Introduction to Semantics. Tehran: Pezhvak Keyhan.
Yarmohammadi, L. 2004. Common and Critical Discourse. Tehran: Hermes. [in Persian]
Shamlou, A. 2009. Schools and Theories in Personality Psychology. Tehran: Roshd. [in Persian]