Persian Lexical Blends from the Relevance-Theoretic Lexical Pragmatic approach

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of English Language and Linguistics,, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Yasouj University, Yasouj, Iran

Abstract

In this study, Persian lexical blends are examined from a pragmatic perspective. The study aims to explain the creation and interpretation of Persian lexical blends by analyzing them within the relevance-theoretic lexical pragmatic framework. The corpus consists of 53 Persian lexical blends, classified into three main categories: (a) blends derived from lexicographic sources and previous studies, (b) examples extracted from media texts and web pages, and (c) blends resulting from the naming of brands and commercial products. The analysis shows that interpreting lexical blends requires constructing an ad hoc concept through broadening and/or narrowing pragmatic processes. From this perspective, Persian lexical blends may be formed and interpreted in at least three ways: interpretation through a narrowing process, resulting in an ad hoc concept with a narrower denotation than the concepts encoded by the base words; comprehension through a broadening process, resulting in an ad hoc concept with a broader denotation than the concepts encoded by the base words; and interpretation through a combination of broadening and narrowing processes, in which an ad hoc concept with a broader denotation than the base concepts is first constructed through broadening, then further modulated through narrowing to obtain a narrower denotation.

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References

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Journal of Linguistics & Iranian Languages
Volume 10, Issue 3
February 2026
Pages 121-140

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History

  • Receive Date: 24 March 2026
  • Revise Date: 24 May 2026
  • Accept Date: 19 May 2026

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