­­طهران باربیکیو؛ اطلاع‌رسانی و نمادپردازی در جای­نام‌های شهری تهران

Dualities are two-valued distinctions that help simplify matters and facilitate the formulation of scientific concepts. In linguistics, there is hardly anyone who is not familiar with dualities such as language/speech or competence/performance. In this study, we will address a fundamental duality called informative/symbolic in the field of linguistic perspective. In this field, each linguistic sign is placed in one of the aforementioned categories according to its function. According to this approach, each linguistic sign either has an informational function or plays a symbolic role. For example, the toponym Tajrish glasses has an informational function, and the toponym Aryan food has a symbolic role by referring to the history of Iran and the Aryan civilization. In order to evaluate this duality in the public space of Tehran, place names of three neighborhoods in the north (Tajrish), center (Haft-e-Tir), and south (Khazaneh) were taken into account. After collecting linguistic signs, 2447 urban place names were identified as research data. Data classification showed that of all the extracted place names, 852 signs (34.8%) had a purely informative function and 1595 place names (65.1%) had a combined informative-symbolic function. Reflection on the data indicated that, based on their existential identity, no place name is absolutely symbolic and there is a degree of information in every place name. On the other hand, since about two-thirds of signs have a symbolic function, the authenticity of the duality in question can be challenged. This study encourages the audience to reflect on other seemingly established dualities in science.