An Introduction to the Concepts of "Bala-Shahr" and "Paeen-Shahr"By Studies of Semantic Fields and Content Analysis of People’s Opinions

The concepts of "Bala-Shahr" and "Paeen-Shahr" in Iranian cities (especially big cities) have been particularly important and are used in people’s conversations and authorities’ speeches. "Bala" means up and "Paeen" means down and "Shahr" means city. Downtown is a term primarily used in North America to refer to a city’s core or Central Business District and uptown is the residential part of a city away from the commercial center. But for Persian speakers, There are different perceptions towards "Bala-Shahr" and "Paeen-Shahr"; For instance Bala-Shahr may mean as high culture and social status of its inhabitants, high and physical facilities and amenities of the area, high-income residents, where house prices are more expensive, higher rent costs, higher cost of living, and the higher alpine areas of the city, etc. However, these concepts have not been studied in urban studies literature of Iran. The purpose of this study is to introduce these specific concepts of Iranian cities.We needed to use the content analysis method, since the lack of resources that directly discusses the concepts. Hence, this method is used to describe the phenomena with limited research literature or existing theories. The main questions of this study are the "what is the concepts of Bala-Shahr and Paeen-Shahr in semantic fields of Persian language?" and "what shapess these notions in people’s minds?" To meet the research aims, we tried to study the theme with a comprehensive view, from the surface to the deep layers. Relying on phenomenological theories of linguistics, two categories were considered for this research: "conceptual elements" that makes meanings and "criteria" from the perspective of the people.In "conceptual elements" study, the semantic field of Bala and Paeen were used to define that why whatever is good and desirable is up [Bala] and whatever is bad and undesirable is down [Paeen]. In this study, four aspects were considered: terminology, morphophonemic, metaphors and mythology. In order to find the factors that affect the formation of these concepts from the opinions of the people, the content analysis method was used. Information of this part gathered through interviews in the city of Isfahan and was analyzed with content analysis techniques. The results of this part showed that the inner core meaning of the Bala and Paeen in Persian language is expression of degree ratings. In fact, the Bala and Paeen in Persian language doesnt not merely indicate the direction or height and it seems Bala-Shahr and Paeen-Shahr definitions have meaning beyond the height or direction. Also, in "criteria" part, two general opinion approaches were partitioned; one distinguishes it from environmental factors considered and other seeks the difference in the criteria related to the people. The results showed that people who recognize Bala-Shahr and Paeen-Shahr refer to criteria that are less attributable to the environment. Drawing a conclusion, we can claim that Bala-Shahr and Paeen-Shahr are quite relative in correspondence with the values. So, a constant definition with variables and parameters, always has not inferred it. This research tries to express through the systematic view with the components of "conceptual elements" and "criteria", which are in mutual relations, to explain the Bala-Shahr and Paeen-Shahr.