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Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of teaching and learning Persian

This panel investigates the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of teaching and learning Persian. The first presentation discusses the idea of a standard Persian by defining standardization versus linguistic truths and rights. Since the introduction of modern education in Iran in 1858, the myth of “one language, one nation” has been the underlying ideology of Iran’s language planning and policy. This presentation argues that implementation of the above policy has not been successful in all contexts and throughout its 160 years of practice. This presentation will also delve into the strengths and weaknesses of the present state of teaching Persian to approximately one third of the Iranian students who are from non-Persian speaking backgrounds.

The second presentation will identify and compare the language learning strategies and beliefs about language learning of 166 university students learning Persian at three universities in the United States. The presenter will share the results of her study showing how her participants reported holding strong beliefs in the categories of “motivation and expectation” and “foreign language aptitude”. In addition, participants also reported using compensation and social strategies most, followed by cognitive, metacognitive, memory, and affective strategies. In short, the results of this study provide empirical description of the language learning beliefs and strategies in learners of Persian. The study concludes with a list of practical implications for Persian instruction.

The third presentation discusses how Persian language learners develop an interlanguage through their language acquisition journey which will have some features of their first language as well as some overgeneralization regarding the Persian language rules. This interlanguage will change through different stages of their learning process and would be different for every individual. Cognitive, interlingual, and intralingual factors can affect the form of this interlanguage. This presentation discusses the characteristics of such an interlanguage in a Persian-English and English-Persian environments. Therefore, the phonological, morphological, semantic and syntactic features of Persian as an interlanguage will be discussed throughout the presentation.

The fourth presentation is on the psycholinguistic aspect of teaching Persian. More specifically, it discusses the teaching and learning of formulaic language in Persian. Formulaic language is not only part of the language, but also part of the culture of the speakers of that language. Therefore, it poses some special problems for a second language learner. This presentation will evaluate different theories of second language acquisition of formulaic language in general as well as the problems of learning and teaching formulaic language in Persian.

Presentations

Persian Interlanguage
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This paper discusses the characteristics of Persian interlanguage of the English native speakers who are learning Persian as a second language. These characteristics are in phonological, morphological, semantic and syntactic domains and vary from one learner to another learner and also at different levels and stages of learning Persian. It addresses the linguistic system of this interlanguage which has similarities with and differences from those of English and Persian. The chapter will show that Persian interlanguage is a continuum and at the higher levels of the language competency, its characteristics are shifting more towards the linguistic features and rules of Persian language and losing more and more its unique characteristics and those which might be similar to the learners’ native language, English.

LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES: A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS OF PERSIAN IN THE UNITED STATES
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This study identifies and compares the language learning strategies used by 166 university students learning Persian (Farsi), a less commonly taught language. The data were collected from: the University of California at Berkeley (UCB), the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of Texas at Austin (UT), using questionnaires: the Individual Background Questionnaire (IBQ) and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL).
In descriptive analyses of the SILL, results showed that participants reported using compensation and social strategies most, followed by cognitive, metacognitive, memory, and affective strategies. On the other hand, students reported less frequent use of memory and affective strategies.
This higher use of language learning strategies likely corresponds to the number of heritage learners and is an indication of a potential existing association. In short, the results of this study provide empirical description of the learning strategies in learners of Persian, a previously unstudied group of language learners. The study concludes with a list of practical implications for Persian instruction.

Teaching and learning the formulaic language in Persian
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Formulaic language is not only part of the language, but also part of the culture of the speakers of that language. Therefore, it poses some special problems for a second language learner.
In addition to acquiring linguistic competence, L2 learners need to acquire figurative competence, which encompasses idioms, compound words, collocations, phrasal verbs, and other multi-word expressions (Cieślicka, 2015). The two most relevant questions in teaching L2 idiomatic expression are 1) ‘how can multiword strings be most effectively taught to learners,’ and 2) ‘which multiword strings should be prioritized in teaching?’ (Wray, 2013: 317).
Different kinds of formulaic language require different kinds of teaching techniques. In fact, learnability of the formulaic language is said to be regulated by their semantic transparency and frequency of use (Nippold, 2006). In addition, context, analogy, precedence, and pragmatics are said to be influencing the interpretation of an unfamiliar idiomatic expression (Wray, Bell, and Jones, 2016).
This paper examines L2 processing, comprehension, acquisition, and teaching of the formulaic language in Persian. The paper starts by presenting the reasons why studying the formulaic language is significant. After all, as stated by Wray (2013), in order to study L2 formulaic language processing, one needs to know why this kind of language is so common in the language as well as the linguistic structure of the idiomatic expressions. After that, I discuss different theories of L1 and L2 formulaic language processing for different kinds of the formulaic language. Then I argue how evidence from Persian contributes to the arguments made by these theories. Following that, I discuss the comprehension and acquisition of formulaic language by presenting a study on Persian language learners. Finally, I introduce different techniques to most effectively teach the formulaic language to Persian language learners, and I will open the discussion to the audience to add to those techniques.

Persian as a National Language, Minority Languages and Multilingual Education in Iran
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Since the introduction of modern education in Iran in 1858, the myth of “one language, one nation” has been the underlying ideology of Iran’s language planning and policy, to the point that purification and standardization of Persian have been among the dominant language policies during the past century disregarding the diversity of languages of the nation. The present article argues that implementation of the policy of “one language, one nation”, however beneficial in Iran’s crisis era during the second world, is not to be adopted as a long-term policy due to the dynamic of the diversity of the context and considering that approximately one-third of Iranian students are born in ethnic areas where Persian is not their mother tongue. I will survey the present state of some of the main non-dominant/minority languages in Iran and of Persian as a national language and scrutinize multilingual education strategies in contrast to the dominant discourse of language planning and education considering the relation to national solidarity, identity and minority languages in Iran. The article argues that implementing multilingual education policies can simultaneously achieve the intended goal of standard Persian literacy promotion as well as the affirmation and preservation of various local languages of diverse ethnic groups in the nation.