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Iranian Linguistic Attitudes and Persian Language Planning (A Case Study in Tehran)

First Name: 
Negar
Last Name: 
Davari Ardakani
Institutional Affiliation : 
Shahid Beheshti University
Academic Bio: 
Negar Davari Ardakani holds a PhD in General Linguistics from Tehran University (2005), an MA in General Linguistics from the Tarbiyat Modares University in Tehran (1996), and a BS in Applied Chemistry from Tehran University (1989). She is currently an Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Linguistics, Shahid Beheshti University. She has taught courses on the psychology of language teaching, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis; courses for students of Persian as a second Language; and courses on English at the Medical Science University of Ghazvin, and at several other language institutions in the same city. In 2004 she taught Persian at the Persian Art Centre in Canberra, Australia. Dr. Davari Ardakani has published numerous translations and her own scholarly studies on language planning and linguistic attitudes, as well as the following books: Davari Ardakani, Negar. *Saregerayeeye zabani(Linguistic Purism)*. Tehran: Hermes, 2008. Davari Ardakani, Negar and Ahmadipur, Tahereh. *Sad sal barnamehriziye zabane Farsi (A Century of Planning for Persian)*. Tehran: Elmi, 2008. Davari Ardakani, Negar and Zarnikhi, Abolfazl (transl.) *Rahnemudhayee baraye siyasatgozari estelahshenasi (A Guide for Terminology Policy : A UNESCO Document)*. Markaze Asnad va Madareke Elmi Iran (Irandoc), 2007.

 Abstract
 Language attitude is a term primarily used in sociopsychology. However, it is also used in sociolinguistics, and especially in the discipline of language planning. Linguistic attitudes are considered to contain three cognitive, affective and behavioural components, i.e. knowledge about language, affections towards language, and behaviour towards language. This study is primarily aimed at assessing linguistic attitudes of Tehrani Persian speakers. The three components of attitude are assessed according to different relevant linguistic aspects ( i.e. corpus, status, and language-in-education) in both spoken and written codes. In order to achieve this goal a questionnaire has been devised. Different corpus issues (e.g. phonetic and spelling, lexical, morphological, syntactic and discoursal language planning processes such as codification, standardization, renovation, etc.), status issues (language as an instrument and language as an affectional entity), and acquisition challenges are some of the main items touched in the questionnaire. The study aims at answering the following questions: What is/are the most important constructional component(s) of Tehrani Persian speakers linguistic attitudes? Which of the mentioned linguistic issues has the least effect on the construction of Tehrani Persian speakers’ attitudes? How do the answers to the two mentioned questions contribute to the formation of covert and overt policy? Linguistic attitudes of four groups of Tehrani Persian speakers (high school students, university students, university lecturers and Persian Academy members) are assessed to answer the last question. The linguistic attitudes of the first three groups are  considered as covert linguistic policy, in contrast to the linguistic attitudes of the last group (i.e. Persian academy members) as indicators of overt policy. The theoretical foundations and methodology of the study greatly depend on Perry (1985), Ager(2001), Oakes(2000) and Schiffman(2006), and are integratively implemented in the analysis of linguistic attitudes of Tehrani Persian speakers.

Academic Discipline : 
linguistics
Time Period : 
19th-present

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