جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « multilingualism » در نشریات گروه « ادبیات و زبان ها »

Language plays a vital role in human personal and social lives, shaping beliefs, emotions, and attitudes towards mother tongue and other languages. Linguistic attitude, defined as emotional disposition towards languages (Crystal, 1997), can lead individuals to prefer one language over another due to various social, cultural, economic, historical, and identity factors. This preference can impact language survival or decline, with attitudes towards vernacular languages crucial for their preservation. Kermanshah, a city in western Iran with speakers of Kurdish, Kermanshahi Persian, and Standard Persian, exemplifies this dynamic, where assessing linguistic attitudes influences the preservation or marginalization of languages within the community.Generally, to assess speakers' attitudes towards different language varieties, direct or indirect methods are used. However, there is a limited number of studies conducted within Iran that employ direct or indirect methods to gauge speakers' linguistic attitudes. In most studies conducted in Iran, the focus has predominantly been on the status and use of language varieties within various linguistic communities. The only internal study that employed an indirect method and Matched Guise Test is the study by Pirouzfar and Eliasi (2014). In contrast to internal studies, foreign studies mostly rely on indirect methods and utilize Matched Guise Test. Lambert's Matched Guise Test, introduced in 1960, gauges attitudes toward language variations in bilingual groups. Participants hear recordings of the same speaker using different accents or styles and rate their personality, social status, and other traits, revealing how language impacts social perceptions.

The study utilized the Matched-Guise Test to investigate the status and dynamics of Kurdish, Kermanshahi Persian, and Standard Persian in Kermanshah. A purposive sampling method was employed to select 80 participants, evenly distributed between genders and age groups (20-40 and 40-60). Data collection involved a proficient speaker recording passages in each language variety, using a neutral tone to prevent bias. The passages were excerpts from "The Selfless Farmer," lasting approximately two minutes each. Participants listened to the recordings and answered 12 questions afterward.

The findings of this study indicate that multilingual speakers residing in the city of Kermanshah have different language attitudes towards three common language varieties, namely Kurdish, Kermanshahi Persian, and Standard Persian. The average language attitude scores were 2.741 for Standard Persian, 2.613 for Kurdish, and 2.484 for Kermanshahi Persian, respectively. In this order, Standard Persian, Kurdish, and Kermanshahi Persian had the highest to lowest positive attitudes. Women favored Standard Persian over men, whereas men favored Kurdish over Standard Persian. When the effect of age on linguistic attitude was evaluated, no significant difference was observed.

Attitude towards Standard Persian: The research findings show that multilingual speakers in Kermanshah have a more positive attitude towards Standard Persian, with an average language attitude of 2.741. Persian has held a prominent position as the lingua franca in Iran since the Saffarid Iranian dynasty. This status has been reinforced by Persian's role as the language of education, media, and government in contemporary times. The longstanding historical and contemporary significance of Persian as the national intermediary and official language in Iran helps explain the favorable attitude towards it among multilingual speakers in Kermanshah.Attitude towards Kurdish: In recent years, there has been a shift in attitudes towards Kurdish language, with it being viewed more positively after Standard Persian.This change is attributed to an increasing focus on ethnic identity and local languages, particularly in regions where non-Persian-speaking groups are predominant. Historically, local languages were seen as barriers to progress, leading to their neglect and eventual replacement by Persian. However, there's now a growing pride and awareness among speakers of indigenous languages, leading to efforts to preserve their linguistic heritage. This signifies a shift from past attitudes towards greater recognition and appreciation of linguistic diversity.  Attitudes towards Kermanshahi Persian: The average language attitude towards Kermanshahi Persian is lower compared to Standard Persian and Kurdish. Kermanshahi Persian, recognized as a dialect of the Persian language, exhibits differences in various linguistic aspects from Standard Persian. Recent decades have seen a decline in its significance, marked by a decrease in its speaker population. Factors contributing to this decline include the Iraq-Iran War, which prompted migration, and the increasing dominance of Standard Persian in practical domains within Kermanshah. These reasons collectively contribute to the diminished status of Kermanshahi Persian, resulting in a less favorable language attitude when compared to Standard Persian and Kurdish. Language attitude and gender: Research indicates that women and men exhibit different language preferences and choices, with women often favoring standard and prestigious languages or varieties, while men lean towards indigenous varieties. This behavior is attributed to societal power dynamics and historical discrimination against women, leading them to adopt standard language varieties to improve their social status. In multilingual societies, women tend to gravitate towards "correct" or "prestigious" linguistic forms, reflecting their efforts to escape social inequalities. This gender difference in language attitudes was evident in the study, where men showed a more positive attitude towards Kurdish, while women favored Standard Persian (Tehran Persian), indicating significant differences based on gender. Language attitude and age: The study explores the relationship between language attitude and age, noting that behavioral patterns, including linguistic behavior, vary among age groups in human societies. Research across linguistic communities indicates that speakers exhibit distinct linguistic behavior at different ages, with patterns evolving throughout life. However, when evaluating the impact of age on linguistic attitude in this study, no significant difference was observed.

This study explores the use of nicknames among trilingual youth, investigating the influence of identity, culture, language, and attitudes on their propensity to assign nicknames to others. This research is cross-sectional and uses survey research. Results reveal that nicknames mirror the intricacy of social relations in a trilingual society. Young people’s attitudes towards others’ titles are predominantly negative, while their views on their own titles are more positive. Physical attributes form the basis for the most common nicknames. In this trilingual village, nicknames are primarily given to incapacitated individuals, those with differing religious beliefs, and those who do not share commonalities with the dominant language (Georgian, the native language of the dominant group) and ethnicity. The dominant language group is more inclined to assign titles. Most titles are based on descriptive phrases rather than verbal, prepositional, or adverbial phrases.

Linguistic landscape is considered as one of the new branches in sociolinguistics which deals with linguistic signs in written forms used in public places. Based on this definition, all road signs, advertisement billboards, street names, place names, shops advertisement signs, graffiti and etc. constitute the linguistic landscape of a particular area. This study tries to investigate and decode graffiti in the framework of linguistic landscape. Since the multilingualism phenomenon is so important in the framework of linguistic landscape, the researchers in this study aim at the investigation of multilingualism representation in the graffiti in Kermanshah. Graffiti is the expression of the interests, feelings and thoughts of people. The present study is a descriptive one done by a documentary method. The number of 2008 graffiti in Kermanshah was analyzed. Among 2008 graffiti, 95.1 percent belong to Farsi language, 3.08 percent are in Arabic, 1.5 percent are in English, and there is no graffiti in Kurdish .The results indicate that the graffiti in Kermanshah is mostly derived from informal culture engraved on walls by ordinary people. Among Persian, English and Arabic, three writing systems, Persian was mostly used to indicate values in a formal context and was also used to indicate advertisements in informal context.. The top rate in English graffiti was about names while Arabic graffiti was ideological-religious.

Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and Moulana’s Masnavi are among the most influential works in Persian literature. Having narrative structure they could well be compared with one another.  Bakhtin, Russian theorist introduces the concept of multilingualism in the domain of narrative as a substructure of polyphony, however does not include epic and poetic meter in this category.  The main question of this research is that if there were linguistic layers in these two versified narrative works, to what extent each employed polyphony and what had been the impact of this feature on the two works.  The study of women’s language in the above tales seen from the perspective of polyphony show that although some of Bakhtin’s linguistic genres are found in women’s certain language, however women in Shahnameh share this characteristic far more than their Masnavi counterparts, and therefore Ferdowsi had surpassed Moulana in employing polyphony for characterization of women in the tales.  Moreover, this study further differentiates between the outlook of these two great poets regarding women and the origin of the tales.  In Shahnameh women are dialogue orientated whereas in Masnavi they mostly remain silent.

Code switching, as an outcome of linguistic contact, can be seen in most of the multilingual societies, including Urmia, the capital city of West Azerbaijan province, Iran. The present field study aimed to compare the frequency, direction (from Turkish to Persian or vice versa), and categorical levels (affix, word, phrase, or sentence) of code switching among female elementary and high-school students representing high, middle, and low social classes. In order to do this, the required data were extracted from the casual conversations of the students which were collected using a non-participant observation method through voice recording in public places. According to the findings, code switching was more frequent among high-school students representing the middle social class. Besides, according to the results, words were the most frequent, and affixes were the rarest code-switched elements in the data. Moreover, most of the students switched the code when their mother language was the dominant language of the conversation. Also, high-school students favored code-switching at word level, compared to the elementary students who switched sentences most.