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چکیده
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The widespread use of Modern Standard Persian (MSP) as the official
language in educational institutions, work places and mass mediapractically
all the domains of language use-has led to a decline in
using regional dialects to an extent never predicted by the first
language policy makers. While MSP as the official language is an
emblem of national identity and solidarity, regional dialects are a
nation’s cultural heritage and an identity marker for those indigenous
dialect speakers, hence the necessity of taking an action to preserve
them in their rich diversity. To address this issue, the paper attempts to
examine the influence of MSP on the usage and viability of regional
dialects in Boushehr. Boushehr- the capital city of Boushehr province-
as an important commercial port has been a hub for many immigrants
from neighboring cities and villages over time, giving rise to a
multicultural and multilingual city with distinct districts for different
tribes and languages (reflected in naming the old city as chahar mahal
‘four districts’). However, in recent years with the general spread of
multimedia literacy, the introduction of higher education institutions
and a leap towards modernization, Iranian dialects of the city have
shown a language shift, resulting in an emergent so-called Boushehri
dialect resembling MSP to a large extent, but with an accent and some
remaining dialectal peculiarities in pronunciation. This paper inquires
into the reasons behind this language shift and people’s attitude
towards it by specifically investigating how much and why dialect
users dis/credit their dialects as worthwhile to be used, preserved and
disseminated. To that end, a language attitude survey exploring
affective, cognitive and behavioral factors and designed in three
subsections on usage, vitality and dissemination is administered to
four groups of people ranging from teenagers to old people of both
gender. The hypothesis was that the tendency to use MSP more can be
traced to i
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