فاطمه نعمتی

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