Teaching Persian Dialects

Presented by
Corey Miller, Jace Livingston, Thomas Triebwasser Prado
and Mark Vinson
Special thanks to Ewa Golonka and Martyn Clark

November 22, 2014

Overview
CASLs Persian work
o Dialects
o Taarof
o Code mixing
o Pinglish
o Frequency
Incorporating into TBLT
Incorporating into CBI
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Task Complexity variables
(Robinson, 2010)
Task Complexity

Resource-directing, developmental dimensions

+/- here and now
+/- few elements
Thinking

-/+ spatial reasoning

-/+ causal reasoning
-/+ intentional reasoning
-/+ perspective taking
Resource-dispersing, performative dimensions
+/- planning time
+/- prior knowledge
Reacting

+/- single task

+/- task structure
+/- few steps
+/- independency of steps

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SSARC model
SS = Simple, Stable

Automatization

Restructuring, (maximum) Complexity

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Enhancing the taxonomy of task
characteristics
Sociolinguistic variation: Beyond grammar
Polyvalent features: Not just +, -
Background-dependent simplicity: Whats + and whats -
Task Complexity

Resource-directing, developmental
dimensions
Horizontal/Interspeaker Iranian/Afghan/Tajik
+/- Standard (Dialect)
Thinking

+/- Native

Vertical/Intraspeaker -/+ Code Mixing

+/- H(igh Style)
-/+ Speech Levels
-/+ Latin
Resource-dispersing, performative
React
ing

dimensions
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National varieties: Iran, Afghanistan,
Tajikistan
Vocabulary bicycle
o ( Iran), ( Afghanistan), (Tajikistan)
Pronunciation New Year
o nowruz (Iran), nawroz (Afghanistan), navrz (Tajikistan)
Morphology/Syntax he can eat (-H style)
o mitune boxore (Iran), xorda metna (Afghanistan), xrda
met(av)onad
Background dependent simplicity
o Where is instructor from?
o What variety is being targeted?

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Standard and nonstandard dialects
Nation-state dependent
o Iran
Tehrani vs.
Shirazi: Chubak
Esfahani: Jamalzadeh
o Afghanistan
Kabuli vs.
Hazaragi, Herati
o Tajikistan
Bukhara/Samarkand vs.
Central, Southern, Southeastern (Ido 2014, Perry 2005)

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Native and nonnative/Code mixing
Iran
Turkish-accented
Balochi-accented
Lari-mixed
Afghanistan
Pashto-accented
Tajikistan
Mixing with Uzbek?

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Diglossia/Styles
H (standard)
o Iran:
o Afghanistan:
L (colloquial)
o Iran: mirim, xune, didin
o Afghanistan: awn, aw
Background dependent simplicity
o Heritage learners prefer -H (Sedighi, 2010)
o Textbook sequence
Stilo et al. 2005 start with L
Thackston 1993 mostly H

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Speech Levels/Taarof
-Speech Levels +Speech Levels
Neutral Humble Honorific
raftan go zirat kardan tarif bordan
make a pilgrimage take ones presence

madan be xedmat tarif vrdan

come residan bring ones presence
arrive in service
budan be dar xedmat tarif dtan
budan have ones presence
be in service
goftan say arz kardan farmudan order
petition
ddan give tadim kardan lotf kardan do favor
offer

Humble & Honorific usually travel together in contrast to Neutral

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Writing system: Persian or Roman?
Historical
o 1303: Codex Cumanicus (Monchi-Zadeh, 1969)
o 1629: Qoran in Latin letters (Bodrogligeti, 1961)
Social Media
o Text messages (Gohardehi & Gheitury, 2014)
Men used more dialect, e.g. Mazandarani te das dela
thanks a million
o Web chats (Pahlvannezhad et al., 2012)
o mer30 = , 4sat = , sa@ =

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Putting it all together: Maximum
complexity

Pinglish
Code-mixing with Mazandarani (and English)
Taarof

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CBI for dialects
Teach dialect context
o History
o Geography
o Culture
Industries and crafts
Agriculture and food
Myths and literature
o Demographics
Religions
Languages
Ethnicities

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References
Bodrogligeti, A. (1961). The Persian translation of the Koran in Latin letters. Acta
Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 13, 261-276.
Gohardehi, N. & Gheitury, A. (2014). Gender and text messaging in an Iranian
context. Iranian Studies 47(4), 535-546.
Ido, S. (2014). Bukharan Tajik. Journal of the International Phonetic Association,
44, 87-102.
Monchi-Zadeh, D. (1969). Das Persische im Codex Cumanicus. Uppsala.
Pahlavannezhad, M.R., Akhlaghi, E. & Ebrahimi, S. (2012). The investigation of
shortening processes of Persian vocabulary in web chats. European Scientific
Journal 8(30), 163-173.
Perry, J.R. (2005). A Tajik Persian Reference Grammar. Leiden: Brill.
Robinson, P. (2010). Situating and distributing cognition across task demands. In
Ptz, M. & Sicola, L. (Eds.), Cognitive Processing and Second Language Acquisition
(pp. 243-268). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Sedighi, A. (2010). Teaching Persian to heritage speakers. Iranian Studies, 43(5),
683-697.

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For more information
Contact
Corey Miller
Senior Research Scientist
301 226 8834
cmiller@casl.umd.edu
www.casl.umd.edu

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