The Sociophonetics of Vowel Height: A Study of Variation in Tehran Persian

Abstract

This dissertation employs the variationist method to investigate vowel height variation (VHV) in Tehran Persian (TP). Viewing spoken TP as a continuum between Vernacular Tehran Persian (VTP) and Bookish Persian (BP), this study examines how VHV systematically differs between VTP and BP. Sociolinguistic interviews were conducted with a stratified sample of Persian speakers from Tehran, involving spontaneous conversation as well as written and oral translation tasks. A sample of vowel tokens was extracted from the interviews and coded impressionistically for vowel height. Data were divided into six variable contexts (VCs) and four stylistic contexts and were analyzed for the contribution of linguistic and extralinguistic factors, first individually and then using multivariate methods. Results reveal that VHV in TP is conditioned by both linguistic and extralinguistic (stylistic and social) considerations, with phonetic context, style and education as primary predictors. Using the term Bookish Persian, this research clarifies that VHV in TP includes both vowel raising and lowering, which operate in different VCs but exhibit the same sociolinguistic patterns. These results suggest that Persian may be better described as a situation of bimodal diglossia rather than a strictly binary system of H and L varieties. These theoretical tools could be applied to other diglossic situations.