The Study of Cognitive and Affective Language Attitudes of Kurdish-Persian Bilinguals Towards Standard Persian Based on Mentalist Approach

In recent decades, language attitude has been one of the most important concepts in linguistic studies and more particularely in sociolinguistics. Considering the importance of language attitudes of bilinguals, this study aims at investigating language attitudes of Sanandaj Kurdish speakers towards standard Persian language by using a questionnaire and a Matched Guise Test (MGT) which assesses cognitive and affective attitudes of Kurdish-Persian bilinguals. For this purpose, 148 male and female bilinguals were selected randomly in two age groups (15-18 and 22-32 year old subjects) and at three educational levels (high school students, those having high school diplomas, and university students). After performing the tests, the collected data were analyzed statistically. The findings demonstrated that language attitudes of Sanandaj Kurdish speakers towards standard Persian language is not positive; besides, cognitive and affective attitudes of participants towards Persian were different from each other. In this study, it is for the first time that two kinds of attitudes are considered by two different instruments. The usage of MGT for assessing affective attitude of bilinguals in this study distinguishes it from other studies in Iran.