A Study of the Use of Mazandarani and Farsi in Jouybar

This study aimes at investigating the use of Jouybari Dialect, a local dialect of Mazandarani, and Farsi among Parents and Children in different social contexts. The effect of gender and age on the use of these languages has been studied. The informants were 100 Jouybari parents and children (50 parents and 50 children), each group consisted of two subgroups (25 males and 25 females), whom were selected through convenience sampling. A researcher-made questionnaire was used for data gathering. Non-parametric analyses (Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Chi-Square were used to compare the data. Findings show that in general the use of Persian among female members of each group is more than males, and Chi-Square analysis shows that the difference between males and females is meaningful (P≤0/001). Also, regarding the age variable the analysis reveals that the difference in language use between parents and children is meaningful (P≤0/001). The context does not have any significant effect on language use.