Sociolinguistic Analysis of Lullabies in Qa`ini Dielect

 Oral literature including poetry, songs, lullabies, stories, anecdotes, proverbs and the like is being transferred from generation to generation in an unlettered way. The scholar's lack of interest in folk literature, particularly lullabies, has marginalized this kind of literary art as it is feared today that such works are gradually being forgotten and erased from their speaker`s memory. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to recording and analyzing this part of oral culture which leads to accurately understanding the culture of the people in terms of its various subcultures. Given the location of the city of Qa'in and due to its national and religious prejudices and also the love affairs and deprivations, it is observed that the women of Qa`in console themselves with these folk lullabies.   The present research is carried out within the framework of the analytical-qualitative method. Research variables (gender, religious-cultural themes, women's social status, and climatic conditions) are of a descriptive scale and demographic questions (age, level of education, occupation of respondents, and the number of children (daughters and sons)) are numerical variables.  Due to the fact that all the women inhabitant in the city of Qa`in have been selected as the research community and since   providing   a complete list ofpopulation was not accessible, the methods of “non-probable judgment” and “available sampling” have been used. The sample size was 50 determined   through the following formula: n =   (e: Estimation accuracy or maximum error limit is considered to be 0.15 in this study). Data gathering was carried out through fieldwork using both a researcher-made questionnaire and a personal interview by the researcher. Most of the interviewees encompassed middle-aged and elderly women from both the township and the surrounding villages. The result of one-year research effort in collecting lullabies compiled 692 bits analyzed as the research data. To analyze the data, the collected lullabies were coded, categorized in the same sense, and then all the implied concepts were noted. Possessing the extracted concepts, the researcher returned to the field of research in order to collect other lullabies as far as there remained no new concept of lullabies. Subsequently, concepts which categorized a common theme in a category were categorized and analyzed eventually.  The quantitative and content analysis of the extant lullabies of Qa`in showed that the Qa`ini mothers have far transmitted their ideas, thoughts and religious beliefs to their children in the form of lullabies along with reflecting the economic and cultural situation of the region and also their own pains. We argued that the contents of the lullabies portray the beauty of nature, the personality traits, the family and social problems of women and the mother's wishes for their children. In addition, we demonstrated that the mothers' age and their social status and education are also effective in choosing the lullabies they sing for their daughters or sons. The results showed that the most frequent lullabies clearly manifest the following subjects: 1) the social status of women 2) the religious themes 3) the cultural and climatic conditions and 4) the gender.The descriptive results of gender variable represented that the relationship between gender and age is a direct relationship, while inverse for education, job and the number of children. Furthermore, there was a direct relationship between age and religious themes in lullabies and also between the employment of women and religious themes. As part of the analysis, it was demonstrated that there was no relationship between education and religious themes in lullabies and between the number of children and religious themes.It was also exhibited that there was direct relationship between age and social status of women in lullabies and also between education and social status of women, while there was inverse relationship between the women's occupation and the number of children with social status of women.   The lullabies identified in the study depicted that there was a direct relationship among age, and the climatic and cultural conditions and also between the employment of women and the number of children with climatic and cultural conditions. Interestingly, our project showed that there was no relationship among education and climatic and cultural conditions in lullabies. Moreover, the results of Friedman test represented that there is a significant difference between the mean of effective variables on the content of lullabies whilst the highest priority was given to gender, religious themes, women's social status, and cultural and climatic conditions.