A Survey of Phonetic Process of Mutation in Shirazi Accent

Sometimes a segmental element in a speech chain changes to another one without having been placed it in the framework of phonetic processes such as assimilation, dissimilation, assimilation of vowel and consonant and so on. This process is named “mutation” and its analysis in Shirazi accent is the subject of this research. The present paper begins with a short introduction to Iranian languages and their historical periods, a definition of “dialect” and “accent”; then Shirazi dialect, its evolutionary periods and its gradual change to accent will be offered. Then its phonological system (consonants and vowels) will be introduced and finally different kinds of “mutation” in Shirazi accent will be described in detail. The finddings in this research show that “mutation” is one of the main phonetic processes in Shirazi accent and vowel mutation has the highest frequency.