The idea of English in Iran: an example from Urmia

This paper explores the place of English in Iran. To do this, we look at the social presence of English in Urmia (the capital of West Azerbaijan province, Iran). The paper draws on instances of the use of English in different contexts in Urmia, including its use in academia, business, state and priv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of multilingual and multicultural development Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 419 - 434
Main Authors Sadeghi, Karim, Richards, Jack C
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 18.05.2016
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
attitude
English
English (Second Language)
English as a second language learning
English language
English language learners
Foreign Countries
Geographic Regions
Indo European Languages
International languages
Iran
Iran (Azarbaiyan)
Language acquisition
Language Attitudes
language in society
Language Usage
Learning Motivation
Motivation
Second Language Instruction
Second Language Learning
Sociolinguistics
Student Motivation
Turkish
Urmia
Iran
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Summary:This paper explores the place of English in Iran. To do this, we look at the social presence of English in Urmia (the capital of West Azerbaijan province, Iran). The paper draws on instances of the use of English in different contexts in Urmia, including its use in academia, business, state and private education, media, and people's ordinary lives. The idea of English in Iran is also investigated by studying a cohort of 115 English language learners' motivations towards learning English as well as their attitudes towards the language. The results suggest that English has an active status in Urmia, alongside Turkish, Persian and Kurdish, and is regarded as an important international language among Iranians living in Urmia as well as one that accrues a number of social benefits to its users.
ISSN:0143-4632
1747-7557
DOI:10.1080/01434632.2015.1080714