The Linguistic Differences between Literary Language and Standard Language for Teaching Persian to Non-Persian Speakers

In this research, we aimed to find out the structural differences between the two linguistic languages, namely standard language and literary language. First, based on the contrastive analysis of the grammar books of the literary works with the standard grammar books, the differences between these two languages were extracted and then, based on the prevalence of these differences in literary works, we divided the less common language differences into six categories:1. Obsolete language components 2. Local language components 3. Linguistic components involved with low use 4. Newborn linguistic components 5. Linguistic errors, and 6. components of colloquial, slang and broken language. Then, based on the interference theory and also relying on the syntactic principles, we categorized the more commonplace language differences into three classes: 1. Elements of the literary language with the identical appearance relative to the standard language but with a different function 2. Components of the literary language with a different appearance from the standard language but with the same function 3. Elimination or displacement of sentence elements. Then, we presented a literary example in twelve language domains including phonetic system, nouns, adjectives, numbers, pronouns, relative pronouns, verbs, adverbs, letters, interjections, word formation (referring to neologism), and sentences.
 
1. Introduction
The differences between standard language and literary language, despite similarities, are fairly remarkable. Standard language is a common type that is public, recognized among most orators of a language community, used in the press, public media and schools, and considered to be a kind of linguistic norm. In a contrasting manner, literary language is actually a departure from linguistic norms, and is considered as a kind of riot against the standard linguistic structures. In the discussion of Teaching Persian to non-Persian Speakers (AZFA) whose primary purpose is teaching a standard language, the use of literary works can be a difficult task and a kind of defeating the purpose; however, given the importance and validity of Persian literature in cultural, social, and international grounds, as well as, its unbreakable link to Persian language, its educational importance cannot be overlooked. In this study, we aimed to extract the linguistic differences between standard language and literary language. In doing so, we compared Dari's literary works with standard grammar books, and we tried, by precisely classifying these differences, to assist the authors of Persian language learning textbooks in selecting an appropriate and efficient literary work for non-Persian speakers.
 
2. Theoretical Framework
According to the findings of researchers in the field of language education such as Nation (2016), one of the main criteria for selecting texts in the discussion of language teaching is the rate of occurrence or the frequency of a linguistic component. The more inclusive a linguistic component is, the more necessary its education is. In contrast, the less inclusive a linguistic component is, the less necessary it is in the discussion of education. For this reason, and through a careful scrutiny regarding magnitude of differences in literary and standard genres in literary works, we divided the set of differences into two general categories including less common and more common differences.
 
3. Methodology
In this study, we first investigated the linguistic features of Dari-Persian literature from the dawn to contemporary era by library research, with works such as "The History of Persian Language" by Parviz Natel-Khanlari (3 volumes), "The Historical Grammar of Persian Language" by Mohsen Abolghasemi (2002), "The Language Structure of Today's Poetry" by Alipour (1999).  Consequently, comparing to standard grammar books such as "Today's Grammar" by Farshidvard (1969) and "Persian Grammar 2" by Anvari and Givi (2003), we identified their differences in twelve domains of “phonetic system, nouns, adjectives, numbers, pronouns, relative pronouns, verbs, adverbs, letters, interjections, vocabulary, and sentences”. Finally, by theories of language education, we categorized and rated these differences.
 
4. Results & Discussion
We divided each of the two extracted groups into different types; the less common differences are: 1. Obsolete components with no performance in today's standard Persian. 2. Components that belong to local dialects. 3. Low use foreign linguistic components 4. Newfangled components of contemporary poets and writers 5. Components considered as linguistics errors. 6. Components bearing conversational, slang, and broken expression words. We sectioned the remaining linguistic components, which were interestingly inclusive and frequent, into three categories, as more common differences based on language teaching theories. .According to the balanced type of confrontational analysis, less distinction in form and content will lead to more difficult  learning processes ; therefore, in order to avoid interference effects, among the common differences and high-frequency differences; we have achieved two categories; one is "The elements of the literary language which exists in today's standard Persian but is used differently", and "The components of literary language which exists in today's standard Persian with a slight difference in form but with the same function”. We also introduced the remaining components in this group based on non-compliance with the rules of language syntax in literary works and disrupting the regular linguistic pattern entitled “Components that have been either removed from the sentence structure or have moved inside the sentences”. Eventually, we presented examples of literary works for each category.
 
5. Conclusions & Suggestions
Investigating the data and carefully classifying the differences between literary language  and standard language in this research, we found that the first six groups of the less common differences group are less essential for teaching to non-Persian speakers; on the other hand, and since the second three categories from groups of more common differences have been assigned as the most frequent occurrences of the two linguistic differences, they are more necessary from the educational point of view. In the other words, since the less common group, have the lowest level of similarity to today's standard language, which means creating the least overlap with it (except for the last, slang, colloquial, and broken linguistic components that can be useful and effective for teaching spoken language), they can be removed from educational texts and make language learning less difficult. Needless to say, since the more common group is rather similar to today's Persian language, this makes it difficult to be learnt and impossible to be removed due to its pervasiveness. Therefore, whilst the more common group, has great educational value, it is equally difficult to be learnt. According to the aforementioned remarks, it is obligatory for the authors of AZFA books to recognize the differences between two literary and standard genres of Persian. It is suggested that instead of eliminating or simplifying the literary works, ............. the authors should make the most appropriate choice of original literary texts, in order to familiarize Persian learners with the valuable themes of Persian literature, and to introduce the vast linguistic and artistic capacities of these works to them.
 
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