ABSTRACT

This chapter reports on Azerbaijanis’ attitudes towards using Azerbaijani and Farsi in the home in Tabriz, Iran, and explores how these families respond to Farsi-medium educational policies and the potential inclusion of Azerbaijani in the education system, as well as the broadcast media they are exposed to. Taking the ecology of language paradigm (Haugen, 1972; Hornberger & Hult, 2008; Mühlhäusler, 1996), I situate this investigation of family language policy within the broader historical and sociopolitical macro context, promoting the elimination of the boundary between the linguistic and the non-linguistic in language maintenance endeavors (Schwartz & Verschik, 2013). In other words, I analyze how the ecology within which Azerbaijani is being transmitted to the next generation has been affected by language policy and planning activities of the state, and how Azerbaijanis are responding to those policies.