Iranian EFL learners’ knowledge of overt pronoun constraint in English

Journal of Teaching English Lnaguage Studies

مقاله 4، دوره 3، شماره 4، مرداد 2015، صفحه 54-73   

نویسندگان

Samaneh Afrazi Kalvir؛ Ramin Rahmany

Islamic Azad University, Takestan Branch

چکیده

The present study aims to investigated Iranian L2 speaker`s knowledge of the overt pronoun
constraint (OPC) in English. It also aims to examine L2 learners understanding of Universal
Grammar (Chomsky 1981, 1986, 2000, 2001) and if it is common to all languages. Specifically,
this study takes a new look at the L2 acquisition of knowledge of the overt pronoun constraint
(Montalbetti 1984) by Persian learners of English. The current work examines whether Iranian
learners of English can obtain native-like knowledge of OPC in their sentences. Forty female
learners of English (intermediate and advanced) completed three tests, a Pet test and an English
OPC test with a Persian OPC test at the Kish English Language Institute in Tehran, Iran. These
comprised a multiple choice test for English language proficiency (PET test) to determine the
level of each participant, and a multiple choice OPC test including English and Persian questions
to measure the possible effect of null or overt pronoun structures in sentence construction,
evaluating the participants` knowledge of OPC usage. Results from the experiment show that L2
speakers can successfully achieve knowledge of the OPC regardless of pronoun position in their
target language in both levels. However, the advanced level candidates performed much better
on the OPC construction in the English test than those in the intermediate. There was a
significant dependency between the English language proficiency level and the understanding of
OPC structures. We believe that language proficiency affects the use of OPC in learners of
Persian, suggesting that OPC may not hold true in different situations. The findings of the
current study may have suggestions for L2 learners and teachers.

کلیدواژه‌ها

OPC؛ Pro-drop - Null-subject languages؛ Overt/Null pronouns؛ zero pronoun؛ EFL`s learners knowledge؛ Persian

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