The Acquisition of WH questions by Persian and English speaking children

Journal of Teaching English Lnaguage Studies

مقاله 2، دوره 5، شماره 4، شهریور 2017، صفحه 32-45   

نویسندگان

Elham Pirbeig Darvishvanda^{* 1}؛ Ramin Rahmany²

¹Department of English Language and Literature, College of Humanities, Takestan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Takestan, Iran

², Department of English Language and Literature, College of Humanities, Takestan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Takestan, Iran

چکیده

This research is case study which was designed to investigate the acquisition of WH-question by
Persian and English speaking children between 2 to 4 years old. Four girls and their input were
precisely analyzed in order to figure how WH-questions are effective in their speaking in their
daily lives. In the current study the subjects were randomly selected and the matter of gender was
not considered. This study designed to find out how children acquire used to WH-question during
their special age. The study was conducted in 44 hours in eighty-four sessions. Each session lasted
for 45, 60, 90 or less than 40 minutes. This study uses real language, real people, Real places to
connect learners of English to the world. All their partners were their parents, peers, and caregiver.
Their voice was recorded by a phone in different time and the Persian speech was recorded
in Iran and the English speech in the United Kingdom. At last, all their dialogues were analyzed
to find out how they learn to use WH-questions. In conclusion, it was found that children who are
2-aged presented a large number of WH-questions and 4 aged children use less than WH-questions
in compared with the younger children. The result showed that English girls used more WHquestion
than Persian girls and children who are four aged used more WH-question than children
who are two aged in English and Persian. Finding in this research showed that, there are no
significant relationship between children input and the children feedback. It means that input has
no effect on children acquisition and children acquired WH-question without mirror the input. At
the end, this research presented some limitations and suggestions for further study.

کلیدواژه‌ها

question؛ WH-question؛ acquisition

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