JOURNAL OF PERSIAN LANGUAGE TEACHING TO NON-PERSIAN SPEAKERS
Year:2019 | Volume:8 | Issue:1 (17)|Papers Count:14

Promotion and development of Persian language as one of the most important elements of national and cultural identity should always be a part of the country's policies and priorities. In this regard, holding quality scientific conferences would help to provide appropriate solutions for implementing and directing these policies. One of the most welcome scientific events was the holding of the First National Conference on Experimental Linguistics. Experimental linguistics is an area of linguistics which relies on empirical methodology to study and extract linguistic generalizations and constraints which describe the diversity of linguistic patterns in human languages. The extraction of linguistic generalizations within the framework of experimental linguistics is based on quantitative evidence obtained from the order governing the manner in which patterns are applied at the level of linguistic practice. This quantitative evidence can be obtained either, in the exact sense of the word, by laboratory methods or from linguistic corpora. Thus, the data studied by experimental linguists include either various linguistic patterns in textual and spoken corpora or quantitative and continuous parameter values collected in laboratory studies. In either case, in order for the linguist to obtain the desired linguistic generalizations of the language community under study, he must test his research hypotheses with statistical models. Experimental linguistics, as defined here, covers many areas including linguistics, phonetics and phonology (especially laboratory and cognitive phonology), psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, second language acquisition, and etc. In addition, in recent years, experimental approach to linguistic issues has also attracted the attention of linguists in other fields such as morphology, syntax, semantics, and applied linguistics. Within the framework of linguistic phonetics and laboratory phonology, a phonological hypothesis which is a model of abstract representation of a phonetic pattern in the mind of language users is put forward and its validity is investigated through an appropriate experimental design. Psycholinguistics uses laboratory methods to discover the cognitive principles and mechanisms governing the processing of linguistic data to address cognitive aspects of language use. Neurolinguists study the behavior of the language users under laboratory conditions through the observation of chemical interactions which occur in the brain cortex. In computational linguistics, on the basis of statistical and quantitative models, computational algorithms are designed for the reconstruction and recognition of spoken and written language. Corpus linguists search for linguistic patterns within natural language corpora which are large collections of language users' productions. And finally, second language acquisition explores methods of teaching and learning of any language other than the mother tongue. Dozens of articles were submitted to the First National Conference on Experimental Linguistics. From these articles, six articles which from the perspective of this journal's reviewers had appropriate quality were selected to be published in this issue of the journal. Here, I would like to thank, my dear colleague, Dr. Vahid Sadeghi who as the academic secretary of the conference was instrumental in the initial review of the papers submitted to the event and contributed to this publication. I hope that the articles of this issue will be useful to researchers and enthusiasts of Persian language teaching.

Persian has two low vowels, namely, the front vowel /a/ and the back vowel /ɒ /, while Japanese has only one low vowel which is phonologically a back vowel, but phonetically a central one. In the present study, the research question is whether Japanese learners of Persian language are able to produce the Persian front and back low vowels distinctively or not. In order to answer this question, Japanese learners of Persian language were asked to produce Persian and Japanese low vowels in the target words. Native speakers of Persian also produced the same Persian words. Then, the frequency of the first and the second formants (F1 and F2) of low vowels were measured. Thefrequency of the first and the second formants of Persian low vowels in the Japanese learners’ production were compared to that of the Persian native speakers. The statistical analyses revealed that Japanese learners produce the two Persian low vowels without a significant difference and almost similar to the Japanese low vowel. Extended abstract Persian has two low vowels, namely, the front vowel /a/ and the back vowel /ɒ /, while Japanese has only one low vowel which according to (Labrune, 2012) and (Kubozono, 2015) is phonologically a back vowel, but phonetically a central one. When Japanese native speakers learn Persian as a foreign language, they tend to map the high and the mid vowels of their language onto the high and the mid vowels of the target language due to the similarity between the number and the quality of these vowels. However, producing Persian low vowels is potentially problematic for Japanese native speakers since Japanese has only one low vowel while there are two low vowels in Persian. In the present study, the main research question was whether Japanese learners of Persian language are able to produce the Persian front and back low vowels distinctively or not. This study also tried to reveal the acoustic characteristics of the Persian low vowels produced by learners with Japanese L1. The findings of this research can be used in teaching Persian as a foreign language to native speakers of Japanese and specially in designing specific pronunciation drills for them. In order to answer the above questions, a production test was designed and conducted in which learners of Persian language with Japanese L1 produced Persian and Japanese words containing low vowels. Native speakers of Persian also produced the same Persian words. The vowels of both languages were presented in an unstressed position in disyllabic or trisyllabic words. In this experiment 12 participants (six Japanese speakers and six Persian speakers) took part. Persian speakers were learners of Japanese language in Iran, and had studied the language for two years in the university. Their age ranged from 20 to 22, with the average of 20. 6 years. They were all classmates, and none of them had ever been to Japan. Japanese speakers had been studying Persian for at least two, and at most three years in Japanese universities. Their age ranged from 21 to 30 with the average of 24. 5 years. They all had a 1-3 month stay in Iran. The utterances were recorded at a sampling frequency of 44, 100 Hz in a phonetic laboratory and were analyzed using the phonetics software Praat (Boersma&Weenink, David, 2019). Next, the frequency of the first and the second formants (F1 and F2) of Persian low vowels produced by Japanese learners was measured based on the method explained in (Bijankhan, 2013, pp. 149-150) and was compared to the F1 and F2 of Persian low vowels produced by native speakers. The results of the measurements which are presented in the form of tables and graphs in the paper, suggest that although Persian native speakers produce the front and the back low vowels distinctly, Japanese learners of Persian produce the two Persian low vowels with a similar quality, i. e., with similar F2 amounts. In statistical analyses, first a Cronbach's alpha test was used to determine the internal consistency of the data. Then, a paired dependent samples t-test was used to determine if there were significant mean differences in F1 and F2 in subject groups. The inferential statistical analyses of the test results revealed that there is no significant difference between the F1 of Japanese and Persian low vowels produced by native speakers and language learners which was not surprising because all the vowels in question were low vowel. However, on the other hand, native speakers of Persian produced Persian low vowels with significantly different F2, while there was no significant difference between the F2 of Persian low front vowel and low back vowel produced by Japanese learners. In other words, when Japanese learners produce Persian low vowels, there is an overlap between the spaces of these two vowels. Comparisons between the F2 of Persian vowels produced by Japanese learners with the F2 of the Japanese low vowel showed that in fact, Japanese learners tend to produce both Persian low vowels similar to the low vowel in Japanese. In order to train the language learners in Japan to produce Persian low vowels distinctly, both traditional methods such as drills utilizing minimal pairs and new computer-assisted comparative methods such as sound visualization can be used.

The idea that glides occupy a phonological category of their own, especially as distinct from the related high vowels /i/ and /u/, has not been accepted by all researchers. Some prefer the term “ semivowel” to that of “ glide” , labeling them as vowel-like segments that only function like consonants (Ladefoged & Maddieson, 1996). Others deny any difference between glides and vowels, other than their relative positions in the syllable. For example, Selkirk (1984) has argued that there is no need for a feature distinction between the glides /j, w/ and the high vowels /i, u/, since they can be differentiated instead by syllable theory alone. Stevens (1998) defines glides as “ a class of consonants produced with a constriction that is not sufficiently narrow to cause a significant average pressure drop across the constriction during normal voicing” . The lack of a vocal tract closure producing a significant pressure drop is a clear distinction between glides and other consonants; its acoustic correlate is a lack of abrupt discontinuity in the acoustic signal (Stevens, 2002). The dividing line between glides and vowels (especially the closely related high vowels), however, has heretofore been less clearly defined. Chomsky & Halle (1968) suggest that the [-vocalic] feature that differentiates glides from vowels is defined by a constriction that is greater in degree than that for a high vowel; but the threshold boundary required to create this category distinction along the continuum of constriction degrees has not been established in terms of articulation and acoustics. Previous acoustic analyses have found several potential acoustic correlates of the [-vocalic] feature that differentiates glides from related vowels: (1) Glides, inhabiting the syllable boundaries, should have a weaker intensity than the vowels at the syllable nuclei (Stevens, 1998); RMS amplitude (ARMS) provides a quantitative measure of this intensity relationship (Hon Hunt, 2009); (2) The narrow constriction in the front part of the vocal tract for a glide has the effect of decreasing the frequency of the first formant peak (F1) relative to that of a vowel (Hon Hunt, 2009); (3) The bandwidth of the first formant (B1) is expected to be larger for glides than for vowels, again because of the narrower constriction in the vocal tract for the glide segments (Stevens, 1998); (4) a less sonorous sound segment (such as a glide) might exhibit more of a noise component in its acoustic signal than a more sonorous sound segment (such as a vowel) (Padgett, 2008); (5) he aerodynamic effects of the oral constriction on the glottal source may also have the effect of decreasing the fundamental frequency of phonation (F0) in a glide relative to that in an adjacent vowel. Acoustic modeling suggests that this effect will be most pronounced when F0 and F1 are close together. Because F0 is strongly affected by prosodic considerations, this source effect may be variably present in different prosodic environments. (Stevens, 1998). The present research aims at investigating the acoustic properties of the Persian palatal glide /j/. To this end, a number of words were randomly selected to include /j/ in three different phonological positions, namely word-initial, word-medial and word-final, so we could control for the effect of vocalic as well as prosodic context on the acoustic properties of the glide. The words were selected in such a manner to include the six vowels of the Persian language. The data were elicited by 9 native speakers of Persian, aged 20 to 30 years old. Recordings were made in a sound-attenuating chamber in the laboratory of linguistics at IKIU, with subjects seated with a fixed microphone approximately six inches from the lips. The subjects were prompted by text appearing on a computer monitor to read the phrases that were displayed on the screen. All acoustic analyses were carried out in Praat. The Acoustic analyses included measuring F1, F2 and F3 as well as their bandwidths, overall intensity and the intensity between 0 to 1000 Hz and 1000 to 5000 Hz. The measurements were made on the steady state of /j/ and the preceding vowel. The results suggested that both the formant frequencies and the intensity of the mid and higher formant frequencies are significantly different between the glide /j/ and the neighboring vowels. Indeed, the formant frequencies and the intensity of the mid and higher formant frequencies were the only two acoustic properties that systematically distinguished the glide /j/ from the neighboring vowels. The results further suggested that the magnitude of the narrowing of the oral cavity in transition from/i/ to /j/ was too small to excite changes in the first format frequency and bandwidth, but it sufficed to produce changes in phonation type, and thus intensity in the mid and higher formant frequencies. The results were interpreted to indicate that phonation type is the most important articulatory feature that differentiates between /j/ and the surrounding vowels.

Considering the many advances that have been made in teaching Persian to non-Persian learners in recent years, there are still some shortcomings one of which relates to the assessment of Persian language skills. Writing skill involves the ability to create words and draw ideas from the mind as well as the ability to criticize them so that the learner could decide which one to use. Writing tests involve productive skills. Therefore, this article attempted to investigate written skill assessment and performance such as imitative, intensive, responsive and extensive performance, and a variety of writing questions such as base prompt, framed prompt and text-based prompt. The design of a good written test consists of four elements: instruction (frameworks and instructions), stimulus (question), expected response (what we expect to do with examinee), and post-task evaluation (assessment of the effectiveness and success of the task (. In order to design a variety of written test questions, the following points should be noted:- the item should generate the desired type of writing.-the item should stimulate the examinee to think and solve problems.-the item should be accessible, fun and challenging.-the item should deal with relevant and stimulating issues.-the item should not require prior expert knowledge.-the item should be fair and provide equal opportunities for all people to respond.-the item should be clear and unambiguous, genuine and limited.-the item should specify audience, target and texture The sample of this study included 30 non-Iranian learners (males and females) from the humanities group who had completed a postgraduate course in Persian Language Teaching Center at Imam Khomeini International University. 30 Persian learners were selected randomly as the sample of this study. The age of the learners ranged from 18 to 30 and the duration of Persian learning was 5 to 7 months. The format of the questions was based on the base prompt and the framed prompt described in the theoretical background. Examinees were required to write two questions. And this test was held in two steps in the morning and afternoon. The data of this study included 30 writing samples written by advanced Persian learners. Written sheets were evaluated based on analytical scoring. In analytic scores, writing is assessed based on a number of aspects or criteria of writing skills, not based on a single score. According to the test objectives, features such as content, organization, coherence, usage / language, vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation are considered and each feature is assigned a score. There are advantages for analytical scoring. First, unlike the holistic method, this method provides information on the strengths and weaknesses of individuals in writing skills that are very useful for diagnostic feedback. Secondly, this method is very reliable, even if it is done by the less experienced scorer. Finally, it is easier to educate the scorer in this method, because the criteria and scales are obvious and detailed. The main weak point of the analytical method is that it is much more timeconsuming than the holistic scoring, because in this method, the scorer must do more than make a decision about the writing (ie, examine different aspects of a single writing sample and give them separate scores) Moreover, in addition to the necessity of preparing and compiling a set of criteria and detailed specifications for this method, several sessions should be given to training the raters to ensure that the differences between the scores of different scorers are reduced and the validity is increased. In addition, due to the importance of systematic errors of Persian learners in the organization of educational materials, the choice of appropriate teaching and testing methods, 20 syntactic errors which had a high frequency in Persian language learners’ writings were considered. Examples of these errors included the deletion of grammatical and lexical elements, the addition of unnecessary or false elements, the selection of a false element, and the replacement of it with the correct element and the incorrect ordering and arrangement of elements. Inter-language errors included the removal of a verb, the replacement of a prepositional word with an object, the deletion of the object's symbol, misplacement of the adjectives and nouns, errors in the sequence of the sentence components. The intra-lingual errors included error in compound verb application, mood errors and verb form, error in the application of the tense of the verb, inadequacy of the entity with the subject, categorization error, error in the application of connected and distinct pronouns, and deletion of the words.

In the past thirty years, processing relative clauses in different languages has had an important role in linguistic and psycholinguistic researches. A common theme in experimental studies has been the comparison of performance on subject and object relative clauses. Moreover, the comparison of verbal abilities in normal and dyslexic children is one of the most important issues in the interdisciplinary field of psycholinguistics. Evidence shows that dyslexic children not only have poor phonological processing, but also show compromised performance in complex syntactic processing tests as compared with normal children. This study investigated and compared the comprehension of subject-subject (S-S) and subject-object (S-O) relative clauses in children with dyslexia and normal children. The Present study tested the predictions of three hypotheses and one theory including dependence locality theory, structural hypothesis, linear hypothesis and word order difference hypothesis. This study had a cross sectional, descriptive and comparative design. The study population consisted of third to fifth grade elementary students in Kerman in 2017-2018 academic year. Participants were 60 monolingual Persian-speaking students (mean age of 10. 5 years): 30 with developmental dyslexia and 30 normal children. Dyslexic children were selected by availability sampling and normal children were selected by table of random numbers. These students were evaluated by vocabulary pre-test and grammar pre-test. Two pre-tests measured comprehension of words and transitive verbs. In order to evaluate comprehending of two types of relative clauses, a picture-matching test with four alternatives was designed. One of the alternatives was the correct response and the other three contained main clause error (MCE), relative clause error (RCE), and double clause error (DCE). The error category was designed to provide insight into misinterpretations. The first category was MCE where only the subject-verb relation inthe embedded verb was interpreted correctly. The second error category was RCE, where only the subject relation in the main clause was interpreted correctly. The last category was DCE, where both subject-verb relations were erroneously interpreted. The test was designed by considering the viewpoints of experts in the Persian language. After preliminary analysis and eliminating inappropriate items, the final test was designed with eight items, which measured comprehension of S-S and S-O relative clauses. Reliability of this test was assessed by Pearson correlation coefficient. Pearson coefficient of 0. 96 was obtained. The test was conducted to compare each group's performance on each relative clause type. The children were tested in a quiet room individually. They were told to read out a sentence that matched only one of the pictures and their task was to choose the picture that the sentence had described. Preliminary instructions emphasized the importance of looking carefully at all pictures and being accurate rather than fast. Children's responses were scored according to one of the four categories. One was target response and the remaining responses were errors. At the end, data was gathered from two groups and three types of errors were analyzed. Afterwards, data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney U and Chi-squared tests. Results demonstrated significant differences between dyslexic and normal groups in the comprehension of both types of relative clauses (p≤ 0/0001). Dyslexic children performed weaker than normal children in two types of relative clauses, and the percentage of all three types of errors was higher in them. Moreover, children with developmental dyslexia encountered more difficulties in the comprehension of S-O relative clauses, and the percentage of all three types of errors increased in them. Children with developmental dyslexia and normal children fail to comprehend only one part of relative clauses. In S-S and S-O relative clauses, the most common error related to MCE, indicating that children cannot comprehend the relationship between subjects and verbs in main clauses. In both relative clauses, the least common error related to DCE, indicating that children cannot comprehend only one part of the relative clause. The percentage of all errors in S-O relative clauses was higher in both groups. Furthermore, S-O relative clauses were more difficult tocomprehended than S-S relative clauses, which confirmed structural distance hypothesis, dependence locality theory, linear distance hypothesis and word order difference hypothesis. The noted problems may be eliminated with further and earlier training for children with developmental dyslexia. Obtained findings from this study propose that in addition to phonological awareness, the syntactic ability of Persian-speaking dyslexic children needs to be improved. Due to the intrinsic limitation of our behavioral method, it is clear that more investigation, especially brain imagining, is warranted in order to characterize the nature of the deficit in dyslexic children more specifically.

One of the most important and latest issues in neuro-linguistic studies relates to the nature of and the difference between aphasias resulting from damage to the cortical and sub-cortical brain structures in bi/multilingual aphasics. In this paper, language disorders and recovery patterns in two bilingual Azerbaijani Turkish-Persian aphasics with sub-cortical brain lesions were studied. The study was a field research which utilized descriptive statistics. Research population consisted of bilingual aphasics in Zanjan Province who had sub-cortical lesions. For this study, two aphasics were selected from the population. The Turkish and Persian versions of Bilingual Aphasia Test were employed to explore the linguistic behavior of the subjects and to collect the required data. The findings showed that the first patient suffered Broca’ s aphasia in both languages. The second patient was diagnosed with Broca’ s aphasia in Azerbaijani Turkish and sub-cortical aphasia in Persian. Thus, based on the type of aphasias and the location of brain lesions in the subjects of this study, it appears that the presence of lesions in the sub-cortical area does not necessarily lead to similar language disorders in the first and second languages of the bilingual aphasics. The language recovery patterns of the first and the second subjects were judged to be parallel and differential, respectively. The results revealed that the neuro-linguistic theory of bilingualism and the declarative/procedural memory model could be used to explain the differences in syntactic performance between bilingual aphasics with sub-cortical damage. Research and instructional implications of the study were discussed. Extended Abstract One of the most important and latest issues in neurolinguistic studies is the nature and differences of aphasias resulting from damage to the cortical and sub-cortical brain structures in bi/multilingual aphasics. In 1982, the sub-cortical aphasia was officially considered to be a type of aphasia along with other kinds which had been identified previously. The sub-cortical aphasia happens following lesions to the thalamus and basal ganglia. Aphasia has been defined from different perspectives. From a neurological perspective, aphasia is an acquired language impairment resulting from a focal brain lesion. This language impairment can be present in all language components (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics), across all modalities (speaking, reading, writing, signing), and in the output (expression) and input (comprehension) modes. Traditionally, aphasia seemed to be the result of damages to the brain cortex. However, in the recent decades, using the recent neuroimaging techniques, it became obvious that the subcortical areas in the brain play vital roles in language processing and representation, too. Concerning its complexity and different symptoms, aphasia is divided into different syndromes including Wernicke, Broca, conduction, transcortical sensory, transcortical motor, anomia, global, mixed transcortical and subcortical types. The issue worth exploring in neurolinguistic studies is the bi/multilinguals with aphasia. Since, they are considered to be unique subjects due to their specific linguistic characteristics which make them different from the monolingual aphasics. One of their unique features is their language recovery patterns. Multilingual individuals differ among themselves according to a number of parameters that may each play a role in shaping any given aphasic patient’ s recovery pattern. Different bilingual aphasia recovery patterns are as follows: 1. Parallel recovery; it is called parallel when recovery of each language is proportional to its premorbid proficiency. 2. Differential recovery; it is called differential when it does not reflect premorbid proficiency: one language is recovered better than the other in unexpected ways; the difference between the two may be much greater than before or sometimes the previously least proficient is recovered best. 3. Successive recovery; it describes a pattern where one language remains unavailable until it is spontaneously recovered weeks or months after the other has reached a plateau. 4. Selective recovery; it is selective when one language is never recovered. Sometimes comprehension is retained but the language is unavailable for production. 5. Antagonistic recovery; when one language is recovered first, but it regresses as a second language becomes available and progresses. Sometimes this phenomenon recurs over a period of days, weeks, or months during which language availability alternates. This pattern is called alternating antagonism. 6. Mixed or blending recovery; some patients are unable to speak one language without continually switching back and forth. The aphasics blend two languages in the same way that some monolingual aphasic patients blend words or syntactic constructions. It’ s worth mentioning that these recovery patterns are not generalizable and all the patients may not demonstrate the abovementioned patterns. In this paper, two bilingual Azerbaijani Turkish (L1)-Persian (L2) aphasics with subcortical brain lesions from Zanjan province were studied to determine their aphasia type, linguistic profile and language recovery pattern. Doing this research may have the following consequences: 1) it can be useful in developing and introducing the scientific foundations of neurolinguistics. 2) it helps us to recognize different kinds of aphasias and language recovery patterns. 3) it may help the speech-language pathologists to design and develop some rehabilitation programs. 4) the present research provides an opportunity to evaluate the linguistic theories. Furthermore, we used the following theory and model to explain the linguistic behaviors of the subjects: 1. The neurolinguistics theory of bilingualism (Paradis, 2004). It integrates a number of hypotheses– namely the three-store hypothesis, the direct access hypothesis, the activation threshold hypothesis, and the subsystems hypothesis– within the framework of a neurocognitive megasystem that comprises a number of independent neurofunctional systems that collaborate in the representation and processing of verbal communication. These independent systems include a common conceptual system; motivation/aff ect; and, for each language, implicit linguistic competence, explicit metalinguistic knowledge, and linguistic pragmatics. 2. The declarative and procedural model (Paradis, 2009). The procedural/declarative dimension is a critical element in the appropriation, use and loss of languages. Competence is subserved by procedural memory, as opposed to knowledge, which is subserved by declarative memory. A number of multilingual language disorders can be understood by taking into account the differential roles of declarative and procedural memory in the acquisition and use of each of a patient’ s languages. The bilingual aphasia tests (BAT)[1], both its Persian and Azerbaijani Turkish versions, were employed to collect the required data and evaluate the aphasics’ linguistic performances. It includes 32 subtests. The findings showed that one patient had Broca’ s aphasia in his L1 & L2, and the other patient was diagnosed with Broca’ s aphasia in his L1 & subcortical aphasia in his L2. Thus, it seems, based on the type of the aphasia and the location of the damaged area of the subjects, that the presence of the lesion in the subcortical area does not necessarily lead to the similar aphasia in the first and second languages of the patients. According to Paradis (2008), the language recovery pattern of B. SH. was assessed to be parallel, whereas the recovery pattern of A. H. was a differential one. The data also revealed that the neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism (Paradis, 2004) and the declarative and procedural model (Paradis, 2009) can account for the differences in the syntactic performance of the bilingual aphasics with subcortical damage. Finally, some suggestions for further investigation and teaching purposes are made.

The present study explored sentences in which motion verbs had been used. Recognition of transitivity is very important for language learners since it would help them identify the object of the sentence and insert “ ra” after it as object marker. It would also help in deciding whether a structure could be passivized or not. Since foreign learners of Persian language do not have native speaker intuitions about Persian grammar, recognition of transitivity is a learning problem for them. Also, conceptualizing motion verbs poses difficulties for Persian language learners. Therefore, in this study after classification of motion verbs, transitivity characteristics were also considered as a factor for prediction. 24 fifth level language learners at the International College of Tehran University of Medical Sciences participated in this study. They were assigned to two equal sized groups. The first group was considered as the experimental group and received instruction within Talmy’ s (2000) theoretical framework. The second group which acted as the control group received ordinary instruction. Based on the instructor’ s subjective evaluation and the results of the written test, the experimental group achieved better conceptualization of new verbs. Expanded Abstract The present study explored the notion of teaching transitivity of motion verbs. Recognition of transitivity is very important for Persian language learners. The importance of this structure in Persian is related to its use. On the one hand, the learners can guess whether they can use direct object and its marker (rā ) or not, on the other hand, they can decide about using passive structure. Since the learners do not have native speaker intuitions about Persian grammar, recognition of transitivity is a difficult subject for them. Motion events involve situations encompassing movement or the maintenance of a stationary location. According to Talmy (2000), the basic motion event consists of one object (the ‘ Figure’ ) moving or located with respect to another object (the reference-object or ‘ Ground’ ). Besides these two components, its semantic structure has two internal components, i. e. ‘ Path’ and ‘ Motion’ . The ‘ Path’ is the course followed or the site occupied by the Figure object with respect to the Ground object, and the ‘ Motion’ refers to the presence in the event of motion or location. Considering only the dynamic motion event (MOVE) and leaving the result of a motion (BE Loc) aside, we deal with the linking of semantic and syntactic properties. Following Talmy (2000), Persian language motion verbs are classified in fifteen groups, and one schematic representation was considered for each of them. In this study referential verbs describe a motion event only when their object denotes a location-type entity. After classifying Persian verbs into transitive and intransitive verbs, there is a semantic analysis based on their figure and grounds. All the subjects in intransitive structures are figures and the figures experience change in their location or move from a source to a goal. While, in transitive motion events, verbs are classified in three types; referential, relational, or causative. There is distinction between two types of linguistically defined entities: an object vs. a location. A location refers to a stable spatial fragment within a given frame of reference. An object refers to a material entity, not necessarily stable, within a frame of reference. Moreover, relational verbs such as ‘ cross’ , ‘ pass’ , and ‘ climb’ do not implement any selectional limitations on the object/location alternation. They describe a motive relation between two implicit regions first defined in relation to each other. The semantic role considered as prototypical for the direct object is the Patient. And transitive structure followed this structure: NP1 Vtrans NP2. It means that all transitive structures in Persian language should apply one noun phrase as their direct objects and prototypically it is the patient of the verb. 24 participants of the study were in the fifth level of the International College of Tehran University of Medical Sciences and were assigned to two equal sized groups. The first group was considered the experimental group. After classification of motion verbs, the transitivity characteristics should also be considered as a factor for prediction. The results revealed that the experimental group had a better understanding of the transitivity of motion verbs in Persian Language. Based on the results of the present study which involved two groups of L2learners who underwent 16trainingsessions, it was found that the experimental group had a better understanding of motion verbs and its members better understood the meaning of new verbs.

Research literature has so far focused on representing cohesive devices in various language instruction texts based on Halliday and Hassan's (1976) Systemic Functional Grammar. However, these studies restricted themselves to identifying only one or two cohesive devices in these texts. Hence, studies need to adopt a practical comprehensive framework which would cover all cohesive devices especially in Persian language instruction texts. Through an in-depth contrastive analysis, this study aimed to address the relationship between the frequency of cohesive devices in written and spoken texts of “ Let’ s learn Persian” textbook and the difficulty level of its texts. The textbook series authored by Zolfaghari, Ghaffari, and Mahmoodi Bakhtiari (2008) includes three main levels: elementary, intermediate, and advanced. They were selected since they had both written and spoken texts. Nine written and spoken texts in each level (in total 27 written and 27 spoken texts) were selected through systematic random sampling. Having categorized and codified the selected texts, researchers analyzed the data quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data indicated that both written and spoken texts of “ Let’ s Learn Persian” textbook had various cohesive devices. As higher level texts were presupposed as more difficult ones, frequency of lexical cohesion, reference, ellipsis and conjunction increased in the higher level written texts. It can be argued that there existed a significant relationship between the frequency of the mentioned cohesive devices and difficulty level of written texts. There was no significant relationship between substitution frequency and difficulty level of the texts. The frequency analysis of cohesive devices in spoken texts of all levels showed that there existed significant relations between conjunction, lexical cohesion, and text difficulty. The overall data analysis indicated that patterns of use of cohesive devices were highly similar in spoken and written texts. Indeed, both text types followed similar patterns of cohesive devices application, namely lexical cohesion, reference, conjunction, ellipsis and substitution. The only difference was related to the place of reference in the identified pattern. This difference can be due to endophric and exophoric reference manifestation in both text types. Regarding spoken texts, it can be argued that as the difficulty level increased, the frequency of endophoric reference also increased. However, the exophoric reference has not been observed as frequently in spoken texts. This can be explained in terms of the textbook developers’ assumption that non-Persian language learners may not enjoy enough background knowledge about the texts. Furthermore, the identified patterns can be indicative of the fact that lexical cohesions are the first and most significant cohesive devices in spoken and written texts. Of all types of lexical cohesions, repetition can be regarded as an effective cohesive device for non-Persian language learners which could aid them to transfer meaning more effectively. It can influence the tone of speech when the speaker wants to put more emphasis on meaning. Substitution and ellipsis were the least frequently observed cohesive devices in written and spoken texts as well. This showed that the texts were developed based on circumlocution. Indeed, the textbook developers selected the written and spoken texts which were appropriate for each instructional level. The low frequency of substitution and ellipsis showed that the textbook developers presupposed that the non-Persian learners and native Persian speakers had little or no shared background knowledge about the text contents. The normal distribution of cohesive devices in written and spoken texts of “ Let’ s learn Persian” textbook showed that the textbook developers could apply a systematic cohesive devices pattern. In other words, this sequential pattern of cohesive devices can be taken into account by textbook developers in designing or evaluating standard TPSOL textbooks. It is suggested that further studies explore how cohesive devices are used in other textbooks developed for Persian language learners. Comparison of the findings of these studies could help us to identify a more comprehensive pattern of cohesive devices which could aid in the development of standard Persian language teaching textbooks.

ue to the necessity of specialized materials and textbooks for Teaching Persian for Specific Purposes, developing appropriate educational contents for teaching Persian is an essential matter. The matter has been considered here for teaching Persian to Chinese speakers on the basis of a standard framework and considering the needs of Chinese learners of Persian. Accordingly, at the first phase of the present research Standard Framework for Teaching Persian Language (which specifies grammar, vocabulary and functions for each level) and the International Curriculum for Teaching Chinese Language (which specifies objectives, skills, linguistic knowledge, strategies and cultural competence for each level) were used to develop a comprehensive textbook for Chinese learners of Persian at the elementary level. Standard Framework for Teaching Persian Language consists of 61 grammatical, 104 lexical and 55 functional points at the elementary level, while the International Curriculum for Teaching Chinese Language consists of 36 grammatical, 64 lexical and 53 functional points at this level. The above two sources were examined and their common points in the three areas were selected for the intended textbook which came to a number of: 47 grammatical, 68 lexical and 48 functional points. The textbook adopted an integrated approach which drew on "grammar-translation" and "communicative" approaches and mainly focused on selecting the appropriate grammar, vocabulary and function for elementary level Chinese learners of Persian. The textbook was intended for 120 to 144 hours of instruction. The chosen approach was also in line with cultural and education background in the Chinese context which favors collectivism, socialization for achievement, high acceptance of power and authority and overview of Chinese traditional education system. These sources of Chinese culture are often claimed to have an important effect on attitudes and behaviors of Chinese learners. Grammar-translation focuses on form with an emphasis on grammar and vocabulary. Communicative approach focuses on function, with use of the language in realistic situations. Either of the above mentioned methods used in isolation is unlikely to function effectively in teaching Persian to Chinese speakers. The study illustrated that an integrated approach can emphasize different aspects of the language that is to be acquired by the Chinese learners and be operative for this community of learners (Zhou & Niu, 2015). The textbook consisted of 12 lessons which included warm up section, main text, vocabulary, grammar, grammar tasks, communicative tasks, speaking tasks, writing tasks, listening tasks and reading comprehension tasks. The lessons focused on both written and spoken forms of standard Persian and were accompanied with Chinese definition for the vocabulary and grammar explanations. The main aim of the current research was to evaluate the prepared materials and to answer the following research questions: 1-To what extent was the structure of the prepared textbook effective from the perspective of teachers who have taught Persian to the Chinese? 2-To what extent was the integrated approach effective from the perspective of teachers who taught Persian to Chinese speakers? In this regard, a 45-item questionnaire was prepared which was given along with the textbook to 36 Persian language instructors who taught at Persian language teaching centers of Shahid Beheshti University, Imam Khomeini International University, Dehkhoda Institute, Allameh University, the School of Foreign Ministry and International Relations as well as Beijing, Shanghai and Xinjiang Universities of Foreign Languages. The results of statistical analyses produced a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0. 978 which exceeded 0. 7 level and showed the effectiveness of the approach and the structure of the prepared textbook. The questionnaire aimed to examine the teaching materials in terms of their approach (3 questions), main subject (5 questions), vocabulary and structure (5 questions), quality of tasks (5 questions), pictures (4 questions), texts (4 questions) and four main skills of listening (6 questions), reading (6 questions), reading (4 questions) and writing (3 questions). At first, the data from the questionnaires were entered into the Excel software and then, SPSS software was used to analyze the normal distribution of the data through the Kolmogorov test. After that, the cumulative frequency of each item was obtained and based on it a histogram was plotted for each curve and was compared with the normal graph. Finally, a sample run test was performed on the data. The results of the statistical analysis illustrated the effectiveness of the approach and the structure of the textbook for Chinese learners of Persian. In addition, the results showed the appropriateness of the level of vocabulary and structure, the quality of tasks, the content and number of pictures, and the flexibility of teaching texts used intuitively in different ways. The research results indicated that the textbook was effective in transferring the Iranian culture, familiarizing the learners with the norms of Iran, and obtaining the necessary communication forms.

The present paper dealt with the analysis of imperative mood based on cognitive linguistics approach. The aim of this paper was to describe and determine the criterion of understanding imperative mood in different language levels and what is beyond it. The research hypotheses were based on the distinctions between the form and meaning components in imperative mood and its distribution in the language corpus of contemporary Persian fiction. In this study, the different categories of imperative mood in Persian language were analyzed through descriptive and qualitative methods. The corpus contained text samples from eight different novel stories written by four men and four women writers. In order to limit the influence of confounding variables in language use, the corpus was selected from the same language style and context to some extent. Cognitive Linguistics subsumes that language is an integral facet of cognition which reflects the interaction of social, cultural, psycho-logical, communicative and functional considerations, and which can only be understood in the context of a realistic view of acquisition, cognitive development and mental processing. It seeks insofar as possible to explicate language structure in terms of the other facets of cognition on which it draws, as well as the communicative function it serves. Considering preliminary nature of language corpus, it seems that imperative mood could be easily observed in situational context such as different kinds of stories, but it was not as simple as it might be imagined. Because of existing distinction between form and meaning, different influential factors need to be considered from all aspects of language levels so that the results to be clear and acceptable.The studies done represent that verbal mood is divided into two general sets: indicative mood and non-indicative mood like imperative and subjunctive mood. Generally speaking, imperative mood is commonly used to express a command, order, request, suggestion, etc. In some languages like Persian, the form and meaning of imperative mood can be observed in imperative verbs, modal verbs, also some nouns, adjectives and adverbs may express imperative mood. An imperative sentence is defined as a sentence which has no surface subject (apart from some specific contexts that subject appears to convey novel meaning which might be studied), and either a main verb or emphatic do in the base form. In most languages, it usually appears without any modal verbs. Crystal (2004: 227) remarks that an imperative usage refers to verb forms or sentence, clause types typically used in the expression of command, e. g. Go away. Formally, imperative clauses, as Bibber et al. (1999, p. 219) comment, are characterized by the lack of a subject, the use of the base form of the verb, and the absence of modals as well as tense and aspect markers as in: Get off the table. Don't forget about the deposit. According to the existing researches done, imperative mood is formally distinguishable from other sentence types of the language in which they appear: i. e., they have distinctive morphology, syntax and main verb. In general, the grammatical status of imperative sentences is puzzling, syntactically and semantically. Imperative verbs have little or no inflectional morphology in data observed; that is why, it is very challengeable issue although data analysis from cognitive view show that the base of the verb in the form of imperative structure has a high frequency The analysis of language samples in this study indicated that recognizing imperative mood does not just rely on considering the command of doing an action and the request of something based on modal verbs and verbal mood. Data analysis showed that even some nouns, adjectives and adverbs might do this function; therefore, the other aspects of language in higher language levels should be paid attention so as to be understand the distinction of imperative mood from indicative and subjunctive better. According to cognitive linguistics approach which is the theoretical framework of this study, language is a part of cognitive system and the syntactic structure of a language can't be separately studied, but all influential factors could be considered from different language aspects. The results showed that the base of the verb had a high frequency in the corpus, but the form and meaning may show the other kinds of mood, thus recognizing imperative mood depends on different language constituents in context. As a result, all language layers, forms and meanings should be taken into account and analyzed cognitively in describing and explaining of imperative mood.

Introduction: Identity development of the second/foreign language teachers is a central issue in different respects such as their teaching profession. Consequently, identity development of second/foreign language teachers can lead to their professional development because a possible relationship can be established between the activities an individual does and the identity which that individual acquires. Very simply, identity may be defined as the way an individual sees the world around him/herself and creates his/her relationships based on what he/she perceives from his/her observations. Researchers have proposed many approaches to studying identity, three of which feature dominantly in research studies. The biological approach to identity suggests that identity is similar to other human characteristics like body size or skin color which are genetically transmitted. The socio-structural approach to identity is similar to biological approach, the proponents of which believe that identity is something predetermined, but it is different from the biological because it emphasizes the social factors. The poststructuralists believe in the mobility and dynamicity of identity in that the dialogic role of language is emphasized. Finally, the sociocultural approach to identity states that construction and reconstruction of identity can be fulfilled when one participates in social, political, and perceptional interactions. Although researchers have used these approaches to unpack complexities of identity in different settings, their choice primarily depends on the purpose(s) the researcher follow when conducting their studies. Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the role of negotiation in instructional, disciplinary, professional, global, local, and sociocultural issues on TPSOL (Teaching Persian to Speakers of Other Languages) teachers’ identity development. More specifically, the study used interactional narratology as an analytical framework to assess how the teachers acquired a teacher-researcher identity through carefully implemented interview sessions in which they narrated their experiences of negotiated issues. Methodology: This paper followed a qualitative approach in which a narrative inquiry was adopted to collect and analyze the data. To that end, two TPSOL teachers participated in the negotiation sessions on instructional, disciplinary, professional, global, local, and sociocultural issues; then, they wrote their narratives with respect to the negotiated issues in different time intervals. It is worth noting that, in the analysis of the narratives, the researchers used ethnographic semantics. There are two types of narrative analysis: Biographical and interactionally oriented approaches (De Fina, 2015). The two approaches are different in the way that they look at life stories and interactions as the sources of data. One can state that the biographical narrative analysis is “ based on the premises that the process of identity building has as its objective the production of a coherent self, and that the ability to create that coherence afforded by narrative has itself a positive effect on self‐ identity” (Freeman 2015, as cited De Fina, 2015; p. 352). Nevertheless, Gregg (2011) stated that the interactionally oriented approach to narrative analysis regards self-development as a process with different interactions between the narrator and narrative analyst. The important point regarding interactionally oriented approach to narrative analysis is the significance of the social principles utilized to address the narratives based on their main issues. Additionally, interactions between the narrator and the narrative analyist make it possible to clear up any possible misunderstandings arising during the interview sessions. Findings: The findings of this study indicated that negotiation about instructional, disciplinary, professional, global, local, and sociocultural issues had a constructive role in developing TPSOL teachers’ identity. The findings of the current study pointed to the dynamicity of TPSOL teachers’ identity based on which Persian language teacher educators can prepare some programs to develop TPSOL teachers’ identity. Moreover, the findings revealed that the quality of negotiation, concentrating on the role of teacherresearcher, developing critical thinking, and paying attention to teachers’ motivation are among the factors which can develop TPSOL teachers’ identity through negotiation. Further analysis of data showed that the knowledge which the TPSOL teachers obtained in the negotiation sessions about instructional, disciplinary, professional, global, local, and sociocultural issues had a significant impact on their identity development. Conclusion: It can be concluded from the findings of the study that identity has a dynamic nature, which can be constructed and reconstructed, in different contexts and for different individuals including TPSOL teachers. This dynamicity of identity helps teachers to acquire a new teacher-researcher identity to critically reflect on the activities they use in their language classes to help language learners learn a languae. Given the conclusions of the study, the policy and decision makers within the realm of TPSOL should provide negotiation programs for the TPSOL teachers to help them develop their identity.

Over the past few decades, with the advancement of technology, the use of corpora in linguistic studies has dramatically increased. Linguistic corpuses provide linguistic experts with the possibility to apply different methods for linguistic analysis by providing large collections. Most of the studies that have been done so far have been in English, French, and Japanese, and limited research has been conducted in Farsi language, and this lack, especially in specialized fields such as medical sciences, mathematics, science, tourism and so on is so tangible. So far most of the term or vocabulary extractions in Farsi have been done by using non-automatic methods and through reading and collecting data by the researchers; however, due to the technical properties of Farsi language, using non-Farsi term extractors which have been quite successful in other languages such as English, French and Japanese, have been impossible to use in Farsi so far. This is because of the particularities and specific features of languages. Each of these extractors is defined based on the features and properties of language they have been used for. In order to improve teaching materials in Farsi, paying attention to this problem was of paramount importance and we decided to apply some of these extraction methods and devise an extraction method for Farsi language which works properly. Since Iran’ s universities admit a lot of non-native Farsi international students annually whose goal is to study at fields such as medicine, engineering and humanities, preparing standard modern teaching materials in Farsi, which are based on the most modern technologies, is significantly important. The purpose of this study was to improve the resources used in teaching Farsi language at university levels, especially for non-native Farsi speakers and to explore the feasibility of using frequency-based methods in the automatic extraction of core medical terms and comparing the capabilities of each method. Findings of the research reveal the strengths and weaknesses of these methods in Farsi language and explore the possibility of using each of these methods in Farsi and provide technical solutions for the improvement of the results. Research Methodology: The frequency counting approaches utilized in this study included the general and a specialized corpus which was created by the researcher. The general corpus used in this study was the Hamshahri Corpus and the specialized researcher made corpus included: texts from the science books of grades 1-4 of senior high schools and grades 1-3 of junior high schools in Iran, science courses in Imam Khomeini Farsi language center, general medicine texts from journals and internet. After the formation of the corpus, preparation and tokenization, the research introduced two methods of frequency i. e. classical and modern categories. Then, in the next step, the capabilities of each method were compared. The methods used in the classical frequency approach were the frequency of the main general corpus, the frequency of the specialized corpus and their improved approaches. Also, modern methods used in the research were: PMI and Chi-square. Pearson correlation analysis and trend analysis were also used to compare the methods used in the research. Research findings The results showed that classical methods in their general form, have little accuracy in identifying specialized vocabulary, however, by applying some techniques, it was possible to improve the process of selecting specialized vocabulary, among which the best performance related to the improved numerical method in the specialized corpus which resulted in extracting 60% of the specialized vocabulary in the first 50 highfrequency words. This result improved by increasing the scope of the study to 100, 150 and 200 first extracted words and it was observed that the percentage of specialized vocabulary identified increased by about 75%. Moreover, the results obtained for modern methods indicated that these methods can be used in Farsi. It can be seen that chi-square method with 32% and PMI method with 52% extraction of specialized vocabulary in the first 50 high frequency words showed a good function in automatic term extraction in Farsi. They automatically detected specialized vocabulary and by increasing the scope of the study to 200 first words, these percentages improved. Conclusion: The results of the research showed that frequency-based methods are applicable in Farsi. If we use classic frequency methods, we will need to utilize improved classic frequency methods in order to increase the accuracy of extracted words. Also, in order to achieve reliable results in modern frequency approaches, it is necessary to choose large enough vocabulary scope for the extracted vocabulary.

The family, as the most important social institution, plays an important role in institutionalizing language learning in children. Bilingualism has raised issues for education systems that need to be accounted for through careful and comprehensive scrutiny. The economic, social and cultural capital of the family is an important factor in the growth and development of the human capital of children. Investigations on first and second language acquisition, the methods of learning and teaching languages, and the role language plays in the structure of the society have always been a major educational research topic in bilingual countries. The importance of this leading issue has recently been captured by the Ministry of Education and many senior policy makers of Iran because of the country’ s geographical position. Iran as a vast and ethnically diverse country enjoys the presence of several folks speaking and communicating in their native languages. Therefore, in such communities there are a great number of bilingual children whose effective training hinges largely on educating them to learn not only the official language of the country but also their own native languages. Since the official language in Iran is Farsi, almost all of the families emphatically accentuate the importance of learning this official language before their children’ s entrance to the primary levels of education. The family environment has a great impact on the development of children's language skills. This trend, undoubtedly, pictures the educational environment of the schools in Iran. One of the factors that has a lot to do with language learning is the classroom. In the classroom, information is provided in language by the teacher, and the student must demonstrate that he or she has learned the information using the language. Almost all of the teaching courses in Iran, in all levels, are being taught in Farsi and the children in order not to face the educational upsurges must have a clear understanding of the language being used in the classes. According to some studies, this skill makes children quite capable to overcome the educational problems they might possibly encounter during their studies and to be able to adapt to classroom conditions. What is rather fascinating, in this ground, is the interesting relationship between the social, cultural and economic capital of the families and their children’ s educational success. Based on the latest studies, children who are competent language users and they have more capital, are obviously more successful in their studies, have the privilege of being raised in a family rich in social, economic, and cultural capital. In this regard, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between social, economic, and cultural capital of the families and Farsi language learning by Azeri children. Therefore, the principles of various linguistic structures and capitals are presented as comprehensively and inclusively as possible. These principles were the theoretical foundations of research. Regarding the purpose, the present study was an applied one. Regarding the method, descriptive statistics were used. The sample of the present research included parents of Azeri preschool children in various areas of Tabriz city, and the sample size was determined according to Morgan’ s table to include 155 people. Random sampling was used, and data collection method was questionnaire based. The results of the study demonstrated that there is a positive significant relationship between economic, social, and cultural capital of the family and Farsi language learning by Azeri preschool children. Therefore, the child-parent interaction, the degree of interest and intimacy between the child and parents, and the quality of the relationship between them are considered as social capital and the greater the family's cultural capital, the greater the children's language skills and language learning. Moreover, there is a close relationship between cultural capital of the family and Farsi language learning by Azeri preschool children. Therefore, to the extent that second language learning in preschool is reinforced by social, economic and cultural capital, children will perform better during school and have a successful educational experience. In other words, the best way to improve the performance of bilingual children is to raise the above-mentioned capitals. One of the limitations of this study related to limitations of the research tool which was a questionnaire. Also, since the statistical population of this study included parents of Azerbaijani preschool children in Tabriz, the findings are not generalizable to other parents. Therefore, doing research on other communities as well as comparing the results can provide greater generalizability.