The Contrastive Analysis of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners’ Persian and English Relative Clauses

Improvements in the teaching methods and materials are likely to remain a matter of trial and error until we have a thorough understanding of the processes of learning the second language which are per se affected more or less by positive or negative transfer of L1 knowledge to L2. Despite the importance of interference, the negative transfer, between Persian and English relative clauses, there is a dearth of research in literature in this area; therefore, the present paper aimed at investigating the comparison and contrast of relative clauses in L1 which is Farsi and L2 that is English. Having gone through a four step procedure of analysis (Corder, 1986), namely description, juxtaposition, comparison, and prediction, the analysis of 39 (14 males and 25 females) students’ writing assignments at an intermediate level of proficiency, as measured by Oxford Quick Placement Test, indicated that due to Persian language interference, 87 percent of these students had difficulty writing correct sentences containing subordinate relative clauses. They not only added the relative clause but also they inserted the pronoun which had to be omitted. The findings of this study would help teachers recognize the possible differences and similarities between English and Persian, and above all, they could find out the possible sources of errors. Finally, this paper offers some pedagogical implications which will assist English language teachers, learners, and materials developers to pay more attention to the sources of interlingual errors

کلیدواژه ها:

Relative Clause ، Interference ، Interlingual error