Grammatical Analysis of chinese Persian learner's Writings (A2): a Study Based on Category and Scale Grammar

Linguistic theory and corpus linguistic are necessary for each other; That is, linguistic theories are tested by studying corpus linguistic and their validity is measured based on real data; On the other hand, the corpus linguistic provides the basis for modifying or changing existing linguistic theories or proposing new theories. The aim of study is to take a small step towards creating a productive Persian learners corpus and to become more familiar with the grammatical features of Persian learner’s writing. The main question is how are the grammatical structure of Chinese learners of Persian’s writing, level (A2) and the sub-question is the efficiency of the Category and Scale grammar(CSG) in describing the grammatical structure of the interlanguage of Chinese learners of Persian. The research is of descriptive-analytical type and is done based on the category and scale grammar using a corpus taken from the final writing test of Persian language general course in Persian language Training Center of IKIU, in which 90 Chinese learners of Persian(CLP) participated. Findings indicate the core, ranked and major sentence frequency. The verbal group has characteristics such as finite personal and active voice on average and there is almost no trace of finite impersonal and passive voice. The nominal group has no or one dependent. The adverbial group is approximately the same proportion of marked and unmarked. Research has also proven the effectiveness of CSG in accurately describing writing of CLP's writing.
Extended Abstract:
Linguistic theory and corpus are necessary for each other; That is, linguistic theories are tested by studying corpus linguistic and their validity is measured based on authentic data; On the other hand, the corpus linguistic provides the basis for modifying or changing existing linguistic theories or proposing new theories.
This study aims is to take a small step towards creating a productive Persian learners corpora and to become more familiar with the grammatical features of Persian learner’s writing. The main question is how are the grammatical structure of Chinese learners of Persian’s writing, level (A2) and the sub-question is the efficiency of the Category and Scale grammar (CSG) in describing the grammatical structure of the interlanguage of Chinese Persian learners (CPL).
The research is based on the book describing the grammatical structure of Persian language based on the theory of Category and Scale grammar (CSG). In the CSG, four categories have been discussed. These four categories are "unit", "structure", "class" and "system". "Unit" and “structure" belong to the chain axis, which represents the sequence of the constituent or elements of language over time, and "class" and "system" belong to the paradigmatic axis, which represents a variety of possibilities at each point in the speech chain for the speaker to choose from.
The corpus of the research is taken from the final writing test of the General Persian language Course (GPLC) of Persian Language Teaching Center (PLC) at Imam Khomeini International University (IKIU), which was held in the winter of 2016. 90 Chinese Persian learners participated in the mentioned test; hence, a total of 90 test sheets were used as raw data. The test consists of two parts: In the first part, four pictures, marked with numbers one to four, showing a short story and the students were asked to write story of the pictures with at least 10 lines including 10 words. In the second part, they were asked to choose one of the two given topics and write a text of at least 10 to 12 lines of 10 words. In one of the suggested topics, they were asked to write a text about one of their travels so far: What did they do before the trip? What items did they take with them? What places did they visit? In the second one, they were asked to write a letter to their Iranian teacher and explain their country in terms of climate, population, culture, civilization, etc.; therefore, each writing test sheet contained two written texts: one text related to the narration of the given images and the other text about a personal trip or a letter to an Iranian teacher. Given the minimum of 100 words for each text, it can be concluded that the corpora contained 90 texts about the visual story and 90 texts about one of the two proposed topics and a total of 180 texts. If we consider at least 100 words in each text, the corpus contains approximately 18,000 words.
The CPLs were students who participated in the GPLC of PLTC at IKIU for 16 weeks and 20 hours per week for the four skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing skills. So, they participated in a total of 320 training hours in face-to-face classes. Considering the quality and quantity of the educational program and the individual characteristics of CPL, the GPLC can be considered equivalent to the intermediate or pre-intermediate level (A2) in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL).
To prepare the corpora, the writing sheets of CPLs were first typed in the Word software. Attempts were made to type as much as possible what the CPLs had written in their composition. Then, the grammatical tagging of the typed content was done within the framework of CSG. At this stage, 26 grammatical tags such as number and types of sentences (core and cluster sentences), number and types of clauses (core, dependent, ranked, rank shifted, major, minor, finite and non-finite clauses), number and types of groups (verbal, nominal and adverbial groups), The number and types of information related to the current group (finite, voice and polarity), the number and types of information related to the nominal group (complement, subject and nominal dependents) and the number and types of information related to the adverbial group (unmarked and marked) were identified and counted and the data of each sheet were recorded in a table that was prepared for this purpose.
Attempts have been made during the research to analyze the components of the CPL’s compositions without applying language corrections. Since the dot is intended as the boundary of the end of one sentence and the beginning of another sentence. The authors punctuated the compositions and amended or supplemented as required; then, the sentences has been identified and separated. The rank shifted clause components were identified and calculated as the constituent elements of the clause (verbal group, nominal group and adverbial group). In order to count the verbal groups, in addition to the verbal groups in the clause with predication (major clause), the clause without predication (minor clause), finite and non-finite rank shifted clauses were also calculated as the clauses with the verbal groups. In the analysis of nominal groups, only one nominal group is considered; in other words, the nominal groups within the adverbial groups were not analyzed separately.
Findings indicated the core, ranked and major sentence frequency. The verbal group had characteristics such as finite personal and active voice on average and there was almost no trace of finite impersonal and passive voice. The nominal group had no or one dependent. The adverbial group had approximately the same proportion of marked and unmarked. The study proves the effectiveness of CSG in accurately describing writing of CLP's writing.