An error analysis of Persian prepositions made by Arab learners

Due to the vital role of prepositions in Persian sentence structure, they are considered among the most frequent words in this language. Hence, teaching these words to non-native speakers of Persian is one of the important aspects of teaching Persian as a second language. This study attempts to investigate preposition errors made by Arab students learning Persian based on the theory of error analysis. To conduct the study, 50 Arab speakers learning Persian as a second language in the Center of Teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad participated in the study. The gathered data from their composition writing are divided into three categories of errors in terms of their origin to “interlingual”, “intra-lingual” and “ambiguous”, and into three categories in terms of their type including “substitution”, “deletion” and “addition”. The findings of the study revealed that the highest percentages of errors in terms of the origin are attributed “intralingual” errors (79.50%) in terms of the origin and “addition” prepositions (65.36%) in terms of their type. In this study, statistical description of errors generated by Persian learners are also provided based on which policy makers can improve textbooks and teaching methods in this field.
Extended Abstract:
1. Introduction
The present study intends to investigate preposition errors made by Arab students learning Persian based on the theory of error analysis. To conduct the study, 50 Arab speakers learning Persian as a second language in the Center of Teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad participated in the study. The gathered data from their composition writing were divided into three categories of errors in terms of their origin to “inter-lingual”, “intralingual” and “ambiguous”, and into three categories in terms of their type including “substitution”, “deletion” and “addition”.
Thus, according to what has been said, the questions of this research are:
1- In which of the following types (omission, addition, replacement) are the most errors produced by non-Persian language learners?
2- For the errors made in using Persian prepositions by non-Persian learners, what is the main source of the occurrence?

Review of literature

Numerous researches have been done in the field of analysis of errors made by nonnative Persian language learners, however, no study has been carried out to examine and analyze the errors of Persian learners in the use of Persian prepositions.
Some of the researches done in this field are: Norbakhs Beydokhti (2015), Monshizadeh and Khanbabazadeh (2014), Motavaliyan Naieni and Malakiyan (2014), Pahlavanezhad and Khaleghizadeh (2014), Motavaliyan Naeini and Ostovar Abarghoee (2013), Hashemzadeh (2009).

Theoretical Foundation

Error analysis is one of the approaches used to achieve the features of the learners’ interlanguage. Second language researchers believe that the errors which a person makes in the process of learning a new language system need to be carefully analyzed since they are a significant key to understand the nature of learning a second language. Error analysis which deals with the identification and classification of language learners’ errors based on the origin of the errors, the process in which they are made and the language area to which they belong form the theoretical frame of our analysis in the present study.

Results of data analysis

The gathered data from the composition writings prepared by Arab students learning Persian in the Center for Teaching Persian to non-Persian Speakers at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad were divided into three categories of errors in terms of their origin to “inter-lingual”, “intra-lingual” and “ambiguous”, and into three categories in terms of their process including “substitution”, “deletion” and “addition”. Regarding the first question of this research, most errors produced by non-Persian learners, are categorized in the form of “addition” (65.36%) in terms of their process in which a non-required preposition is inserted to the sentence produced by the learners. Also, in relation to the second question of the research, the main source of the errors has been the target language itself namely intralingual errors (79.50%) in terms of the origin which have nothing to do with the knowledge and the system of the mother tongue of the leaners, in this case Arabic.