نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
نویسندگان
1 دانشجوی دکترای آموزش زبان فارسی به غیرفارسی زبانان دانشگاه علامه طباطبائی
2 نویسنده ی مسئول،استاد گروه زبانشناسی، دانشگاه علامه طباطبایی(ره)
چکیده
کلیدواژهها
عنوان مقاله [English]
نویسندگان [English]
The purpose of this research was to evaluate the oral productions of non-Iranian Persian language learners based on the Lexical Diversity (one of the components of Lexical Richness). Therefore, one of the formulaic measures of Lexical Diversity (LD) called Guiraud's Index was used to calculate the Lexical Richness of the oral texts of the subjects of the present study and find out its relationship with variables such as nationality, gender, age, first language and educational background. For this purpose, first, the audio files of 268 non-Iranian Persian language learners of four nationalities, Lebanese, Chinese, Syrian, and Iraqi, who participated in the final exams of the Persian Language Center of Imam Khomeini International University were transcribed. Then, based on the principles and rules of transcribing corpus and using the LancsBox software, the Types and Tokens of each subject's speech were extracted and counted. After that, the LD of each subject's speech was calculated based on Guiraud's index, and the research hypotheses were evaluated and verified. Results showed that there is a significant difference between the subjects of the research in terms of nationality and gender. Also, from the perspective of the subjects' first language, Arab subjects showed more LD than Chinese subjects. Another finding of the research was that there is a significant but negative relationship between age and vocabulary; also, it was found that with the increase of the level of education, LD does not necessarily increase. The results and findings of this research can be used in the direction of quantitative and objective evaluation of subjects' speech, as well as downplaying the consequences of intuitive judgments and preventing the bias of evaluators in the field of evaluating subjects' lexical knowledge.
Extended Abstract:
Introduction
Active Vocabulary means the words in the written or oral productions of the learner; In other words, an Active Word is a word that is present in the written and oral productions of language learners. The Active adjective for these words is in contrast to those words that learners have already learned and show their awareness of these words during a test (for example, reading comprehension or vocabulary tests), but in instant productions and under the influence of test limitations (such as writing and conversation tests) do not use those words. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the Active Vocabulary in oral productions of non-Iranian Persian language learners based on the Lexical Diversity (one of the components of Lexical Richness).
Lexical Diversity (LD) which is sometimes considered synonymous with Lexical Richness indicates the number of different words in a text. In fact, LD shows the use of a range of different words and the avoidance of lexical repetitions in the texts of language learners. Traditionally, the LD of a text is obtained by dividing the number of different words (Types) by the total number of words in the text (Tokens). In other words, this index is calculated by comparing the number of different words with all the words in a text, using the Type-Token Ratio (known as TTR). The more diverse words our text has and the less repetition it has, the greater its LD will be. The main problem mentioned for TTR is its dependence on the length of the text, because as the length of the text increases, the amount of TTR decreases (i.e. the longer the text, the lower the amount of TTR). For this reason, most of the researches in this field in the past years have been focused on finding a solution to solve the problem of TTR dependence on text length. Some substitutes for TTR make a simple mathematical change in TTR, one of which is Guiraud's Index which is also known as Root TTR (RTTR). In this research, one of the formulaic measures of LD called Guiraud's Index was used to calculate the LD of the oral texts of the subjects of the present study and find out its relationship with variables such as nationality, gender, age, first language and educational background.
Methodology
To answer the research questions, first, the audio files of 268 non-Iranian Persian language learners of four nationalities, Lebanese, Chinese, Syrian, and Iraqi, who participated in the final exams of the Persian Language Center of Imam Khomeini International University, were transcribed. Then, based on the principles and rules of transcribing corpus and using the LancsBox software, the Types and Tokens of each subject's speech were extracted and counted. After that, the LD of each subject's speech was calculated based on Guiraud's Index, and the research hypotheses were evaluated and verified.
Results
Results showed that there is a significant difference between the subjects of the research in terms of nationality and gender. The findings showed that there is a significant difference between the four nationalities of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and China in terms of LD of oral productions. Also, the results of Tukey's follow-up test indicated that this significant difference between nationalities is due to the difference in the performance of Lebanese and Syrian subjects compared to Chinese and Iraqi subjects; In fact, there was no significant difference between Lebanese and Syrian subjects. In other words, the Lebanese and Syrian subjects had the same situation in terms of LD, and the Chinese and Iraqi subjects are also at the same level. Learners' first language was investigated in the second hypothesis. Findings showed that Arab subjects’ oral texts indicated more LD than Chinese subjects, i.e. Arab learners’ oral texts had a higher LD than Chinese learners’ oral texts, so it can be claimed that the first language of the subjects of the current study has an effect on the LD. The variable of gender and its effect on the LD of oral productions was investigated and the results of the study revealed that gender can have a significant effect on the LD of the oral texts (women better than men). Another finding of the research was that there is a significant but negative relationship between age and LD. Findings showed that not only there was no positive relationship between age and LD, but also the relationship between these two variables was negative and significant. Also, it was found that with the increase of the level of education, LD does not necessarily increase. It was concluded that there is not only no significant relationship between these two variables (LD & educational background), but also this relationship tends to be negative.
Conclusion
In this study, the LD of the oral productions of non-Iranian Persian Language learners was measured. According to the findings, Arab learners had a higher LD than Chinese learners and it can be claimed that the first language has an effect on the LD of their oral texts. These results can be considered in line with the results of Dewaele and Pavlenko (2003) (in the context of bilingualism), which showed that learners' first language can affect the LD of their oral texts and create a difference. But it does not support the results of Yu (2009), who compared Filipinos and Chinese. The results obtained in terms of the effect of gender on LD are consistent with the results of Singh's research (Singh, 2001) and Dewaele & Pavlenko's research (2003), which showed the effect of gender (although a weak effect) on LD. Also, it confirms the research of Hӓrnquist, et al. (2003), but it does not support Yu's research (Yu, 2009) that did not find significant relationships between these two variables. The fourth hypothesis was related to the age and it was found that when speaking Persian language as a second language, increasing age can be an inhibiting and reducing factor in terms of LD. This finding can be somehow, although in the opposite direction, in line with the results of Johansson (2008), who says that LD, compared to Lexical Density, can be a good measure to detect the difference between age groups. Regarding the relationship between the LD of oral texts and the level of education of the subjects, it was revealed that with the increase in the level of education of learners, LD does not increase and surprisingly in some cases it decreases, although this result is not in line with the results of researches such as Hӓrnquist, et al. (2003), who admit that educational background can predict LD. The results and findings of this research can be used in the direction of quantitative and objective evaluation of subjects' speech, as well as downplaying the consequences of intuitive judgments and preventing the bias of evaluators in the field of evaluating learners' lexical knowledge.
Acknowledgment
The authors of this article would like to appreciate and thank all those who somehow contributed to this research with their time and best efforts.
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
کلیدواژهها [English]