The Effect of Gender in The Use of The Verbs in The Writings of Advanced Foreign Learners of Persian Language Based on Functional Grammar

This research has been done to investigate the impact of gender on different processes usage in writings of foreign learners of Persian language based on Halliday's systemic functional grammar approach. The method of this research is descriptive-analytic method. The sample and the corpus of this research was the writing of 248 advanced female and male foreign learners of Persian language of the center for teaching Persian language in Ferdowsi university of Mashhad. Sampling method is done in this order: first, the writing of 248 advanced female and male foreign learners of Persian language was separated based on gender (124 men and 124 women); Then, the process of the verbs in the texts was determined based on the segmentation of Halliday; after that, the distribution of all processes, was determined and shown by charts and compared. The results indicate that the material and relational processes are the most frequent processes and the existential and verbal processes are the least frequent processes in writing of advanced female and male foreign learners of Persian language. The results showed that the women have used the different processes in their writing more than the men. The men have used the material process, 3.26 percent more than the women. The women have used the mental process, 2.83 percent more than the men.
 Extended Abstract:    

Introduction
For many years, researchers have attempted to discover the complex interrelationship between language and gender. This research investigated verb usage in the writings of foreign female and male learners of the Persian language. This research has been done based on Halliday's systemic functional grammar approach, because, this theoretical framework provides a systemic method for text analysis. Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar (1985;1994), enables the analysis of the experiential function of people’s perception of the world through the way they use language. As Halliday puts it, ‘language enables human beings to build a mental picture of reality, to make sense of what goes on around them and inside them’ (Halliday, 1994, p. 106). In the functional approach, the process appears in the form of the verbs. According to Halliday's systemic functional grammar, verbs can be classified into six processes: material, verbal, relational, behavioral and existential.           
    In fact, this research has been done to investigate the impact of gender on different processes usage in the writings of foreign learners of the Persian language based on Halliday's systemic functional grammar approach. In Iran, Razavian and Feizi (2017), in research, investigated verb usage in Persian language learners’ written production based on Halliday's systematic functional grammar. Regarding the impact of gender on the writings and speaking of Persian language speakers, valuable studies have been conducted so far, for example, Tabrizi Manesh, M. (2006), Abolhasani, Z., & MirmalakSani, M. (2008), Ramezani, A. & Rostambeik Tafreshi, A. (2015) and Modarresi Tehrani, Y. & Hajizadeh, M. (2016); But any research has not investigated the impact of gender on the verb usage in the writings of foreign learners of Persian language.

Methodology
The method of this research is descriptive-analytic.  The population of this study included Advanced Foreign learners of the Persian language who studied at the Persian Language Center of Ferdowsi University. This field study used random sampling for participant selection. Data were collected through tests and writing assignments.  The sample and the corpus of this research was the writing of 248 advanced female and male foreign learners of the Persian language of the Center for Teaching Persian Language at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. The sampling method is done in this order: first, the writing of 248 advanced female and male foreign learners of the Persian language was separated based on gender (124 men and 124 women); Then, the process of the verbs in the texts was determined based on the segmentation of Halliday; after that, the distribution of all processes, was determined and shown by charts and compared. The chi-square statistical test was used to study the significance of differences between men and women.
Results
The results based on the segmentation of Halliday’s systemic functional grammar indicate that the material and relational processes are the most frequent processes and the existential and verbal processes are the least frequent processes in the writings of advanced female and male foreign learners of the Persian language.
The number of the processes in the learners' writing: material process, 1149 cases; relational process, 966 cases; mental process, 386 cases; behavioural process, 283 cases; verbal process, 102 cases; existential process, 230 cases.
There are gender differences in the use of the processes. The number of the processes in the female learners' writing is as follows: material process, 555 cases; relational process, 487 cases; mental process, 217 cases; behavioural process, 134 cases; verbal process, 63 cases; existential process, 118 cases. The number of the processes in the male learners' writing: material process, 594 cases; relational process, 479 cases; mental process, 169 cases; behavioural process, 149 cases; verbal process, 39 cases; existential process, 112 cases.
The results showed that the women have used the different processes in their writing more than the men. Men used the material process, 3.26 per cent more than women. The use of verbs like “travel”, “walk”, “run” and “immigrate” in the writing of male learners is more than in the writing of female learners.
Women have used the mental process, 2.83 per cent more than men. The use of verbs like “think”, “know”, “understand”, “like” and “feel” in the writing of female learners is more than the writing of male learners.

The difference between men and women in the use of relational processes is insignificant. Both in the writing of female learners and male learners, the relational process is the second most frequent process. From the above analysis, we get the distribution frequency of the processes as shown in Graph 1.
Graph 1.
 From Graph 1, we can see that material processes are used most in the writing of learners (for men with a percentage of 38.52% and women with a percentage of 35.26%).

Conclusion
this research has been done to investigate the impact of gender on different processes usage in the writings of foreign learners of the Persian language based on Halliday's systemic functional grammar approach. There are gender differences in the use of the processes. As Holmes (1998) said, women and men develop different patterns of language use. The results showed that the women have used the different processes in their writing more than the men. As James and Drakich (1993, pp. 302–3) said, women are expected to use and do use talk to a greater extent than men to serve the function of establishing and maintaining personal relationships. 

The Processes in the men’s writings (e.g. travel, walk, and immigrate) reveal that males were ‘adventurous’, ‘risk taker’, ‘active’ and ‘independent’ (Evans & Davies, 2000; Emilia, et. al., 2017).       
    Women used the mental process more than men. Based on the ‘sociolinguistic universal tendencies,’ that Holmes (1998) offers, women tend to focus on the affective functions of an interaction more often than men do. The affective functions of an interaction appear in the form of a mental process.  Also, James and Drakich (1993, pp. 302–3) said women are expected to talk about personal feelings and other socioemotional matters relevant to interpersonal relationships to a greater extent than men.
Conflict of Interest
No conflicts of interest are disclosed by the authors.
Acknowledgment
We would like to express our gratitude to Imam Khomeini International University for providing financial support for this study.