Grading and Sequencing the Texts of Persian Language Teaching to Non-Persian Speakers Based on Transitivity and Grammatical Metaphor

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

Grading and sequencing of texts, based on Krahnke’s view (1987) is one of the important issues in all syllabi. This research’ aim is to present a new pattern for grading and sequencing Persian clauses through transitivity and grammatical metaphor parameters. So, the research questions are: 1) To what extent, can the assessing the degree of transitivity of each clause and also, investigation the use of all kinds of grammatical metaphors and their congruent forms help the grading and sequencing of clauses in Persian texts? 2) Do the texts of this research’s corpus, with regard to grading and sequencing, agree and converge with these instruments?  The research’s hypotheses are: (a) Distinguishing the degree of transitivity of clauses can help us to determine the grading and sequencing of texts based on transitivity continuum of clauses: higher, high, relatively high, middle, relatively middle and low. Namely, clauses with higher degree of transitivity should be included in texts at the basic level of language learning and gradually, clauses with lower degree of transitivity should be included at the other levels. Also, grammatical metaphors can’t be used at the basic level. (b) The texts studied in this research with regard to grading and sequencing don’t converge with degree of transitivity and grammatical metaphor criterion. In this research, the clauses of the book "Persian Reading and Comprehension for Non-Iranian Language Learners (Elementary Level)" (1391) was analyzed and graded based on Hopper and Thompson’s 10 parameters (1980). Findings show that the degree of transitivity of clauses in this book are relatively low and of two kinds of grammatical metaphor, namely nominalization and modality are largely used in this book, While, at the elementary level of language learning, texts should be consisted of clauses with high degree of transitivity and also, according to the Haliday’s theory (1993), grammatical metaphor should be taught at the advanced level, not elementary level

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References

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Journal of Teaching Persian to Speakers of Other Languages
Volume 2, Issue 3 - Serial Number 5
October 2013
Pages 74-55

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  • Receive Date: 31 January 2015
  • Accept Date: 31 January 2015

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