Asian Journal of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities
Vol. 4, No. 5, May 2014, pp. 605-613
Asian Journal
of Research in
Social Sciences
and
Humanities
ISSN 2249-7315
www.aijsh.org
Asian Research Consortium
The Implications of Investigating Inverted Sentences
For Iranian EFL Learners
Sara Darayesha, Habib Gowharyb, Akbar Azizi Farc
a
b
c
MA student of TEFL, Department of Language Teaching, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ilam, Iran
Assistant professor of linguistics, Department of Language Teaching, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University,
Ilam, Iran
Assistant professor of TEFL, Department of Language Teaching, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ilam,
Iran
Abstract
The information structure of a sentence is the formal expression of the pragmatic structuring of
proposition in a discourse. English language provides a variety of non-canonical construction for
expressing a given propositions. There are three classes of non-canonical constituent in English: preposing, post-posing and argument reversal. Each of three classes has sub-classes. The present study
investigated the one kind of non-canonical constructions, namely Inversion. This research has been
undertaken to see whether Iranian EFL learners know inverted constructions or not; more specifically, the
study has been carried out to see if formal training has an impact on EFL learners to use inverted
constructions felicitously. To this end, 60 students from Ahwaz Chamran University were randomly
assigned to two groups: one experimental and one control group. A questionnaire as pre-test was given to
both groups to find out whether the students of both groups were familiar with inverted constructions or
not. Then, a treatment was run in which the researcher explained the marked and unmarked structures and
different kind of marked structures. The experimental group received the treatment but the control group
did not. In order to measure the students' progress as a result of instruction, a post-test was conducted to
both groups. The results indicated that Iranian EFL students have difficulties in using inverted
constructions and there is a statistically meaningful relationship between the subjects' performance in the
pre-test and pos-test and felicitous use of these constructions. Besides, the finding implied that formal
training has an impact on EFL learners to use inverted constructions more felicitously.
Keywords: Information Structure; Pre-Posing; Post-Posing; Non-Canonical Construction, Inversion.
Darayesh et al. (2014). Asian Journal of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities,
Vol. 4, No. 5, pp.605-613.
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