The Study of Grounding of Aspect and Voice of Verb in Persian-Speaking Children’s Narrative Discourse

Authors
A. A. Ahangar 1
S. Mojahedi Rezaeian 2
1 Associate Professor in linguistics , University of Sistan and Baluchestan
2 Ph.D. Student in General Linguistics, University of Sistan and Baluchestan
Abstract
This study aims to investigate and analyze the realization of grounding in the form of foregrounding and back grounding in Persian-children’s narratives according to linguistic devices of aspect (perfective/imperfective) and voice of verb (active/passive) and also the effect of age on using these devices.
To investigate how foregrounding and back grounding are accomplished in Persian-speaking children’s narratives by linguistic devices of aspect (perfective/imperfective) and voice of verb (active/passive) two Hickmann’s (2004) pictorial stories were used. Three groups of school monolingual Persian-speaking children of age 7, 9, 11 and a control group of adults, at age 30 (each group consisting of 10 female subjects) took part in this study. The subjects were tested individually. They were asked to narrate two pictorial stories for one of the researchers. All the narratives (80 narratives, from two pictorial stories) were recorded by a voice recorder. Then, they were transcribed, described and analyzed by SPSS software.
Results showed that the use of perfective and imperfective aspects had a meaningful relationship in the three groups of children, that is, the use of perfect aspect in foreground decreased while that of imperfect aspect increased with an increase in the age. On the contrary, in adult group, the use of perfect aspect in foreground increased but that of imperfect aspect decreased. The same relationship was observed in background. Moreover, the use of active voice of verb was more dominant than that of passive voice of verb in the narratives. No meaningful relationship was observed between the use of passive voice of verb in foreground and background on one hand, and the participants’ age, on the other hand. Based on the results of Chi-square test, there was a significant relationship between perfective and imperfective aspects in foreground and also in background and the age of the narrators (p < 0.05). However, there was no significant relationship between the use of passive voice of verb in foreground and background and the age of the narrators (p < 0.05). Thus, the first two null hypotheses of the study were rejected, and the third one was accepted.

Keywords

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Language Related Research
Volume 8, Issue 1
March and April 2017
Pages 155-177