Volume 7-3 April 2011.

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Title
The Acquisition of Preposition Pied Piping and Preposition Stranding by Iranian Learners of English

Author
Mohammad Salehi (Ph.D.)
Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Bio data
Mohammad Salehi, a faculty member of the Languages & Linguistics center at Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. He holds a Ph.D. degree in TEFL from the University of Tehran. He has presented articles in international conferences. His research interests include language testing and second language acquisition research. He has also written books on language testing and vocabulary.

Abstract
The purpose of the current study was to look at markedness theory through the investigation of the acquisition of pied piping and preposition stranding by Iranian learners of English. Pied piping is considered to be unmarked whereas preposition stranding is deemed to be marked. Three groups of elementary, intermediate and advanced learners completed a task on constructions dealing with pied piping and preposition stranding in English.  In this respect, a series of chi-square analyses were performed. A chi-square analysis showed that the use of PP was significant among level 1 learners. (χ2= 15.88, p<.05 df= 2. A chi-square of 17.73 showed the greater frequency for intermediate learners was statistically significant at the .05 level. Advanced and intermediate learners did not differ much in their use of PS (χ2=3.879, p≤.05, df=1). Intermediate and elementary learners were compared and seen to differ significantly from each other (χ2=5.038, p<.05, df=1). The advanced learners made significantly more use of preposition pied piping. We know that Persian is a language which allows preposition pied piping rather than preposition stranding. One might say that the preference of the advanced learners to use more pied piping may be due to their L1.This runs counter to what we have in literature as it is expected that transfer happens more in elementary stages rather than advanced stages of learning.

Keywords: Preposition stranding, Pied piping, Unmarked, marked, Proficiency level