A Study of Syntactic Interference in Kalhori Natives When Speaking Standard Persian

Error is a common and yet predictable phenomenon in the process of learning a second language. Traditionally, errors were seen as obstacles in learning a second language. So they should be avoided, but today errors are regarded as important factors in learning a second language. Language interferences are a category of errors that are the result of transferring a native’s language knowledge to the target language. Language transfer may occur in two ways: positive and negative transfer. Positive transfer occurs when there are similarities between source language and target languages. This transfer will help learning a second language. Negative transfer occurs in cases where there are differences between first and second languages and they cause language interferences.
The present research, within the framework of "error analysis" based on Brown (2007) classification of errors, is intended to analyze the syntactic errors that result from the interference between Kalhori Kurdish and Persian in the speech of Kalhori natives. So, among speech errors, syntactic errors, and among them the errors caused by the interference between first language and second language were analyzed. The approach of this study is integrated (quantitative/qualitative). The sample included 170 bilingual Kalhori males and females living in Kermanshah. They were selected via voluntary sampling method. Interviews were held in the presence of interviewees to collect data, during which participants were asked to speak about a memory in Persian. The results of the study showed that errors from the most frequent to the least frequent were of components of compound verbs, prepositions, order of components in a sentence, “ra”, incorrect verb, using redundant “je”, conjunction and incorrect pronoun. The reason for the occurrence of language interference in the speech of Kalhori natives is that in the mind of language learners, Kurdish language system is completely formed as the first language. According to the transfer theory, the reason for the existence of interlingual errors is the existence of this mental system. At the beginning of learning Persian as a second language, the language learner relies in many cases on his first language. Thus, using first language structure leads to the interference of structures.
The results of the present study can help to present some pedagogical guidelines for teachers, syllabus designers, test constructors and language learners to decrease problems of learning Persian. So if a teacher becomes aware of linguistic findings, such as error analysis, he can figure out why learning is not happening. In addition to that identifying errors helps teachers to evaluate the progress of their students and they become aware of the points they should put more emphasis. Also, the results of this study can help syllabus designers to design books for bilingual students. Since the purpose of the tests is to evaluate student's knowledge, test constructors, with knowledge of the errors recognize where students have difficulty with. In this way, the reason for the problems of bilingual students is not just their lack of attention to the lessons. Learners themselves can make their assumptions about language through their errors and identify and resolve their linguistic problem.