phonology

In this paper we analyzed some of the phonological rules of Russian loanword adaptation in Persian, on the view of Optimal Theory (OT) (Prince and Smolensky, 1993/2003). It is the first study of phonological process on Russian loanwords adaptation in Persian. By gathering about 50 current Russian loanwords, we selected some of them to analyze. We found out that vowel insertion, vowel prothesis, no palatalized consonants are the phonological processes occur on Russian loanwords in Persian.

The present study set out to identify the problematic areas of pronunciation among Iranian female EFL learners. Further, this study investigated the relationship between empathy and authentic pronunciation, along with gender as a moderator variable. Comparing segmental features and phonological processes of both languages helped teachers to predict the target errors. To reach such a goal, a total of 69 Iranian undergraduate EFL learners were recruited from the Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, majoring in English literature and translation studies participated in the study. The subjects were conveniently sampled and were taking the course Conversation I. After administrating the Basic Empathy Scale (BES: Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006), the students were assigned to two groups: high-empathic group and low-empathic group. Both groups participated in an oral interview twice (before and after segmental form-focused instruction). The data were collected through taping participants’ pronunciation of some words. Two raters analyzed students’ pronunciation in terms of segmental features. The results demonstrated that the absence of some phonemes in the Farsi sound system and some phonological differences between the two languages caused difficulties for EFL learners. Furthermore, it was witnessed that those in the high-level group (i.e., more empathic learners) were more successful in acquiring authentic pronunciation than those in the low-level group.

Objective: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent behavioural disorders among children in which L1 impairments are often displayed. There is a conventional assumption that ADHD-diagnosed children experience difficulties in L2 development as well. The present research aimed at investigating possible L2-related behaviours of ADHD-diagnosed children.Methods: To track L2 profiles among ADHD children, this mixed methods study examined L2 learning performance of ADHD-diagnosed children in terms of English phonological, lexical, and syntactic development compared with typically developing children. To this end, 10 ADHD-diagnosed and 10 typically-developing children were recruited from a public primary school located in Kerman, Iran, throughout the 2022-2023 academic year. The participants were then assigned to two experimental groups and given the English instructions with the same instructor. Results: The quantitative results showed that ADHD-diagnosed learners underperformed the typically-developing learners in all phonological, morphological, and syntactic production and recognition tests. However, the only significant difference was in the phonological recognition test (p = 0.04). Also, the qualitative results demonstrated that both groups were almost equally engaged in classroom interactions.Conclusion: The findings highlighted the importance of speech processing and sustained attention in lexical and syntactic learning ability among ADHD students. The implications of the study for L2 instructors were discussed.