An Investigation of the Linguistic, Paralinguistic and Sociocultural Effects of Input on the Perception and Translation of Gerunds by Persian Speakers of English

Abstract

In this study, it was intended to investigate the Persian native speakers’ perception of gerunds by three different elicitation techniques i.e., written, audio, and pictorial through translation. Eighty intermediate learners of English were asked to select Persian translation of the gerund formsin these elicitation techniques. They were asked to choose one option from a pair of written first language renditions, where one option represented the gerunds as a noun-like entity and the other was a verb-like rendition of the gerunds for each elicitation technique, namely, a pictorial, audio, and written input. Regarding the general tendency in the perception of gerunds, the results demonstrated that Iranian learners generally perceive it as a form that still enjoys its verb-bearing (i.e., dynamic nature). It can be concluded that not only does worldview have impact on conceptualization, but also effects can be traced in linguistic realizations of concepts.

Keywords

• gerund
• perception
• linguistic manipulation
• paralinguistic manipulation
• worldwide