The Implications of Investigating Inverted Sentences For Iranian EFL Learners Darayesh Saraa, Gowhary Habibb, Far Akbar Azizic aMA student of TEFL, Department of Language Teaching, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ilam, Iran bAssistant Professor of linguistics, Department of Language Teaching, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ilam, Iran cAssistant professor of TEFL, Department of Language Teaching, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ilam, Iran Online published on 7 May, 2014. Abstract The information structure of a sentence is the formal expression of the pragmatic structuring of proposition in a discourse. English language provides a variety of non-canonical construction for expressing a given propositions. There are three classes of non-canonical constituent in English: pre-posing, post-posing and argument reversal. Each of three classes has sub-classes. The present study investigated the one kind of non-canonical constructions, namely Inversion. This research has been undertaken to see whether Iranian EFL learners know inverted constructions or not; more specifically, the study has been carried out to see if formal training has an impact on EFL learners to use inverted constructions felicitously. To this end, 60 students from Ahwaz Chamran University were randomly assigned to two groups: one experimental and one control group. A questionnaire as pre-test was given to both groups to find out whether the students of both groups were familiar with inverted constructions or not. Then, a treatment was run in which the researcher explained the marked and unmarked structures and different kind of marked structures. The experimental group received the treatment but the control group did not. In order to measure the students’ progress as a result of instruction, a post-test was conducted to both groups. The results indicated that Iranian EFL students have difficulties in using inverted constructions and there is a statistically meaningful relationship between the subjects’ performance in the pre-test and pos-test and felicitous use of these constructions. Besides, the finding implied that formal training has an impact on EFL learners to use inverted constructions more felicitously. Top Keywords Information Structure, Pre-Posing, Post-Posing, Non-Canonical Construction, Inversion. Top |