handbook of heterogeneous catalysis2018Vol. 06pp. 93-104
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2018internationalintelligibility
Abstract
This study attempted to investigate the extent to which phonological characteristics of Farsi
interfere with Iranian ESL learners‟ intelligibility when they interact with Canadian native English
speakers. Most Iranians who learn English as a foreign or a second language would face
phonologically-based difficulties that affect their comprehensibility when they communicate with
native speakers. This study utilized a sample of five Iranian ESL learners and five Canadian native
speakers as participants. Through the study, Iranian ESL learners underwent an interview and were
asked to read twenty paired sentences that contained missing vowels and consonants in Farsi, and ten
sentences including consonant clusters aloud while being tape recorded. Then, Canadian native
speakers were invited to listen to the tape and declare their degrees of perception accordingly. The
findings demonstrated that the phonemes and consonant clusters which do not exist in the Farsi
phonological system and the difference in syllabic construction of two languages caused difficulties for
Iranian ESL learners to be comprehended to a varying degree.