Second Language Acquisition of Telicity by Persian Learners of English

Abstract

This study investigates L2 acquisition of telicity, in particular, how the Persian EFL learners interpret a/telic sentences comparing with English native speakers. To the mentioned aim, 70 EFL learners of English assigned to four groups of elementary, low intermediate, high intermediate and advanced as well as 10 native speakers were asked to contribute to the present study. The participants were to judge whether some telic and atelic sentences were compatible with the given contexts or not. The results revealed that Iranian EFL learners were more successful with telic structures comparing with atelic ones.