Restrictive and Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses in Persian Language: Sequence of Acquisition by Non-Iranian Persian Learners

Learning and teaching must have an effective relation, but of course, there is a gap between these two fields of study. That's because of two points of view: study of learning and acquisition on the one hand and teaching and curriculum design on the other hand. However, in recent years, much attention has been paid to the nature of second language learning, because understanding the nature of the second language learning will help us to adapt our syllabus and curriculum design in accordance with the learning system and make logical connections between learning and teachings. To this end, this study scrutinized the sequence of acquisition of two types of relative clauses: restrictive and non-restrictive. So, 493 texts from a corpus of Persian learners' written texts were analyzed. Then, the relative clauses were tagged and according to the level of language learners, they were divided into six categories. After the restrictive and non-restrictive clauses were distinguished, the acquisition of these clauses was examined. The results showed that Persian Learners, regardless of gender, nationality, method of previous teaching and age, learned restrictive relative clauses sooner than non-restrictive ones. Even after learning, they tended to use restrictive clauses more often. The implication of this study is that it is better to teach restrictive clauses sooner to accord with the learners' sequences of learning.