Bound Morpheme Frequencies in the Performance of Iranian English Language Undergraduates and English Language Materials Developers in Written Descriptive Tasks

This mini-corpus, cross-linguistic, comparative, and norm-referenced study intends to render the most frequently and oft-used affixes in the written descriptive tasks in the performance of English language materials developers (ELMDs) and Iranian English language undergraduates (IELUs). Samples of writings of both groups were studied and analyzed through affixation principles. The frequency of nearly ۶۳ affixes both inflectional and derivational morphemes was taken into account. The statistical analysis showed a highly significant correlation (.۸۶) with (.۷۵) coefficient determination (shared variance) between the performance of IELUs and ELMDs. The result of the study bears approximately a close resemblance to the findings by Bauer et al.(۱۹۸۲), Fry and Kress (۲۰۰۶), Honig, Diamond, Gutlohn, and Mahler (۲۰۰۰), and White, Sowell, and Yanagihara (۱۹۸۹). Finally, the implications of the study were taken into account. 

Keywords:

Affixation , Morpheme Studies , Frequency , Morphological Awareness