ANAPHORA RESOLUTION IN L2 ENGLISH AN ANALYSIS OF DISCOURSE COMPLEXITY AND CROSS-LINGUISTIC INTERFERENCE

We test the interpretation of pronominal forms in L2 speakers of English whose L1 is Spanish. Previous research on learners of nonnull subject languages has shown conflicting results. The aim of the present study is to reconcile previous evidence and shed light on the factors that determine learners...

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Published inStudies in second language acquisition Vol. 41; no. 5; pp. 971 - 998
Main Authors Contemori, Carla, Asiri, Ohood, Irigoyen, Elva Deida Perea
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Cambridge University Press 01.12.2019
Subjects
Ambiguity (Semantics)
Anaphora
Antecedents
Bias
Comparative Analysis
Comprehension
Difficulty Level
Discourse Analysis
English (Second Language)
English as a second language
Form Classes (Languages)
Grammar
High Schools
Interference (Language)
Language
Language Processing
Language Research
Native Language
Native Speakers
Noun phrases
Nouns
Phrase Structure
Pragmatics
Preferences
Pronouns
Romance Languages
Salience
Second Language Learning
Secondary schools
Semantics
Sentences
Spanish
Spanish language
Syntax
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Summary:We test the interpretation of pronominal forms in L2 speakers of English whose L1 is Spanish. Previous research on learners of nonnull subject languages has shown conflicting results. The aim of the present study is to reconcile previous evidence and shed light on the factors that determine learners’ difficulty to interpret pronominal forms in the L2. In six comprehension experiments, we found that intermediate L2 speakers did not show increased difficulty compared to native speakers in integrating multiple sources of information (syntactic, discourse, pragmatic) to resolve ambiguous pronouns in intrasentential anaphora and cataphora conditions. However, we also found that when two referents with equal prominence are introduced using a conjoined noun phrase in the preceding context, the learner’s performance is significantly different than the performance of the native speakers, both in intrasentential and intersentential anaphora. We suggest that L2 speakers may encounter difficulties evaluating the salience of the antecedents during pronoun resolution.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
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ISSN:0272-2631
1470-1545
DOI:10.1017/S0272263119000111