Overexplicit Referent Tracking in L2 English: Strategy, Avoidance, or Myth?

The tendency of intermediate and advanced second language speakers to underuse pronouns and zero anaphora has been characterized as a developmental stage of overexplicitness, yet little consideration has been given to whether learners create sufficient contexts for their use. This study analyzed ref...

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Published inLanguage learning Vol. 65; no. 4; pp. 824 - 859
Main Author Ryan, Jonathon
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hoboken Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2015
Wiley-Blackwell
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects
Accessibility Theory
Anaphora
Asians
Chinese languages
Communication Strategies
developmental pragmatics
Developmental Stages
Discourse strategies
English (Second Language)
English as a second language
English as a second language learning
L2 pragmatics
Language Research
Language Usage
Misconceptions
Native Speakers
Noun phrases
Nouns
overexplicitness
Phrase Structure
Reference (Semantic)
referent tracking
Role
Second Language Learning
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Summary:The tendency of intermediate and advanced second language speakers to underuse pronouns and zero anaphora has been characterized as a developmental stage of overexplicitness, yet little consideration has been given to whether learners create sufficient contexts for their use. This study analyzed references across eight degrees of accessibility, revealing that this did not account for infrequent pronoun use by Chinese learners of English. Further analysis revealed that participants were seldom overexplicit when referring to highly accessible individuals, particularly those that represented continued topics, but were significantly more likely than native speakers to use lexical noun phrases elsewhere, particularly for main characters. This is discussed in relation to a possible role of overexplicitness as a clarity‐based communication strategy.
Bibliography:istex:90F51A35B55534D07A8AB9B729E37262CB6B5270
ark:/67375/WNG-0ZS8MJ64-1
Appendix S1. Coding Protocol for Persons with Co-Textual Antecedents. Appendix S2. Coding Examples and Notes.
ArticleID:LANG12139
http://www.iris‐database.org
The writing of this paper was supported by a University of Waikato FASS Postdoctoral Stipendiary Writing Award and benefited greatly from the guidance of Roger Barnard. I would like to warmly thank the editor, associate editor, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and highly constructive feedback on earlier versions of this paper. My thanks also go to Ian Bruce for his help at an earlier stage of the project and to all of the participants, who were so generous with their time. The elicitation instruments used for this study can be accessed by readers in the IRIS digital repository
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ISSN:0023-8333
1467-9922
DOI:10.1111/lang.12139