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ANAPHORA RESOLUTION IN L2 ENGLISH

AN ANALYSIS OF DISCOURSE COMPLEXITY AND CROSS-LINGUISTIC INTERFERENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2019

Carla Contemori ,
Ohood Asiri  and
Elva Deida Perea Irigoyen
Carla Contemori*
Affiliation:
University of Texas, El Paso
Ohood Asiri
Affiliation:
University of Texas, El Paso
Elva Deida Perea Irigoyen
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juarez
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Carla Contemori, Department of Languages and Linguistics, University of Texas at El Paso, 500 W. University Ave, El Paso, Texas 79968. E-mail: carla.contemori@gmail.com
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Abstract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 41 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 971 - 998
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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