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WHICH FACTORS DETERMINE THE CHOICE OF REFERENTIAL EXPRESSIONS IN L2 ENGLISH DISCOURSE?

NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE COREFL CORPUS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2020

Teresa Quesada Open the ORCID record for Teresa Quesada [Opens in a new window]  and
Cristóbal Lozano Open the ORCID record for Cristóbal Lozano [Opens in a new window]
Teresa Quesada
Affiliation:
Universidad de Granada
Cristóbal Lozano*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Granada
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cristóbal Lozano, Departamento de Filologías Inglesa y Alemana, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain. E-mail: cristoballozano@ugr.es
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Abstract

Referential expressions (REs) have been investigated in L2 English but to date there is no single study that systematically and simultaneously analyzes the development and acquisition of the multiple factors that constrain the choice of REs in natural discourse production. We investigate L1 Spanish–L2 English learners across three proficiency levels versus an English control group from the COREFL corpus. An analysis of both the RE and its antecedent(s) reveals that different intra- and extralinguistic factors constrain the choice of REs (information status, activated antecedents, syntactic configurations, characterhood, within-task effect, and proficiency level). L2 learners (L2ers) are sensitive to some factors but are unable to fully attain native-like levels even at advanced stages. They do not transfer null subjects from their L1 contrary to previous L2 research, and do not find all contexts at the syntax-discourse interface equally problematic, thus confirming previous theoretical proposals and empirical findings.

Keywords

referential expressionssyntax-discourse interfaceoverexplicitnesslearner corpus researchanaphora resolution
Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 42 , Issue 5 , December 2020 , pp. 959 - 986
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Open materials
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The experiment in this article earned an Open Data badge for transparent practices. The materials are available at http://www.learnercorpora.com

This research was supported by the research project ANACOR (FFI2016-75106-P) funded by MINECO (Spain) and awarded to the second author, and by a young researchers’ contract funded by the European Union-Junta de Andalucía awarded to the first author.

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