Effects of pronominal reference on the integration of syntactic and semantic information in second language processing

Hyunwoo Kim, Haerim Hwang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of pronominal reference on the integration of syntactic and semantic information in second language (L2) processing. We conducted a self-paced reading task involving 60 adult Korean-speaking learners of English and 44 native English speakers. The experiment manipulated the semantic congruity between a subject and its adjectival predicate, as well as the reference type (pronoun vs. full noun) within the intervening relative clause. The results showed that the native speaker group consistently displayed sensitivity to the incongruity between the subject and the predicate, regardless of the reference type. Similarly, the nonnative speakers exhibited sensitivity to the mismatch in the critical region. However, this effect did not persist in subsequent regions including the spill-over and wrap-up regions. Instead, in the wrap-up region, the L2 learners’ processing patterns were affected by the reference type, with sensitivity exclusively observed in the pronoun condition. The L2 learners’ processing pattern remained consistent across varying levels of English proficiency. These findings provide insights into the role of pronominal reference in L2 sentence processing.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1108-1122
Number of pages15
JournalInternational Journal of Applied Linguistics
Volume34
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024 Aug

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors. International Journal of Applied Linguistics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

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