How ESL Students Resolve Anaphora in Reading.

Autor/inn/en	Boudeguer, Maria E.; Cowan, Ronayne
Titel	How ESL Students Resolve Anaphora in Reading.
Quelle	(1992), (16 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	College Students; English (Second Language); Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Intensive Language Courses; Language Proficiency; Language Research; Limited English Speaking; Pronouns; Reading Comprehension; Reading Skills; Second Language Learning; Syntax + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Collegestudent; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Ausland; Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Intensivkurs; Sprachkurs; Language skill; Language skills; Sprachkompetenz; Sprachforschung; Pronomen; Leseverstehen; Reading skill; Lesefertigkeit; Zweitsprachenerwerb
Abstract	This study investigated the extent to which various factors play a part in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students' ability to resolve pronoun-antecedent connections in reading. The subjects were 97 ESL learners with four different native languages (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish) enrolled in the University of Illinois's Intensive English Institute and divided into three English proficiency levels: elementary, intermediate, and advanced. Subjects were given two tests, one consisting of meaningful but decontextualized sentences, some containing nonsense words, and one a narrative in story form (contextualized). Relevant vocabulary was introduced before testing. Other variables included type of anaphoric expression: noun phrase (NP) or verb phrase (VP), direction (forward and backward anaphora), and distance between pronoun and anaphoric expression. Results indicate that the decontextualized sentences were resolved more easily than the contextualized by each language group, possibly attributable to the limited referent possibilities. Distance between pro-form and antecedent aided comprehension in lower-proficiency groups, forward anaphora were easier than VP anaphora, and in all measures, there was a significant effect for proficiency level. Sentence examples, analyses of results, and a 20-item bibliography are appended. (MSE)
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC