How ESL Students Resolve Anaphora in Reading.

This study investigated the extent to which varous 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 advanzed. 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) ***********************************************************/*********** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** HOW ESL STUDENTS RESOLVE ANAPHORA IN READING Maria E. Boudeguer Ronayne Cowan The phenomenon of how anaphora is resolved and understood has been extensively studied during the last decade and a half. Nevertheless, very little research (Cowan, 1979; Gundel and Tarone, 1983; Parish and Perkins, 1985; Demel, 1990) has been carried out in how second language learners resolve anaphora in texts. It seems, however, that ESL teachers, materials developers and textbook writers believe that high intermediate, and even advanced L2 learners have difficulty in resolving pronoun-antecedent relations. Proof of this may be found in the many textbooks that contain exercises which check comprehension of pronouns and anaphoric expressions (Hillman, 1990; Walker, 1989; Yates, 1989; Johnson, 1988; Pearson and Williams, 1987; Latulippe, 1987; Strother, 1987; Rosenthal and Rowland, 1986; Kay, 1985; Noto, 1985; Long et al., 1980; Maclean, 1975; Allen and Widdowson, 1974, Mc Arthur, 1973). To find out whether it is true that ESL students have difficulty in resolving anaphora, we decided to carry out a study with ESL learners of three different proficiency levels. Our objective was to examine the extent to which various factors play a part in ESL students' ability to resolve pronoun-antecedent connections. Besides proficiency, the factors considered were type 0 of anaphoric expression (noun phrase anaphors and verb phrase anaphors), context, vocabulary, direction (forward anaphora and backward anaphora), and distance between p,-. 1noun and anaphoric "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY