Short Research Papers

Restrictive Relative Clauses in EFL
Learners’ Writing

Fangzhou Zhu
Department of Linguistics and English Language (LAEL),Lancaster University, UK.
This research aims to examine how Chinese EFL learners use restrictive relative clauses(RRCs) in English essay writing, based on corpus analysis. The study designs the querysyntax to facilitate the investigation of learners’ preferences in using different types of RRCs
and to analyse the errors that Chinese EFL learners frequently make when they try to apply
the knowledge of English RRC into their writing.

One of the most difficult English syntactic structures for EFL learners to learn isthe relative clause (RC) (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999), thus exploring
its use and typical errors has benefits for improving learners’ language proficiency.
English restrictive relative clauses (RRCs) are defined as realising the function ofrestricting or defining the meaning of a noun or noun phrase or a pronoun andproviding necessary information in the sentence (Cowan, 2008). The wh-words,
as well as that, are major relative markers used to introduce RRCs. There are twomain kinds of relative markers: relative pronoun and relative adverb.
Three areas of literature informed the current study: second language RC
research, error analysis, and corpus investigation on relevant topics. First, thetheory Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy, which is one of the hypotheses ofthis study, predicts the degree of difficulty of relativisation as a function of thegrammatical role of the head noun phrase modified by the RC in a wide range oflanguages, i.e., (from easiest to hardest order), subject > direct object > indirect
object > oblique > genitive (Keenan & Comrie, 1977). Second, error analysis
shows that the misuse of relative pronouns, the misuse of resumptive noun or84

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pronoun, the agreement in number and tense, the absence of prepositions are
the main errors that learners make (Chang, 2004; Yip & Matthews, 1991).
Corpus linguistics plays an important role in providing a significant quantityof genuine data produced by second language learners as direct and specificevidence. Lu and Chen’s study (2010) investigated Chinese and English
restrictive clauses in the Bible parallel corpora and found English follows thenoun phrase accessibility hierarchy while Chinese does not. Chu (2015), basedon a local English language proficiency test, extracted five major problems from alearner corpus: general structure errors, omission of relative subjects, resumptivepronouns, missing prepositions and confusion about relative pronouns. In termsof relative adverbs investigation, Crompton (2005) reported the overuse of therelative adverb where in the Brunei Learner Corpus and Phoocharoensil (2014)
investigated the English RC in the Thai Learner Corpus and found that learners
often misuse where as a relative pronoun.
However, these studies or hypotheses focused on clauses which only usedcertain relative pronouns or adverbs. The fact that learners, especially moreadvanced learners, may use all types of English RRCs with many possible errors,should raise our awareness about the value of conducting more research on theuse preference and error analysis.
The current study aims to investigate mainland Chinese EFL learners' use ofRRCs in English essay writing. In China, the RC is one of the major grammaticalconstructions in English language teaching, starting from high school education(Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2017). Due to its
importance and difficulty, it is assessed in a broad scope of tests, in which
RCs are used as a tool to test whether a test taker can apply advanced sentence
constructions in their writing (Yi, 2017). One of the examples can be seen in
Jiangsu Province, China. The knowledge of RRCs is systematically taught inhigh school, where RRCs with relative pronouns are the first ones to teach,followed by relative adverbs (Kent, 2010). This knowledge is frequently tested
in the College Entrance Exam ( Jiangsu Education and Examination Institute,2019), and later in the university; similar assessments are still emphasised in
the College English Test (National College English Testing Committee, 2016)85

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Therefore, it is of great value to explore the learners’ preferences and typicalerrors when they have already learnt the English RRC and try to produce it inEnglish writing.
Research Questions
The research shall answer the following two questions:
1. Do Chinese EFL learners have preferences for using certain types of RRCs
in English essay writing? If so, which types are most/least produced?
2. What are the errors that Chinese learners often make in producing RRCs
in English essay writing?

Methods

The current study collects data from Longman Learner Corpus (LLC). As
this corpus is annotated by Oxford Simplified Tag, it is possible to design theappropriate query syntax to search RRCs in the database.
Previous research often used relative markers as node words to explore theirleft and right sides to decide whether the clause is relative one or not. However,this approach has limitations in terms of time and manual investment. As thisstudy only focuses on the sentences already showing RC structure due to thementioned context, query syntax can be used as an efficient and suitable tool.
Query syntax refers to a specific programming language that requests andretrieves data from corpora by sending structured queries. Following the Oxford
Simplified Tag, this study tried to “simulate” the structure of RRC in English
based on grammatical rules.
A small-scale pilot study was conducted to test the query syntax design. The
result reported that using query syntax for searching for English RRCs showshigh accuracy for targeted concordance lines, but object RCs and adverbial RCs
were not ideally searched in the corpus due to the similar structure of objectiveclauses, attributive clauses, and adverbial clauses. The following examples
demonstrate the final query syntax design for the current study.
1. General query of RRC(_{N}|_{PRON} ((_{ADV})* _{A})*) (_{PREP})? (who|whom|which|th86

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at|whose|where|when|why) ((_{ART})? ((_{ADV})* _{A})* (_{N})+|(_{PRON}) ((_{ADV})* _{A})*)* (_{ADV})* _{V}2. As the subject of clause(_{N}|_{PRON} ((_{ADV})* _{A})*) (who|that|which) (_{ADV})*_{V}
3. As the object of clause(_{N}|_{PRON} ((_{ADV})* _{A})*) (who|that|whom|which) ((_{ART})? ((_{ADV})* _{A})* (_{N})+|(_{PRON})+ ((_{ADV})* _{A})*) (_{ADV})* _{V}4. As the object of preposition((_{N})|(_{PRON}) ((_{ADV})* _{A})*) _{PREP} (whom|which)
5. Possessive(_{N}|_{PRON} ((_{ADV})* _{A})*) whose ((_{ADV})* _{A})* _{N}6. Time, place, and reason_{N} (where|when|why) ((_{PRON}) + ((_{ADV})* _{A})*|(_{ART})*((_{ADV})* _{A})* (_{N})+) (_{ADV})*_{V}All queries were used in the restricted query interface with three filters,
namely learner nationality, learner mother tongue, and writing genre, and thesewere Chinese mainland learners, Chinese native speakers, and the essay writingtasks (free essay, set essay and project essay), respectively. They were thinned to
100 lines by unproduceable randomisation.

Results and Discussion

The general query retrieved 2,370 concordance lines from 1,088 different texts.
After non-reproducible thinning, the first 100 lines of RRCs were filtered andlabelled by the detailed categories. As shown in Figure 1, among 100 concordancelines, Chinese EFL learners show the tendency to use more subjective and objective
English RRCs than any other types. This phenomenon is generally consistent
with the previous hypothesis of the accessibility hierarchy. Additionally, thestudy found that Chinese learners use adverbial RRCs less frequently than othertypes of RRC, which can be considered as a new piece of evidence in RC studies.

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Figure 1. Distribution of RRCs in different clause types per 100 hits.

Learner avoidance and the transfer of training may also contribute to thephenomenon. As mentioned, the knowledge of RRCs is taught by a specificorder. Selinker (1992) believes if the teacher or the textbook fails to treat thelanguage knowledge appropriately, such as emphasis on certain structures at theexpense of others, learners may develop, in a limited manner, the knowledge ofthat grammar point in a second language. Ellis (1994), from another perspective,
pointed out that learners avoid using linguistic structures which they consider
difficult due to differences between their native language and the target
language. Accordingly, students tend to use those RC structures they are familiarwith. Such avoidance and transfer of teacher instruction, with the linguistic
fact that the RC as post-modifier in English is very different from those in
Asian languages (Phoocharoensil & Simargool, 2010), may explain the highproportion of subjective RRCs in corpus data.
Further error analysis revealed that the poor awareness of head noun
function in clauses is the main reason for generating relevant errors. Based on thereading of 100 lines in each RRC category, this study summarises the following
typical errors among target learners:88

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1. Subject-verb mismatch
Example: She wears the suitable clothes which makes her more beautiful.
2. Wrong relative markers
Example: You can get some special education on TV which channels show
some programme of education.
3. Redundant pronoun/adverb in the clause
Example: People say that stories like that are just in a magazine that you
continue to buy it.
I would pay a wonderful visit to the Lin Yin Temple where I could enjoy theexquisite ancient architecture there.
Based on the retrieved corpus data, the common reason for the errors aboveis that the learners fail to realise the grammar function of the head noun in theclause. Thus, the implication for pedagogy here is that, based on the existing
instruction, the teacher should raise students’ awareness to revise the English
RRCs they have produced by emphasising two aspects. First, the students should
realise that the head noun must play a missing grammatical role in the RRC.
Second, how the head noun is restored into the RRC (to make it complete)determines the choice of relative markers.
One contribution of the study is the development of data-driven learning(DDL), initially proposed by Johns (1994), which argued that the use ofcomputer-generated concordance lines can help students explore regularitiesof patterning in a target language. The authentic English corpora, such as theBritish National Corpus, can provide rich examples of language use for learners.
However, learners may find it difficult to compare what they produce withthe authentic examples. Still, learner corpora, where the common errors canbe identified, provide examples of inappropriate use in comparison with thenative English corpora, and thus show learners what is wrong and what is right.
Facilitated with the contextualised query syntax searching, the DDL material
can further reduce the negative effect of a large corpus overwhelming the learnerwith too many examples (Chen & Flowerdew, 2018).

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Conclusion

The purpose of this study was to investigate Chinese learners’ preferences anderrors of RRCs in English essay writing. It revealed that Chinese learners use
more subjective and objective RRCs than any other types. Error analysis foundthat the misuse of relative markers, the subject-verb mismatch, and the redundant
pronoun or adverb are the main errors. Most of these happened due to the lack ofanalysis of the grammar function of head noun in the clauses, hence the solution
for teachers is to ask students to revise the role the head noun plays in the relative
clause. This research also showed that query syntax searching can enhance thedevelopment of DDL material in class.

References

Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The grammar book: An ESL/EFL teacher's course (2nd ed.). Heinle & Heinle.
Chang, Y. (2004, May). Second language relative clause acquisition: An
examination of cross-linguistic influences. Paper presented at the Annual
Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Portland,
Oregon, USA.
Chen, M., & Flowerdew, J. (2018). A critical review of research and practicein data-driven learning (DDL) in the academic writing classroom.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 23(3), 335–369. https://doi.
org/10.1075/ijcl.16130.che
Chu, H. (2015, April). A learner corpus-based study on the GEPT test-takers’
errors of English relativization. Paper presented at the LTTC InternationalConference 2015, Taipei, Taiwan.
Cowan, R. (2008). The teacher's grammar of English: A course book and reference
guide. Cambridge University Press.
Crompton, P. (2005). “Where”, “in which”, and “in that”: A corpus-based
approach to error analysis. RELC Journal, 36(2), 157–176. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0033688205055570
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford UniversityPress.
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Jiangsu Education and Examination Institute. (2019). Jiangsu College Entrance
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Johns, T. (1994). From printout to handout: Grammar and vocabulary teachingin the context of data-driven learning. In T. Odlin (Ed.), Perspectives onpedagogical grammar (pp. 293–313). Cambridge University Press.
Keenan, E. L., & Comrie, B. (1977). Noun phrase accessibility and universalgrammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 8(1), 63–99.
Kent, J.C. (2010). Advanced with English (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press(China).
Lu, H. C., & Chen, Y. H. (2010). A corpus-based study of restrictive relativeclauses. In Using corpora in contrastive and translation studies (pp. 473–487). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Lynch, T., & Anderson, K. (2013). Grammar for academic writing. English
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Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. (2017). New English
curriculum for Chinese primary schools and junior/senior middle schools(experimental version). People's Education Press.
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English test (2016 ed.). Shanghai Language Education Press.
Phoocharoensil, S. (2014). Errors on the relative marker WHERE: Evidence
from an EFL learner corpus. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature, 20(1),1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/3L-2014-2001-01
Phoocharoensil, S., & Simargool, N. (2010). English relativization and learners'problems. Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 14(1),
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Selinker, L. (1992). Rediscovering interlanguage. London, England: Longman.
Yi, D. (2017). Teaching relative clause in secondary school English classroom.
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Yip, V., & Matthews, S. (1991). Relative complexity: Beyond avoidance. CUHK
Papers in Linguistics, 3, 112–124.

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Author bio

Fangzhou Zhu is a PhD student in applied linguistics at the Department ofLinguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, UK. His research interestis the effective application of language corpora in EFL writing instruction. His
current project is the investigation of data-driven learning in EFL writing error
correction in China. <f.zhu@lancaster.ac.uk>
Received: October 20, 2019
Accepted: September 9, 202092