L2 Processing of English Direct Object and Oblique Relative Clauses

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study examines how second language learners of English process English direct object (DO) and oblique (OBL) RCs. In L1 and L2 processing research, subject and DO RCs are frequently used to test the comprehension and production of complex structures. However, comparing the processing of these two types of RCs is potentially problematic because they differ in terms of typical head noun animacy and canonical word order. In order to eliminate potential effects from these factors, this study instead utilizes DO RCs and OBL RCs to accurately test for an effect of the length between the filler and the gap in sentences involving filler-gap dependencies. The participants were 39 intermediate- and advanced-level L2 English learners. The study’s analysis of their comprehension accuracy and reading times resulted in two main findings: (1) the learners comprehended DO RCs more accurately than OBL RCs and (2) they spent much more time reading OBL RCs than DO RCs. These results indicate that, for L2 English learners, DO RCs are less complex and easier to process than OBL RCs. The results support a filler-gap-dependency distance effect; that is, greater length between the filler and the gap increases L2 processing difficulty.

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