Abstract
This paper reports a longitudinal study of topic continuity in Chinese EFL learners’ English written narratives by tracking their dynamic change of referential choices over two years. The proportional distribution of referential forms were calculated and texts produced by learners were analyzed. The calculation and analysis yielded the following findings. Firstly, while the general distribution of referential forms follows Givón’s cross-linguistic topic continuity scale, indicating the dominant role of discourse context in referring, quite a few instances deviate from this scale, suggesting the modulating effect of multiple factors, including L1 influence and articulators’ cognitive pressure. Secondly, with an increase in English exposure, L2 learners’ use of the typical referring form in each context displayed an increasing tendency over time. Finally, the developmental paths of L2 referential choices exhibited individual variability. These findings pointed to variation in interlanguage and the modulating effect of non-linguistic or internal cognitive factors on reference production.
Funding source: the National Social Science Foundation of China
Award Identifier / Grant number: 11CYY021
Acknowledgment
We are very grateful to the anonymous reviews for their insightful comments.
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Research funding: This study was supported by a grant from the National Social Science Foundation of China awarded to Jinting Cai (11CYY021).
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Supplementary Material
The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2021-0150).
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- Research Articles
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- Consequences of the comparative fallacy for the acquisition of grammatical aspect in Spanish
- Incorporating peer feedback in writing instruction: examining its effects on Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners’ writing performance
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