Information status and English relative constructions: A corpus-based study of Japanese learners in spoken language
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Megumi Okugiri
Abstract
This study investigates Japanese learners’ production of English relative constructions, focusing on the information preference of noun phrases in spoken discourse. The constructions of Japanese learners and of native speakers of English were extracted from a spoken corpus according to learners’ English proficiency levels. The information status (New, Given, and Identifiable) of head noun phrases modified by relative clauses were also examined. The results found that, in an attempt to keep spoken communication coherent, native speakers and learners of all levels prefer general grammatical and pragmatic configurations in their production of English relative constructions. This preference is called the Preferred Argument Structure (Du Bois 1987). However, Japanese learners and native speakers did not share the same preference of language-specific information status. The results suggest that first language information preference plays a crucial role in second language acquisition, especially during the early stages of acquisition. They also suggest that discoursal properties affect the mechanisms and motivations of relative clause constructions in second language acquisition.
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
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- Masthead
- Editorial
- Frames and constructions enhance text coherence: The case of DNI resolutions in spoken discourse
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