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The effect of implicit causality and consequentiality on nonnative pronoun resolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2016

WEI CHENG  and
AMIT ALMOR
WEI CHENG*
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
AMIT ALMOR
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Wei Cheng, Linguistics Program, 909 Welsh Humanities Building, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208. E-mail: chengw22@gmail.com
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Abstract

We report two sentence-completion experiments investigating how nonnative speakers use universal semantic and discourse information, which are implicit causality and consequentiality biases associated with psychological verbs, to resolve pronouns. The results indicate that intermediate-advanced and advanced Chinese-speaking English learners show weaker implicit causality and consequentiality biases than native English speakers in pronoun resolution. Instead, nonnative speakers exhibit a general subject or first-mention bias. These findings suggest that nonnative speakers do not use semantic and discourse information in comprehension as effectively as native speakers.

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Articles
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Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 1 - 26
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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