Abstract
The study aimed to demonstrate how the application of English passives of Taiwanese EFL college learners was affected by the discourse functions of L1 Chinese. The learners' uses of English passives in context, including malformed passives, pseudo-passives, and targetlike passives were the focus of the study. In this study, two English majors' writing output produced over a period of 6 months was investigated. The passives and some topic-prominent features in their writings were under scrutiny. The results validated that the learner's proficiency was an important factor in the discrepancy in their production of pseudo-passives and malformed passives, demonstrating the syntactic development of the target structures of the L2 learners. Also, the learner who tended to produce ill-formed passives or pseudo-passives exhibited an inclination to produce other discourse-prominent features, revealing a discourse-oriented tendency of the L2 acquisition of the EFL learner. Moreover, the suppressed subject in the pseudo-passives was discourse-determined, providing additional evidence for the effect of discourse on the L2 acquisition. Finally, some targetlike passives by the more advanced EFL learner were distinct from real English passives as the result of implicit influence of the discourse function of L1 Chinese. The study demonstrated how the Chinese discourse affected the syntactic development of the L2 target structures and revealed the extent to which the interaction of various elements of L1 discourse bore on the L2 acquisition.
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