Korean EFL Learners' Article Errors: Reexamining the Specificity Effect in Connection with the Zero Article

Abstract

One account of English L2 learners’ errors in the use of articles is based on the assumption that they are influenced by the specificity of the reference, which is a non-target semantic feature, as contrasted with the target feature, definiteness. Another problem that has been increasingly recognized, and yet treated independently of the specificity-driven errors, is L2 learners’ tendency to use articles excessively in the contexts for a zero form. The present study aims to seek for a connection between these two problems by reexamining the intervention effect of specificity on Korean EFL learners’ substitution errors of the definite and indefinite articles, together with the patterns of their excessive use of articles in zero-form contexts. Data were collected from three proficiency groups of high school students (N = 102) with a forced-choice elicitation task comprising 40 questions across 8 distinct combinations of three semantic features: definiteness, specificity, and plurality. The results indicate that Korean students are only partially under the influence of specificity; their responses did not fluctuate consistently according to the value of specificity in relation to that of definiteness. That they also make omission errors frequently suggests that their awareness of the zero article affects their decision in the first place before they choose between a and the . Furthermore, Korean students tend to use the for indefinite singulars and generic plurals, while overusing the zero article for non-generic definite plurals. These findings imply that definiteness is a notion that requires learning rather than resetting and that its acquisition correlates more closely with the usage of the zero article than with the specificity ambiguities of the indefinite article.