Korean EFL Learners’ Use of English Direct Object RCs in Written Discourse

Abstract

English relative clauses (RCs) are one of the complex English structures because they include the filler-gap dependency. Because of the structural and linear distance, English direct object RCs are considered much more difficult to produce and comprehend than subject RCs. Previous works have shown that important factors such as animacy of the head nouns can decrease processing difficulty of direct object RCs. The present study analyzes fifty Korean EFL high school students’ production of RCs in argumentative essays. The results show that a total of 100 natural RCs were found in the essays. The findings of the present work indicate that (1) the learners made more subject RCs than direct object RCs; (2) all direct object RCs used by high school learners had an inanimate head nouns; and (3) the subject of direct object RCs include pronouns. Therefore, the results manifest that the learners used particular processing strategies for producing direct object RCs, and these lend support to previous findings in empirical and theoretical works in SLA.