The role of animacy and language proficiency in the comprehension of English restrictive relative clauses by Iranian EFL learners: an emergentist approach

• Published in: Asian-Pacific journal of second and foreign language education Vol. 3; no. 1; pp. 1 - 19
• Main Authors: Rezaeian, Mehrdad, Sadighi, Firooz, Yamini, Mortaza, Bagheri, Mohammad Sadegh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.12.2018; Springer; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Animacy; Applied Linguistics; Comprehension; Difficulty Level; Education; Emergentism; English (Second Language); English as a second language learning; English Language Learners; English proficiency; Foreign Countries; Indirect object RC; Language Education; Language Processing; Language Proficiency; Language Tests; Linguistic Theory; Noun phrases; Nouns; Object RC; Oblique RC; Original Article; Phrase Structure; Preferences; Reasoning; Relative clauses; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Semantics; Subject RC; Teaching and Teacher Education; Iran; Subject RC; Emergentism; Oblique RC; Object RC; Indirect object RC
• ISSN: 2363-5169; 2363-5169
• DOI: 10.1186/s40862-018-0051-5

Following an emergentist approach, the authors examined the comprehension of four different types of restrictive relative clauses (direct object/oblique vs. subject/indirect object) with animate/inanimate referents by Iranian EFL learners. To this end, an Oxford placement test and two sets of comprehension tests within a week’s interval were administered. Of the two comprehension tests, one was used to examine the comprehension of direct object/oblique RC’s with inanimate NP referents, and the other one investigated the understanding of subject/indirect object RC’s with animate referents. The results of the first comprehension test showed that there was no significant difference in the comprehension of direct/oblique RC’s with inanimate referents. But the result of the second comprehension test showed their better performance in the subject RC’s than indirect object RC’s with animate referents. The findings of the experiments showed that animacy influenced the processing difficulty of relative clauses which can be considered as a significant reasoning for these preferences or equalities. Current significant theories of relative clause processing can account for these results when additional assumptions are introduced showing that the possibility of semantically driven cues can be considered as a serious alternative.