Sentence-Processing Strategies of Korean EFL Learners - The Acquisition of the Easy-To-V Structure

Sentence-Processing Strategies of Korean EFL Learners

  This study investigated the sentence-processing strategies of Korean adult learners of English compared with those of native speakers of English focusing on the ways in which they interpret the easy-to-V structure sentences in order to address the issues discussed within the framework of the competition model. Korean EFL (KEFL) learners and native speakers of English (NSE) were required to respond to grammaticality judgment tasks devised to examine the effect of animacy and grammaticality cues using a five-point Likert-type scale. Three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures and two two-way repeated measures ANOVAs were calculated. The results indicated that the KEFL learners depended primarily on animacy cues to interpret the easy-to-V sentences, while both Grammaticality and Animacy turned out to be significant for the NSE (p＜.0167). It is suggested that lexical semantics plays the most significant role in the KEFL learners’ comprehension of the easy-to-V sentences.