L1 Influence in Pronoun Resolution by L2 Learners of English

This study examined the interpretation of subject pronouns in discourse by L2 learners of English whose L1 is a null subject language, Korean. The purpose of the study was to see if L2 learners' interpretation of subject pronouns is influenced by their null subject L1 A multiple choice comprehension task was administered to fifty -eight Korean L2 leamers who were classified into three different levels of English proficiency‘ to examine both forward and backward anaphora resolution The results demonstrated that advanced L2 leamers were nativelike in pronoun resolution, with the preferenti a1 choice of sentence- intemal referents, whereas low- Ievel L2 leamers were significantly different from native English speakers. They also showed a developmental pattem in resolving L2 pronouns in which as the level of English proficiency increases. Korean L2 leamers proceed from L1• like resol ution to target• like resolution. These data indicated that the interpretation of subject pronouns in a nonnull subject L2 is influenced by leamer s' null subject L1