L1 Transfer in L2 Relative Clause Attachment

The present study investigates an effect of L1 transfer in L2 comprehension through an off-line experiment examining how Korean L2 learners of English interpret ambiguous sentences containing relative clauses. Results from the experiment show that while English is known to be a low attachment (LA) language (Cuetos & Mitchell 1988; Carreiras & Clifton 1999), the group of Korean L2 learners showed a strong high attachment (HA) preference, suggesting that the relative clause (RC) attachment of the L1, Korean, was transferred to the L2. Although there was a slight tendency toward a positive correlation between L2 proficiency and L2 relative clause attachment preference, the correlation only neared significance. I suggest that although L2 proficiency may be a factor that affects the interpretation of the ambiguous relative clause construction, the effects of L1 transfer are strong enough to override this factor.