Comprehending Pronouns of Native Speakers and Second Language Learners of Chinese
International College of Chinese Studies, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200240, China
| Abstract: | This study investigates comprehending pronouns in Chinese from the viewpoint of the differences in comprehension between native speakers and second language learners of Chinese and provides further evidence for the view that Chinese resolve pronouns in a different manner from English and second language learners of Chinese. This study validates the following hypotheses through experiments on two gender congruency effects: the comprehending of anaphoric pronouns is similar to English, while the comprehending of cataphoric pronouns differs from English. When neutral noun phrases without obvious gender congruency effects are present, the difficulty of cognitive operations needed amplifies comprehension differences. Therefore, native speakers and second language learners of Chinese will exhibit more significant differences in the comprehension of anaphoric and cataphoric pronouns referring to neutral noun phrases. And the comprehension of zero pronouns follows the Topic Chain model in Chinese there exists no significant differences between native speakers and second language learners of Chinese. |
| Keywords: | Comprehending Pronouns; Anaphoric Pronouns; Cataphoric Pronouns; Zero Pronouns |
| DOI: | 10.57237/j.cll.2024.01.001 |
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Received: 20 November 2023
Accepted: 15 January 2024
Published Online: 4 February 2024
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