Learning English relative pronouns is generally considered difficult for EFL/ESL students, especially Korean learners. Even native speakers have difficulty in acquiring relative pronouns. The structural gaps between English and Korean are larger than ...
Learning English relative pronouns is generally considered difficult for EFL/ESL students, especially Korean learners. Even native speakers have difficulty in acquiring relative pronouns. The structural gaps between English and Korean are larger than those between English and European languages.
This study is concerned with the relative difficulties in learning and forming relative clauses for learners. We will consider how to teach them more effectively. In this study, Kuno(1947)'s relative clauses and Keenan and Comire(1977)'s Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy are used. According to Kuno's hypothesis, it is easier for learners to connect sentences at sentence-end than in the middle. Also, Keenan and Comire's hypothesis insisted learners made relative pronouns based on the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy as follows:
S> DO > IO > OP > GEN> OCOMP ( > more accessible than)
In this study, ten different types of questions about relative clauses are used. These questions are derived from Kuno's Relative Clauses and Keenan and Comire's Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. For this study, 50 questions including twenty attractors were given to 85 students living in Seoul. The experimental group was divided into A and B group. One group was the first-year high school students and the other was university students. The students were asked to solve the questions within a given time limit.
The experiment showed some interesting results. The results of Kuno hypothesis are follows: when relative clause is connected to the object in the main clauses, the students find the correct answers easily. The most difficult relative clauses is the relative clauses that is connected to the subject in the main clause. Therefore, students found relative pronouns more easily when they were located at the end rather than in the middle of sentences.
Keenan and Comire suggested that noun phrases have an accessibility hierarchy and relative pronouns have relatives difficulties. However, the A group students differ from hierarchy hypothesis as follow;
S> IO> OP> DO> GEN ( > more accessible than)
B group students result in hierarchy hypothesis as follow;
S> OP> IO> DO> GEN ( > more accessible than)
Finally, based on the findings mentioned above, the comparative difficulties of English relative clauses should be emphasized when students learn relative pronouns. This thesis suggest how teachers can teach students relative pronouns and what activities are possible to reduce student's difficulties. The most important thing is to teach relative pronouns in the meaningful context and provide enough opportunity for students to practice them.