An investigation of the interpretation of pronouns by Chinese speakers learning English

The paper presents the results of a study on the interpretation of English embedded subject pronouns by Chinese speakers. The embedded subject pronouns in Chinese have a disjoint reading with the matrix subject quantized NP (QNP) only; while their English counterparts can have both the conjoint reading and the disjoint reading with the matrix subject QNPs. On the other hand, the embedded subject pronouns in both Chinese and English can have a conjoint reading and a disjoint reading with the matrix subject referential NP (RNP) (Aoun and Li 1990, Huang 1992 and Xu 1986). In both QNP and RNP leading sentences, the conjoint reading at the LF level should be the default or preferential interpretation of the English embedded pronouns, unless there is a discourse factor biased for the disjoint reading. The study included test items of both QNPs leading sentences and RNP leading ones, which were placed in neutral or pragmatically biased (towards either the conjoint or disjoint reading ) contexts. The subjects consisted of 86 Chinese speakers of three English proficiency levels (i.e. 31 pre-intermediate level, 30 intermediate level and 25 post-intermediate to advanced level), as well as 10 English native controls. The subjects were asked to choose the reading which matched their immediate interpretation of the pronoun. For the QNP leading sentences, it is found that the native controls showed an absolute preference for the conjoint reading in the neutral context while the Chinese speakers were ambivalent on both readings. But they performed like the native controls in the pragmatically biased contexts. As for the RNP leading sentences, the Chinese speakers patterned with English native controls in both neutral and pragmatically biased contexts. The findings suggest that L1 effects lingering in L2 learners’ interlanguage grammar interfere with L2 learning on the aspects where L1 and L2 grammar differ, and facilitate L2 learning where the properties of L1 and L2 converge.