Pragmatic Constraints On Preposing In Discourse

The present dissertation investigates pragmatic constraints on preposing constructions in the acquisition of English as a foreign language (EFL) by Chinese-speaking learners. It reports on three experiments carried out within the theoretical framework formulated for the present research. The findings yielded from these experiments are expected to shed light on the acquisition of L2 noncanonical word order from the perspective of syntax-pragmatic interface.The theoretical framework for this research is built on Lambrecht's (1994) Topic Acceptability Scale and Birner and Ward's (1998) study on the felicity of preposing in discourse. According to the assumptions made in this framework, felicitous preposings are constrained by pragmatic relations between discourse entities. Basing itself on this theoretical premise, the present study intends to address such issues as the roles of context and information structure in affecting the acceptability of preposings in interlanguage grammar, the pragmatic effects on L2 learners' response times to preposings, as well as the pragmatic strategies employed by L2 learners in processing preposing constructions.To shed light on the above issues, the researcher designed three experiments. The subjects participating in Experiment 1 included 387 English majors at three proficiency levels from five Chinese universities and colleges. Each proficiency group consisted of 129 subjects, who were randomly assigned to three subgroups to take three judgment tests respectively regarding the acceptability of preposing constructions. While Test A concerned preposing sentences in isolation, Test B focused on preposings in context. Test C aimed to explore the role of information structure in affecting the acceptability of preposings in discourse.The results of Experiment 1 show that typological proximity between Chinese and English NP preposings made it possible for the subjects to process L2 preposings in line with their L1 parameter. This suggests that L1 influence was evident, but most subjects failed to recognize the pragmatic differences between English and Chinese preposings. It is also found that context exerted different degrees of constraints upon the acceptability of different categories of preposing. While context played a more prominent role in affecting the acceptability of AP preposing, it made little difference in the case of VP preposing. The subjects across the three proficiency levels tended to reject VP preposings either in isolation or in context.As to the relation between information structure and the acceptability of preposings, the results show that the subjects were most likely to accept NP topicalizations with preposed referents representing active information. The least acceptable topicalizations to the subjects were those whose topic referents represented discourse-new information. It is also found in this experiment that although preposings with accessible topic referents are possible in English, the L2 learners had much difficulty in identifying the implicit linking relations within discourse.The second experiment was designed to explore pragmatic effects by measuring L2 learners' response times to preposing constructions. The subjects participating in this online experiment included 60 undergraduate students majoring in English. They were assigned to two proficiency groups, each consisting of 30 members. The research method adopted in this experiment was DMDX program, a psycholinguistic method applied to SLA in recent years. The results show that the subjects responded to VP preposings more slowly than to canonical constructions in most cases, but generally speaking, the reacting times to the former were not significantly longer. However, when it came to AP preposings, the subjects processed canonical word order much faster than preposing constructions. This could be accounted for in terms of the characteristics of English finite verbs and adjectives. The former is relatively fixed in unmarked position but the salience of preposing will not cause ambiguous interpretation. By contrast, English adjectives are more flexible in sentences and the preposing of APs may cause competition in form-function mapping.The third experiment adopted the think-aloud method to explore the strategies used by L2 learners in processing preposing constructions. It was designed to collect data about the learners' mental activities while they were carrying out a linguistic task. The subjects participating in this experiment consisted of 8 English majors. They had been trained on the procedures of the think-aloud method and were able to assign their attention to both the linguistic task and verbal reporting. Data analysis shows that L2 learners tended to employ five major strategies to process the input regarding preposing constructions. The major strategies included using linguistic knowledge, utilizing contextual clues, relying on pragmatic intuition, turning to prior experience, as well as the strategy of least effort.The present research has theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications for the field of SLA studies. Theoretically, the current research contributes to second language acquisition by probing into the constraints on preposings from the perspective of syntax-pragmatic interface. Although the acquisition of L2 word order has been documented in the literature, researchers are mainly concerned with the roles of UG and language transfer, neglecting the pragmatic constraints on the acquisition of L2 word order, especially noncanonical constructions. One advantage of the present research is that it views the acquisition of noncanonical word order not only as a linguistic process but also a pragmatic one. The methodological implications of the present study are reflected in the application of different methods to discourse-oriented investigations, which could present a clear picture of the characteristics of the L2 learners' pragmatic knowledge of the constraints on preposings in discourse. The present study also has implications for second language pedagogy. On the one hand, a good knowledge of the pragmatic constraints on preposing can help teachers understand that the acquisition of L2 word order is not purely a process of internalizing grammatical rules. On the other hand, understanding the pragmatic constraints on preposings can help L2 learners enhance their discourse competence.Needless to say, the present research is also limited in some sense regarding the scope and design. For instance, the current research only dealt with three categories of preposing (NP, VP and AP), without taking into consideration PP preposings due to the difficulty in collecting sufficient data. Another limitation of the current research lies in the selection of the participants. The subjects participating in the experiments only included intermediate and advanced proficiency groups, excluding those who were still at the initial stage of L2 development since they might have difficulty in understanding the experimental materials. Future research will be more fruitful if these factors are fully taken into account.