THE UNDERSTANDING OF ANAPHORA IN WRITTEN TEXT BY FOURTH GRADE ENGLISH DOMINANT, SPANISH DOMINANT, AND ENGLISH-SPANISH BILINGUAL PUPILS (PRONOUNS, REFERENCE, COHESION)

The major purpose of this study was to investigate the understanding of anaphora in written text by fourth grade English dominant pupils reading English, Spanish dominant pupils reading Spanish, and English-Spanish bilingual pupils reading English and Spanish. A secondary purpose was to identify different types of anaphora that present the most difficulty to the English dominant pupils in English, the Spanish dominant pupils in Spanish, and the bilingual pupils in English and Spanish.;The differences among groups and the differences among the various types of anaphora were tested with one-way analysis of variance tests. Pertinent findings included: (1) Significant differences were found in the performance of English dominant and Spanish dominant pupils and in the performance of the bilingual group in English and Spanish. (2) No significant differences were found between English dominant and bilingual pupils in English, or between Spanish dominant and bilingual pupils in Spanish. (3) Significant differences were found among the various types of anaphora in both English and Spanish in the degree of difficulty they presented to the readers.;Conclusions from the study included: (1) It appears that anaphora is a syntactical structure which is developed sooner in English than in Spanish. (2) Anaphora is a difficult structure for fourth graders in both English and Spanish. (3) Bilingual pupils seem to develop English and Spanish language strategies at the same rate as their monolingual counterparts. (4) Bilingual pupils seem to apply strategies learned in a particular language without transferring these skills from one language to the other.;A test in English and a separate test in Spanish were developed in which ten types of anaphora were emphasized. The English dominant pupils took the test in English, the Spanish dominant pupils took the test in Spanish, and the bilingual pupils took the tests in English and Spanish. The subjects were forty English dominant fourth graders from an elementary school in Lawrence, New York, and twenty-three Spanish dominant, as well as twenty-three bilingual fourth graders from a school in a similar neighboring school district.