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ABSTRACT

A COMPARISON OF RELATIVE CLAUSES IN THE WRITING OF

KOREAN AND SPANISH ESL STUDENTS

Robert Wayne M. Johnson, M.A.

The University of Texas at Arlington, 1993

Supervising Professor: Shin-Ja Hwang

            The acquisition of relative clauses by second language learners differs depending on the native language of the learner. Korean students produce fewer relative clauses than Spanish students. This has often been interpreted as avoidance, but the issue is more complicated than that. Several differences in function and distribution contribute to the underproduction by the Korean students. First, Korean students tend not to use relative clauses for identification and topical cohesion. Second, Korean students tend not to use generic nouns as the Head of a relative clause. Finally, Korean students use far more subjects as Head Nouns and as relativized NPs than Spanish students. This is due to the influence of the native language - a case of transfer. The findings also indicated that avoidance plays a role in the underproduction, but suggest that this is due more to differences between Korean and English with respect to the function of RCs in discourse.

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