대한언어학회 전자저널

Park, Jiwon & Kim, Ji-Hye. (2022). The interpretations of English relative clauses by Korean EFL learners in attachment preference and ambiguity perception. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 30(1), 23-44. This study investigated how Korean EFL learners interpret English relative clauses in two distinct tasks an attachment preference task and an ambiguity perception task. The study also examined how different lexical-semantic factors such as preposition type (i.e., of and with) and the animacy conditions of noun phrases (NPs) that might affect interpretations of English relative clauses. Thirty-one third grade middle school students participated in the experiment testing interpretations of ambiguous English relative clauses. A total of 28 test items were used to examine possible interpretations and indicate preferred interpretations of English relative clauses with different types of prepositions and animacy conditions. The overall results demonstrated the following: i) In the attachment preference task, Korean EFL students in middle school showed a preference toward high attachment (HA) interpretation for ambiguous English relative clauses. ii) On the other hand, in the ambiguity perception task, EFL students did not always realize that the relative clauses could be interpreted ambiguously. iii) As for lexical-semantic factors, relative clause interpretations were influenced by both preposition type and the animacy conditions of NPs, but only in preference attachment, not in ambiguity perception.

# 영어 관계절(English relative clause) # 관계절 부착(relative clause attachment) # 중의성 인식(ambiguity perception) # 구조적 중의성(structural ambiguity) # 한국인 영어학습자(Korean EFL learners)

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