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Factors influencing anaphoric processing in ESL reading comprehension
Author(s) -
Parish Charles,
Perkins Kyle
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
journal of research in reading
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.077
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9817
pISSN - 0141-0423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9817.1985.tb00311.x
Subject(s) - antecedent (behavioral psychology) , psychology , reading comprehension , reading (process) , linguistics , rank (graph theory) , social psychology , mathematics , philosophy , combinatorics
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of some factors that influence English as Second Language (ESL) readers’ ability to resolve anaphoric expressions. Fifty full‐time ESL students randomly drawn from three different proficiency levels served as unpaid volunteers for the project. Data were elicited by means of multiple‐choice and cloze tests. The experimental design contains one between‐subjects factor (proficiency level) and three within‐subjects factors, all orthogonally manipulated (number of antecedents, case of pronominal anaphor, and propositional distance from antecedent). A four‐way mixed ANOVA for the multiple‐choice tests indicated significant effects for proficiency level, case of anaphor, and the interaction of case and number of antecedents. A similar four‐way ANOVA for the cloze tests indicated significant effects for proficiency level, number of antecedents, case of anaphor, distance from antecedent, and for the interactions of case and antecedents, antecedents and distance, and case and distance. Similarities in the findings from this study and other first and second language studies are noted. Latent trait measurement procedures were employed to produce a rank order of difficulty for the different item types examined in this study.