Effects Of Working Memory Capacity And L2 Proficiency On English Reflexive Pronoun Resolution Of College EFL Learners

Anaphora is an essential means of cohesion and coherence in discourse,which makes sentences and texts more concise by avoiding repetition.In order to successfully comprehend a text,readers have to determine the antecedent of the anaphor,so as to clarify what the anaphor refers to.Failure to establish anaphoric reference will affect a reader’s performance to integrate the current information with information mentioned earlier in a text and construct a coherent representation of the text’s meaning.As one of the anaphors,reflexive pronoun has been a hot topic in second language processing for its essential role in text reading comprehension.The English reflexive pronoun resolution is a complex cognitive process.Previous studies explored the contribution of separable facets of second language proficiency and working memory capacity on reflexive pronoun resolution,but there is no unified conclusion on whether and how working memory and L2 proficiency affects English reflexive pronoun resolution.Moreover,little research has been conducted to explore the interaction between L2 proficiency and working memory capacity in relation to reflexive pronoun resolution,and the available research concerning reflexive pronoun resolution in different sentence patterns is even less.Given this,the current study investigates the effects of working memory capacity and L2 proficiency on reflexive pronoun resolution of college EFL(English as a Foreign Language)learners,attempting to make the concrete effects more clearly.The study is guided by the following questions: 1)What are the effects of working memory capacity on the English reflexive pronoun resolution of college EFL learners? 2)What are the effects of L2 proficiency on the English reflexive pronoun resolution of college EFL learners? 3)What are the interactive effects between L2 proficiency and working memory capacity on the English reflexive pronoun resolution of college EFL learner?The present study was a 2(working memory capacity: high/ low)× 2(L2 proficiency:high/ low)× 3(sentence pattern: mono-clausal/ bi-clausal finite/ bi-clausal non-finite)between-subject design.Eighty-two college students from different majors were selected as participants.With the aim of measuring their L2 proficiency and working memory capacity,an IELTS reading test and Daneman and Carpenter’s(1980)reading-span test were adopted respectively,then participants were divided into low and high working memory groups,low and high L2 proficiency groups according to their test scores.In order to test their reflexive pronoun resolution performance,they were assigned to perform a picture-based judgement task designed by White(1997).E-prime 2.0 was used to present stimuli as well as record participants’ accuracy data.Quantitative measures of accuracy were applied to assess their performance in processing reflexives.Then the data obtained were analyzed by descriptive statistics,two-way ANOVA,three-way ANOVA,Independent Samples T-test in SPSS 25.0.The results of statistical analysis are as follows:(1)Working memory capacity significantly affects the performance of English reflexive pronoun resolution.The higher working memory capacity learners own,the more available working memory resources they can use to process complex reflexive pronouns.In other words,the high working memory group performed better on reflexive pronoun resolution than the low group.Sentence patterns also affect the performance of reflexive pronoun resolution.There is a significant difference in the performance of mono-clausal sentences,bi-clausal nonfinite sentences and bi-clausal finite sentences.Moreover,English reflexive pronoun resolution is influenced by combined actions of working memory capacity and sentence pattern.(2)L2 proficiency significantly affects the performance of English reflexive pronoun resolution.With the improvement of L2 proficiency,the accuracy of reflexive pronoun resolution gets significantly improved.Sentence pattern also plays a role in the performance of reflexive pronoun resolution.There exists significant difference in the performance of monoclausal sentence,bi-clausal non-finite sentence and bi-clausal finite sentence.However,L2 proficiency and sentence pattern do not jointly affect the resolution of English reflexives.(3)L2 proficiency and working memory do not exert an interactive effect on the performance of English reflexive pronoun resolution.The experimental results mentioned above can be accounted for by the Phrase Theory,Capacity Limited Theory,and Principle and Parameter Theory.Practically,this study has not only enriched research on reflexive pronoun resolution in the domain of second language acquisition but also provided evidence for the effects of L2 proficiency and working memory on the processing of reflexives.Pedagogically,findings of this study can shed light on the teaching of College English reading from three aspects:(1)Students should be trained to increase working memory capacity based on the chunks and master the binding principle based on the phase in order to reduce the burden of working memory.(2)Based on students’ current reading proficiency,teachers should pay attention to the differences in binding conditions between Chinese and English.(3)Teachers should carry on the direct teaching to lengthen the retention of knowledge in the student’s mind.