The Acquisition of Pronouns and Articles by Japanese EFL learners : Influence of Context

在我们对冠词习得的研究中，日本英语学习者在限定语境和非限定语境中都能正确地选择冠词。然而，在一个明确否认知识的背景下，他们犯了错误(过度生产明确的冠词)。这一错误也存在于俄语学习者的二语语法中。这一跨语言证据表明，机场核心计划的使用受到限制。此外，在代词习得的研究中，日本EFL学习者和西班牙JFL学习者在解释主语和宾语位置上的空成分时，前者比后者允许更多的马虎阅读。结果发现，两种语言中空成分的句法地位不同，日语中的论元省略，西班牙语中的空代词。目前的研究表明，冠词和零成分的习得应该在语篇中考察，而不是在句子中。此外，我们的研究还可以从二语习得和语言学理论的角度来探索二语习得的机制。

In our study of article acquisition, the Japanese EFL learners could choose an article correctly in both definite and non-definite contexts. However, in a context with an explicitly denied knowledge, they made errors(overproduction of definite articles). This error was also observed in the L2 grammar of Russian EFL learners. This cross-linguistic evidence indicates that there is a case where the ACP access is limited. Moreover, in our study of pronoun acquisition, when the Japanese EFL and Spanish JFL learners interpreted null elements in subject and object positions, the former allowed sloppy reading more than the latter did. From this result, it was found that the syntactic status of null elements differs in the two languages ; argument ellipsis in Japanese, null pronoun in Spanish. The current study suggests it is important that the acquisition of articles and null elements are examined in discourse, not within a sentence. Furthermore, our study could explore a mechanism of L2 acquisition from the views of SLA and linguistic theories.