Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Amongst Korean EFL Students

Abstract

Many theorists in SLA have investigated the accuracy rate of ESL students on different relative clauses. Most of the studies have been based on the order predicted by Keenan and Comrie's Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH, 1977). This hierarchy indicates the following theoretical order of acquisition: subject, direct object, indirect object, object of preposition, possessive, and object of comparative. However, the NPAH is based on a universal typology and the markedness of relative pronouns, which implies the developmental sequence of first language acquisition. The purpose of this study is to confirm whether the order in which Korean EFL students tend to acquire these relative clauses matches the hierarchy. Results from sentence combining and error recognition tasks showed that the participants' accuracy rate corresponded to the NPAH, with the exception of possessive pronouns, which moved up in the hierarchy. Overall, the results of this study suggest that in order for the instructional sequence to match the L2 acquisition sequence for Korean EFL learners, the desirable sequence of relative pronouns should be in the order of subject, possessive, and then direct object.