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Relevance Theory and the in second language acquisition

  • Vlad Zegarac
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Abstract

This article considers the implications of Sperber and Wilson's (1986/95) Relevance Theory for the acquisition of English the by second language (L2) learners whose first language (L1) does not have an article system. On the one hand, Relevance Theory provides an explicit characterization of the semantics of the, which suggests ways of devising more accurate guidelines for teaching/learning than are available in current textbooks. On the other hand, Relevance Theoretic assumptions about human communication together with some effects of transfer from L1 provide the. basis for a number of predictions about the types of L2 learners' errors in the use of the. I argue that data from previous research (Trenkić, 2002) lend support to these predictions, and I try to show that examples drawn from the data I have collected provide evidence for the view that L2 learning is not influenced only by general pragmatic principles and hypotheses about L2 based on transfer from L1, but that learners also devise and test tacit hypotheses which are idiosyncratic to them.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 193-211

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Second Language Research (Volume 20, Issue 3)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 01/07/2004

Publication status

Published - 01/07/2004

ISSN

0267-6583

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/623676
  • Scopus: 3142762289

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