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Applied Linguistics Advance Access published online on May 9, 2009
Applied Linguistics, doi:10.1093/applin/amp015
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© Oxford University Press 2009

A Subject–Object Asymmetry in the Comprehension of wh-Questions by Korean Learners of English

Jin-Hwa Lee

Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea


  Abstract

Previous studies on English as a second language (L2) argue for the relative ease of object wh-questions based on the finding that L2 learners are more accurate and faster in judging the grammaticality of object wh-questions than that of subject wh-questions in English. This article re-examines this claim by investigating L2 learners’ comprehension of long-distance wh-questions at different stages of English acquisition. A total of 113 Korean-speaking learners of English with different years of English instruction participated in a picture-based comprehension task. Contrary to previous studies, the results of the present study point toward a strong preference for subject wh-questions to object wh-questions. The learners were more accurate and improved faster in subject wh-questions than in object wh-questions. In addition, they showed a strong tendency to interpret object wh-questions as subject wh-questions. These results are in line with distance-based accounts of processing complexity. Subject wh-questions are easier to process because the distance between the wh-word and the gap is shorter and therefore poses less burden on working memory in subject wh-questions than in object wh-questions.


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