A study on 11th form students’ acquisition of english relative clauses = nghiên cứu về độ tiếp thu mệnh đề quan hệ tiếng anh của học sinh lớp 11

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
---oOo---

NGUYỄN THỊ HOA

A STUDY ON 11TH FORM STUDENTS’ ACQUISITION
OF ENGLISH RELATIVE CLAUSES
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ĐỘ TIẾP THU MỆNH ĐỀ QUAN HỆ
TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2017


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
---oOo---

NGUYỄN THỊ HOA

A STUDY ON 11TH FORM STUDENTS’ ACQUISITION
OF ENGLISH RELATIVE CLAUSES
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ĐỘ TIẾP THU MỆNH ĐỀ QUAN HỆ
TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
S

T

T

T

HANOI - 2017

P

, Ph.D.


DECLARATION
Title: “A STUDY ON 11TH FORM STUDENTS‟ ACQUISITION OF
ENGLISH RELATIVE CLAUSES”

I certify that no part of the thesis has been copied or reproduced by me from
any other works without acknowledgement and that the thesis is originally written
by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.

Hanoi, 2017
Student‟s signature

Nguyễn Thị Hoa

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,
Doctor Tran Thi Thanh Phuc, for her careful guidance, critical feedback, and
enormous enthusiasm. Without her support, this thesis cannot be completed.
I am grateful to all the lecturers of the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies,
University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University,
Hanoi for their valuable teaching and assistance during my study at the college.
I would like to express my thanks to all my friends who were willing to help me in
sharing materials and ideas when this thesis is worked on.
My sincere thanks also go to all my colleagues and students for their
assistance during the process of data collection.
Particularly, I owe my indebtedness to my husband for his support,
encouragement and tolerance when I was in the process of writing this thesis.

ii


ABSTRACT

This study investigated the processing difficulty of relative clauses in two
groups of Vietnamese students with high and low level of English proficiency. It
also aimed at exploring errors on relative clauses made by 11th form Vietnamese
students at a high school in Hanoi. 65 students from two classes were invited to join

in the research. They answered a test including 30 questions about different types of
English relative clauses, namely, SS, SO, OS, and OO. The results indicate that
participants in both two groups faced more processing difficulty in OS and OO type
than the others, providing weak evidence for any of the four hypotheses: SOHH
(Subject-Object Hierarchy Hypothesis); NPAH (Noun Phrase Accessibility
Hierarchy Hypothesis);

PFH (Parallel Function Hypothesis; PDH (Perceptual

Difficulty Hypothesis). Moreover, although students in the high proficiency group
performed better than those in low proficiency group, they all made a number of
mistakes in doing relative clause exercises.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION...................................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................. iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................................. vi
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................ vii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION......................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 4
2.1 Overview of relative clause ................................................................................................. 4
2.1.1 Definition........................................................................................................................... 4
2.1.2 Classification ..................................................................................................................... 4
2.2 Predictor hypotheses of relative clause acquisition ........................................................... 5
2.2.1 The parallel function hypothesis (PFH) .......................................................................... 6

2.2.2 The perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis (PDH) ................................................................. 6
2.2.3 Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH) .............................................................. 7
2.2.4 Subject - Object Hierarchy Hypothesis (SOHH) ........................................................... 8
2.3 Previous studies.................................................................................................................... 9
2.3.1 Previous studies on the PFH ............................................................................................ 9
2.3.2 Previous studies on the PDH............................................................................................ 9
2.3.3 Previous studies on the NPAH ...................................................................................... 10
2.3.4 Previous studies on the SOHH ...................................................................................... 12
2.4 Error analysis...................................................................................................................... 13
2.5. Summary ........................................................................................................................... 14
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY .................................................................................. 15
3.1 Setting and participants...................................................................................................... 15
3.2 Methods of collecting data ................................................................................................ 15
3.2.1 Relative Clause test......................................................................................................... 16
3.2.2 Interview.......................................................................................................................... 17

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3.3 Data analysis ...................................................................................................................... 17
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................... 19
4.1 Research question 1 ........................................................................................................... 19
4.2 Research question 2 ........................................................................................................... 24
4.3 Other findings..................................................................................................................... 30
4.4 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 32
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS.............................................. 34
5.1 Implication.......................................................................................................................... 34
5.2 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 36
5.3 Suggestion for further research ......................................................................................... 36
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................... 37

APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................ I

v


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

DO:

Direct Object

Error:

Error correction

GEN:

Genitive

IO:

Indirect Object

M:

Mean score

MCQ:

Multiple choice questions

N:

Noun

NP:

Noun Phrase

NPAH:

Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis

OCOMP:

Object of comparison

OO:

Object – Object

OPREP:

Object of preposition

OS:

Object – Subject

PDH:

Perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis

PFH:

Parallel Function Hypothesis

RCs:

Relative clauses

S:

Subject

SO:

Subject – Object

SOHH:

Subject-Object Hierarchy Hypothesis

SS:

Subject – Subject

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Item purpose................................................................................................16
Table 2: Case Processing Summary ..........................................................................19
Table 3: Results of t-test of difference between high and low proficiency groups ..19
Table 4: Results of statistical analyses basing on Test of Homogeneity of Variances .......24
Table 5: Results of statistical analyses using ANOVA.............................................25
Table 6: Results of statistical analyses basing on Robust Test of Equality of Means
...................................................................................................................................26

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

Learning English as a foreign language is a dynamic process in which grammar
plays an important role. Among different grammatical aspects, relative clauses have
been showed to be a great obstacle for students. This study aimed to explore the
validity of different hypotheses on the acquisition of relative clauses among
Vietnamese high school students.
1.1 Rationale
Nowadays, English has become a useful tool to get access to the world‟s
knowledge and to achieve success in life. To master English, students often focus
on the learning of four major language skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading
and writing. However, grammar is the basis for the development of all these skills.
As a teacher of English, I realize that relative clauses (RCs) are one of the most
difficult grammar aspects for students of English to master. Many errors associated
with relative clauses have been committed by my students, despite the fact that they
have spent a significant length of time studying them. For examples, a great number
of students are confused about the forms and functions of the English relative

clauses. They often make mistakes in combining sentences containing relative
clauses and fail to distinguish between restrictive and non- restrictive relatives.
Therefore, I would like to know and understand more about this issue.
Research on RCs has been conducted in a number of countries. The majority of
these studies focus on testing the validity of different hypotheses related to the
acquisition of RCs. For example, Alotaibi (2016) identifies that the most difficult
type of RC for Kuwaiti EFL learners is OO (object-object), while Abdolmanafi and
Rahmani (2012) points out that students encounter more difficulty in SO (subjectobject). In Vietnam, research following this approach has been quite limited. One
study by Lan (2009) does not focus on testing RC hypothesis, but aims to point out
typical mistakes committed by Vietnamese students. She identifies these as the
wrong use of relativizers, the misuse of the relative clauses, and the misuse between
restrictive and non-restrictive relatives.

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This study aims at investigating Vietnamese high school learners‟ acquisition of
RCs. Among the various types of relative clauses, this study only investigate those
RCs that the role of the two head nouns and two relativized noun phrases are either
subject or object. Basing on four basic types of relative clauses, namely, SO, SS,
OS, and OO, this study explored whether four hypotheses (SOHH, PDH, PFH and
NPAH) could predict Vietnamese learners‟ acquisition of relative clauses.
1.2 Aims of the study
This study is aimed at exploring errors on relative clauses made by 11th form
Vietnamese students at a high school in Hanoi. More specifically, it investigates
which hypothesis is the most appropriate and best predicts the hierarchy of
difficulty or the acquisition order of English relative clauses by two groups of
students: high proficiency and low proficiency. In addition, it identifies whether
students of high proficiency group outperformed those of low proficiency group in
the RC test.

1.3 Research questions
The study addresses the following research questions:
1. Which among the four hypotheses - SOHH, PDH, PFH and NPAH – best
predicts Vietnamese high school learner‟s acquisition of relative clauses,
regarding high and low proficiency learners?
2. To what extent does the high proficiency group outperform the low
proficiency one in the relative clause test?
3. What are possible reasons for students‟ performance on the relative
clause test?
1.4 Methods of the study
The study is primarily a quantitative one. A test on RCs is delivered to student
participants. The test result is analyzed by SPSS to yield conclusion. Based on the
outcome of the test, a number of students are invited to be interviewed on how they
completed the test.

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1.4 Design of the study
The study is organized into five chapters.
Chapter I – Introduction: This chapter describes the rationale, aims, research
questions, methods and design of the study.
Chapter II – Literature review: This chapter presents theoretical foundations for
the research and summarizes previous studies on the same topic.
Chapter III – Methodology: This chapter provides information regarding how
the study is conducted.
Chapter IV – Findings and Discussion: This chapter details the findings of the
study and compares the findings with previous studies.
Chapter V – Conclusion: This chapter concludes the study and suggests further
investigation of the topic.

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Overview of relative clause
2.1.1 Definition
A relative clause, also called an adjective clause, is a dependent clause that
modifies a noun or a pronoun by making it more specific or adding additional
information about it. Relative clauses are typically found after a noun phrase and
provide some information about the person or thing indicated by that noun phrase.
They are sometimes called „adjective clauses' because, like many adjectives, they
often describe and help to identify the person or thing being talked about (Yule,
1998, p. 240). According to Cowan (2008), relative clauses are defined as “one kind
of dependent clause introduced by a special set of relative pronouns”. Huddleston
and Pullum (2005, p.183) consider a relative clause as “a special kind of
subordinate clause whose primary function is as modifier to a noun or nominal”
An RC is introduced by either relative pronouns (who-, whom-, which-, that-,
whose) or relative adverbs (when-, where-, why-). The omission of relative
pronouns can be seen as the zero relative pronouns. “Where” and “when” replace a
prepositional phrase of place and of time respectively, to function as adverbial of
the relative clause. In this case, the “preposition + which” can be replaced by
particular relative adverbs which are “where” and “when”.
2.1.2 Classification
 Restrictive relative clauses
McArthur (1992, p.859) considers a restrictive relative clause (also defining
relative clause) “a relative clause with the semantic function of defining more
closely what the noun modified by the clause is referring to.” As defined by Yule
(1998, p.248), restrictive relative clauses are ones that “define” or “restrict” the

reference of the antecedent noun. They help to identify or classify the person or
thing being talked about.
This is an example of a restrictive relative clause:

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The woman whom John is talking to is a teacher.
In this sentence, the relative clause “whom John is talking to” restricts the
reference of “the woman” by specifying “John is talking to”. The restrictive
modification is necessary to identify “The woman” that the speaker mentions and
distinguish the woman from any others in this context.
It can be seen from the above definitions that restrictive relative clauses define
and identify the antecedent. This helps to limit possible references of the antecedent
and the interpretation of the sentence. Restrictive relative clauses can be introduced
by all wh-relative pronouns and adverbs and also “that” or “zero” relative pronoun.
 Nonrestrictive relative clause
A non-restrictive relative clause (also non-defining relative clause) adds
information not needed for identifying what a modified noun is referring to
(McArthur, 1992). Yule (1998, p.248) defines that “a non-restrictive relative clause
gives extra information about an antecedent. It provides additional information, not
identifying information.” This is an example of a nonrestrictive clause:
My father, who is working in a hotel, will retire next year.
In this sentence, there exists a nonrestrictive relative clause who is working in a
hotel that provides additional information about the father. However, his identity is
already clear and identified thanks to the possessive determiner my. Any
modification is extra explanation and if we leave out the adding clause, the sentence
still makes sense. Therefore, non-restrictive relative clauses add information or
describe the antecedent rather than define it as restrictive relative clauses do. Thus,
they are not essential for identification and can be left out.

2.2 Predictor hypotheses of relative clause acquisition
In order to evaluate the acquisition of English relative clauses, a number of
hypotheses have been proposed. They are supposed to demonstrate the relative ease
and difficulty in acquiring different types of RC sentences, namely Hamilton‟s
(1994) Subject-Object Hierarchy Hypothesis (SOHH), Keenan and Comrie‟s (1977)
Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAH), Sheldon (1974) Parallel

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Function Hypothesis (PFH), and Kuno‟s (1974) Perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis
(PDH). This section presents an overview of these hypotheses.
2.2.1 The parallel function hypothesis (PFH)
The PFH, which was first suggested by Sheldon (1974), shows the order of
difficulty in the comprehension of relative clauses by children learning English as
their native language. The PFH identifies the acquisition order of relative clauses in
terms of the identification of grammatical functions between the head noun in the
matrix clause and a relative pronoun in the embedded clause. When the grammatical
function of the head noun is the identical with that of the relative pronoun, the
hypothesis predicts difficulty, whereas ease of acquisition is anticipated when the
function of the head noun is parallel with its co-referential relative pronoun.
Therefore, the predicted order of acquisition of relative clause is represented as
follows (Sheldon, 1974).
Subject – Subject (SS) & Object – Object (OO)
> Subject – Object (SO) & Object – Subject (OS)
(“>” means “easier than”; “&” means “as difficult as”)
Based on this order of acquisition, it can be predicted that learners of English
acquire the sentences in (a) and (d) prior to those in (b) and (c)
a. SS: The girl who lives next door is beautiful.
b. SO: The girl who(m) I met yesterday is beautiful.

c. OS: I know the girl who lives next door.
d. OO: I know the girl who(m) I met yesterday.
The head nouns “the girl” in the sentence of (a) and (d), as a subject and an object of
each matrix clause, have identical functions with relative pronouns of each sentence
respectively. On the contrary, the head nouns “the girl” in (b) and (c), as a subject and an
object of each matrix clause noun are not parallel with their co-referential relative
pronoun.
2.2.2 The perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis (PDH)
Another hypothesis, the PDH, has come from universal constraints on the
process of embedding across languages as a basis for prediction. The human
cognitive processing in the matrix clause can be interrupted when the embedding of
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a restrictive relative clause occurs in the middle of a relative clause (Kuno, 1974).
Therefore the location of the relative clause in the matrix clause is critical in the
PDH. In other words, based on the limitation of the human memory system, it is
predicted that owing to short term memory limitations, center embedding is
perceptually more difficult to acquire than right embedding. This is because center
embedding interrupts the processing of the matrix sentence while right embedding
does not. Therefore the sentence in (b) is considered to be harder to acquire than
sentence in (a).
(a) center embedding
The boy that the woman that the man loved scolded was intelligent.
(b) right embedding
The man loved the woman that scolded the boy that was intelligent.
Regarding to RCs, the PDH predicts that RCs formed on the subject are more
difficult than those formed on the object. In details, “object embedded, subject
focus” (OS) and “object embedded, object focus” (OO) types of RCs should be
easier than “subject embedded, subject focus” (SS) and “subject embedded, object

focus” (SO) types, as illustrated here:
Object - Subject (OS) & Object – Object (OO)
> subject – Subject (SS) & Subject – Object (SO)
2.2.3 Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH)
Keenan and Comrie‟s (1977) Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH) has
attracted a number of researchers in terms of studying the acquisition orders of the
different types of RCs. Keenan and Comrie carried out a detailed comparative study
of RC structures in different languages before proposing the NPAH, which suggests
the subject is placed higher than object and other grammatical functions.
Subject > Direct object > Indirect Object > Object of preposition
> Genitive > Object of comparison
(The symbol „>‟ here means “is more accessible than”)
Example of each RC type adopted Hamiton (1994) is as follows:
(a)

Subject RC: the man [that __ knows the woman]

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(b)

Object RC: the man [that the woman knows __ ]

(c)

Indirect Object RC: the man [that the woman gave a pencil to __ ]

(d)

Object of preposition RC: the desk [that the woman put the pencil on __ ]

(e)

Genitive RC: the man [whose pencil the woman took __ ]

(f)

Object of Comparison RC: the man [that the woman is taller than __ ]
Keenan (1975) hypothesized that relativized subjects are more accessible than

relativized objects. Therefore in terms of the functions of head noun and relative
pronoun, SS and OS types are predicted to be eaiser than SO and OO.
(g) SS & OS > SO & OO
(“>” means “easier than”; “&” means “as difficult as”)
2.2.4 Subject - Object Hierarchy Hypothesis (SOHH)
The fourth hypothesis that has gained attention is Hamilton‟s (1994) SOHH.
The SOHH recommended an implicational relationship between four types of RC
clauses, namely, OS, OO, SS and SO. The specific order of difficulty is predicted
based on the number of discontinuities in the structure, as: OS> OO/ SS> SO.
According to the SOHH, the number of gaps in the structure determines the
difficulty. Thus, OS types should be the easiest to acquire because they contain only
one gap within the RC. With two gaps OO types are more difficult than OS.
Similarly the SS types contain two discontinuities and are as difficult as the OO
types. With three discontinuities the SO types are considered to be the most difficult
to learn.
To sum up, the orderings of acquisition difficulty of English relative clauses are
predicted by the four hypotheses as follows:
Name

Order of acquisition

PFH

SS & OO > SO & OS

PDH

OS & OO > SS & SO

NPAH

SS & OS > SO & OO

SOHH

OS > OO & SS > SO

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2.3 Previous studies
A number of studies have been conducted to test the predictions of different
hypotheses of RC acquisition. Four hypotheses have been tested the most, namely
PFH, PDH, NPAH and SOHH, which are represented as below.
2.3.1 Previous studies on the PFH
Among rather limited studies on RC related to PFH hypothesis, Sheldon (1974)
identifies that children could better understand sentences in which the head noun
and the relative pronoun served the same function in their respective clause (e.g., SS
and OO relativization). However, this finding has not been duplicated by other EFL

researchers. Doughty (1991) concludes that the PFH has not been supported by the
studies of L2 relativization as it was predicted. In addition, different studies find
inconsistent results with the PFH (Bowerman, 1979; Gass and Ard, 1980; Ozcan,
1997; Ozge, Marinis, and Zeyrek, 2010; Sadighi, 1994. For example, Rahmany and
Haghpour (2015) investigates the difficulty order of RC types and concludes that
the most demanding RC type for Persian speaking EFL learners was the SS type
due to the difficulty in identifying SSMS, MS referring to the Matrix Subject
position. (Mean=3.88). It seems that due to the embedding of RC within the matrix
clause, participants misunderstand the object of the RC as the subject of the matrix
clause. This result is inconsistent with predictions of Sheldon (1974). Another
research by Özge, Marinis, and Zeyrek (2010) investigating the production of RCs
in Turkish children and adults shows that both children and adults used more
subject than object RCs and children were less accurate in the production of object
compared to subject RCs.
2.3.2 Previous studies on the PDH
Wong (1991) collects 170 English essays written by four ESL learners from
five classes in a secondary school in Hong Kong and attempts to check if the NPAH
is valid in the order of RC acquisition. By conducting conducted pre- and posterror-frequency counts of the learners‟ production of six types of relative clauses, he
argues that analyses were more in line with Kuno‟s (1975) hypothesis. Therefore,

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the order of the acquisition of relative clauses by these learners was: OS> OO> SS>
SO. Similarly, another study is conducted by S. J. Abdolmanafi (Rokni) & Z.
Rahmani (2012) to identify the rank order of mastery of the four types of relative
clauses - SS, SO, OS, and OO - in Iranian EFL learners. It is found that the rank
order for mastery was OS (80%) > OO (52.5%) > SS (20%) > SO (2.5%).
Therefore, the findings obtained from this study (OS + OO = 294 + 282 = 576,
while SS + SO = 291 + 261= 552) are consistent with the results of a number of

previous researchers (Ioup& Kruse, 1977; Kuno, 1974; Wong, 1991 and Ramin
Rahmany and Mina Haghpour, 2015) that OS and OO relative clause types would
be easier to acquire than SS and SO types.
Different results which show the invalidity of the PDH was achieved through
the study conducted by Song Tiehua (2016). Through examining college EFL
learners‟ comprehension and production tasks of RC, the acquisition of English
relative clauses in the context of foreign language learning in China has been shed
light on. It identifies that the difficulty order of the production task for Chinese
participants was O-DO > O-IO (indirect object) > S-DO > SS & S-IO > O-S > SOPREP, whereas that in the comprehension task was O-DO > O-OPREP > SOPREP> O-IO> S-S> O-S> S-DO> S-IO. The results generally contradict the
prediction of the PDH.
2.3.3 Previous studies on the NPAH
A significant number studies supports the NPAH, showing that it is likely a
valid prediction about relative clauses. To be specific, Gass (1979) investigates the
acquisition of relative clauses by 17 high-intermediate and advanced learners who
belonged to different linguistic backgrounds e.g. Korean, Thai, Italian, French,
Japanese, Portuguese, Persian, etc. A sentence combination task was used to
examine directly the difficulty order of RC types. The participants‟ answers
revealed that NPAH was manifest in terms of universal order on the hierarchy. For
instance, the subject position was the easiest one to relativize being the highest
position on the hierarchy, whilst the most problematic one was no other than the

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object of comparison. Jong- Bai Hwang (2003) investigates the relevance of the
three hypotheses (PFH, PDH, and NPAH) for predicting Korean learners‟
acquisition of English relative clauses. Fifty-nine learners from a high class took
three tasks (grammaticality judgment, production and gap filling task) included four
types of clauses, and the results showed that the NPAH appeared to be the most
relevant hypothesis among the three. In grammaticality judgment task, the subjects

received the highest mean score in their judgement of OS-type relative clauses
(M=65.76), and the second highest score on the SS type relative clauses (M=
60.52). The mean scores of subjects‟ judgment on the SO and OO type relative
clauses were lower than the others (M= 55.56, and 48.68, respectively). Therefore,
in this task, the difficulty orders exactly the same as that predicted in the NPAH: SS
& OS > SO & OO
While a number of studies found their results in line with the NPAH, few other
studies identify that the NPAH was not able to account for the learner‟s RC
difficulty order (Gibson, 2003; Hsiu-chuan, 2000; Ozeki and Shirai, 2007; Ramin
Rahmany and Mina Haghpour, 2015). For example, with an aim to investigate the
difficulty order of RC types, the results of the study conducted by Rahmany and
Haghpour (2015) shows the most demanding RC type for Persian speaking EFL
learners was the SS type due to the difficulty in identifying SSMS. (Mean=3.88). It
was concluded that the results had conflicting results with the NPAH. Another
example was the study conducted by Jong- Bai Hwang (2003) which investigated
the relevance of the three hypotheses (the PFH, the PDH, the NPAH) in predicting
the acquisition order of English restrictive relative clauses by Korean EFL learners.
The result showed that although NPAH appeared to be the most relevant hypothesis
among the three, it seemed to be weak for predicting the difficulty order in the gap –
filling tasks. The difficulty order was SS > OS > OO > SO compared to SS & OS >
SO & OO predicted by the NPAH. According to the researcher, the surface order of
the difficulty in the gap-filling task is the same as the NPAH predicts, but the order
is not sustained by the statistical analyses since no significant difference is found
between different types of relative clauses.

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2.3.4 Previous studies on the SOHH
The SOHH, which is based on the notion of processing discontinuity in both RC

and matrix clause, has also been proved to be valid. For example, Izumi (2003)
analysed data from 61 learners of English as the second language in three different
tasks and concluded that the results of all tests supported the predictions by the
SOHH. As noted by the researcher, the data were consistent with the prediction of the
SOHH but differed with regard to the two OPREP relatives (OO Prep and SO Prep).
The result of the study carried out by Rahmany and Haghpour (2015) also
partially supports SOHH. The processing difficulty of relative clauses in two groups
of Persian-speaking students with high and low level of English proficiency is
investigated. 165 (92 female) university students aged 18 to 30 did

sentence

comprehension exercises consisted of four types of restrictive English relative
clauses, namely, SS, SO, OS, and OO. ANOVA measurement was conducted for
RC types (SS, SO, OS, OO) for the within-group variable, and proficiency level
(high, low) for the between-group variable. The results showed that there was no
significant interaction effect between the types of RCs and the proficiency level.
The results of pairwise comparisons showed that participants‟ performance did not
differ in OS (Mean= 4.58) and OO type (Mean= 4.47), but their performance in OS
and OO type was better than SO (Mean= 4.16) and SS type (Mean= 3.78).
Therefore the order of processing different RC types is OS & OO > SO > SS. The
participants encountered more processing difficulty in SS type than in OS and OO
ones. According to the researchers, although SO type was demanding for learners in
comparison with OS and OO type, SS was the most difficult which was contrary to
the SOHH (OS > OO & SS > SO). That explains why the study reveals a partial
support for the SOHH.
Another research conducted by Gao (2014) has different findings. With 40
Chinese English learner participants, she cannot verify the SOHH. In her study, the
difficulty order is OO > OS >OO prep> SO > SS > SO prep in sentence
combination.

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In conclusion, although there have been multiple researches on different RC
hypotheses, the findings across those findings are far from consistent. This study,
therefore, aims to contribute to this literature review by reporting findings from
Vietnamese high school learners.
2.4 Error analysis
Besides testing different hypotheses, a number of studies aim at identifying
common errors made by students when completing RC tasks. Alotaibi (2016)
conducts a study to examine the extent to which 120 Kuwaiti EFL learners are
aware of the structure of relative clauses in English. A sentence combination task
was used to measure the participants‟ ability to produce correct relative clauses in
English. The results indicate that Kuwaiti EFL learners may not be fully aware of
the formation rules of relative clauses in English (total mean=60.4%). Moreover,
statistically significant differences are identified between the answers of the
advanced (76.3%) and intermediate learners (44.4%). The participants made a
number of errors, such as deletion of the relative pronoun, wrong relative pronoun,
repetitive use of pronouns, passivisation of the relative clause and problems with the
indirect object and genitive relative clauses.
Yee (2005) shows another problem associated with RC acquisition, which is the
unnecessary repetition of a pronoun in a position which formed a wrong relative
structure, such as “The girl who was sick she went home.” A potential reason for
this would be explained by the difference between Chinese and English. In Chinese,
a pronoun is required when the head noun is not in the subject or direct object
positions. This may influence Chinese learners of English in their formation of
English relative clauses. In addition, there are other factors such as the difficulty in
resetting the wh-movement parameter and the specifier-head agreement parameter, the
irrelevance of the universal principle constraining the occurrence of wh –movement or

the licensing wh-traces, the occurrence of negative L1 transfer and the influence of the
processing load.

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In Vietnam, the setting of this study, research on the acquisition of RC has been
rather limited. Lan (2009) conducts a research on sematic and syntactic problems in
using relative clauses in Vietnamese high school students. Data collection is
administered to 40 high school students to identify their errors related to RC in
English. The most noticeable errors made by the students are the wrong use of
relativizers, the misuse of the relative clauses, and the misuse between restrictive
and non-restrictive relatives. For example, the result shows that the most mistaken
uses of relativizers was that, which and whose with 77.5%, 75% and 70 % of wrong
answers respectively. In terms of the use of the relative clauses, students did not
know which part of the sentence to make a relative clause, and what head noun to
be modified by a relative clause. Lan (2009) assumes that this is because the
students lack back ground knowledge as well as understanding of syntactic features
(especially the position) of relative clauses.
2.5. Summary
This section has presented theoretical issues related to relative clauses. It
introduces definitions of RC, types of RC, four hypotheses that are often
investigated in relation to language learners‟ acquisition of RC, and previous
studies. The following section will present the methodology of the research.

14


CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methodology of the research with detailed description
of the participants, methods of collecting data, and data analysis. It is primarily a
quantitative study, with findings and conclusions resulting from the analyzing of a
test. However, it also contains some qualitative aspects, which is data obtained from
interviews.
3.1 Setting and participants
The study was conducted at a high school in Hanoi, Vietnam. Ninety eight
students in two classes were invited to do the RC test. All the informants started
learning English when they were at primary school. At the time of collecting data,
they had completed three quarters of a school year. They all studied the book Tiếng
Anh 11 – the official English textbook for Vietnamese high school students. By this
time, they had been introduced and taught about English relative clauses in previous
lessons.
Among 98 students who did the RC test, only 65 of them were selected to be
participants of the study. Because the study aims to identify differences between
high proficiency students and low proficiency students in their acquisition of RC in
English, I examined the students‟ academic record. From the academic record, I
picked up 30 students whose average score of English was 8.0 or above and 35
students whose average scores of English was 6.5 or lower. The average score was
calculated based on the students‟ oral and written English test from the beginning of
the school year up to the moment of test delivery. The 30 students with higher
average scores formed the high proficiency group, and the other 35 students formed
the low proficiency group.
3.2 Methods of collecting data
A number of methods were used to collect the data for the study, including a
test and subsequent interviews with some students.

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3.2.1 Relative Clause test
According to Hughes (1989), a test refers to any structured attempt to measure
language abilities; and „abilities‟ refers simply to what people can do in, or with, a
language. When investigating learners‟ acquisition of RC, a proficiency test is often
implemented (e.g., Alotabi (2016), Lan (2009), Rahmany & Haghpour (2015).
In this study, the RC test aims at testing the four hypotheses of RC acquisition.
The test consists of 30 sentences, classified into three tasks: a multiple choice task,
an error correction task and a sentence combination task. The format of the test in
terms of specific sentence structures resembled those in English grammar books,
while the exact words used in the test was chosen so as not to contain new words
other than those students had encountered previously. This was to ensure that
students‟ performance on the test would not be influenced by their unfamiliarity
with the words. The test consists of eight items of OS structure, eight items of SO
structure, and seven items of SS and OO structures respectively.
The test was piloted with ten students of the same cohort but in different classes
than those who did the actual test. After obtaining the outcome of the pilot test, some
changes were made so that the test would be more reliable. The actual test was
administered to students of two classes at the same time, and was collected after 30
minutes.
All test papers were marked by me, and only answers that satisfactorily
completed all the requirements of the test were marked as correct. For example, in
the error correction task, an answer was marked as correct when the student can
both identify the error and propose the correct alternative.
The format of the test and the purpose of each test item are represented as
follows.
Table 1. Item purpose
1
MCQ OS
Error SS
Comp OO

2
SO
SO
SS

3
OS
OS
SO

4
SO
SS
OS

5
SS
SO
SO

16

6
OS
OS
OS

7
OO

SO
SS

8
OO
OO
SO

9
SS
OO
OS

10
SS
OO
OO