Do Korean Learners of English Use Existential Constructions for the Introduction of New Discourse Referents?

Abstract

It is attested that topic prominent L1 learners of English without an advanced level of proficiency, have a strong tendency to use existential constructions to structure the information in sentences in the topic-comment ways of their languages (Lee 2011, Ortega 2009, Callies 2008, Rutherford 1983). Since Korean is a topic prominent language, the current study hypothesized that Korean learners of English would also show such a tendency. To prove this hypothesis, the present study examined how Korean learners of English use there-existentials in their essays. The study results clearly showed that these learners did employ Existential Constructions to package the information of sentences into the frame of topic and comment, but not for introducing new discourse referents.