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Learning contexts and conversational implicatures in English determiners

An approximate replication of Cho (2022)

ORCiD logo with link | University of Wisconsin–Madison
Published online: 11 December 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.25048.cha
Abstract
Cho, J. (2022). Crosslinguistic influence on L2 implicature computation for determiners. Journal of Second Language Studies, 5(1), 86–113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar investigated the computation of conversational implicatures (CIs) in two English determiners, the and that. Although both can be used to indicate uniqueness, only that carries an implication of contrast, which distinguishes between two nouns from the same category. It was found that L1-Korean L2-English speakers did not compute this implication due to functional overlap between the English determiners and the Korean demonstrative ku ‘that.’ Replicating Cho, J. (2022). Crosslinguistic influence on L2 implicature computation for determiners. Journal of Second Language Studies, 5(1), 86–113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, the present study examined the role of learning contexts in the computation of the implication of contrast by L1-Thai EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and ESL (English as a Second Language) speakers. Since CIs lie at the semantics–pragmatics interface and positive effects of naturalistic exposure in pragmatic development have been reported, L1-Thai ESL learners were predicted to benefit from naturalistic exposure L2 English, overriding L1 transfer, and to show sensitivity to the implication. EFL learners, by contrast, would show non-targetlike performance due to L1 transfer. Results from an acceptability judgment task revealed that, unlike L1-English speakers, both L1-Thai EFL and ESL learners did not compute the implication of contrast, corroborating the original study and revealing no significant effect of naturalistic exposure on the computation of CIs.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Definite and demonstrative descriptions in English
    • 2.2Definiteness and demonstratives in Thai
    • 2.3Naturalistic environments
  • 3.The current study
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Acceptability judgment task
    • 3.3Results
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Data availability statement
  • CRediT statement
  • Notes
  • References
References (30)
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