Mandarin learners’ (L2) comprehension of zero anaphora in Mandarin phone conversations

Abstract This article analyzes patterns of comprehension of zero anaphor by native-English-speaker learners of Mandarin in recordings and transcriptions of four naturally occurring Mandarin telephone conversations. Because many anaphoric pronouns have no overt expression in Mandarin, comprehension of even basic clause constituents of Mandarin texts can require discourse-level inferencing that English does not require. Despite these differences between English and Mandarin, intermediate to advanced level Mandarin learners in this study were able to successfully interpret and translate zero anaphor in these telephone conversation texts about 72% of the time. The greatest difficulties with zero anaphor were related to a) instances in which the initial, explicitly expressed antecedent was misinterpreted, and b) shifts in footing, or verbal activity, in which speakers moved, for example, from narrative description to direct address of interlocutor or personal evaluation of a situation just described. These patterns suggest that greater awareness of discourse level structures in naturally occurring verbal interaction – which could be taught through explicit instruction – might help intermediate and advanced Mandarin learners to correctly interpret a broader range of zero anaphora.