Discourse Effects on EFL Learners’ Production of Dative Constructions

This study investigated the discourse effects on intermediate English as foreign language (EFL) learners’ production of dative constructions including prepositional dative (PD), I gave a book to John, and double-object dative (DOD), I gave John a book. The author argues that the alternation between these two constructions is determined by the order of given and new (GN) information that is followed by English native speakers but is not acquired by EFL learners. A test containing three types of questions, i.e., simple wh-questions, multiple wh-questions and contextual questions, was designed to examine (a) whether intermediate EFL learners followed the GN order principle, (b) whether the test types, i.e., contexts, affected the learners’ production, and (c) if there was proficiency, or amount of input, effect in these learners’ production. Seventy-nine English-major sophomores, thirty-five English-major freshmen and thirty-two non-English-major freshmen participated in the study. Two-way repeated-measures ANOVA and MANOVA were performed to analyze the data. The results showed that (a) these learners did not recognize GN order, (b) the context affected EFL learners’ production, and (c) proficiency level showed effect only between English-major and non-English major freshmen groups.