Abstract
Characters in Japanese novels are referred to by a variety of linguistic forms, and the comprehension of textual references may serve as an index of the reader’s understanding of the context. This study examines whether advanced learners of Japanese miscomprehend textual references to characters when reading Japanese novels. Since referential expressions do not always appear in the text, it is presumed that the following types of referential expressions could cause miscomprehension: a. Utterance subjects absent in dialogues, b. zero pronouns, c. noun phrases with the case-marker no on unsaturated nouns, and d. person deixis. A total of 39 university students participated in a survey that collected their verbal reports. Korean learners showed less miscomprehension than English and Chinese learners, while English and Chinese learners’ miscomprehensions showed similar patterns, except that English learners more often miscomprehended the referential expressions in Japanese adnominal clauses. These results suggest that while it is not difficult for learners to interpret referential expressions in text, the textual environment surrounding the expressions causes learners miscomprehension.
