EFL Learners'' Sensitivity to Linguistic and Discourse Factors in the Process of Anaphoric Resolution

The readers' ability to integrate current information with given information has been considered as an important component of reading comprehension process. one aspect of this integration process involves anaphoric resolution. the purpose of this study is to investigate the process of anaphoric resolution, focusing on inferential rigidity of different types of anaphoric ties. ninety efl learners were selected from the accessible population of undergraduate efl students at a university in iran. in this study an anaphoric resolution test, containing 30 different expository texts, was used. the participants were asked to underline the antecedents of the anaphors. once the data was collected and scored, it was subjected to a number of appropriate statistical procedures. the results of the analysis of variance revealed a significant effect of different types of anaphoric ties, f (4, 87) = 10.28, p < .000. the results also revealed a significant effect of their different inferential rigidity, f (1, 87) = 43.4, p < .000. based on the findings, a new anaphoric resolution continuum emerged. the study suggests that students should be familiar with different types of anaphoric ties in discourse and be sensitive to linguistic and textual cues in resolving them and rely on different cues in texts to comprehend texts.