The effect of information structure of English relative clauses on Ubon Ratchathani Rajabhat University English Majors' content retention

The present study aims investigate which information structure of English relative clause: the right branching (Ss and So) and the left branching (Os and Oo) will be most likely to affect students’ retention of the information presented in the matrix clause. The participants in the study were eighty students who were third year English majors at Ubon Ratchathani Rajabhat University (UBRU). A major research tool was a test of trendy sentences containing different types of relative clauses. These twenty test of twenty sentences containing different types of relative clauses. These twenty test-items were divided into four groups. The first group was called the Ss while the second one was named the Os. Moreover, the third group was known as the So whereas the last one was the Oo. Results obtained from the analysis revealed that the Ss structure seemed to lessen the participants’ ability to maintain the information introduced in the main clause. In other worlds, UBRU students showed a high possibility of having difficulties processing the information contained in the Ss-relative clause structure. On the contrary, the finding also showed that the Oo pattern manifested itself as the easiest structure in this study.