This study explores cross-linguistic differences in online sentence production, working on the theory that the grammatical characteristics of a language customize the speakers’ usual manner of sentence construction and utterance. It is reasoned that a contrast between English and Korean syntax has a direct bearing on that process: The sentential subject is licensed by a tensed verb in English, while it is by an overt morpheme in Korean. This gives rise to a substantial difference in the speakers’ speech patterns: English speakers’ message formation and linguistic encoding center on a verb, while Korean speakers elect or utter a subject first and then draw a predicate. An experiment is conducted on the hypotheses that (a) English L1 speakers are disposed to make sentences based on verbal information, so they would choose a subject that is conceptually more intimate with a given verb; (b) In contrast, Korean L1 speakers’ sentence construction is topic-oriented, so they would first consider the contextual properties of each referent such as shared familiarity and previous topicality; (c) Korean speakers’ L1 patterns would be persistent in their L2 English processing. The results and some implications for English teaching are discussed.

Ⅰ. INTRODUCTION
    Ⅱ. METHOD
    Ⅲ. RESULTS
    Ⅳ. DISCUSSION
    Ⅴ. CONCLUSION
    REFERENCES
    APPENDIX

• Mun-Hong Choe(Gwangju Girls High School)