ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes the Givenness Hierarchy to describe Spanish-speaking second language English learners’ patterns of definite, indefinite, and zero article use across three academic writing tasks. It reviews the zero articles as the most indefinite of articles and considers zero article contexts to precede plural or non-count nouns. Consequently, the zero articles are expected to be associated with referents that have lower attentional states in discourse, unlike zero anaphora, which are associated with high levels of discourse saliency and accessibility. The Givenness Hierarchy, which accounts for the distribution of a range of noun phrase referring forms in discourse, posits that referring expressions provide signals to listeners that limit the set of possible referents to those that have the lowest cognitive status typically associated with the use of that form. Each of the cognitive statuses implicationally entails all lower statuses by invoking H. P. Grice’s Maxims of Quantity, resulting in a unidirectional relationship between cognitive statuses and associated referring forms.
