Reading comprehension with null pronouns modulated by gender with bilingual speakers of Spanish/L2 and Brazilian Portuguese/L1: A contribution to the teaching of Spanish grammar in higher education

The general objective of this study is to evaluate how gender aids in reading comprehension, specifically by observing anaphoric coreference with bilingual university students of Spanish/L2 and Brazilian Portuguese/L1. The methodology consists of written stimuli, sentences divided into segments, as required by the experimental technique of offline reading. In total, 42 stimuli will be used, 16 experimental and 26 distractors followed by a comprehension question about the preference for resumption. The experimental sentences will be composed of temporal adverbial subordinate clauses and include the analysis of resumption of reading in the face of possible antecedents of the null pronoun, as well as the comparison between different types of resumption and the verification of the role of the gender feature in the adjective in the decision-making of 08 university students. The justification emphasizes the importance of understanding anaphoric coreference in bilingual contexts, especially in the Spanish language, and highlights the lack of studies in this area. The results show that gender in pronominal interpretation and the identification of strategies facilitate the understanding of bilingual speakers. It is concluded that this study can generate valuable insights for language teaching and promote advances in the understanding of linguistic processes in bilingual contexts.