The Influence of English Proficiency on Comprehending Referential Types among EFL Students in Jordan

This study investigates the influence of English proficiency on the comprehension of referential types, namely anaphoric, cataphoric, exophoric, and homophoric among Jordanian EFL students. 30 participants, divided into intermediate and advanced proficiency levels, completed tasks designed to assess their ability to interpret these references in reading texts. The results indicated that advanced students demonstrated greater overall comprehension; however, both groups encountered significant challenges with exophoric and homophoric references. Adopting Halliday and Hasan’s Cohesion Theory (1976) alongside schema theory, the findings indicated that higher proficiency alone does not ensure the ability to understand culturally and situationally embedded references. This suggests the need for language instruction to include culturally enriched and contextually different materials. Additionally, teaching strategies and raising awareness of different referential types can help improve students’ comprehension. The findings have practical implications for curriculum design, emphasizing tasks that enhance cultural awareness and contextual inference. The study also contributes to the understanding of how students process references in a second language. Future research could examine the influence of proficiency on other linguistic phenomena, such as figurative language, pragmatic inference, or textual cohesion, to gain insights into how proficiency shapes language comprehension and processing.