La expresión de sujetos y objetos en narraciones orales de hablantes bilingües miskitu-español

This thesis investigates the variation and acquisition of subjects and objects by bilingual Miskitu-Spanish speakers in the Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas. Using a functionalist approach, the referential forms used to refer to the main, secondary, and tertiary character of two oral narrations are examined. The analysis of this study is based on the anaphoric hierarchy, proposed by Saunders (1999), in which the use of a variety of explicit and null expressions are used to indicate the narrative functions of introducing, maintaining, and reintroducing the different characters in the narration. The results of the study provide possible evidence of L1 transfer in the expression of subjects by advanced second language speakers. This thesis not only serves to expand the study of the acquisition of subjects and objects by including natural acquisition data from indigenous language speakers but also seeks to demonstrate what acquisition looks like outside of a classroom environment.