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This dissertation, "An Investigation of Hong Kong Chinese ESL Learners' Processing Difficulty in the Comprehension and Production of Relative Clauses" by Kit-wah, Chan,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled An Investigation of Hong Kong Chinese ESL Learners' Processing Difficulty in the Comprehension and Production of Relative Clauses Submitted by Chan Kit Wah For the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Hong Kong in June 2005 The purpose of this study is to find out the natural sequence of acquisition or hierarchy of processing difficulty of the various relative clause structures in ESL learners' comprehension and production in the Hong Kong context. There are three linguistic hypotheses that make predictions as to which relative clause structures will be easiest for learners to acquire. The Perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis (PDH) posits that non-centre embedded structures will present less difficulty to the learner than those which are centre embedded. The Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAH) theorizes that relative clauses with relativized subjects will be acquired before those with relativized objects, and which in turn acquired before relativized objects of preposition. The SO Hierarchy Hypothesis (SOHH) states that the number of discontinuities set up in both the main clause and the relative clause determines the relative difficulty. In order to determine which hypothesis makes correct predictions for second language learning, data is collected from 21 local secondary school learners. Results in three different elici