Who do they think 'we' is? Learners' awareness of personality in pedagogic grammars

Who do they think 'we' is? Learners' awareness of personality in pedagogic grammars

• Berry, Roger Lingnan University (Hong Kong, China)

Language Awareness, 14(2), 84-96, 2005

Routledge

2005

• P Social Context of Education
  • PB Comparative Education
• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GB English Language

Foreign Countries Form Classes (Languages) Grammar English (Second Language) Second Language Learning Students Student Reaction Metalinguistics Hong Kong Poland

• Hong Kong
• Poland

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

This paper investigates L2 English learners' reactions to mixed personality in a pedagogic grammar. Personality refers to how authors represent themselves in a text and interact with their readers (e.g. personally via the use of personal pronouns or impersonally via the use of the passive, etc.); mixed personality occurs when an author switches from one option to another. In an experiment, 195 students from Hong Kong and Poland were asked to read a text in which the author switched from we to you. The expectation that this mixing would cause we to be interpreted as exclusive was not borne out; however, some students did attach negative attributes to you as a result of its proximity to we. Another finding was that awareness of the generic reference of we was higher than that for you. Writers of pedagogic grammars are encouraged to be more aware of the referential complexities of personal pronouns.
[Copyright of Language Awareness is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585170902763973]

• English

Journal Articles

• 09658416

• 10.1080/09585170902763973

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/c198d793

2010-09-27