This article presents the findings of a study of the epicene pronouns used by Macedonian learners of English to refer anaphorically to compound indefinite pronouns and common-gender nouns as ...antecedents in their essays written in English. This study is based on the Macedonian component of the International Corpus of Learner English and aims to discover the distribution of epicene pronouns (
,
and singular
), and the relationship between the choice of an epicene pronoun and particular antecedent (sub)types. The association between the use of specific epicene pronouns and the students’ gender, as well as their year of study at the university, was also investigated. The results point to a more widespread application of singular
compared to
and
. The findings also reveal an association between specific epicene pronouns and the degree of individuation of the antecedent. There was virtually no statistically significant difference in the students’ use of each pronoun across the academic years. It also appeared that there was no statistically significant difference between male and female participants regarding their use of epicene pronouns. Finally, the limitations of this study are discussed and directions are offered for future research.
V besedilu raziskujemo, kako makedonski študenti angleščine v akademskem pisanju uporabljajo logične konektorje. Logični konektorji so v tem besedilu določeni kot vrsta kohezivnih sredstev “ki sami ...zelo malo prispevajo ali sploh ne prispevajo k propozicionalni vsebini, ampak pomagajo določiti odnose med stavki v ustnem in pisnem diskurzu” (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 519). V članku predstavljamo analizo besedil makedonskih študentov angleščine, ki v drugem letniku študija kot del študijskega programa obiskujejo predavanja iz akademskega pisanja. Osredotočamo se zlasti na naslednje tipe logičnih konektorjev: dodajalne, protivne, vzročne ter časovne. Namen študije je analiza pogostosti logičnih konektorjev, njihove razporeditve v omenjene štiri kategorije, pa tudi analiza ustreznosti njihove uporabe v določenem kontekstu. V članku analiziramo rezultate in skušamo predstaviti morebitne vzroke pogoste oziroma nepogoste rabe posameznih konektorjev. Rezultate primerjamo z rezultati podobnih študij, opravljenih na vzorcih akademskih pisnih izdelkov rojenih in tujih govorcev angleščine. V zadnjem delu predstavljamo tudi pedagoške implikacije študije.
The present study explores the acceptability of postverbal subjects by intermediate andadvanced L2 English learners with L1 Macedonian, a pro-drop Slavic language with richverbal morphology. The two ...languages differ regarding the distribution of subject-verb inversion(SVI): in Macedonian, it is a default pattern in thetic sentences, but English severelyrestricts SVI to specific contexts. To test the hypothesis that Macedonian learners encounterdifficulties in acquisition of English SVI because of crosslinguistic influence, a grammaticalityjudgement and correction task was administered to two groups of Macedonian learners ofEnglish and a control group of English native speakers. The results revealed that L2 learnersfind English VS sentences and VS + it-insertion examples more acceptable than the nativespeakers, but the performance of the advanced group is closer to the native speakers than tothe intermediate learners. Both non-native groups accept more readily inappropriate Englishsentences that conform to typical L1 structures.
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