Abstract
At the discourse level, personal pronouns have been acknowledged as one of the most important features used to express writer visibility – involvement of the author in the text. Studies have shown that writer visibility depends on discourse type, cultural conventions, writer’s L1, etc. (Petch-Tyson 1998; Ädel 2001; Rodríguez, Vázquez and Guzmán 2011; Zolotova 2014). This paper investigates the discourse function of personal pronouns in argumentative writing in the Croatian language, a Slavic pro-drop language. For the purpose of this paper argumentative essays written by Croatian native speakers (N=100) are analysed for the frequencies of 1st and 2nd person personal pronouns and their discourse functions.
The results confirmed low frequency of 1st and 2nd person personal pronouns in the corpus, with the dominance of the 1st person singular personal pronoun I. The qualitative analysis shows that the pronoun I is most frequently used to express discourse functions of writer’s stance and writer’s experience, whereas all of the other pronouns were used mostly to express more general claims. The obtained results gave more insight into the use of personal pronouns in a pro-drop language and confirm cultural and linguistic influences on argumentative writing in the first language.
References
Ädel, A. 2001. “On the search for metadiscourse units”. In: Rayson, P., A. Wilson, T. McEnery, A. Hardie and K. Shereen (eds.), Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2001 conference: UCREL Technical Papers Volume 13, Special Issue. Lancaster: Department of Linguistics. Lancaster University. 3–13.Search in Google Scholar
Babić, S. 2002. Tvorba riječi u hrvatskome jeziku [Word-formation in the Croatian language]. Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Globus.Search in Google Scholar
Bagaric Medve, V., V. Berlengi Kapusin and I. Saric Sokcevic. 2018. “The use of personal pronouns in French FL learners’ argumentative texts”. Paper presented at the conference Romance Studies in the Age of Multilingualism, Moscow.Search in Google Scholar
Bagaric Medve, V. and I. Saric Sokcevic. 2018. “Discourse functions of personal pronouns in EFL learners’ argumentative texts”. Paper presented at the conference Literacy Skills in Educational Environments: Changing Theories and Practices, Biała Podlaska.Search in Google Scholar
Barić, E., M. Lončarić, D. Malić, S. Pavešić, M. Peti, V. Zečević, M. Znika. 1995. Hrvatska gramatika [A grammar of Croatian]. Zagreb: Školska knjiga.Search in Google Scholar
Bikelienė, L. 2016. “Person markers in non-native students’ writing”. Verbum 7. 34–43.10.15388/Verb.2016.7.10284Search in Google Scholar
Chang, Y. 2016. “Personal pronouns in argumentative essays: Discourse functions and patterns of use”. Journal of English Education 3(1). 93–129.Search in Google Scholar
Chang, Yi-J. 2015. “A comparison of the first-person pronoun I in NS and Korean NNS corpora of argumentative English writing”. English Teaching 70(2). 83–106.10.15858/engtea.70.2.201506.83Search in Google Scholar
Council of Europe. 2001. Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.Search in Google Scholar
Cvikić, L. 2015. Hrvatski kao ini jezik – odabrane teme [Croatian as L2 – selected topics]. Zagreb: Hrvatsko filološko društvo.Search in Google Scholar
Cvikić, L., K. Aladrović Slovaček, B. Bekavac, B. 2014. “Uporaba računalnolingvističkih alata u istraživanjima obrazovne lingvistike na primjeru romana Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića” [Use of corpus linguistic tools in educational linguistic research on the example of the Brave Adventures of Lapitch]. In: Majhut, B., S. Narančić Kovač and S. Lovrić Kralj (ed.) Šegrt Hlapić od čudnovatog do čudesnog. Zagreb-Slavonski Brod: Hrvatska udruga istraživača dječje književnosti i Ogranak Matice hrvatske Slavonski Brod. 269–282.Search in Google Scholar
Cvikić, L. and A. Ordulj. 2020. Writer visibility in L1 vs. L2 argumentative writing: Use of the first person personal nouns in Croatian. Working paper.10.22210/suvlin.2021.091.01Search in Google Scholar
Fossan, H. 2011. The writer and the reader in Norwegian advanced learners’ written English. Oslo: University of Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Harwood, N. 2007. “Political scientists on the functions of personal pronouns in their writing: An interview-based study of ‘I’ and ‘we’”. Text and Talk 27(1). 27–54.10.1515/TEXT.2007.002Search in Google Scholar
Hyland, K. 2002. “Authority and invisibility: authorial identity in academic writing”. Journal of Pragmatics 34. 1091–1112.10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00035-8Search in Google Scholar
Jelaska, Z. et al. 2005. Hrvatski kao drugi i strani jezik [Croatian as a second and foreign language]. Zagreb: Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada.Search in Google Scholar
Keller, S. D., J. Fleckenstend, M. Krueger, O. Koeller and A. Rupp. 2020. “English writing skills of students in upper secondary education: Results from an empirical study in Switzerland and Germany”. Journal of Second Language Writing 45. 31–45.10.1016/j.jslw.2019.100700Search in Google Scholar
Luan, J. and Y. Zhang. 2016. “A comparative study of the use of first person subject pronouns in Chinese and Swedish students’ argumentative essays. A corpus-based research”. International Journal of Education and Research 4(11). 341–352.Search in Google Scholar
Marković, I. 2012. Uvod u jezičnu morfologiju. [Introduction to linguistic morphology] Zagreb: Disput.Search in Google Scholar
McCrostie, J. 2008. “Writer visibility in EFL learner academic writing: A corpusbased study”. ICAME Journal 32. 97–114.Search in Google Scholar
Paquot, M., H. Hasselgård and S. O. Ebeling. 2013. “Writer/reader visibility in learner writing across genres. A comparison of the French and Norwegian components of the ICLE and VESPA learner corpora”. In: Granger, S., G. Gilquin and F. Meunier (eds.), Twenty years of learner corpus research: Looking back, moving ahead Corpora and Language in Use – Proceedings 1. Louvain: Presses Universitaires de Louvain. 377–387.Search in Google Scholar
Petch Tyson, S. 1998. “Writer/reader visibility in EFL written discourse”. In: Granger, S. (ed.), Learner English on computer. Longman: London and New York. 107–118.10.4324/9781315841342-8Search in Google Scholar
Rodríguez, R. R., A. M. Vázquez and N. P. T. Guzmán. 2011. “Exploring writer identity in Mexican EFL students’ academic writing”. Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura 16(28). 93–115.Search in Google Scholar
Silić, J. and I. Pranjković. 2005. Gramatika hrvatskoga jezika [A grammar of the Croatian language]. Zagreb: Školska knjiga.Search in Google Scholar
Tayyebi, M. 2012. “Personal pronouns in English and Persian medical research articles”. English for Specific Purposes World 36(12).Search in Google Scholar
Težak, S. and S. Babić. 1991. Gramatika hrvatskog jezika [A grammar of the Croatian language]. Zagreb: Školska knjiga.Search in Google Scholar
Vassileva, I. 1998. “Who am I/who are we in academic writing?”. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 8(2). 163–190.10.1111/j.1473-4192.1998.tb00128.xSearch in Google Scholar
Wang, Y. 2012. “Differences in L1 and L2 academic writing”. Theory and Practice in Language Studies 2(3). 637–641.10.4304/tpls.2.3.637-641Search in Google Scholar
Zolotova, E. 2014. Who am I? and Who are we? In argumentative and academic writing. A corpus-based study of author identity in the writing of native speakers and Russian learner of English. (MA thesis, University of Oslo.)Search in Google Scholar
© 2022 Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
