Understanding Plural, Singular, and Collective They among Korean EFL Learners: A Textbook Input Perspective

초록

Although the pronoun they is taught as having a plural antecedent (i.e., ‘plural they’) in EFL education, it can also refer to a singular antecedent (i.e., ‘singular they’) or to individual members of a collective noun that is singular in form (i.e., ‘collective they’). To examine the relationship between textbook input and the interpretation of the pronoun they, this study analyzes 10 high school English textbooks and conducts an experiment with a pronoun coreference task based on sentences from the textbooks. Seventy-four Korean undergraduate students completed the task and a proficiency test. Results showed that plural they was by far the most frequent type in the textbooks, and the participants showed the highest accuracy for plural they in the interpretation task. The learners also interpreted singular they and collective they relatively accurately despite their low frequencies in the textbooks. The relationship between English proficiency and interpretation accuracy differed across conditions, showing a more positive relationship in the plural they condition than in the collective they condition. Overall, the mean accuracy pattern (plural they > singular they > collective they) was consistent with the frequency pattern in the textbooks. However, the relatively high accuracy for singular and collective they despite their low textbook frequencies suggests that textbook distribution patterns alone may not fully explain learners’ interpretation of the three types of they.

키워드