The use of personal pronouns in the writing of argumentative essays by efl writers Introduction

Pedagogical Implications of the Study
One potential approach, which might help learners develop a more pragmatic understanding of the use of personal pronouns, could be ‘noticing’. In 1997, in their study of hedges and boosters in students’ writing, Hyland and Milton suggested explicit instruction of the epistemic devices used as hedges and boosters such as ‘noticing’ could help the acquisition of the language. Schmidt (1990) proposed the Noticing Hypothesis according to which the emergence of new forms should be preceded by their being noticed in the input. Schmidt and Frota (1986, quoted in Thornbury, 1997, p.326) suggested that two kinds of noticing are necessary conditions for acquisition:

1. 
   Learners must attend to linguistic features of the input that they are exposed to, without which input cannot become ‘intake’.
   
2. 
   Learners must ‘notice the gap’, i.e. make comparisons between the current state of their developing linguistic system, as realised in their output, and the target language system, available as input.
   

The teacher by focusing the learners’ attention on the target language and by having them compare this input with the present state of their interlanguage can facilitate the process of acquisition. In fact, some research by Fordyce (2014) has shown that explicit instruction using a ‘noticing’ approach had a positive effect on students’ acquisition of epistemic stance. He investigated the immediate and long-term effect of explicit and implicit instruction of epistemic stance on learners of English at a Japanese university and discovered that, ‘it is possible for noticing to lead to long-term retention of target forms, and that instruction that aims to get learners to notice forms is more effective than meaning-focused instruction’ (p.22). Fordyce’s aim was to draw learners’ attention to the forms of epistemic stance and to do this he used a variety of activities and as Scott Thornbury (1997, p.327) suggested, ‘tasks that provide opportunities for noticing are ones that, even if essentially meaning-focussed, allow the learner to devote some attentional resources to form, and, moreover, provide both the data and the incentive for the learner to make comparisons between interlanguage output and target language models.’

In this case, a learner corpus consisting of argumentative essays from my study, could be used to help the learners ‘notice’ the use of personal pronouns in this genre. Although it would not be discipline-specific as the materials are designed for a general EAP writing class, there would be potential to compare their use in different genres and disciplines.
In the initial stage the students would be given an extract from the learner corpus, which was rich in examples of personal pronouns. (I think it’s important to give them a text rather than a list of discrete examples provided by a concordance program as there is a context to the forms they are examining) For example, the following extract from my corpus is rich in examples of personal pronouns:
Since I started to work, I got a sense of responsibility for my job. Since I work as a waiter, I count money very carefully and when I worked as a tutor, I taught students English so clear that I actually learned English. Then, the same kind of responsibility applied to my college studies. For instance, when I received a difficult assignment on Friday that was due next Tuesday, I thought I was too busy to finish it. I had to work on Saturday and Monday night and had a plan with friends on Sunday. Yet, I figured out that students’ first responsibility was studying. So I apologized to my friends and postponed the day to go out with them. The responsibility enables me to put emphasis on studying.

(Maki, Essay 1)

The students would be instructed to highlight the examples of personal pronouns in the above text and then there would be a discussion about their use. During this discussion the teacher could ask what the students thought about their use in academic writing. The teacher could then discuss about genre and the differences between an essay and a research paper. In the above extract from an essay the writer has used a number of personal examples to support her position whereas in a research paper the writer would more likely reference primary research. An extract from a research paper could then be provided so that the students could compare the use of personal pronouns between an essay and a research study. The students would again highlight the personal pronouns and discuss the differences between their use in the essay and research study. This process of ‘noticing’ and ‘comparing’ would hopefully facilitate intake of the language features and help the learners to know how and when to use personal pronouns in their own writing.

The extract above could also be used to highlight the different functions that personal pronouns have and initiate a metalanguage for the students to discuss about them. In the example from Maki she uses them to elaborate an argument but in a research paper they might be used to state a purpose and explain a procedure. This italicized metalanguage could be used to compare their use in different genres of academic writing and help the learners to understand both their form and function.
In the above example from the argumentative essay Maki used personal examples to support her position and by doing so could be said to have ‘overused’ them. The teacher could use this extract to illustrate that, although personal examples are valid in this genre, it is better to use a variety of examples, for example, a reference from a secondary source to support the position. It could also be instructive to use an example of ‘underuse’. For example:

First, students can do their academic tasks efficiently with doing a part-time job because they learn to manage their time well. Usually, people get work done more efficiently when they are busy and under certain pressure because they know that they have to do the work quickly to do other tasks. Students’ schedule gets busier with part-time jobs because they have to sacrifice their free time after school, but because they get busy, they plan ahead and can do their tasks faster. For example, when a student knows that they have a part-time job on Monday night and the deadline of an assignment in on Tuesday, they realize that they have to finish the assignment on a weekend at the latest. Since the student know when they are available and when is not to do the assignment, they plan ahead and try to finish it earlier.

(Yoko, Essay 1)

In this case, the teacher could point out to the learners that no personal pronouns were used but ask them to highlight the subjects of the sentences. This could lead to a discussion where the students could then compare this paragraph with the previous one by Maki, which was rich in examples. The teacher could ask the students which they considered to be more ‘academic’ and why. It might be that they believe Yoko’s paragraph to be more ‘academic’ as it is impersonal but this can further the discussion about the use of personal pronouns. Does academic writing in this genre have to be completely impersonal? What is the students’ impression of Yoko’s writing? (In fact, this is a good example because this student was actually writing about themselves and because they did not want to use personal pronouns chose to hide their identity).