Infelicitous use of Anaphoric “this” in undergraduate academic writing

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Date

2010

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Legon Journal of the Humanities

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to describe the contexts of misuse of the anaphoric pronoun ‘this’ in paragraphs composed by undergraduate students in their academic writing assignments and account for the infelicities, with the hope that the findings will extend the frame of reference for the analysis of such infelicities for instructional purposes. The study unearthed the following infelicities: (a0 Ambiguous co-reference; (b) Extensive use of ‘this’; and (c) Textual distance between ‘this’ and its referent. Practical intervention measures are proposed to help both students and instructors to deal with the problem.

Description

Keywords

Academic writing, Anaphora, Cohesion, Pronominal Reference

Citation

Adika, G.S.K.( 2010). Infelicitous use of Anaphoric “this” in undergraduate academic writing. Legon Journal of the Humanities. Vol. 21, 2010, pp. 99-126.