A Corpus-Based Study of Personal Pronouns in University Lectures Across Disciplines

Abstract

The present study investigated variation in the distribution, discourse references and functions of /, we and you (tri-PP) in classroom lectures across three broad knowledge domains -Humanities (HS), Social Sciences (SS) and Natural Sciences (NS). To accomplish this task, I audio-recorded classroom lectures from two public universities in Ghana; transcribed and processed them into computer readable forms. The subcorpora were normed, and the concordance tool in AntConc was used to generate the occurrences of the tri-PP. The computerized analysis was complemented by manual analysis, to determine the discourse references and functions which were conditioned by pragmatic factors. The log-likelihood significance test was used to check statistical significance. The analysis showed that NS employed more of the tri-PP, followed by HS and SS. While disciplinarily influenced the use of we at HS vs NS, and SS vs NS, it did not affect its use at HS vs SS. Again, the study showed that I, we and you designated common referents like lecturer across all the disciplinary supercommunities (DSs), albeit with variation in statistical significance. Finally, speaker-reference pronouns performed several discourse functions including I as a representative, and I as a guide, with statistical differences across DSs. The findings deepen our understanding on disciplinarily in relation to /, we and you usage in classroom lectures. They further lead to a more robust theoretical consideration of the discourse references and functions of the tri-PP in classroom lectures. The findings have implications for pedagogy and further research on pronominal usage.