Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

"Don't think twice, it's all right": a corpus-based study on 3rd person singular verb inflection in relation to emerging international varieties of English

Bandh, Erik LU (2016) ÄENC51 20162
Educational Sciences
English Studies
Abstract
In the general syllabus for English at upper-secondary level in Sweden, Skolverket (2012) provides no defined standard of English for teachers to use. Simultaneously, the term ‘correctness’ is posed as one of the requirements that students must accomplish in their upper-secondary English studies. What is inferred by correctness in this context? Can use of grammatical phenomena, such as the 3rd person zero variant (she think) be motivated as incorrect? This research project aimed to answer these questions by examining and discussing how students in the Uppsala Corpus of English inflect 3rd person singular verbs, and relating these results to the potential emergence of international varieties of English, such as English as a Lingua Franca... (More)
In the general syllabus for English at upper-secondary level in Sweden, Skolverket (2012) provides no defined standard of English for teachers to use. Simultaneously, the term ‘correctness’ is posed as one of the requirements that students must accomplish in their upper-secondary English studies. What is inferred by correctness in this context? Can use of grammatical phenomena, such as the 3rd person zero variant (she think) be motivated as incorrect? This research project aimed to answer these questions by examining and discussing how students in the Uppsala Corpus of English inflect 3rd person singular verbs, and relating these results to the potential emergence of international varieties of English, such as English as a Lingua Franca and Euro-English. While the presented results did not show enough 3rd person zero use to motivate it as an inherent characteristic of English as a Lingua Franca, the large inconsistency of ‘correct’ 3rd person singular morpheme -s use accentuated the difficulty of mastering such a grammatical rule, even for highly competent Swedish students of English at Uppsala University. Based on the presented findings, the paper goes on to suggest an open communication between educators of English and their students about the constant interchangeability of English in a global context, in which linguistic correctness stemming from British and American English can no longer be seen as an absolute truth. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Bandh, Erik LU
supervisor
organization
course
ÄENC51 20162
year
type
L3 - Miscellaneous, Projetcs etc.
subject
keywords
3rd person singular morpheme -s, 3rd person zero, English as a Lingua Franca, Euro-English
language
English
id
8901371
date added to LUP
2017-02-09 14:33:23
date last changed
2017-02-09 14:33:23
@misc{8901371,
  abstract     = {{In the general syllabus for English at upper-secondary level in Sweden, Skolverket (2012) provides no defined standard of English for teachers to use. Simultaneously, the term ‘correctness’ is posed as one of the requirements that students must accomplish in their upper-secondary English studies. What is inferred by correctness in this context? Can use of grammatical phenomena, such as the 3rd person zero variant (she think) be motivated as incorrect? This research project aimed to answer these questions by examining and discussing how students in the Uppsala Corpus of English inflect 3rd person singular verbs, and relating these results to the potential emergence of international varieties of English, such as English as a Lingua Franca and Euro-English. While the presented results did not show enough 3rd person zero use to motivate it as an inherent characteristic of English as a Lingua Franca, the large inconsistency of ‘correct’ 3rd person singular morpheme -s use accentuated the difficulty of mastering such a grammatical rule, even for highly competent Swedish students of English at Uppsala University. Based on the presented findings, the paper goes on to suggest an open communication between educators of English and their students about the constant interchangeability of English in a global context, in which linguistic correctness stemming from British and American English can no longer be seen as an absolute truth.}},
  author       = {{Bandh, Erik}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{"Don't think twice, it's all right": a corpus-based study on 3rd person singular verb inflection in relation to emerging international varieties of English}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}