The Use of Private Writing in Written English NarrativesThe Use of Private Writing in Written English Narratives
- Other Titles
- The Use of Private Writing in Written English Narratives
- Authors
- 허명혜
- Issue Date
- 2008
- Publisher
- 한국영어영문학회
- Keywords
- Vygotsky; sociocultural theory; functional view of language; macrostructure; reference; Vygotsky; sociocultural theory; functional view of language; macrostructure; reference
- Citation
- 영어영문학, v.54, no.6, pp.1051 - 1070
- Indexed
- KCI
- Journal Title
- 영어영문학
- Volume
- 54
- Number
- 6
- Start Page
- 1051
- End Page
- 1070
- URI
- https://scholar.korea.ac.kr/handle/2021.sw.korea/125379
- DOI
- 10.15794/jell.2008.54.6.014
- ISSN
- 1016-2283
- Abstract
- This study analyzes the linguistic features of private writing produced by
college students of English as a foreign language, following Vygotsky’s
claim that higher psychological functions are mediated by language. In this
context, this study seeks to discover the way in which EFL students
approach the task of narrative writing in light of the potential difficulties.
Accordingly, this study adopts a functional analysis of linguistic data, in
which linguistic features of private writing are analyzed in their regulatory
functions in written English narratives. The subjects were all undergraduate
students attending at Korea University. Each student was asked to write
a story about a sequence of eight pictures, which was adopted from Can
You Believe It? by Huizenga and Huizenga. Following Frawley and
Lantolf’s classification scheme, this study analyzes two linguistic features
of private writing produced by the EFL students: macrostructure and reference.
The analysis of private writing forms reveals that the EFL students produced
abundant examples of private writing in written narratives. Many of
the private writing features observed in previous studies, such as the externalization
of the macrostructure and ambiguous reference were present in
written narratives. In addition, the EFL students, in their use of explicit
macrostructural devices and pronominalization, manifest discourse behavior
similar to that of native children of English observed in the research of
Frawley and Lantolf. The similarities in EFL students and native children
have a functional explanation in that the adult non-native speakers reverts
to native speaking child-like knowing strategies to control the situation and
gain self-regulation in difficult knowing situations. This can be explained
by “the principle of continuous access,” which maintains that adults are
able to re-access previous regulating strategies in other domains where
self-regulation can not be achieved (Frawley & Lantolf 22). In this light,
the presence of odd forms even in native discourse allows us to understand
that not all errors found in non-native discourse are result of low proficiency
or inadequate mastery of story grammar of English. On the other hand,
the peculiarities of second language discourse such as odd pronominalization
and ambiguous reference can be understood as functional for the EFL
students.
- Files in This Item
- There are no files associated with this item.
- Appears in
Collections - College of Education > Department of English Language Education > 1. Journal Articles
Items in ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.