”You Obviously Want to Avoid Grammatical Errors, Right?”

Danish High-School Students’ Language Attitudes to Grammatical Errors in Written English

Forfattere

  • Sara Møller Jepsen Københavns Universitet

Nøgleord:

Sprogholdninger, Fejlidentificering, grammatisk korrekthed, fremmedsprogsforskning

Resumé

This paper aims to explore Danish high-school students’ perceptions of grammatical errors in English texts by examining their conscious and unconscious language attitudes to grammatical errors in written English. In order to do this, a three-part survey consisting of a matched guise test, a questionnaire, and an error identification section was conducted with 44 Danish STX high-school students of A-level English from the capital area of Denmark. The findings indicate that Danish high-school students primarily hold negative conscious and unconscious language attitudes to grammatical errors in written English as the presence of certain grammatical errors in English texts causes negative perceptions of the writer’s competence. In addition to this, the findings indicate that their conscious language attitudes depend on the text type while their unconscious language attitudes depend on the error type. The present study concludes that readers’ conscious and unconscious perceptions of a writer’s competence are affected by the presence of grammatical errors, both when the errors are noticed and when they are not.

Forfatterbiografi

Sara Møller Jepsen, Københavns Universitet

Sara Møller Jepsen is a master's student of English at the University of Copenhagen. Her main research interests lie within sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and cognitive linguistics. 

Referencer

Allport, Gordon W. 1954. “The Historical Background of Modern Social Psychology.” In Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by Gardner Lindzey, 3-56. Cambridge, Mass: Addison-Wesley.

Appelman, Alyssa, and Mike Schmierbach. 2018. “Make No Mistake? Exploring Cognitive and Perceptual Effects of Grammatical Errors in News Articles.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 94 (4): 930-947.

Beason, Larry. 2001. “Ethos and Error: How Business People React to Errors.” College Composition and Communication 53 (1): 33-64.

Brandenburg, Laura C. 2015. ”Testing the Recognition and Perception of Errors in Context.” Business and Professional Communication Quarterly 78 (1): 74-93.

Dörnyei, Zoltán, and Tatsuya Taguchi. 2009. Questionnaires in Second Language Research: Construction, Administration, and Processing. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Garrett, Peter. 2010. Attitudes to Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gray, Loretta S, and Paula Heuser. 2003. “Nonacademic Professionals’ Perception of Usage Errors.” Journal of Basic Writing 22 (1): 50-70.

Hairston, Maxine. 1981. “Not All Errors Are Created Equal: Nonacademic Readers in the Professions Respond to Lapses in Usage.” College English 43 (8): 794-806.

Johnson, Adam C, Joshua Wilson, and Rod D. Roscoe. 2017. “College Student Perceptions of Writing Errors, Text Quality, and Author Characteristics.” Assessing Writing 34: 72-87.

Johnson, Keith. 2018. An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Kristiansen, Anna, and Marianne Rathje. 2014. ””Det kommer an på hvilken stavefejl det er.” Unges holdninger til stavefejl i nye medier.” NyS – Nydanske Sprogstudier 46: 103-131.

Kristiansen, Tore. 2003. ”Language Attitudes and Language Politics in Denmark.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 159 (159): 57-71.

Kristiansen, Tore. 2015. ”The Primary Relevance of Subconsciously Offered Attitudes: Focusing the Language Ideological Aspect of Sociolinguistic Change.” In Responses to Language Varieties: Variability, Processes and Outcomes, edited by Alexei Prikhodkine and Dennis R. Preston, 87-115. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Ladegaard, Hans J, and Itesh Sachdev. 2006. “’I Like the Americans… But I Certainly Don’t Aim for an American Accent’: Language Attitudes, Vitality and Foreign Language Learning in Denmark.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 27 (2): 91-108.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. 2012. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge.

Milroy, James, and Lesley Milroy. 2012. Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Ministry of Children and Education. 2017. “Engelsk A – stx, august 2017.”

Ministry of Children and Education. 2020. “Engelsk A, stx. Vejledning.”

Ministry of Children, Education, and Equality. 2016a. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Children, Education, and Equality. 2016b. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Children, Education, and Equality. 2016c. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Children, Education, and Equality. 2016d. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Education. 2017a. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Education. 2017b. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Education. 2017c. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Education. 2018a. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Education. 2018b. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Education. 2018c. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Ministry of Education. 2018d. “Engelsk A – Studentereksamen.”

Oppenheim, Bram. 1982. “An Exercise in Attitude Measurement.” In Social Psychology: A Practical Manual, edited by Glynis M. Breakwell, Hugh Foot, and Robin Gilmour, 38-53. London: Macmillan.

Peterson, Elizabeth. 2020. Making Sense of “Bad English”: An Introduction to Language Attitudes and Language Ideologies. Milton: Routledge.

Pharao, Nicolai, and Tore Kristiansen. 2019. “Reflections on the Relation Between Direct/Indirect Methods and Explicit/Implicit Attitudes.” Linguistics Vanguard 5 (1): 1-7.

Queen, Robin, and Julie E. Boland. 2015. “I Think Your Going to Like Me: Exploring the Role of Errors in Email Messages on Assessments of Potential Housemates.” Linguistics Vanguard 1 (1): 283-293.

Rotter, Christoph E. 2019. ”Cognitive Categorisations of Language: How EFL Students’

(Mis-)Identifications of Three British Accents Engender Stereotypic Attributions.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 40 (9): 801-817.

Sarnoff, Irving. 1970. “Social Attitudes and the Resolution of Motivational Conflict.” In Attitudes: Selected Readings, edited by Marie Jahoda and Neil Warren, 279-284. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Stiff, Chris. 2012. “Watch What You Write: How Errors in Feedback Influence Consumer Attitudes and Behavior.” Journal of Internet Commerce 11 (1): 41-67.

Van der Zanden, Tess, Alexander P. Schouten, Maria B. J. Mos, and Emiel J. Krahmer. 2020. “Impression Formation on Online Dating Sites: Effects of Language Errors in Profile Texts on Perceptions of Profile Owners’ Attractiveness.” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 37 (3): 758-778.

Wikipedia. 2021. “Big Ben.” Accessed March 9, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ben.

Wikipedia. 2021. “Buckingham Palace.” Accessed March 9, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckingham_Palace.

Wikipedia. 2021. “Empire State Building.” Accessed March 9, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Building.

Wikipedia. 2021. “Grand Central Terminal.” Accessed March 9, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Terminal.

Williams, Joseph M. 1981. “The Phenomenology of Error.” College Composition and Communication 32 (2): 152-168.

Downloads

Publiceret

2022-01-10

Citation/Eksport

Jepsen, S. M. (2022). ”You Obviously Want to Avoid Grammatical Errors, Right?”: Danish High-School Students’ Language Attitudes to Grammatical Errors in Written English. Journal of Language Works - Sprogvidenskabeligt Studentertidsskrift, 6(2), 5–26. Hentet fra https://tidsskrift.dk/lwo/article/view/129803