The Writer and the Reader in Norwegian Advanced Learners' Written English : A corpus-based study of writer/reader visibility features in texts by Norwegian learners of English and native speakers of English

Abstract

In the present study, Norwegian advanced learners of English are found to overuse many features of writer/reader visibility compared to native speakers of English. This is shown by comparing corpora of Norwegian learner writing and native speaker student writing. Norwegian learners are also found to have a higher level of writer/reader visibility than many other learner groups. An in-depth study of pronouns as markers of writer/reader visibility shows that the high level of writer/reader visibility in Norwegian learner writing may have been caused by transfer from the learners’ first language, because it seems like pronouns are more common in the Norwegian language than in the English language. These findings are relevant to the teaching of English as a foreign language in Norway, because students should be made aware of the differences between Norwegian and English. In order to be taken seriously when writing in English, the students may have to reduce the level of personal involvement in their texts. In addition to quantitative investigations, the present study includes a qualitative investigation of pronouns, particularly with respect to the way they express different functions of the writer and the reader. This investigation shows that pronouns are mainly used to express the same functions in Norwegian learner writing as in native speaker student writing. However, several functions were found to be significantly overused, such as the organizing function of the writer, expressed by the pronoun I, and the inclusive (reader-involving) function of the pronoun we. As a complement to the quantitative information about writer/reader visibility features, such detailed descriptions of the learners’ usage of pronouns may be useful in the teaching of English as a foreign language.