Languages adapt to their ever-changing social, political, cultural background. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to language change and to the necessity of incorporating it in language teaching, focussing on the case of second- and third-person plural pronouns in English and on their teaching in the early 2020s. The word class of pronouns is considered a 'stable' one, but the case of second- and third-person plural pronouns is a significant example of how language modification does modificate even the grammatical level. Teaching of non-standard pronoun forms in a contrastive perspective can make students aware of the ever-changing nature of language and of its continuous interaction with society, culture and ways of life.
Maggioni, M. L., Coping with you and they in early-21st-century English, in Silvia Gilardon, S. G. (ed.), Apprendere e insegnare le lingue: la ricerca nella didattica, Morcelliana, Brescia 2022: 185- 199 [https://hdl.handle.net/10807/221346]
Coping with you and they in early-21st-century English
Maggioni, Maria Luisa
2022
Abstract
Languages adapt to their ever-changing social, political, cultural background. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to language change and to the necessity of incorporating it in language teaching, focussing on the case of second- and third-person plural pronouns in English and on their teaching in the early 2020s. The word class of pronouns is considered a 'stable' one, but the case of second- and third-person plural pronouns is a significant example of how language modification does modificate even the grammatical level. Teaching of non-standard pronoun forms in a contrastive perspective can make students aware of the ever-changing nature of language and of its continuous interaction with society, culture and ways of life.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.