Abstract

TORRES, Carmen  and  BOCES, Graciela. Reformulation and use of the neutral demonstrative pronoun ‘this’ in the production of written synthesis by university students. Rev. signos [online]. 2012, vol.45, n.79, pp. 198-225. ISSN 0718-0934.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-09342012000200005.

In this paper it is studied the use of the neutral demonstrative pronoun ‘this’ in texts produced by psychology students during a curricular task. As part of the objectives, the occurrences of the neutral demonstrative pronoun (NDP) are described and analyzed, the source text and the produced text are compared and the psycholinguistic operations that include its use in this corpus are interpreted. As a result of the analysis, the categories proposed allow to show the functional role that the NDP adopts in similar types of texts or in reformulative segments of other texts. It is considered for its study the generic compositional dependence of the type of text and of the task in which it is produced. In the students’ texts, the NDP reaches a high proportion in comparison with the other no-neutral pronouns. Beside, the occurrence is found in more of the 80% of the text in the context of the reformulation of the source text and in direct correspondence with it. The findings presented here offer promising paths for educational applications, considering the difficulties of students in their writings.

Keywords : Text, university students, reformulation, demonstrative pronoun, anaphora.