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Volume 7, Issue 1
  • ISSN 2589-109X
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Abstract

Abstract

Teachers are often cited as using the , in which the pronoun functions as a second-person pronoun (e.g., “ read about this last week”; De Cock, 2011). However, there is little consensus about how listeners perceive its use. An empirical investigation of the can help determine whether the instructor use of this pronoun strengthens or weakens rapport, an integral aspect of classroom learning. The present study examines frequency and listener perceptions of the through a mixed-methods approach. A corpus analysis of office hour visits documented in the TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language (T2K-SWAL) corpus (Biber et al., 2004) reveals the is frequent in instructors’ speech but rarely used by students. Survey results demonstrate that students perceive the instructor use of the to be more likable, helpful, encouraging, and coaxing than the the use of , and there is a negligible effect between how students perceive the compared to in terms of being sarcastic or condescending. Focus group comments suggest the establishes solidarity between instructors and students, which can strengthen rapport. These findings support the instructor use of the as a rapport-building technique when interacting with students.

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2025-08-05
2026-03-12

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/content/journals/10.1075/ap.00027.han
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Frequency and listener perceptions of the nursery we in instructor-student interactions
Applied Pragmatics 7, 1 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1075/ap.00027.han
/content/journals/10.1075/ap.00027.han
/content/journals/10.1075/ap.00027.han
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): corpus linguistics; mixed methods; nursery we; pronouns; rapport; teacher talk

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