Hypercorrection as a By-product of Education
Abstrak
Prescriptive grammar rules are taught in education, generally to ban the use of certain frequently encountered constructions in everyday language. This may lead to hypercorrection, meaning that the prescribed form in one construction is extended to another one in which it is in fact prohibited by prescriptive grammar. We discuss two such cases in Dutch: the hypercorrect use of the comparative particle dan ‘than’ in equative constructions, and the hypercorrect use of the accusative pronoun hen ‘them’ for a dative object. In two experiments, high school students of three educational levels were tested on their use of these hypercorrect forms (nexp1 = 162, nexp2 = 159). Our results indicate an overall large amount of hypercorrection across all levels of education, including pre-university level students who otherwise perform better in constructions targeted by prescriptive grammar rules. We conclude that while teaching prescriptive grammar rules to high school students seems to increase their use of correct forms in certain constructions, this comes at a cost of hypercorrection in others.
Topik & Kata Kunci
Penulis (5)
F. Hubers
Thijs Trompenaars
Sebastian Collin
K. D. Schepper
H. D. Hoop
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2020
- Bahasa
- en
- Total Sitasi
- 18×
- Sumber Database
- Semantic Scholar
- DOI
- 10.1093/applin/amz001
- Akses
- Open Access ✓