Pronoun Referents: the Technique

When you are reading, it is very important that you can follow the flow of ideas through the text. It is not enough just to understand the words you find in a text, you need to be able to identify words that connect ideas - and the ideas that these words connect. One way writers connect ideas is by their use of pronouns and pronoun-type words. Look at these sentences:

John ate the cake his sister baked for him. It was delicious because she is a wonderful baker, much better than their mother. After graduation, she had studied cooking at a famous French chef's school in Paris. It had been a great experience for her, and when she left there to return home she was probably the most accomplished chef in her city.

Task 1: Identify all the pronoun-type words in these sentences. How many did you find? Compare your answer with a partner.
Task 2: Why do we use pronouns? What is their function?
Task 3: Discuss with a partner what each of the pronouns you identified refers to.
Task 4: What technique did you use to do Task 3? Discuss in groups.

Here is a list of some of the most commonly used pronoun-type words:

Some common pronoun-type words
I	you	he	she	it	we	you	they
me	you	him	her	it	us	you	them
my	your	his	her	its	our	your	their
myself	yourself	himself	herself	itself	ourselves	yourselves	themselves
this	these	that	those	here	there

Why do we use pronouns? Well that's easy. If we didn't our sentences would be very clumsy and boring. Look back at the sentence about John and his sister if we didn't use pronouns, what would it sound like?
Task 5: Without changing the meanings of the sentences, read them to a partner without using pronouns.

And what is the technique? That's easy too. The word that a pronoun refers to is called its referent. If the pronoun referent is not immediately obvious (and often it is, as in the sentences about John's sister), start reading back from the pronoun and check every noun or noun phrase or noun clause that precedes the pronoun and substitue that noun in the pronoun's place. For example, in the sentence 'John ate the cake his sister baked for him.' if we want to know what 'him' refers to, the first noun we come to reading back is 'sister', the second is 'cake'. Substitute them for 'him' and what do we get?
'John ate the cake his sister baked for his sister.' (possible but unlikely)
'John ate the cake his sister baked for the cake.' (absolutely impossible)
Of course, there is another noun in the sentence, 'John'. Let's try that. 'John ate the cake his sister baked for John.'

Task 6: Read the sentences -
It was delicious because she is a wonderful baker, much better than their mother. After graduation, she had studied cooking at a famous French chef's school in Paris. It had been a great experience for her, and when she left there to return home she was probably the most accomplished chef in her city.
What does she refer to? How do you know it refers to John's sister and not his mother?




Task 1 answer

Task 5 answer

Go on to Pronoun Referents 1