Thesis Chapters by Michelle Richter
In the literature, the term ‘impersonal’ describes a range of constructions that in one way or ot... more In the literature, the term ‘impersonal’ describes a range of constructions that in one way or other lack a canonical subject. In terms of function, they are associated with the defocusing of the clausal participant (Siewierska 2008a). Owing to its interestingly heterogeneous nature, the impersonalization phenomenon has been widely studied, particularly in the Indo-European language group.
The present thesis is motivated by the absence of an extensive study on impersonal constructions in Akan and attempts to report on the topic. The primary source of data was written texts, comprising textbooks, storybooks, and Akan Bibles. These were well complemented by constructed examples. A qualitative approach was used in the collection of the data. Adopting Siewierska’s (2008a) subject-based and agent-based and Malchukov & Ogawa (2011) approaches, it is argued that impersonality in Akan
is expressed by a pronominal or human nominal subject that is not fully referential and/or definite. The main finding of the current thesis is that Akan impersonal constructions (IMPCs) have the primary function of defocusing the agent. Crucially, this is expressed by a reduction in referentiality.
It was also put forward that referentiality is a continuum that presupposes the level of defocusing of a non-personal subject. This continuum ranks from agents that are not fully referential to those that are non-referential, and finally agents with no referent at all.
Book Reviews by Michelle Richter
Papers by Michelle Richter
Zenodo Preprint, 2025
Generative Artificial Intelligence technologies such as ChatGPT have shown great potential in fac... more Generative Artificial Intelligence technologies such as ChatGPT have shown great potential in facilitating better teaching and learning experiences in the EFL context. While the literature posits that ChatGPT can generate naturalistic human-like language when prompted, it remains unclear the extent to which it can simulate the lexico-grammatical choices of human writing, given real-life situational contexts. Using two corpora, ChatGPT Corpus of Academic Writing (GPT-CAW) and The Varieties of English for Specific Purposes Database (VESPA), the study draws on key feature analysis to identify and compare the pervasive lexico-grammatical features of AI-generated academic essays to student-authored ones. Statistical analyses indicate that ChatGPT relies extensively on features associated with informational density such as common nouns, pre-modifying nouns, and prepositions while EFL students focus on stance, involvement, and informational density. This suggests, that at the lexico-grammatical level, functionally interpretable linguistic differences exist between ChatGPT-generated and EFL-written academic essays. Informed by previous research, it was also confirmed that AI expresses explicit referentiality more frequently than students, although both AI and students underuse persuasion features. These findings complement previous research on the linguistic characteristics of EFL writing and present new insights into ChatGPT's lexicogrammatical choices within academic writing. The pedagogical implications of these results are also considered.
Uploads
Thesis Chapters by Michelle Richter
The present thesis is motivated by the absence of an extensive study on impersonal constructions in Akan and attempts to report on the topic. The primary source of data was written texts, comprising textbooks, storybooks, and Akan Bibles. These were well complemented by constructed examples. A qualitative approach was used in the collection of the data. Adopting Siewierska’s (2008a) subject-based and agent-based and Malchukov & Ogawa (2011) approaches, it is argued that impersonality in Akan
is expressed by a pronominal or human nominal subject that is not fully referential and/or definite. The main finding of the current thesis is that Akan impersonal constructions (IMPCs) have the primary function of defocusing the agent. Crucially, this is expressed by a reduction in referentiality.
It was also put forward that referentiality is a continuum that presupposes the level of defocusing of a non-personal subject. This continuum ranks from agents that are not fully referential to those that are non-referential, and finally agents with no referent at all.
Book Reviews by Michelle Richter
Papers by Michelle Richter