Reference Words
Introduction
By John-Allen Payne, Ph.D.
Department of English
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
"Reference words" are one of the rhetorical devices that allow a writer to create cohesion throughout a text. They constitute a large group of mostly "pronouns" and "noun phrases," less frequently other parts of speech. Reference words represent other elements in a text and allow the writer to manipulate these elements in different ways.
For examples of reference words, look at the highlighted words in the following paragraph about Germany:
Germany After World War 2
In 1939, Germany started World War 2; she was confident that she could conquer and control all of Europe. She spread death and destruction over much of the continent. But after several years of war, Germany herself began to suffer severe losses: Allied bombing raids destroyed German cities, farms, industries, and transportation systems. Food, water, and fuel began to disappear. And without these essentials, people could not care for themselves and their families. Berlin, the capital city, incurred even worse damage: Bombing raids destroyed seventy percent of its buildings. The city was left in ruins. People there lived in squalor. Vermin spread, bringing diseases: Rats and fleas infested people's homes; roaches contaminated their food. Conditions worsened daily.
An examination of the highlighted words in the paragraph will reveal two notable features about them:
1. They cannot stand alone; rather, they need to connect with other words to complete their meanings.
2. They are used when new information is added about the things that they refer to, hence, the name "reference words."
There is a small amount of research into the acquisition of reference words suggesting that hearing children begin to understand them after age 5, but that many deaf individuals as old as 17 and 18 continue to have problems with them. Moreover, experienced teachers in postsecondary programs for deaf students know that this failure to understand reference words correctly extends into the college years, as well.
In addition to this introduction, this module contains the following major sections:
A. A Grammatical/Process Summary that provides an overview of reference words with some examples of how they are used in English-Language discourse.
B. Research Findings and Implications that offers a small summary of some available studies on hearing and deaf children's ability to use certain reference words.
C. Guided Practice exercises that offer practice in identifying reference words and their antecedents.
D. Action Steps that teachers may take in order to enhance students' comprehension of reference words in their reading.
Major Considerations
1. Reference words are ubiquitous in all forms of written and spoken Modern English.
2. The ability to recognize reference words and understand them and use them correctly is a requisite for an adequate command of the English language.
3. Finding antecedents of reference words in a text poses a challenge for many young deaf students.
4. Course materials can be created in such a way as to improve students' understanding of reference words in their reading.
Process Summary
As stated in the introduction, "reference words" are mostly pronouns and noun phrases, less often other parts of speech. Below is a repeat of the paragraph about Germany. Look carefully at the highlighted reference words again and note their parts of speech. Then, read the explanations in the sections below it.
Germany After World War 2
In 1939, Germany started World War 2; she (1) was confident that she (1) could conquer and control all of Europe. She (1) spread death and destruction over much of the continent (2). But after several years of war, Germany herself (3) began to suffer severe losses (4): Allied bombing raids destroyed German cities, farms, industries, and transportation systems. Food, water, and fuel began to disappear; and without these essentials (5), people could not care for themselves (6) and their families. Berlin, the capital city, incurred even worse damage (7): bombing raids destroyed seventy percent of its (8) buildings, leaving the city (9) in ruins. People there (10) lived in squalor. Vermin (11) spread, bringing diseases: Rats and fleas infested people's homes; roaches contaminated their (12) food. Conditions (13) worsened daily.
Pronouns as Reference Words
The classical example of a reference word is the simple pronoun, as in example 1 above, where the pronoun she refers to Germany three times.
Pronouns are somewhat limited in that they may refer only to items within the same paragraph in which they appear. Moreover, they contain only a bare minimum of information and, if writers are not careful to place them close enough to their antecedents, their reference will not be clear to readers.
A second kind of pronoun reference word, which appears twice in the paragraph above, is the "reflexive," which ends in -self or -selves. Reflexives are even more limited in that they refer to a word within the same sentence.
In example 3, the reflexive herself shows an abrupt focusing of attention on the word Germany, meaning that now Germany (and not the other countries) was suffering severe losses. In spoken English, the same effect could be achieved by simply stressing the word with one's voice.
A more frequent use of reflexive pronouns is to show that the subject of a sentence performs an action on itself, as in example 6, where the reflexive pronoun themselves refers to the word people.
Noun Phrases as Reference Words
A "noun phrase" is simply a noun including any modifier such as an "adjective" or an "article." For example, people, the people, and the friendly people are all noun phrases. In contrast to pronouns, noun phrase reference words can carry more precise information, making it easier for the reader to follow them. As such, they may jump one or two paragraph boundaries to find their antecedents.
The most frequent noun phrase reference words are general words and "superordinates" that refer to more specific items in the text, as in the examples below:
Example 2: the continent refers to Europe.
Example 4: losses refers to Allied bombing raids and the destruction of German cities, farms, industries, and transportation systems.
Example 5: these essentials refers to food, water, and fuel.
Example 7: damage refers to bombing raids destroying 70% of Berlin and leaving it in ruins.
Example 9: the city refers to Berlin.
Example 11: vermin refers to rats, fleas, and roaches.
Example 12: conditions refers to the information in the whole bottom half of the paragraph.
Other Parts of Speech as Reference Words
The remaining reference words in the example paragraph above are the following:
Example 8: The "possessive adjective" its refers to the word Berlin (or more accurately, its possessive form Berlin's).
Example 10: The short "locational adverb" there stands for in Berlin.
Example 12: The possessive adjective their stands for the possessive form of the word people (people's).
Reference words can be other parts of speech, idioms, and phrases, as well. You will come across more examples of them in other sections of this module.
Reference words can refer in three directions: upwards, downwards, and outwards.
Upward Reference
The most common direction of reference is upwards to a previous portion of a text. This is called "anaphoric reference" because ana means "upwards" and phor means "to carry." And reference words that refer back upwards to a previous portion of a text are called "anaphoric words." Anaphoric words offer a writer streamlined ways of repeating, manipulating, and expanding previous information in a paragraph.
Note that anaphoric words frequently have the definite article the attached to them because a primary function of the definite article is to inform the reader that an item has been mentioned previously in the text.
Downward Reference
The second most common direction for reference is downward to a subsequent portion of the text. This is called "cataphoric reference" because cata means "downward." Reference words that refer downward in a text are called "cataphoric words." Cataphoric words help a reader to predict what is going to happen in a text. They are a favorite stylistic device of novelists because their function is to arouse curiosity and suspense in a reader by giving only partial information about something that will be revealed later. In this way, the reader is enticed to keep reading.
Outward Reference
The third direction of reference is outside the text, that is, to items that are not described explicitly in the text. This is called "exophoric reference" because exo means "outward." Reference words that refer outside a text are called "exophoric words." Exophoric words indicate assumed shared knowledge between the writer and the reader. Since the writer assumes that the reader knows what the exophoric words refer to, the writer does not bother to explain them in the text.
Note that an exophoric reference word may also have the definite article the attached to it because a secondary function of the definite article the is to convey that
(a) only one example of this item exists in the time and place being focused on;
(b) the reader most likely knows of its existence already.
The following paragraph is a continuation of the paragraph about Germany. Read through it and examine the reference words. Determine whether they are anaphoric, cataphoric, or exophoric. Then read the explanations below it.
Finally on 7 May 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allied Forces (1) and the war in Europe (2) was over. By June of 1945, Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union had occupied the whole country (3). Immediately, they (4) devised a system (5) for controlling Germany: They divided Germany into four sectors-6three in the west and one (6) in the east. They also divided the capital city (7) into four sectors with Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union each administering one sector of the city (8). All four countries (9) agreed to help rebuild German cities, farms, industries, and transportation systems. They (10) also promised to promote the establishment of a democratic form of government in Germany.
1. The noun phrase the Allied Forces is exophoric; this word refers loosely to certain members of the fifty nations that opposed the Axis countries during World War 2. Note the use of the definite article the, indicating that only one example of this item exists in the time and place being focused on and that the reader most likely knows about it.
2. The noun phrase the war in Europe is anaphoric, referring to World War 2, mentioned in the first paragraph.
3. The noun phrase the whole country is anaphoric, referring upward to the word Germany. Note the anaphoric use of the definite article the, informing the reader that this item has been mentioned previously in the text.
4. The pronoun they is anaphoric, referring upward to the four countries of Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union.
5. The noun phrase a system is cataphoric, referring downward to the description of the division of Germany and Berlin into sectors with Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union each administering one sector of Germany and one sector of Berlin.
6. The words three and one are anaphoric, referring back upward to the word sectors.
7. The noun phrase the capital city is anaphoric, referring all the way up to the word Berlin in the previous paragraph.
8. The noun phrase the city is anaphoric, referring back up to the capital city, which in turn refers to Berlin in the previous paragraph.
9. The noun phrase All four countries is anaphoric, referring upward to the four countries of Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union.
10. The pronoun They is anaphoric, referring back up to All four countries.
Definition of Antecedents
"Antecedents" are the items that reference words refer to. Note the examples in the following excerpt:
By June of 1945, Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union (1) had occupied Germany (2). Immediately, they (1) devised a system for controlling the country (2):
In the preceding excerpt, there are two reference words and two antecedents. The first reference word is the pronoun they, and its antecedent is Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union. The second reference word is the noun phrase the country, and its antecedent is Germany.
Note that, in these examples, the antecedents precede their reference words; and strictly speaking, the term "antecedent" means "words that precede their reference words." However, for flexibility and ease of discussion, it has become common practice to use the term "antecedent" to mean "any word that is referred to," whether preceding or following. This module will follow that same practice.
Size of Antecedents
Antecedents can consist of various-sized portions of text-a noun phrase, a sentence, even one or more paragraphs. For practice, there are two continuing paragraphs about Germany below. Read the first paragraph and find the antecedents of the highlighted reference words. Determine whether the antecedents are noun phrases, sentences, or paragraphs. Then, check the answers below the paragraph. When you have finished the first paragraph, do the same for the second paragraph.
Before long, the four countries (1) began to disagree on how to govern Germany. Great Britain, the United States, and France wanted to establish a democratic government. The Soviet Union did not (2); rather, they wanted to establish a communist government. In order to solve this disagreement (3), they partitioned Germany into two separate countries. On 23 May 1949, the three western sectors (4) under Great Britain, the United States, and France became the Federal Republic of Germany, or simply West Germany. It was to have a democratic government. And on 7 October 1949, the eastern sector (5) under the Soviet Union became the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. It (6) would have a communist government.
1. The antecedent of the four countries is a noun phrase, Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union.
2. The antecedent of the "auxiliary verb" did (not) is the predicate part of a sentence, or actually its negative restatement (...did not want to establish a democratic government).
3. The antecedent of this disagreement is the two sentences preceding it.
4. The antecedent of the three western sectors is a noun phrase, the three sectors under Great Britain, the United States, and France, mentioned in a previous paragraph.
5. The antecedent of the eastern sector is a noun phrase, the sector under the Soviet Union, mentioned in a previous paragraph.
6. The antecedent of it is a noun phrase, East Germany.
Great Britain, the United States, and France did not try to control West Germany; rather they allowed West Germany to become a democracy and to govern itself (7). The United States invested millions of dollars into helping West Germany rebuild its cities, farms, industries, and transportation systems. In this way (8), West German industry and technology grew, and its (9) people prospered. On the other hand, the Soviet Union established a communist government in East Germany. They dismantled many of East Germany's factories and shipped them (10) to the Soviet Union. They (11) took over banks, farms, and industries and forced them (12) to work for the Soviet Union. They also forced people to work for low wages. As a result of these harsh measures (13), East Germans became poor.
7. The antecedent of itself is a noun phrase, West Germany.
8. The antecedent of in this way is the two sentences preceding it.
9. The antecedent of its is a noun, Germany.
10. The antecedent of them is a noun phrase, many of East Germany's factories.
11. The antecedent of They is a noun phrase, the Soviet Union.
12. The antecedent of them is three nouns, banks, farms, and industries.
13. The antecedent of these harsh measures is the four sentences preceding it.
Reference Words
Reference words are a type of rhetorical device that allows a writer to create cohesion throughout a text by reintroducing, manipulating, or anticipating information continually and in interesting ways.
Reference words can be almost any part of speech, but most of them are pronouns and noun phrases.
Reference words can refer in three directions: upward to a previously mentioned portion of text, downward to a subsequent portion of text, or outward to an entity that is not mentioned in the text.
A. Reference words that refer upward in a text are called "anaphoric."
B. Reference words that refer downward in a text are called "cataphoric."
C. Reference words that refer outward from a text are called "exophoric."
Antecedents
Antecedents are the words that reference words represent. They can consist of various-sized portions of text:
A. Noun phrases
B. Sentences or parts of sentences
C. One or more complete paragraphs
Research Findings
Although teachers in programs for deaf students even as high as college level have observed students' problems recognizing antecedents of reference words, actual data-based research with deaf individuals seems to be sparse. Below are summaries of one seminal study with young hearing students and a few representative studies with deaf students.
Research with Hearing Children - Recognition of Antecedents of Reference Words
Chomsky (1969) evaluated 40 hearing children between the ages of 5 and 10 on their ability to determine whether certain pronouns in a story referred to definite antecedents or to ambiguous antecedents. At approximately 5.5 years, her subjects were able to distinguish between definite and ambiguous antecedents. Younger subjects could not. From these results, she concluded that hearing children must acquire an understanding of pronoun reference between the ages of 5 and 6.
Research with Deaf Children - Production of Reference Words
Quigley (1969) elicited 550 writing samples from 135 deaf students between 10 and 19 years of age. An examination of these samples revealed recurring omissions of anaphoric words in two situations.
In one situation, a student would write two sentences conjoined by and such as John threw the ball, and Mary dropped, when she would have meant to say, John threw the ball, and Mary dropped it or John threw the ball, and Mary dropped the ball. Quigley invented the abbreviated term "object-object deletion" to identify this phenomenon because, when the direct objects of both sentences referred to the same entity, the second object was often dropped.
In another situation, a student would write similar conjoined sentences such as The boy saw turtles and ate the fish when he or she would have meant to say, The boy saw turtles and they ate the fish or The boy saw turtles and the turtles ate the fish. Quigley named this phenomenon "object-subject deletion" to signify that, when the direct object of the first sentence was identical to the subject of the second sentence, the subject of the second sentence might be dropped.
In order to examine these findings further, Wilbur, Quigley, and Montanelli (1975) conducted a systematic study of 480 profoundly deaf students between the ages of 10 and 18. In one task, the subjects were presented with two pictures, then asked to write a sentence about each picture and then join the sentences with and. In a second task, the subjects were provided with pairs of written sentences and asked to rewrite them while joining them with and. The results partially corroborated the Quigley (1969) writing samples in that the Wilbur et al. subjects produced sentences with object-subject deletion roughly less than half the time, but that they wrote sentences with object-object deletion much less frequently.
Peterson (1996) studied story-writing samples of 20 severely-to-profoundly deaf high schools students ranging from 15 to 17 years in age. She showed the students a wordless picture book as a writing stimulus and asked them to write about the story. Peterson's observation was that the deaf students overused nouns in their stories for the purpose of maintaining reference to a character whereas a hearing student might have used more pronouns.
Action Steps
Below are presented some Action Steps (in addition to those presented in the Guided Practice section) that you can use to improve your students' ability to identify relationships between reference words in a text and their antecedents.
1. Your best action step is to develop your ability to scan a text and recognize reference words and their antecedents. In this way, you have the option of knowing in advance where students might have trouble. You will also be able to intervene more successfully if necessary. To this end, create your own list of reference words as you come across them. This will help you to become sensitive to them. Some frequently encountered reference words are included below, as well.
Common pronoun reference words:
A. The "personal pronouns" I, me, you, he, him, she, her, we, us, they, them, mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs
B. The "demonstrative pronouns" this, that, these, those
C. The "relative pronouns" that, which, whose
D. The "reciprocal pronouns" each other, one another
E. The "reflexive pronouns" myself, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves
General noun reference words that could refer to large portions of text (for extensive lists of reference words like these, see Francis, 1968):
assumption, belief, concept, effect, event, hypotheses, idea, interpretation, matter, notion, opinion, problem, process, result, rule, situation, specialization, theory, this task, viewpoint
Words that would refer not directly to an antecedent but to a variant or some kind of restatement of the antecedent:
such a, likewise, similarly, just the opposite, so do I, the same kind, a similar one
Commonly used exophoric words:
this country, this nation, this year, next year, our government, our president, today
2. Vary the times when you introduce reference words for a reading assignment. Sometimes work on them before discussing the reading, sometimes during the reading, and sometimes afterwards. There is no optimal time, for some students will need to understand the story before they can tackle the reference words; others will want to use the reference words as an aid to understanding the story. By introducing reference words at different times during a lesson, you have a better chance of appealing to the various learning styles of your students.
3. Create homework assignments like the following where students have the opportunity to find antecedents to reference word on their own and then bring them to class for discussion. This same kind of assignment also makes an excellent classroom group project.
Reading
For many years, East German people devised creative ways to sneak out of East Germany. Some people dug tunnels; others tried crashing through checkpoints with cars, trucks, or buses; still others flew out in small airplanes or balloons. One woman tied herself to the bottom of a car and passed through a checkpoint unnoticed. And one family sewed fake Russian uniforms for themselves; then, they pretended to be Russian soldiers and simply drove through a checkpoint. Some reckless people tried scrambling over a barbed-wire fence or a wall. These people were often shot.
Directions: Indicate what the following words refer to.
A. creative ways ______________
B. others ______________
C. still others ______________
D. themselves ______________
E. These people ______________
4. Copy a reading text on an overhead transparency to project on a white board. Then ask students to find all the reference words that refer to a single antecedent. Then connect the reference words with a line on the transparency to make a visual presentation of how a single thread of cohesion can permeate a text. In the example below, the single antecedent is the first word in the paragraph, East Germans, and thirteen reference words throughout the text refer to it in some way.
East Germans became increasingly frustrated. In 1989, those who took vacations in Hungary and Czechoslovakia discovered that these countries would allow them to go into West Germany. Then, the East German government tried to prevent East Germans from going into those countries. They became even more frustrated and angry. People in many East German cities began to mount massive demonstrations. They insisted on an end to their communist government. Most of all, they demanded freedom to travel. The demonstrations became intense.
Before long, both the East German government and the Soviet Union realized that they could no longer contain a whole country full of angry frustrated people. On 9 November 1989, the borders in the city of Berlin were opened. Hundreds of thousands of excited East Germans poured through the checkpoints causing massive traffic jams. West Germans rushed into the streets to welcome them with hugs and champagne. Television cameras rushed to the scene to broadcast their joy to the world. Soon, every checkpoint in East Germany was opened, and people flooded into West Germany. The East German people were finally free. One year later, On 3 October 1990, the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist, and it was officially reunited with the Federal Republic of Germany into a single country called Germany
5. Ask students (singly or in teams) to assemble their own lists of reference words from a reading assignment, from a newspaper article, or from another source. Let them share the reference words with each other during a class meeting.