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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 26, No. 0, pp.1081-1097
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 30 Sep 2026
Received 13 Jul 2026 Revised 07 Aug 2026 Accepted 13 Aug 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.26..202609.1081

Understanding Plural, Singular, and Collective They among Korean EFL Learners: A Textbook Input Perspective

Junghyoe Yoon ; On-Soon Lee
(First author) Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature Gyeongsang National University jyoon@gnu.ac.kr
(Corresponding author) Associate Professor, Institute of General Education Sunchon National University 255 Jungang-ro, Suncheon-si, Jeollanam-do, Korea, Tel: +82-61-750-5622 oslee@scnu.ac.kr


© 2026 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Although the pronoun they is taught as having a plural antecedent (i.e., ‘plural they’) in EFL education, it can also refer to a singular antecedent (i.e., ‘singular they’) or to individual members of a collective noun that is singular in form (i.e., ‘collective they’). To examine the relationship between textbook input and the interpretation of the pronoun they, this study analyzes 10 high school English textbooks and conducts an experiment with a pronoun coreference task based on sentences from the textbooks. Seventy-four Korean undergraduate students completed the task and a proficiency test. Results showed that plural they was by far the most frequent type in the textbooks, and the participants showed the highest accuracy for plural they in the interpretation task. The learners also interpreted singular they and collective they relatively accurately despite their low frequencies in the textbooks. The relationship between English proficiency and interpretation accuracy differed across conditions, showing a more positive relationship in the plural they condition than in the collective they condition. Overall, the mean accuracy pattern (plural they > singular they > collective they) was consistent with the frequency pattern in the textbooks. However, the relatively high accuracy for singular and collective they despite their low textbook frequencies suggests that textbook distribution patterns alone may not fully explain learners’ interpretation of the three types of they.

Keywords:

singular they, collective they, frequency, pronoun resolution, English textbook

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