The Use of Personal Pronouns in Different Styles

Personal pronouns are more important than it may seem at first glance. They help avoid duplication and redundancy in speech. In English, pronouns indicate objects without naming them. They are used not only to replace repetitive words or redundant constructions but also to express a certain style of speech.

Official and Scientific Style

In the official business style, the pronouns of the 1st and 2nd persons singular and plural (I, we, you,) are used extremely rarely. In the scientific style, it is very rare to find the personal pronoun ‘I’. The most frequent in scientific speech are abstract forms of the 3rd person and the pronouns ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, which are a substitute for nouns. The pronoun ‘we’, together with the form of the verb, often expresses different degrees of abstraction and generalization in the meaning of “the audience and the author” (we can conclude, we received these results).

Demonstrative pronouns are most commonly used in the scientific text. Moreover, their substitution function is weakened, and the communication function is enhanced, which ensures their use as part of stable phrases of the type in this case (on this basis). In addition, adjective pronouns ‘each’, ‘other’, ‘another’ and ‘some’ are used in scientific speech.

Colloquial Speech

Appeal to pronouns in the process of live communication is distinguished by a number of features. Only here it is possible to concretize the pronoun with a gesture, which allows shortening of the language expression of thought. In oral speech, the word order is often not taken into account, but it is of great importance in the written text. In colloquial speech, the use of pronouns is accompanied by various methods of their actualization. This style allows you to apply all forms of personal pronouns and does not set any restrictions.

Personal Pronouns in Literary Texts

Personal and possessive pronouns such as ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘my’ are used to create a stylistic tone in literary texts. Thus, the journalist may use the pronoun ‘I’ to stress the reliability of the described events (“I am at the place of the incident. I can see how strong its consequences are”). The exceptional shade of the pronoun also arises in the case of replacing indefinite pronouns with personal pronouns. It creates the effect of recognition. For example, “A detective was thinking about someone, but suddenly she entered the room, and the young man calmed down.”

Too frequent use of the word “you” can add to your text a new meaning. You can call someone “you” instead of a polite treatment “Mrs.” or “Mr.,” which will give your speech a certain shade of familiarity. Personal pronouns (the first and the second persons) can make your speech more expressive. They are often used in poetic speech. Achieving the desired effect is possible due to the frequent repetitions of these words. Pronouns are of great importance when creating texts in different styles; learn how to use them correctly.