This study's main aim is to investigate whether a professor and her students share beliefs as far as the correction of written compositions is concerned. Our specific aim is to characterize the relationships operating among two beliefs of this group of students: an old belief that making errors is embarrassing and should be avoided at all costs, and a possibly newly-acquired belief that the one-to-one correction of written assignments can be advantageous, as it allows the students to reflect upon their own mistakes. The first belief is inferred through linguistic cues which denote embarrassment and distancing, present in some negative politeness strategies, such as apologizing and impersonalization. The second belief, on the other hand, is not easily inferable, though conflicting linguistic cues in the students' speech might be signaling an ongoing change.
beliefs; error; one-to-one correction; negative politeness