  Large scale correlations in the orientations of galaxies can result from
alignments in their angular momentum vectors. These alignments arise from the
tidal torques exerted on neighboring proto-galaxies by the smoothly varying
shear field. We compute the predicted amplitude of such ellipticity
correlations using the Zel'dovich approximation for a realistic distribution of
galaxy shapes. Weak gravitational lensing can also induce ellipticity
correlations since the images of neighboring galaxies will be distorted
coherently. On comparing these two effects that induce shape correlations, we
find that for current weak lensing surveys with a median redshift of z_m = 1,
the intrinsic signal is of order 1 - 10 percent of the measured signal.
However, for shallower surveys with z_m < 0.3, the intrinsic correlations
dominate over the lensing signal. The distortions induced by lensing are
curl-free, whereas those resulting from intrinsic alignments are not. This
difference can be used to disentangle these two sources of ellipticity
correlations.
