Tài liệu Teaching academic ESL writing part 16 docx

Teaching Verb Tenses and Voice in Text Cohesion OVERVIEW • Tenses and aspects • Tense and time • The simple present tense • The past tense • The future tense • Aspect • Problems with the

However, in Anglo-American academic prose, neither exaggerations nor vagueness are valued highly, thus the usage of indefinite pronouns is not likely to make a favorable impression on the reader For instance, in the

prior excerpt, the -body and-one pronouns can be relatively easily replaced with nouns such as business managers/researchers/students/community and -thing

pronouns with contextually relevant nouns

In general terms, it is important that NNS writers learn to avoid

ev-ery- and no-pronouns and use some- and any -words sparingly.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

On the whole, the uses of specific personal pronouns differ by genre and text types Thus, the work on pronouns represents only one aspect of a big-ger picture of teaching students to identify their audience and adjust their text accordingly

• First-person pronouns are common in personal narratives and

oc-casionally fiction, but they are relatively rare in academic prose

• By the same token, second-person pronouns are associated with

di-rect appeals to and/or establishing common ground with the

audi-ence This type of text is particularly rare in Anglo-American

academic prose

• Third-person pronouns can be useful in avoiding repetition of

proper nouns However, uses of third-person pronouns require

care to ensure that pronouns refer to specific and easily identifiable

nouns in the preceding text

• It-cleft constructions are common in academic text because they

project authorial distance and depersonalization However, they

represent a persistent problem for students and may require

addi-tional and specifically focused work and persistence

• Because demonstratives represent the simplest cohesive device, L2

students frequently overuse them in their text or employ them in

inappropriate contexts The popularity of demonstratives can be

reduced to some extent if learners' lexical repertoire is expanded to

include enumerative catch-all nouns

• Indefinite pronouns with their exaggerative or vague meanings

should be avoided

STRATEGIES AND TACTICS FOR TEACHING

AND TEACHING ACTIVITIES

Various written genres can be relatively easily identified by their text fea-tures The goal of the activities described next is to help learners identify

PRONOUNS 139

and notice pronouns (and other textual characteristics such as adjectives and adverbs) that distinguish various types of genres

Genres and Pronouns: Personal Narratives or Academic Text

A copy of a couple of pages from memoirs or juvenile romantic fiction can

be handed out to students to analyze the uses of personal pronouns and de-termine the frequency count of first-, second-, or third-person pronouns in

a paragraph or page Then a similar analysis and/or computation can be performed in a text excerpt of a proximate length photocopied (or shown

on an overhead projector) from an introductory level textbook or a science

or business report from a newspaper

Why do pronoun counts differ? What is the author's purpose in either text? Is it to tell a personal story or present impersonal information? How

many occurrences of the impersonal pronoun it, for example, can be

identi-fied in each text?

When writing essays or assignments, what is the students' rhetorical pur-pose? If they set out to tell a personal story, then certainly the use of first-per-son pronouns is necessary If it is not, how should they approach the text?

In group activities, students can be handed different types of text (e.g.,

a student essay/personal narrative may be contrasted with a published ar-gumentation/position essay, a newspaper editorial with company promo-tional materials, or excerpts on textbooks on philosophy and business/ economics) Topics of the materials can differ widely to match students' in-terests and can range from those on fashion, cars, and computer games to pollution, nutrition, and military history After students analyze various genres of text, depending on the students' proficiency level, they can pres-ent their results to another group or the pres-entire class or they can write a short report to describe their findings and observations Part of the benefit

of this exercise is helping students develop the habit of noticing features of the text they are reading

Demonstratives and Enumerative Nouns in Text Cohesion

(a) Work with demonstrative pronouns needs to address their limited co-hesive power in English and the requisite noun-pronoun agreement in

number (e.g., employees—these workers, the author's argument/claim—this posi-tion} The fact that demonstratives require the presence of identifiable

noun or phrase references in the immediate proximity to the pronoun should be emphasized

Another important consideration in the appropriate use of demons-tratives is that they can refer only to nouns, noun phrases, or clauses and cannot be used to refer to entire contexts or implied referents For this pur-pose, learners can be asked to identify the specific nouns or phrases to

which demonstratives in texts refer For example, drawing connecting lines

or arrows in texts or their own essays can help students understand the highly limited cohesive power of demonstratives in English (as opposed to that in many other languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, or Korean) This ex-ercise can emphasize that if a demonstrative pronoun does not point to any particular noun, phrase, or clause, then this type of pronoun probably can-not be used as an effective cohesive device.

(b) In addition, the textual uses and functions of enumerative nouns can also be discussed, and students can be similarly asked to draw the connect-ing "strconnect-ings" to establish lexical ties between particular words or phrases.

For instance, nouns such as advantage, factor, problem, reason, stage, term, and type are expected to have specific identifiable referents in text, to which

these nouns are connected Thus, students can be asked to "tie" each of the enumeratives to the structures, text elements, or text excerpts to which these nouns refer If such structures or short contexts cannot be easily iden-tified, enumerative nouns may not be the best choice of a cohesive device For activities to work with indefinite pronouns, see chapter 12 on Hedges.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1 Why should teachers direct students to reduce the number of

first-and second-person pronouns in academic writing assignments?

2 If pronouns can make awkward noun replacements, what can be the

reasons that in the teaching of writing, pronouns are often

"over-sold" as noun substitutions? What could be better ways to teach the

functions and uses of pronouns?

3 What could be the reasons that indefinite pronouns are far more

common in L2 than in L1 academic essays written by NSs of English?

4 What can students do to correct overuse of demonstrative

pro-nouns?

FURTHER READINGS ABOUT PRONOUNS AND TEACHING

Pronouns in Various Genres of Academic Text

Chang, Y.-Y, & Swales, J (1999) Informal elements in English academic writing: Threats or opportunities for advanced non-native speakers In C Candlin & K.

Hyland (Eds.), Writing texts, processes and practices (pp 145-167) London:

Longman.

Horowitz, D (1986a) What professors actually require: Academic tasks for the ESL

classroom TESOL Quarterly, 20(4), 445-462.

Horowitz, D (1986b) Process, not product: Less than meets the eye TESOL Quar-terly, 20/1, 141-144.

Horowitz, D (1991) ESL writing assessment: Contradictions and resolutions In L.

Hamp-Lyons (Ed.), Assessing second language writing (pp 71-86) Norwood, NJ:

Ablex.

PRONOUNS 141

Johns, A (1981) Necessary English: A faculty survey TESOL Quarterly, 15(1),

51-57.

Johns, A (1991) Faculty assessment of ESL student literacy skills: Implications for

writing assessment In L Hamp-Lyons (Ed.), Assessing second language writing (pp.

167-180) Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Johns, A (1997) Text, role, and context: Developing academic literacies Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J (1990) Genre analysis Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Enumerative Nouns and Text Cohesion

Francis, G (1994) Labelling discourse: An aspect of nominal-group cohesion In M.

Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in written text analysis (pp 83-101) New York:

Routledge.

Halliday, M A K., & Hasan, R (1976) Cohesion in English London: Longman.

Tadros, A (1994) Predictive categories in expository text InM Coulthard (Ed.), Ad-vances in written text analysis (pp 69-82) New York: Routledge.

Impersonal and Demonstrative Pronouns

Diessel, H (1999) Demonstratives: Form, function, andgrammaticalization Amsterdam:

John Benjamins.

Haspelmath, M (1997) Indefinite pronouns Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McCarthy, M (1994) It, this, and that In M Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in written text analysis (pp 266-275) New York: Routledge.

TLFeBOOK

Teaching Verb Tenses and Voice

in Text Cohesion

OVERVIEW

• Tenses and aspects

• Tense and time

• The simple present tense

• The past tense

• The future tense

• Aspect

• Problems with the uses of tenses and aspects

• Active and Passive Voice in Academic Writing

Much earlier research has demonstrated that, in general, English tenses are often difficult for L2 learners to use appropriately (Guiora, 1983; Hinkel, 1992, 1997a; Riddle, 1986; Sharwood Smith & Rutherford, 1988) However, errors in the uses of tenses are considered to be among the most egregious problems in the quality of academic L2 text (Horowitz, 1986a; Johns, 1981; Ostler, 1980; Reid, 1993; Santos, 1988; Vann et al., 1984, 1991;Vaughan, 1991)

TENSES AND ASPECTS

Although ESL grammar textbooks describe around 12 tenses or more (e.g., the present progressive, the present perfect, or the present perfect progressive), the simplest way to teach tenses is to start by separating tenses and aspects (see also chap 4) Thus, there are three tenses in Eng-lish: the past, the present, and the future In addition, there are two as-pects: the progressive and the perfect The tenses and aspects can

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combine to create a nice stew that can include such ingredients as the past perfect or present perfect progressive

Fortunately, in effect, only a few combinations of tenses and aspects are used in academic writing (as opposed to, for example, conversational dis-course or ESL grammar classes), and for academic writers the task of using tenses and aspects correctly is greatly simplified For example, Biber's (1988) study of various spoken, written, and published genre shows that past-tense constructions are relatively infrequent in academic prose com-pared with, for instance, press reportage, personal letters, or face-to-face conversations

TENSE AND TIME

In all human languages, time (but not necessarily tense) is divided into three large categories: now (the present), before now (the past), and after now (the future)

In English, as in other languages, the tense marks the time and connects

an action or event to a particular time For example,

• Scientists sought knowledge—the past tense (sought) marks a finished

action that took place before now

• Scientists seek knowledge—the present tense (seek) refers to a general

action that took place in the past, takes place in the present, and is

likely to continue into the future

• Scientists will seek knowledge—the future tense (will) marks an

ac-tion that did not take place in the past, does not take place in the

present, but is certain to take place in the future (the time

for-ward from now)

According to Biber et al (1999), avast majority of all verb phrases—over 85%—are employed with tenses In academic writing, the usage of the pres-ent tense is over threefold that of the past tense Phrases with modal verbs, and hence no overt tense markers, represent 10% to 15% of all verb phrases (see chap 12 for a detailed discussion) Thus, in light of the fact that the present tense is greatly prevalent in academic writing, the following discus-sion focuses primarily on its uses and functions and, to a smaller extent, on those associated with the past tense and verb aspects

TEACHING VERB TENSES AND VOICE 145

THE SIMPLE PRESENT-TENSE USES AND FUNCTIONS

Forms and Meanings

The simple present tense refers to actions and events that are general (i.e., they have no specific [or definite] time to which they refer) In academic writing, present-tense verbs refer to states or habitual (and repeated)

activi-ties (e.g., be-verbs, linking verbs [become, seem, appear], consist, believe, know;

Quirk etal., 1985).

The simple present tense refers to actions/events that take place

gen-erally in the present, but not necessary at the present moment or time.

For example, in (1), the action study refers to general time (i.e., it took

place in the past, takes place in the present, and is likely to continue to take place in the future).

1 Sociologists study social experiences in each stage of life.

However, the present-tense action study may not necessarily take place at

this moment if none of the sociologists is at work, at this moment, studying social experiences In fact, the simple present tense cannot be used to refer

to actions and events that take place at this very moment (or at any specific moment).

Simple present-tense verbs are not marked for plural and first-person

singular subjects (e.g., /, we, you, they study), but are marked by -s or -es for third-person singular subjects (e.g., he, she, it studies).

Functions and Uses

In general terms, in academic writing the present tense is strongly associ-ated with verbs that refer to mental and logical states, whereas the past tense denotes specific actions and events in the past time (Biber et al., 1999) For the purposes of written academic discourse outside of references to specific past-time events, such as those in business case studies or specific events, the present tense provides a relatively safe venue because in academic text the uses of the simple present tense are highly conventionalized (Swales, 1990a) and, hence, may be appropriate in various contexts.

One of the contexts where the past tense can be appropriate—but

en-tirely optional—is citations of earlier research, as in Smith (2000) found/in-vestigated/reported Even in these constructions, the present tense can be used appropriately -.Johnson (1999) finds/investigates/reports According to

Swales and Feak (1994), the uses of "citational" present are very common in the academic genre They pointed out that in general, citing, reviewing, or referring to sources allows writers options in their choice of tenses.

For example, the use of the present tense is appropriate in citations and paraphrases of information, as well as a presentation of general facts, opin-ions, or research findings For example,

Bobson (2001) points to the recent increases in employment rates among high school

students.

Jane Leserman(1981) also examines the socialization process in medical school.

It is difficult to estimate the number of youngsters involved in home schooling.

Because few occupations are performed in social isolation, work links individuals to

others with whom they interact both on and off the job (Citations from Thompson &

Hickey, 2002, p 444)

As mentioned, with the exception of references to specific actions and events that occurred in the past, for L2 writers the task of constructing aca-demic text can be greatly simplified when large portions of their assign-ments and papers (if not entire assignassign-ments and papers) can be written in the simple present tense

L2 writers should be encouraged to use the present simple tense

whenever possible in their writing provided that they are also taught

how to establish subject-verb agreement and can do so correctly in

most occurrences of the simple present

For example, the excerpt in (1) is extracted from a student's paper on gender and reasoning skills:

(1) Women are a minority in school science classes and in the scientific society in the

U.S., which are well-known phenomena Research on gender and science shows us that

gender differences in science education come from achievement, attitude, and

motiva-tion, or science course selection The purpose of the study by Michael Shemesh, a

profes-sor in the Department of Education, is to investigate gender-related differences between

gender-related reasoning skills and learning interests during the early adolescence

stage His study hopes that the result can help figure out explanations to the differences

that exist in school courses participation.

In this research, a videotaped group test is_ used to measure students development.

This test contains 12 videotaped simple experiments and demonstrations At the end of

each demonstration, students answer questions and justify their solutions Students

with correct answers receive two points Then students are categorized by their points

into concrete, transitional, or formal reasoners.

Students also have to write down two subject fields which they are most interested in

In excerpt (1), which begins with general introductions and then pro-ceeds to discuss a specific experiment, the writer employs the simple pres-ent tense throughout McCarthy and Carter (1994) referred to what they

TEACHING VERB TENSES AND VOICE 147

called "the historical present" (p 100), often considered to be useful and appropriate in introductions and citations from sources to indicate the

"now-relevance" (p 102) of research and information The flexible and commonplace employment of the present tense in excerpt (1) and other types of academic texts allows L2 writers to avoid pitfalls and complications associated with the uses of other more complex English tenses

With the exception of references to time-specific events such as case studies, historical analyses, or biographical sketches, the flexibil-ity and conventionalflexibil-ity of the simple present tense in academic writ-ing can help L2 writers simplify tense uses in their writwrit-ing Therefore, they should be encouraged to maintain the simple present tense as much as possible in their writing

Corpus analyses have also identified important clusters of verbs that tend to occur predominantly in the simple present tense Their numbers are small, and these verbs can simply be learned

Verbs Predominantly Used in the Present Tense care doubt imply matter mind tend

differ fancy know mean suppose want

An Important Caveat: In academic writing, a lack of grammatically correct subject-verb agreement is considered to be a serious error For

L2 writers, dealing with the subject-verb agreement issue is made more complex because many NNS learners have trouble identifying the head subject noun in a subject noun phrase (see chap 3 for tech-niques to teach L2 writers how to locate the head subject noun)

THE PAST-TENSE USES AND FUNCTIONS

In the teaching of ESL grammar, much attention is usually devoted to the for-mation and meanings of the past tense However, in academic writing, past-tense verbs represent less than 18% of all verbs that have tense (Biber et al., 1999), and most verbs used in the past tense denote specific, limited-time

activities In fact the English past tense is sometimes called the definite past

employed largely in "historical or biographical statements which have spe-cific people, places, or objects as their topics" (Quirk et al., 1985, p 184)

The past forms of regular verbs take the marker -ed or the past forms of irregular verbs (e.g., sang, wrote), with complete lists found in practically

ev-ery ESL grammar book or dictionary (for this reason the form of past-tense verb is not examined in any detail here)