Tài liệu Teaching academic ESL writing part 26 docx

Backgrounding Discourse and Information: Subordinate Clauses OVERVIEW • Adverbial clauses of: • Time • Condition • Contrast/concession • Cause • Adjective clauses and adjective participl

238 CHAPTER 9

Myers, G (1996) Strategic vagueness in academic writing In E Ventola & A.

Mauranen (Eds.), Academic writing (pp 1-18) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Myers, G (1999) Interaction in writing: Principles and problems In C Candlin &

K Hyland (Eds.), Writing texts, processes and practices (pp 40-61) London:

Longman.

Renouf, A., & Sinclair, J (1991) Collocational frameworks in English In K Aijmer

& B Altenberg (Eds.), English corpus linguistics (pp 128-143) New York:

Longman.

Scott, M (2000) Focusing on the text and its keywords In L Burnard & T McEnery

(Eds.), Rethinking language pedagogy from a corpus perspective (pp 103-121)

Frank-furt: Peter Lang.

Stevens, V (1991) Concordance-based vocabulary exercises: A viable alternative to

gap fillers In T.Johns & P King (Eds.), Classroom concordancing (pp 47-61)

Bir-mingham: University of Birmingham Press.

Tribble, C (2000) Genres, keywords, teaching: Towards a pedagogic account of the

language of project proposals In L Burnard & T McEnery (Eds.), Rethinking lan-guage pedagogy from a corpus perspective (pp 75-90) Frankfurt am Main: Peter

Lang

Tribble, C (2002) Corpora and corpus analysis: new windows on academic writing.

In J Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic discourse (pp 131-149) Harlow, UK: Longman.

Appendix to Chapter 9

Evaluative Adjectives and Noun Chunks Frequent in Academic Writing

Evaluative

Adjective

good

important

special

right

Main (Head) Noun judges, readers, separation, communication, relations, fortune,

yields, indication (e.g., good judges, good fortune)

changes, advances, step, part, consequences, respect

factor (e.g., important changes, important step[s])

cases, process, regulations, class, types, method (e.g.

special process[es])

principles, level, relation, direction, answer, criteria

principles, right level[s])

, role, point, , special cases, (e.g., right

Contrasting Pairs of Adjectives for Paraphrasing large—small long—short young—old

low—high final—initial previous—following

general—particular same—different simple—complex

primary—secondary necessary—possible positive—negative

TEXT AND DISCOURSE FLOW:

THE SENTENCE AND BEYOND

The chapters in Part III move from the major sentence elements to clauses and rhetorical features of text Chapter 10 covers the construction and dis-course functions of adverbial, adjective, and noun clauses, and how these subordinate clauses can be taught

Chapter 11 focuses on rhetorical features of text that can improve the co-hesion and coherence of NNS text, including cohesive ties and lexical sub-stitution, lexical and semantic cohesion, phrase-level conjunctions, parallel structure, and sentence transitions Other rhetorical features that are dis-cussed deal with rhetorical questions and exemplification

Chapter 12 covers how to explain and teach academic hedging to NNS writers The need for hedging statements, generalizations, and claims in ac-ademic prose is not an obvious consideration for many NNS writers and has

to be explicitly addressed

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Backgrounding Discourse

and Information: Subordinate Clauses

OVERVIEW

• Adverbial clauses of:

• Time

• Condition

• Contrast/concession

• Cause

• Adjective clauses and adjective participle phrases

• Noun clauses and reporting verbs

Similar to coordinating conjunctions (such as and, but, and or) that

con-join two or more simple sentences into more complex compound construc-tions, subordinate clauses can conjoin two or more simple sentences into much more complex sentence units For example, two simple sentences can

be conjoined by various means and turned into a number of compound (see chap 3) or complex sentences:

Facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators.

Some emotions are easier to express facially than others.

These two sentences can be conjoined by various means:

1 (a) Facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators, and/but

some emotions are easier to express facially than others,

(b) Some emotions are easier to express facially than others, and facial

ex-pressions are the most obvious emotional indicators.

241

242 CHAPTER 10

2 (a) Facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators; however, some emotions easier to express facially than others.

(b) Some emotions easier to express facially than others; however, facial ex-pressions are the most obvious emotional indicators.

3 (a) Because facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators, some emotions are easier to express facially than others.

(b) Because some emotions are easier to express facially than others, facial

expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators.

(c) Facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators because

some emotions are easier to express facially than others.

4 (a) When facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators, some emotions are easier to express facially than others.

(b) Facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators, when some

emotions are easier to express facially than others.

5 (a) Although facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators, some emotions are easier to express facially than others.

(b) Facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators, although

some emotions are easier to express facially than others.

6 Facial expressions are the most obvious emotional indicators that some

emo-tions are easier to express facially than others.

Depending on how sentences are conjoined, the contextual meaning can change in dramatic ways even when all resulting sentences are per-fectly grammatical In seemingly simple variants of compound construc-tions in (1), the mere order of simple sentences in a compound sentences can result in two slightly different meanings Also in the two compound sentences in (2), the order of simple sentences and placement of the

con-junction however changes the meanings of the contrast Important

mean-ing differences can be noted among sentences (3a, 3b, and 3c) where the order of the simple sentences and placement of the causative

conjunc-tion because can completely alter the sequence of a cause and its result Similarly, the placement of the concessive conjunction although in (5a

and 5b) can differently mark two ideas for their importance in the con-text (and, possibly, concon-textual continuity) The most dramatic structural and meaning differences can be noticed in the complex sentence in (6)

with a descriptive subordinate clause that some emotions are easier to ex-press facially than others, whereas the clause actually explains what the indi-cators are.

Roughly speaking, most ESL grammar books identify three types of

sub-ordinate clauses: adverbial, adjective (also called relative), and noun (also called nominal) clauses In complex sentences, adverbial clauses usually

per-form the function of simple adverbs or adverbial phrases (Chafe, 1986, 1994) For example, the function of the time adverbial can be performed by

SUBORDINATE CLAUSES 243

Soon/Now/Today, most water is lost to plants

due to runoff.

due to runoff.

During spring/In the fall/After the rain, most water is lost to plants

When some of the vegetation on land most water is lost to Plants - due to runoff.

Similarly, adjective clauses perform the functions of simple adjectives or adjective phrases, all of which describe nouns or noun phrases:

Soil erosion and soil loss cause a change in the ecology of the entire region.

Soil erosion and soil loss cause a change that affects the ecology of the entire region.

Following the line of similarity, noun clauses perform the functions of nouns and noun phrases Thus, noun clauses, like nouns, can be sentence subjects or objects (direct or indirect), as well as objects of prepositions For example,

Experience tells us that males and females differ considerably [noun

clause—direct object] in how they express emotion [noun clause—object

of the preposition in].

Subordinate clauses of all types represent advanced syntactic construc-tions Thus, it is not particularly surprising that they are more common in ac-ademic writing than in speech or conversational register (Biber, 1988; Ford, 1993) On the other hand, analyses of L2 writing have shown that NNS texts include significantly fewer subordinate clauses of most types than those iden-tified in the academic writing of NSs first-year students (Hinkel, 2002a) For L2 writers, however, it is important to use complex sentences in aca-demic text at the college or university level because a writer cannot credibly build an entire assignment or term paper using only simple or compound sentences (Davidson, 1991; Hamp-Lyons, 1991b; Vaughan, 1991), al-though some brave souls have been known to try It is not just that L2 writers have to use complex sentences, but they have to use subordinate clauses cor-rectly Using complex constructions is not likely to win any accolades if the assignment contains numerous errors

Practically all ESL grammar and writing textbooks provide explanations, recommendations, directions, and exercises for using subordinate clauses

in academic writing to improve the organization of information and con-nections between ideas (Holten & Marasco, 1998; Leki, 1999; Smoke, 1999; Swales & Feak, 1994) However, as with the material discussed in earlier chapters, only a few varieties of subordinate clauses are usually employed in academic writing, and for L2 writers it may not be necessary to become

ex-244 CHAPTER 10

cellent and proficient users of all the types of complex sentences found in ESL grammar books.

Among the three types of subordinate clauses, adverbial clauses are prob-ably easier to teach and learn than adjective or noun clauses, and the mate-rial in this chapter is organized in the order of easier first.

ADVERBIAL CLAUSES

In general, adverbial clauses are more common in speech than in writing However, in instruction in academic writing, and argumentative writing in particular, the uses of various types of adverb clauses such as causative, con-trast/concessive, and conditional are often recommended in explication, reasoning, and analysis (Hacker, 2000; Raimes, 1992, 1999; Smoke, 1999; Swales & Feak, 1994).

Earlier studies of L2 academic writing have demonstrated that

NNS writers do not employ a great variety of clauses in their prose

and largely use similar types of adverb clauses repeatedly For this

reason, the uses of complex sentences with subordinate clauses

need to be encouraged in L2 writing, and students have to become

familiar and comfortable with employing these constructions in

their text.

What Adverbial Clauses Are For and What They Do

Adverbial clauses modify the entire sentences found in the main (independ-ent) clauses Adverbial clauses express a variety of contextual relationships, some of which refer to time, cause, contrast, and condition (Leech &

Svartvik, 1994) Some adverb clause subordinators such as while, since, and

as are ambiguous because they can be found in adverb clauses of cause, time,

and contrast However, for L2 writers, being able to name the types of par-ticular clauses is not very important, and the fact that some of them are am-biguous does not matter a great deal.

ESL grammar books usually classify adverb clauses by the meanings of adverbial subordinators, and those found in most textbooks books include those with the following labels:

• Time clauses that are marked by such subordinating conjunctions

as after, as before, when, while, until (e.g., When water tables drop, water

flow from springs and seeps diminishes, or As the air rises, it cools).

• Cause clauses with the highly common subordinator because and an

occasional as and since (e.g., Because oceans cover about 70% of the

SUBORDINATE CLAUSES 245

earth's surface, the largest amount of water enters the atmosphere by

evapo-ration from the ocean surfaces).

• Contrast clauses, also called concessive or concession clauses,

iden-tified by subordinating conjunctions such as although, even though,

or though (e.g., Although water evaporates from lakes and rivers, large

amounts of water enter the atmosphere by transpiration from plants).

• Condition clauses, in most cases marked by conjunctions if, some-times unless, and rarely even if or whether or not (e.g., If a river is

di-verted, ecological impacts may be difficult to predict).

What is important for L2 writers to know is that structurally adverb clauses of all types are conjoined with (or attached to) the main clauses, and the meaning of the subordinate clause is always external to the meaning of the main From this perspective, constructing adverb clauses is always op-tional because simple sentences can be conjoined in a variety of ways

Syntactically, adverbial clauses are peripheral to the structure of the independent clause, but they play an important role in marking primary and secondary information in text (Quirk et al., 1985) In general terms, adverbial clauses are used to frame discourse for time and/or place, for example, and present background information relevant to that in the in-dependent clause

Because adverb clauses represent optional constructions (not integral to the syntactic structure of the main clause), combined with the fact that there can be numerous ways to conjoin simple sentences in the flow of text (see also chap 4), various types of syntactic sentence errors with these construc-tions, such as fragments, can be encountered in L2 academic writing (see the following section on Common Errors in Adverbial Clauses)

Essentially, when working with adverbial clauses, L2 writers need

to decide what information is important in their sentences: The

most important information goes into the main clause, and

second-ary/background information goes into the adverbial clause (Quirk et

al., 1985)

In academic writing, the most common adverb clause varieties can have various meanings, but their prevalence differs a great deal In teaching, particularly when time is a concern, the teacher needs to determine what structures are more useful for students to become familiar with and which are less fruitful For example, adverb clauses of place or purpose are not very common even in the academic writing of native speakers, but clauses

of time and condition are worthwhile to address in instruction (Hinkel, 2002a, 2003a)

246 CHAPTER 10

Prevalent Clauses in Formal Academic Writing

• Condition clauses are common in contexts that introduce the

writer's position or argumentation (Biber, 1988): If a problem cannot

be denied or repressed completely, some individuals distort its nature so that

they can handle it more easily (Psychology)

• Time clauses are far less frequent than condition clauses: When the

Etruscans expanded their territory in Italy during the seventh and sixth

centuries B.C., they controlled the monarchy in Rome (History)

• Concession (contrast) clauses are also prevalent in contexts where

they play the role of hedges to limit the power of generalizations

and claims, as well as account for opposing points of view: Although irrigation can be costly, drip irrigation greatly reduces water use and waste.

(Environmental sciences) It is important to note, however, that

con-cession clauses with whereas are hardly ever encountered in student

academic texts

• Cause clauses are not as prevalent in academic writing as clauses

of condition, time, and concession, and they occur mainly in

con-versation (Leech et al., 2001): Because marketing is primarily

re-sponsible for conception and development of products, marketing

analysts also test and refine product ideas (Marketing) One of the

reasons that cause clauses may not be very popular in academic

writing is that in real academic analyses (as opposed to

cause-ef-fect compositions usually assigned in composition courses)

di-rect and clear-cut causes of events and developments may be

difficult to identify (Biber, 1988)

However, cause clauses are relatively frequent in student academic writ-ing possibly because they are common in the conversational register Other

important adverb clauses, such as concession and condition, are rarely

en-countered in L2 student writing, and it may be that the importance of their contextual and academic uses needs to be emphasized in instruction (Hinkel, 200la, 2002a)

Cautionary notes should be made in regard to the lists of adverbial subordinators ubiquitously found in composition textbooks and writing guides alike Some of them are hardly ever found even in published

aca-demic prose (e.g., as if, every time that, for [purpose, e.g., ?for I need to study hard], in case, in the event that, in order that, now that, provided that, so that, whereas) The long lists of seemingly redundant subordinators with similar

meanings, as they are listed, can be confusing and discouraging for NNS learners In teaching, the best approach may be to focus on a small number

of practical subordinators (but not so small that writers have to use them re-peatedly) that L2 writers can use in various contexts

SUBORDINATE CLAUSES 247

The Most Common Adverbial Clause Subordinators in Academic Writing

Condition if (and rarely, unless)

Time when (and occasionally, as, after, before, until)

Concession although, while, though (in declining order)

Cause because, (and occasionally, since)

In general terms, concessive clauses can be employed as sophisticated hedging devices that can also help writers have a balanced perspective on

an issue/topic at hand.

Prefabricated sentence chunks with concessive clauses can be

highly useful and easy to employ in introductions, thesis statements,

topic sentences, and generalizations:

Although/While xxx, yyy (thesis/topic/generalization)

It is important for L2 writers to remember that their main point should

be placed in the main clause (the-main-for-main types of constructions;

Quirk et al., 1985):

Although many among minorities do not have money to go to school, they need

to get education to win the struggle for power in society.

Need for achievement varies widely from person to person, although psycholo-gists suggest a learned achievement motive.

On the other hand, cause clauses may need to be used sparingly and with caution.

Discourse Functions of Adverbial Clauses

The mobility of adverb clauses, just as that of adverbs and adverbial phrases (see chaps 3 and 9), can be used to the writer's advantage If the subordinate clause is placed at the beginning of the sentence, it can play an important role

in establishing a cohesive and discourse-organizing link between the text and/or ideas that immediately precede the clause and the new information that follows (see also chap 11 on text cohesion) On the other hand, adverbial clauses placed at the ends of sentences provide expansion of the information

in the main clause (Celce-Murcia, 1998; DeCarrico, 2000) For example,

This ability to influence public opinion and mobilize the entire nation against a

par-ticular deviant activity illustrates the vast power of the mass media in defining