Cohesive Means 2/4. Cohesive Means 1/4. Cohesive Means 3/4. Cohesive Means 4/4

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1 Linking Devices Welcome! Linking Devices in English Academic Prose Irena Hulková, Chemnitz 2005 Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Different Terminology 1/2 Logical Connectors Conjunctive Adverbials Celce-Murcia, M. and D. Larsen-Freeman The Grammar Book. Boston: Heinle&Heinle Publishers. Connective Adverbs Huddleston, R. and G.K. Pullum The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Discourse Markers Parrot, M Grammar for English Language Teachers. Cambridge: CUP. Swan, M Practical English Usage. Oxford: OUP. Different Terminology 2/2 Conjunctive Expressions Conjunctive Adjuncts Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan Cohesion in English. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Comment Adverbs & Viewpoint Adverbs Hewings, M Advanced Grammar in Use. Cambridge: CUP. Linking Adverbials & Stance Adverbials Biber, D. et al Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Conjuncts & Disjuncts Greenbaum, S. and R. Quirk A Student s Grammar of the English Language. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz

2 Cohesive Means 1/4 Linking devices play a key role as cohesive means in academic prose. The main role of academic prose is referential, which means: it conveys information it presents and supports arguments it explains facts and the various relations between them Cohesive Means 2/4 In order to fulfil the referential function successfully scientific prose style in general requires: a high level of explicitness clear logical organisation an avoidance of ambiguity Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Cohesive Means 3/4 To achieve all the criteria above this register uses: appropriate terminology formal language complete sentences relative clauses the passive voice linking devices Cohesive Means 4/4 Linking devices contribute greatly to a better understanding of a text as a whole since all its parts are logically connected with each other. Thus, they function as an effective means of cohesion. In some texts, especially as arguments are concluded, each of a series of sentences will begin with a linking adverbial. (Biber et al., 1999: 880) Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz

3 Cohesive Means examples 1/3. More specifically, though, it seems most natural to apply it to interaction which is characterized by informality, spontaneity and egalitarian relationships between the participants (if your boss asks you to come and have a conversation about your punctuality, you tend to suspect euphemism, or irony). Certainly, for me as an English-speaker it seems more natural to use the word conversation in connection with chat or gossip than for a seminar or a medical consultation. Each of these has features of conversation, but intuitively I feel it is not the prototypical case. (Cameron, D. 2001: 10.Working with Spoken Discourse.) Cohesive Means-examples 2/3. Arguably, this is less true of written discourse. Anyone who has been educated in a highly literate society will have developed, not only the ability to read and write, but also some ability to think analytically about written texts. For instance, many school students have had some experience of learning how to do close reading of literary texts: they have had their attention drawn to the structure of a poem or to the existence of competing interpretations of its meaning. By contrast, it is much less likely that they have ever been taught to approach ordinary talk or any kind of spoken language in the same systematic way. Similarly, most people (Cameron, 2001: 8) Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Cohesive Means-examples 3/3. Typically, I have excluded the data that is less prototypical of the RA. Secondly, it is easy to see that some fields are much less well represented than others; for example, there is very little on disciplines such as economics and sociology. Third, I have not thought it worthwhile to incorporate in Table 3 papers that have already been quite extensively discussed for other purposes (Bazerman, 1984a; Huckin, 1987), although relevant aspects of these fine studies will not be neglected. Finally, the listed papers vary considerably in their analytic perspective. (Swales, J.M. 2002: 133. English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: CUP.) Features of linking devices semantic roles frequency of occurrence possible cooccurrence either with each other or with other linkers (coordinators, subordinators) forms in which they are used position in a sentence Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz

4 Semantic Categories 1/4 contrast / concession result / inference ordering / listing (enumeration, addition, summation) apposition (elaboration, exemplification) transition Semantic Categories 2/4 contrast / concession in contrast / by contrast, on the contrary, conversely, on the one hand on the other hand, however, nevertheless, nonetheless, though, yet, despite this, result / inference as a result, thus, hence, therefore, consequently, following from this, it follows that Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Semantic Categories 3/4 ordering / listing (enumeration-addition-summation) in the first place / firstly / first, secondly, to start with, in addition/to add/additionally, further, moreover, to sum up/in sum, to conclude/in conclusion, in short, finally, briefly/in brief/to put it briefly, Semantic Categories 4/4 apposition (elaboration, exemplification) which is to say, in other words, to put it another way, for example, for instance, namely, as an illustration (of this point), transition incidentally, by the way, meanwhile, Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz

5 Frequency of occurrence 1/4 According to Biber et al. (1999: 880, 881) the most common category used in academic prose is the group of result/inference Frequency of occurrence 2/4 Samples Greenbaum, S. and R. Quirk. 1990: Chapter 1. A Student s Grammar of the English Language. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan. 1989: Foreword. Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Oxford: OUP. Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Frequency of occurrence 3/4 Sample I Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan. 1989: Foreword. Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Oxford: OUP. Total number of linking devices: 53 Number of concessive/contrastive linking devices: 19 Number of linking devices of result/inference: 0 Frequency of occurrence 4/4 Sample II Greenbaum, S. and R. Quirk. 1990: Chapter 1. A Student s Grammar of the English Language. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Total number of linking devices: 41 Number of concessive/contrastive linking devices: 18 Number of linking devices of result/inference: 6 Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz

6 Possible focus of my research How are individual semantic groups distributed in different parts of a text (at the beginning in the middle at the end)? concession is the most complex of all semantic relations that may hold between parts of a discourse. Corpus to be analysed The corpus of texts to be analysed will include various linguistic articles of similar length. (Kortmann, B. 1991: 161. Free Adjuncts and Absolutes in English Problems of Control and Interpretation. London: Routledge) Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Tentative Hypothesis 1/2 At the beginning, the highest frequency of occurrence might have the category of concession/contrast. Why? The author introduces different ideas to be analysed later and it is crucial to emphasize contrastive/concessive relationships between them. Tentative Hypothesis 2/2 At the end, linking devices expressing result/inference may appear to a larger extent (and so may the group of summative linking devices). Why? The category of result/inference draws our attention to results and conclusions; these linking devices also link the writer s claim to supporting facts. Summative linking devices contribute to a lucid stratification of information. Irena Hulková, Chemnitz Irena Hulková, Chemnitz

7 Linking Devices, Chemnitz 2005 Thank you for your attention. Irena Hulková, Chemnitz