1. Stockton, S. Writing in history: Narrating the
subject of time.
2. Dipardo, A. Narrative knowers, expository knowledge:
Discourse as a dialectic.
3. Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds, D. The role of
lexical aspect in the acquisition of tense and aspect
4. Byrd, P. All the same grammar: Re-thinking grammar
at various proficiency levels.
5 Biber, D. Variation across speech and writing.
Reference:
Stockton, S. (1995). Writing in history: Narrating the subject of time. Written Communication, 12 (1), 47-73.
Summary:
This article focuses on the gap between what history professors at a small Pennsylvania college say they want in history papers and what is implied they want by the grades assigned and comments written on student papers. Stockton begins her study by interviewing all 12 of the professors in the history department and determining that there is unanimous agreement among professors that of primary concern is that students take a stance and argue a point in papers. However in her careful study of graded papers at the freshman and upperclass levels, she finds that it is actually narrative that is prized by these same professors. Students with the highest grades were able to organize information from secondary sources assigned on the syllabus into cause and effect form. In these temporally based narratives, Stockton states, argument is subordinated to story line. In an assignment calling for comparison of historical events (during the time of the author Flaubert) as read in history texts with a novel by Flaubert, "A" papers stuck to use of simple past time narrative and focussed on the action of the characters rather than on the intent of the author.
Stockton contrasts the valued narrative of history with the discursive style of English literary criticism where narrative (plot summary) is discouraged in favor of clearly stated premises with clearly presented arguments (what apparently she had expected to find in the "best" history papers given her interviews with professors). She sees that the self-conscious attention to argument of literary criticism destabilizes the temporal system that history tries to construct. History as argument cuts the past away from the present, thus use of the present tense is not encouraged. A thesis is not placed near the beginning of a paper, but rather woven into the flow of events.
Although it is not the intent of this article to relate findings to ESL students, it is interesting that bright literary criticism majors had difficulty writing papers for history. In fact, it was some time before they became aware of what the differences were between the two disciplines and were able to conform to them. If bright NS English majors have difficulty identifying differences, it would seem there is a real need for NNS speakers to have concrete instruction about these differences, particularly in view of the fact that history professors state (if these 12 are representative of history professors in general) a preference for discursive papers but actuallyvalued cause and effect narrative papers.
Notes:
The author is an English professor at Dickinson College in Carlyle, PA where she has done studies of writing requirements in several departments outside the English department. She has then done some workshops with professors in these departments, giving feedback and encouraging discussion.
Quotation of Particular Value:
"The student has chosen to place the author and the document itself in the subject positions of his sentences, therefore syntactically drawing attention to authorship instead of character action. He even uses the literary present tense in ways that disable the use of the simple past tense that "A" papers relied on in their constructions of narrative. In these two different ways then, the student leads his text away from narrative form in the manner that he interweaves primary and secondary materials." (p. 60)
This quotation refers to a history paper comparing historical events as read in history texts with a novel by Flaubert. "A" papers stuck to use of simple past time narrative and focussed on the action of the characters rather than on the intent of the author. The paper was judged quite competent by Stockton, but received only a "B" from the history professor. Stockton's comments here help to make the differences between the two styles concrete and expand one's knowledge of the elements of writing composition.
Applications:
1. Based on this article, it appears important to distinguish the differences among writing requirements in different disciplines.
2. If NE speakers have difficulty detecting these differences on their own, it would not be surprising to find that NNE speakers had significantly more difficulty.
3. Differences among writing requirements should be taught explicitly to both NE and NNE speaker populations.
Reference:
Dipardo, A. (1990). Narrative knowers, expository knowledge: Discourse as a dialectic. Written Communication, 7 (1), 59-95.
Summary:
Dipardo introduces the reader to the dichotomy between narrative and exposition, discussing the low status that narrative writing is given by composition teachers. Narrative is one of the first styles used in teaching composition because of its supposed ease of use for the beginning writer. It comes to its low reputation through association with children's writing and with relatively immature styles. As students mature, they are pushed to write in the supposed more sophisticated style of exposition which is valued as objective, reasoned, and depersonalized.
Dipardo points out that narrative form can range from scientific to practical and points out that narrative is held in higher respect in fields other than composition. History and psychology are given as examples of disciplines where narrative is highly valued. History does not simply find an objective truth, but produces an integrated version of the facts that are filtered through the experience of the history writer.
According to the author, narrative and exposition are simply complementary ends of a continuum, both equally important modes of thought and discourse. It is by combining the two that rational and factual experience can be understood; in fact, the best expository writing is that which is successful in bringing what is outside of ones own context into the realm of ones own context.
Narrative, according to the author, uses the subjunctive world of implication, subjectification in which reality is seen through the experience of the individual, and multiple perspectives which are important in making experience comprehensible. It is vital to the best expository style. We are further warned against concluding from writing that exhibits narrative immaturity that narrative is an elementary form of writing.
Quotation of Particular Value:
"So long has the difference (between narrative and exposition) been cast as conflict that few have examined how narrative and exposition might be seen as complementary ends of a dynamic continuum, distinct but equally valid modes of both thought and discourse."
The quotation urges against rigid boundaries between discourse forms and allows us to see that narrative and exposition work together to more fully understand human experience and the world in which it takes place.
Applications:
1. Discourse forms need not be taught as rigid categories; in fact, they should not be taught as rigid categories because when used effectively they complement each other and enrich the composition.
2. To hold to the differences and insist that one kind of writing is narrative and another expository is to confuse students in light of Dipardo's thesis that the best examples of either contain elements of the other.
3. Composition teachers should point out elements of narrative and exposition when discussing readings and help students to see in what ways they strengthen and give live to each other.
Reference:
Bardovi-Harlig, K. & Reynolds, D. (1995). The role of lexical aspect in the acquisition of tense and aspect. TESOL Quarterly, 29 (1).
Summary:
This article reports on a study by the authors that confirms earlier studies that indicated that the lexical aspect of a verb has an effect on learning the tense/grammatical aspect of verbs. Results of earlier studies, however, have contained too few subjects to qualify as rigorous. This study used 182 subjects at six levels of proficiency from beginning to advanced ESL learners.
The authors describe the English tense/aspect system distinguishing "tense" as relating to the location of an event in time and "aspect" as relating to ways of viewing the temporal constituency of a situation. After defining the lexical aspect of verbs as their "inherent temporal makeup", verbs were divided into four classes: states (e.g., seem, know), activities (sleep, show), accomplishments (build a house, paint a scene), and achievements (begin, end, arrive) with each category possessing certain features: punctual (occurs at a point in time), telic (has a definite ending), and dynamic (having indefinite duration).
Each subject was asked to complete a cloze exercise of 32 short passages (Last night John (work) ____ very hard. He (write)____ two papers and (finish) ____ all of his homework.) which included 14 achievement, 11 accomplishment, 12 activity, and 10 state verbs. The results indicated that lexical aspect did indeed have an effect on the order of acquisition of learning past tense verbs. The results were as follows:
1. Subjects at proficiency level 2 were able to use the simple past at least 80% of the time with event verbs (achievement and accomplishment), 63% with activity verbs, and 53% with state verbs. 2. Learners under generalize use of the simple past. 3. In respect to activity verbs, the main competitor to using the simple past tense was use of the progressive aspect, probably because the meaning of the progressive is "action in progress" which is compatible with activity verbs. 4. The main competitor for state verbs was use of the present tense, probably because present tense means "continued existence" and thus is compatible with state verbs. 5. When adverbs of frequency were used (often, usually...) the use of past time decreased, those adverbs being apparently associated with present time.
Notes:
The authors are associated with Indiana University. Bardov-Harlig is involved in other research on tense and aspect. Reynolds is currently at Georgia State University in the Department of Applied Linguistics & ESL. He has done comparative studies on journalistic style.
Applications:
The authors list their own applications:
1. Teaching of past tense for achievement and accomplishment verbs is less necessary than teaching the simple past with activity verbs and with adverbs of frequency.
2. Learning is probably enhanced by using focused noticing (e.g., Find a sentence with one simple past tense verb. Write it on the line below.) and positive evidence (Showing such sentences as, "I sat there for a while" in order to show the use of such sentences).
3. Suggestions for essays included prompts such as "When you were in high-school, what did you usually do?" in order to encourage familiarity with using adverbs of frequency with simple past tense.
In addition, it might be helpful to point out to students the different classes of verbs and discuss the reasons that might make it difficult to use state and activity verbs in the past tense.
Of Particular Value:
Rather than a quotation of value, I present a chart of value in understanding the relationship between features and lexical aspect.
Four Lexical Aspectual Classes (adapted from Bardov-Harlig & Reynolds)
| Features | States | Activities | Accomplishments | Achievements |
| Punctual |
_ |
_ |
_ |
+ |
| Telic |
_ |
_ |
+ |
+ |
| Dynamic |
_ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
| Examples |
seem |
sleep |
build a house |
begin |
|
know |
snow |
paint a scene |
arrive |
Reference:
Byrd, H.P. It's all the same grammar: Re-thinking grammar at various proficiency levels. http://www.gsu.edu/~eslhpb/grammar
Summary:
A central point in this article is that English exists as a unified whole and cannot be taught effectively in its separate parts. Byrd introduces us to the idea of teaching "the grammar of discourse" in context. She first discusses traditional rationales for dividing grammar into teaching chunks that are presented at various proficiency levels (i.e., notions of linguistic interconnectedness and ease and difficulty of learning) . Next we are shown how this traditional method is detrimental to ESL students as they often have need of a particular grammar form before it is taught in the curriculum. In addition, teaching in chunks ignores the important pedagogical principle of spiraling (reteaching a concept at several different stages before it is truly mastered). Byrd goes on to discuss simplified texts as perhaps being easier for the student in the short run, but detrimental in the long run because simplified texts do not reflect the kinds of materials the student will encounter in academic courses or other real life situations. The order of second language acquisition is based on too narrow a definition of language, Byrd says, focussing on bits of grammar rather than on a richer definition of language and language in use.
Moving on to what might replace grammar chunk teaching, Byrd cites Biber's research in which he shows that features of grammar are clustered in sets that are representative of different types of discourse (narrative, interactive, and informational communication). Building on this, Byrd devises a plan by which ESL students will gain experience using the grammar of a particular discourse type in written English, with materials and activities suited to their proficiency levels. The features of grammar which are characteristic of each of the three discourse types mentioned above are then examined. Byrd supplies in an appendix not only various types of authentic texts but charts for exploring each of the types, excellent aids to focussing our attention on various features of grammar.
There is a section each on 1) grammar of past time narrative 2) grammar of writing that uses features of conversation, and 3) grammar of informational writing. Byrd notes that past time narrative has the following grammar features: simple past tense as the most important tense with some use of past perfect and past progressive; proper nouns and personal pronouns to refer to the characters; time words and phrases; and use of compound and complex sentences.
Characteristics of writing with features of conversation (e.g., dialogues, academic texts, and newspapers) are: the use of written questions; reader addressed as "you"; and dialogue found not only in short phrases but also in complicated sentence structures. Informational writing is characterized by the following: use of present tense verbs for stating facts and concepts; generic noun phrases rather than proper nouns and personal pronouns ("it" being used predominantly); frequent passive sentence structure; a narrow range of verbs (mostly be and have); complex noun phrases; and strings of prepositional phrases.
The organization of Byrd's chapter, leading us carefully through her observations and her reasoning based on these observations, allows us to reach the same conclusions as she, namely that the grammar of discourse in a logical focus for English grammar teaching.
Reference included in summary:
Biber, D. (1988). Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quotation of Particular Interest:
"There is no evidence at all that the English language has proficiency levels. While the grammatical and lexical resources of English can be used to create communication that is more or less difficult for particular users to understand, the language itself exists as a unified whole. Two fundamental insights derived from the unity of English grammar need to be applied to the development of lessons, curricula, and materials:
1. The grammar of English does not exist in proficiency level chunks.
2. As a result, proficiency levels cannot be defined in terms of separate pieces of English grammar.
‘Beginner' cannot be characterized in terms of features such as simple past tense and one or two of the modal auxiliaries; nor can "Intermediate" be defined as having control over past tense plus present tense and a few more of the modal auxiliaries."
The value of this quote is in its aid to the reader in breaking old paradigms and shifting to new. It sets the scene for her introduction of a very different approach to teaching English grammar whereby the context within which students operate is the raw material from which grammar lessons are taught; that is grammar is taught in clusters that are characteristic of what students encounter in the real world.
Applications:
The ideas in this article supply us with a common sense approach to teaching English grammar. Once we as teachers understand that certain clusters of grammar are representative of particular discourse styles, we can then help students to see these patterns in their readings. By focusing on a particular type of discourse with its grammar cluster, we can teach a more inclusive grammar devising exercises that reinforce the structure inherent in certain language usages.
Notes:
The author is a full professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL at Georgia State University. She publishes in the areas of material design, grammar texts for ESL students, and grammar pedagogy for teachers.
Reference:
Biber, D. (1988). Variation Across Speech and Writing (pp. 47-58, 170-197). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Summary:
Biber discusses previous research concerning the characterization of speech on the one hand and writing on the other. Research has generally shown writing to be characterized as more structurally complex and elaborate, more explicit, more decontextualized, less personally involved, with a higher concentration of new information, and more deliberately organized than speech. The author, in contrast, points out that personal letters are much like conversation and lectures are much like expository writing and that research comparing speech and writing has not compared obviously similar genres. Biber in his study elects to use both quantitative (counting numbers of a certain structure per 1000 words) and qualitative analysis (the interpretation of his examples), to use numerous examples of each genre, and to compare like genres in each modality. He bases this study of variation across speech and writing on the assumption that there are few differences between written and spoken language and seeks to identify the linguistic parameters along which genres vary, so that any one genre can be located within an oral and literate space, giving us information about the kind of differences and the degree of the difference and similaritie between that genre and the range of other genres in English (p. 55).
Genre types are determined on the basis of use rather than form. Biber examines the extent of variation within a genre on six dimensions that form clusters of linguistic features that appear in texts because they work together to mark some common underlying function:
1. Informational vs. Involved production
2. Narrative vs. Non-narrative concerns
3. Explicit vs. Situation-dependent reference
4. Overt Expression of persuasion
5. Abstract vs. Non-abstract information
6. On-line informational elaboration
Of particular interest to this reader are Biber's findings on the genre "press reportage" and "academic prose". In regard to press reportage, there appears to be a wide range of variation along dimensions in comparison to "press reviews", apparently due to the range of sub-genres within press reportage (politics, sports, society, spot news, finance, and cultural events). Among these sub-genres, cultural reportage is the most involved type of reportage and financial reportage the least. Spot news has high narrative focus perhaps because it deals primarily with the description of past events. Political, sports, society, and cultural reportage have intermediate scores on narrative focus perhaps because they typically include news analysis as well as descriptions of past events. Financial reportage has a markedly nonnarrative focus, dealing almost exclusively with analysis and current implications of past events and processes. On the overt persuasion dimension, political reportage has a relatively high score as a substantial amount of persuasion and argument are found therein; cultural reportage has a markedly low score on this same dimension.
On the abstractness dimension, financial reportage was high (dealing with abstract concepts and few active agents) as was spot reportage (although it deals with the concrete, spot news makes use of passives and other past participial constructions reflecting the greater topical relevance of events over agents). Other sub-genres in reportage had intermediate to low scores on abstractness.
In academic prose, humanities prose had a high score on the narrative dimension, showing topical concern for concrete events and participants. Technology/engineering prose had a low score on narrative showing concern with abstract concepts.
Within humanities, there was wide variation on the narrative dimension with historical and biographical studies (which describe and analyze events in the past) high on this dimension and philosophy and analytical studies which deal exclusively with abstract conceptual information quite low.
On the explicit vs. situation dependent dimension, technology/engineering prose is highly explicit and elaborated while natural science (especially biology and geology) made frequent reference to specific physical environments.
On the overt expression of persuasion, political, educational, and law academic prose was high relative to other academic genres. Social science was less persuasive, though a wide range was seen on this dimension in humanities texts dependent on the personal style and purpose of the writer.
Quotation of Value:
"The present study is based on the assumption that there are few, if any, absolute differences between speech and writing, and that there is no single parameter of linguistic variation that distinguishes among spoken and written genres" (p. 55).
The value of this quote is its questioning of the previously held idea that writing is more explicit, organized, decontextualized, and less involved than speech. One cannot compare them on one parameter because the discourse of speech and the discourse of writing each cover many genres and those genres in turn can be sub-divided to yield more variety. Thus to compare speech with writing, we must compare genres from each that have similar purposes (e.g., lectures with academic prose).
Applications:
In teaching ESL students clusters of grammar, we must distinguish with care the characteristics of the genre or even sub-genre we choose for our context.
Other Grammar Sources:
The Grammar Web Page
Verbs With Gerunds
and Infinitives
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