Analysis of ′two texts′ written by EAL Learners
Michelle_Michy
Week3-TheThreeDimensions-ppt.pptxPedagogical Grammar
Week 3
THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF GRAMMAR
Plus SYNTAX and its METALANGAUGE
The Three Dimensions
Form
How a particular grammar structure is constructed
Spelling (and sound)
What inflectional morphemes are involved
What grammatical metalanguage is involved
Meaning (Semantics)
What semantic contribution does it make
Most meaning is conveyed through the lexicon
‘walk’ is different from ‘run’
Some essential meaning is grammatical
‘walk’ is different from ‘walked’
Use (Pragmatics)
When is it used?
Why is it used instead of another structure?
What functions does it serve?
In what social contexts would it be appropriate?
The three dimensions
Larsen Freeman
Sometimes the boundaries between the three dimensions are fuzzy
Useful conceptual Framework for teaching grammar
Students need to learn to use structures
Accurately
Meaningfully
Appropriately
Celce-Murcia
Imperatives- an example: Form
Stem (bare infinitive) form of verb
Be quiet! Stop! Come here!
No obvious subject
Usually you understood
Occasionally you is present ‘You be quiet!
Tenseless
Take no modals
Usually followed by an exclamation mark
Negative
Do not run!, Don’t run! Don’t you run! (occasionally)
Imperatives: Meaning
Getting someone to do something
That someone is usually the ‘you’ present in the environment (either singular or plural
Other addressees can be specified (vocative)
Striker, come!
Everybody, put down your pens!
Imperatives: Use
Commands
Speaker has the power to order or command the listeners
Present arms!
Other functional uses
Mae West
“Come up and see me sometime!”
Invitations
Prohibitions
Don’t walk on the grass!
Offers
Have another Tim tam
Warnings
Mind the doors!
Advice
Don’t forget your umbrella!
Procedures
Add 2 teaspoons of sugar
Directions
Turn left at the end of George St
Wishes
Have a nice day!
Imperatives Use
Politeness
Addition of ‘Please’
Please give me a glass of water
Addition of modals
Could you give me a glass of water
Pragmatics
Pragmatics involves three major communication skills:
Using language for different purposes -- such as greeting, informing, demanding, promising, and requesting;
Pragmatics……
Adapting or changing language according to the needs or expectations of a listener or situation -- such as talking differently to a baby than to an adult, talking differently in a classroom than on a playground. (Tenor- a feature of Functional Grammar)
Pragmatics…..
Following rules for conversations and narrative (e.g., telling stories, giving book reports, recounting events of the day); there are rules for taking turns in conversation, introducing topics of conversation, staying on the topic, rephrasing when misunderstood, and telling a story. There are also rules for appropriate use of nonverbal signals in conversation: distance between speaker and listener, facial expressions, and eye contact. Rules may vary depending on language and culture.
Syntax
My speciality engineering hydraulic. Engineering hydraulic very important new science. Using engineering hydraulic in the future will a modern communications system develop my country. Will profit everyone. Will construct a glorious future engineering hydraulic. Recently expanding this field of science. In the future I will with great pleasure give to my country.
Word Order
Because English is not a highly inflected language, a great deal of meaning is conveyed through word order.
The meaning can alter fundamentally if the order varies
Hawks crush Magpies
Magpies crush Hawks
You are married.
Are you married?
Driving up to Toowoomba I saw a kangaroo.
I saw a kangaroo driving up to Toowoomba.
There are rules forbidding certain word orders
I went to Stradbroke on Sunday NOT I to Stradbroke on Sunday went.
I like Australian chardonnays very much. NOT I like very much Australian chardonnays.
He explained the rules of cricket to me. NOT He explained me the rules of cricket
……..or is this last one acceptable?
Sentence elements
We need a metalanguage to talk about the elements in a sentence and the order they come in.
Traditional sentence analysis identifies five different sentence elements
S Subject
V Verb
O Object
C Complement
A Adverbial
Can you match these terms with their definitions?
Subject
Verb
Object
Complement
Adverbial
Gives further information (or completes what is said) about some other element
Identifies who or what is the topic of the clause and/or the agent of the verb
Adds extra information about the time, manner or place of the situation.
Identifies who or what is affected by an action
Expresses an event action or state
| Subject | Verb | Object | Adverbial |
| Noun Phrase | Verb Phrase | Noun Phrase | Noun Phrase Prepositional phrase Adverbial phrase |
| Cristiano Ronaldo | scored | a goal | in the match against Germany. |
| He That energetic highly intelligent soccer player That energetic highly intelligent soccer player with kangaroo skin boots | has scored could have scored had scored didn’t score might not have scored | an absolutely spectacular goal an absolutely spectacular goal that should never have been allowed | last year in Stuttgart in the World Cup seemingly effortlessly with consummate ease |
The Verb(V) is the only part that MUST exist in a sentence
V
Shoot!!
However most sentences have got a Subject (S) and a Verb (V)
S V
/Steve Irwin /died./
Objects (O)
Many sentences also contain an object
S V O
/Colin Firth/won /an Oscar/
Some sentences contain two objects - an Indirect(IO) as well as a Direct object
S V IO
Paul McCartney /had to pay/ his ex-wife, Heather Mills
O
/ $48 million./
Complement(C)
Verbs like ‘to be’ and other ‘copular verbs’ are not followed by an object but by a complement (C)
The complement tells us more about the subject
S V C
/Novak Djokovich/ is /the best tennis player in the world./
S V C
/The Bulldogs /looked /red hot./
Adverbials (A)
Adverbials tell us where when or how things happen
S V A
/I /was born /in Malawi/.
S V A
/My daughter /was born/ in 1980/.
S V O A
/Muhai Tang/ conducted /the orchestra /beautifully/.
Sentences can have any number of adverbials
S V O A
/Supermare Makybe Diva/ won/ the 2005 Melbourne Cup/ in magnificient
A A
style /at Melbourne's Flemington Racecourse/ on Tuesday, November 1 /
Order of the elements
Can V ever come before S? If so when?
Can O ever come between S and V or before S?
Where can As go in a sentence? Can they ever come between SVO?
Sentence structure in other languages
Look at these word-for-word translations from different languages. In what way does the basic syntax of each of these languages appear to differ from English syntax? What is the significance of this for the teacher of English?
Arabic:
Kataba al-mu’allimu al-darsi ‘ala el sabburati.
Wrote the teacher the lesson on the board.
The teacher wrote the lesson on the board
Hindi:
kalam mez par nahin hai.
Pen table on not is.
The pen is not on the table.
Spanish:
Tu no lo nos prestas nunca.
You not it us lend never.
You never lend it to us
Turkish:
Ahmet begun sehirde bana hikaye anlatti.
Ahmet today town-in me-to a story told.
Ahmet told me a story in town today.
German:
Wir haben es nicht gekauft, weil es zu teuer war.
We have it not bought because it too expensive was.
We didn’t buy it because it was too expensive.
French:
J’aime les films de science-fiction bien faits.
I like the films of science- fiction well made.
I like well made science-fiction films
Variants to Word Order Question Forms
Yes/No questions
Type 1 Verb ‘to be’ : invert S and V
Are you a tennis fan?
Type 2 Verb phrases including an auxiliary verb : S comes between the auxiliary verb and the second half of the verb.
Can Murray win the Australian open?
Has Murray ever beaten Djokovich?
Is he going to reach the finals at Wimbledon?
Type 3 Single word verbs in simple present or simple past tense: Insert the dummy auxiliary ‘DO’ before the S
Does the Australian government make good policy?
Do most Melburnians like VB beer?
Did you watch the game last Friday?
‘wh-word’ questions (open questions)
All of the above three types can have a question word (wh- word) inserted before them to make open questions
Why are you unhappy?
What have you been doing?
Where did you go last night?
Type 4 The question word is the subject of the sentence: maintain S + V + O or C order
What has happened?
Who is the fairest of them all?
Who shot John Lennon?
Learners often confuse the two types of ‘wh’ word questions
Who loves Brad Pitt?
Who does Brad Pitt love?
Other question Forms
Negative questions
Not as neutral as Yes/No questions. Can be asking for confirmation of a positive belief and you are expecting the answer yes
Didn’t Sandra Bullock win the Oscar last year?
Wasn’t it a fantastic match on Friday?
But they can also often be used to seeking confirmation of a negative belief and can show that the speaker is surprised.
Didn’t you watch the game?
Aren’t you interested in football?
The difference is usually clear from the context and the intonation.
These kind of questions are very problematic for learners, particularly the second kind, not least because the negative response seems to be illogical. (We can’t in English say “Yes, I didn’t watch the match”). Most EAL teachers learn to rarely use them with second language learners
Question tags
The form is very complex
It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?
I’m not totally crazy, am I?
You’ve lost weight, haven’t you
You haven’t brushed your teeth, have you?
You like Jude Law, don’t you?
You watched the match last week, didn’t you?
……….And then there’s meaning and use!!
Should we even attempt to teach them?
Other variants to word order
Certain negative or limiting adverbials ( e.g. never once, on no account, rarely, only occasionally) can change word order.
When we front these we change the order of the following (auxiliary) verb and subject just as with questions
Hardly ever before has there been so much rain in February.
Only rarely do Australian men seem more interested in poetry than football!
Fronting (theme/rheme)
For stylistic reasons or for emphasis native speakers can use unusual or ‘marked’ word order.
A right mess you’ve made of this!
In this very street lived the first convicts who were transported to Queensland.
Once in royal David’s city stood a lowly cattle shed.
At what stage, if ever, would you teach these marked forms?
Problems for learners
SVOCA orders that are different from learners’ L1 – more a problem of production than of comprehension and will depend very much on L1 patterns. Typical errors will be:
Position of adverbials between S and V or V and O or within the verb phrase
She opened with difficulty the door
I in the middle of the night woke up
I like at the weekend to play soccer.
I have this week been watching soccer.
Learner problems
position of direct objects between auxiliary verbs and main verbs:
I’m sorry. I have my homework forgotten.
Position of adjectives within a noun phrase
It was a game most exciting.
She has black long lovely hair
Learner problems
Omission of the verb ‘to be’ ( Not necessary in some languages and not always salient in English)
Ricky Ponting the best Australian player.
Omission of the subject (again not necessary in some languages)
Is very funny man.
Confusion between direct and indirect objects
I sent a letter my mother
I sent to my mother a letter
Confusion with adjective phrases as complements (often adverbs are used instead)
You look beautifully in that dress.
Problems with Question Forms
It is very common for learners to ask questions without making the necessary changes (or additions) to word order
When she came?
How you can say that?
What is doing your sister?
Do you can speak English?
What did happen in the game? (possible but with an unusual (marked) meaning)
Questions
Australia won the match? with upward intonation (Can be interpreted as querying or checking information or expressing disbelief rather than a straight question)
Negative questions
Haven’t you done your homework?
Question tags (both form and use)
You live in Brisbane, isn’t it?
