Register

Here is the end of a 1-star review for a book which shall remain anonymous.

Why I bothered to read to the end still baffles me! The most irritating thing about the book was the incredible number of times language of today was used when the time was supposed to be centuries ago. RIDICULOUS!

The complaint that it used “language of today” is brings up an important point for learning a language. We of course have no idea how people really spoke centuries ago – we may have written sources but that is not necessarily how people spoke. What the reviewer actually means is that the writer did not use the language that we commonly expect to see in historical fantasy novels. This language is not from personal experience of the time, we do not have recordings from the 1400’s, but from our experience of reading other historical fantasy novels. It is a conventional language, one that has been stylistically formalized by countless writers of this fiction. The writing has certain elements of vocabulary and use of grammar that we as readers expect.

This patterning of lexico-grammar that we commonly associate with a particular situation is what we call register. Register is “the configuration of semantic resources that the member of a culture typically associates with a situation type” (Halliday, 1978). It is through register that we can easily recognize types of language use, e.g. scientific English, or a sports report. Every individual text is produced out of the range of options provided by the system of language, yet certain groups of texts within similar contexts display similar linguistic features and it is this that gives us the register. Also, as Matthiessen (2019) puts it, “the more specific the settings of parameters of field, tenor, and mode are within context, the more constrained the range of options in the semantic system will be”. In other words, if you have a very constrained context of situation, say for example, a legal contract agreement, there will be a corresponding constraint on the language choices available. Register (sometimes called text-type) thus lies midway on the cline of instantiation between system and instance. It may be represented as:

The importance of this for language learners is two-fold. First, it is common for language learners to ‘know’ a word or phrase but not how to use it. Learners may sound overly casual in formal situations or vice-versa. They are unable to adapt their language use to fit the situation. Or they may overextend the range of register of vocabulary. I remember being somewhat alarmingly instructed by a Japanese doctor to ‘expire’ until i realized that had taken an item from a ‘science: biology’ register and used it incorrectly in a ‘medicine: consultation’ register, and said expire/inspire instead of breathe out/breathe in.

Conversely, learners are often unable to recognize a particular register and be able to respond or react appropriately. Part of learning to read is learning to recognize differing text-types. An incongruity between register and situation is a commonly used trope in humor, as in this cartoon from the New Yorker:

A learner unfamiliar with ‘legalese’ would probably miss the joke.

Yet register is rarely taken into account in textbooks, where grammar and vocabulary is very often presented in a completely decontextualized situation. One textbook I used started every lesson with a short conversation, regardless of the usual context and register. It is difficult to see how a learner can get any sense of appropriate language use. In my own experience learning Japanese, grammar items were presented, and drilled, without any reference to when, where, or how it was actually used. However, this should really be the goal of helping learners to become competent and confident language users.

 

 

 

Appraisal (Overview)

Here are two sentences:

Luton Town nearly won.

Luton Town were on the verge of what would’ve been a giant-killing act.

In terms of the meaning, the two seem to be the same. Yet there is some fundamental difference between them. The first sentence is merely describing the action, a factual statement, while the second is adding something of our opinion of the event. The second sentence comes from a Guardian newspaper sports report. The sports “report” is a bit of a misnomer really as we generally already know the result. It actually functions to evaluate various aspects of the the game: Was it exciting? Did the better team win? How were the players? As such, it uses a lot of language to provide the writer’s opinion. According to Martin & White, we can call this the ‘language of evaluation’, or appraisal.

Appraisal can be looked at from three perspectives. The first of these is what is termed ENGAGEMENT. As I said above, we can make a fundamental distinction in language between facts and opinion. We present some piece of information as either an agreed-upon fact of the world, a monogloss, or open to interpretation from different points of view, a heterogloss. Martin & White give the example of the difference between the following:

Francis Bacon was the author of The Tempest. (monogloss)

They say Francis Bacon was the author of The Tempest. (heterogloss)

It is important to remember that a monogloss is not necessarily true but is being presented as such while heterogloss can be used to cast doubts upon something, for example President Trump’s comments on global warming casting doubt on the scientific consensus  (“But I don’t know that it’s man-made”) while presenting an alternate hypothesis as fact (“Something’s changing and it’ll change back again”).

The second perspective is our ATTITUDE towards something, which itself can be expressed in two ways. Firstly, we can give an emotional response to something, in what can be termed AFFECT. This can be done in one of three ways: Mental Processes (e.g. I love Liverpool FC), nouns (e.g. My passion is for Liverpoool FC) or adjectives (e.g. Liverpool FC is great!). Secondly we can make a distinction between human or non-human participants. For human entities, we can pass JUDGEMENT in terms of positive or negative behaviors or attributes, while for non-human entities we can pass APPRECIATION. For example, this headline has an example of both:

• He is proof god exists (JUDGEMENT)
• Messi Fans Respond…After Ridiculous Freekick Goal (APPRECIATION)

The third perspective of Appraisal is GRADATION, whereby we can make our opinions toward something stronger or softer through FORCE and sharper or softer through FOCUS. For example, in sports reporting we might want to compare a team that wins 6-0 easily against one that struggles to win 1-0, as in an opinion piece in the Guardian newspaper that talks about “thumping wins” (FORCE:raise) and “not so pretty ones” (FORCE:lower). Additionally, we might want to consider something in terms of how it conforms to our notions of class membership, for example the same Guardian opinion piece characterizes Eddie McGuire’s apology as a “qualified apology ” (FOCUS:soft) and the “acute embarrassment” (FOCUS:sharpen) his comments brought to the AFL. 

The system of Appraisal can thus be represented as:

This is not to say that it is one or the other, as there is often overlap between them and one item can simultaneously function in different ways. For example the phrase ” a giant-killing act” could be analysed as:

• ATTITUDE: positive appreciation
• GRADATION: raised force

As ever, please look here for a clearer explanation!

References:

J. R. Martin and P. R. R. White (2005) The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave, London.

The Appraisal Website

Textual Theme

Here is a quote from dprview comparing two cameras:

In most circumstances the Z7’s image quality will be remarkably similar to that of the D850. However, it’s not quite fair to say it’s the same.

We can see that it is comprised of two marked clauses, both beginning with the Themes underlined. The first clause is a marked topical Theme with a prepositional phrase, but the Theme of the second clause, ‘however’, serves to link the two clauses together. This is called a textual Theme.

Textual Themes are made up of:

• Continuatives (e.g., umm, yeah, …)
• Conjunctions, either paratactic (‘linking’ e.g., and, or, but, …) or hypotactic (‘binding’ e.g. when, while, if, because, …)
• Conjunctive adjuncts, which are adverbial groups or prepositional phrases that link one part of discourse to another (e.g. in other words, actually, as a result, …).

(See SFG Page for more and better info).

Genre of Going to the Doctor

“Going to the Doctor” is a common lesson theme in EFL textbooks. They tend, however, to have either a grammatical focus, e.g. practising ‘should’, or a vocabulary focus, illness vocabulary. Usually, of course, it is a combination of the two. However, the genre of the Doctor Consultation varies greatly from culture to culture and these differences and the genre expectations that are involved in visiting the doctor are not generally treated much in textbooks.

Even before the consultation, there are differing cultural expectations of where and when to seek help. Japan, for example, does not have the equivalent of a General Practitioner or family doctor. Every doctor specializes in a particular area, like internal medicine, or ear/nose & throat. So rather than visiting a G.P. who then refers you to a specialist, you effectively diagnose yourself and then go to the appropriate specialist. It is also much more common to go straight to the hospital, even for a cold. In England, on the other hand, you are required to register with a local practice and would be turned away from a hospital without a referral. It would be important, therefore, to explain the wider medical system in which the consultation takes place, something that textbooks rarely if ever take into account.

The basic genre stages of a medical consultation, as usually presented in textbooks, could be summarized as:

1. opening
2. complaint
3. examination or test
4. diagnosis
5. treatment or advice
6. closing

(http://www.paultenhave.nl/genre.htm)

Yet this has always felt somewhat too perfunctory. So based on the British Corpus it could in fact be extended to include:

• GREETING
• EXPLAIN PROBLEM (GENERAL)
• EXPLAIN SYMPTOMS (DETAILS)
• PAST HISTORY
• PLEA FOR HELP/ESTABLISH AUTHORITY
• EXAMINATION
• DIAGNOSIS (GENERAL)
• DIAGNOSIS (EXPLANATION)
• ADVICE/RECOMMENDATION
• JUSTIFICATION FOR RECOMMENDATION
• CONFIRMATION
• TREATMENT PROCEDURE
• WARNINGS
• RECONFIRM/REASSURANCE
• WRITE PRESCRIPTION
• CLOSE

Here is a Powerpoint (GOING TO THE DOCTOR’S) I use to demonstrate the differences between the stages.

 

Jigsaws

There have been many metaphors for the teaching of languages. These metaphors are not just abstract thinking about the process of language teaching but do in fact influence what happens in the classroom. The most persistent is the so-called ‘building block’ metaphor. The ‘building block’ metaphor underpins the most common teaching approaches, such as PPP and Grammar-Translation, and the grammatical-syllabus structure of most textbooks. yet, the longer I teach, and the more I read about teaching, I find the ‘building block’ approach less and less adequate a description of what I observe in my classroom – both of the language I teach and of the student’s learning. The process of learning a language seems vastly more complex, and affected by so many different variables, than can be explained by a simple concept of ‘building’ the new language. If only it were that simple.

Personally, I think a ‘jigsaw’ metaphor more closely fits my view of language learning and my approach to teaching, and better explains what is happening in the classroom. Here, language learning is like doing a jigsaw with all the pieces turned over. At first, it seems quite easy – you can find some corner pieces and edges (like basic vocabulary and some grammar to put them together) – and feel like you are making some progress (the basic sales technique of nearly all language-learning apps). But it soon becomes apparent that this approach gradually gets more difficult and that what you thought were easy corner pieces are not that at all. In fact, the jigsaw gets just gets bigger and bigger and pieces you thought connect have to be discarded. Even for “native” speakers the jigsaw can never be complete but every interaction adds another piece to the puzzle.

 

Cohesion

For SFL, a text can be defined as “a unit of language in use” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 1) and is distinguished from non-text by the two-fold concept of unity: unity of structure and unity of texture (Halliday & Hasan, 1985). This can also be termed as coherence and cohesion.

Cohesion is concerned with how the text ties together internally and is formed when one element of a text is dependent for its interpretation on another (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). Without it the surface features of a text may not relate to each other and it is thus central to the way in which text is produced and comprehended. According to Halliday & Hasan (1976), cohesion can be divided into grammatical and lexical cohesion.

Grammatical cohesion consists of:

• cohesion between messages, or the system of CONJUNCTION (e.g. but, so)
• cohesion in meaning, or REFERENCE (e.g. he, she, this)
• cohesion in wording, which consists of ELLIPSIS (e.g. Yes, I am [O]) and SUBSTITUTION (e.g. one, some, no)

Lexical cohesion also consists of three parts:

• elaborating which may also be divided into:
  • identity, which consists of REPETITION (e.g. bear – bear) and SYNONYMY (e.g. sound – noise)
  • attribution, or HYPONOMY (e.g. tree – oak)
• extending, or MERONYMY (e.g. tree – trunk)
• enhancing, or COLLOCATION (e.g. smoke – fire)

 

Here are some examples with the cohesion underlined.

Conjunction

John walked to town, because he wanted some fried chicken.

Reference

John lives near the park. He often goes there.

Types of reference

1. Exophoric – refers to outside the text

John borrowed some money from me.

     2. Endophoric – refers to within the text

           a. Anaphoric – refers back to previous text

I saw John. I asked him for the money.

           b. Cataphoric – refers forward to text

This will surprise you. He paid me back!

Ellipsis

Most of the students had an ice-cream but Eva didn’t have an ice-cream.

Substitution

John loves fried chicken. He has some every day.

Repetition

John ran to the shop and then he ran home.

Synonymy / Hyponomy / Meronymy

Eva walked to town and strolled around the park.

She looked up at the autumn trees. The oaks had a beautiful colour.

She climbed up a tree and sat on the branch.

Collocation

It was hot. John was sweating.

 

Here is an example of cohesion in a sports text:

References:

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

Halliday, M., & Hasan, R. (1985). Language, context, and text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective: Deakin University Press.

EFL Listening Tasks

I must admit I find most EFL listening tasks a little strange. The usual format in most textbooks I’ve used is to listen to a conversation and then answer set questions about it. It is a conversation as product, with the student relegated to the role of observer of the text, rather than text as process with the student being an active participant in the text as it unfolds. In effect, it is teaching them the skill of eavesdropping…

Critical

An interesting little example of how lexico-grammar affects meaning from a business class today:

The people were critical of the decision.

The decision was critical for the people.