Idea Transcript
LINKING DEVICES IN ENGLISH ACADEMIC PROSE Irena Hůlková
Abstract This paper presents a rough outline of a future PhD thesis which analyses linking devices viewed as significant means of cohesion in English academic prose. It introduces different terminology, semantic categories and other features of linking devices such as forms in which they are used, frequency of occurrence, possible cooccurrence, and finally positions in a sentence and above all within a text as a whole. As for the corpus of texts to be analysed, it will first include various linguistic articles of similar length, where the distribution of individual semantic groups will be investigated. After arriving at particular results based on this limited research, the corpus will be enlarged; besides the linguistic texts it will also comprise articles from various fields of the humanities such as history, art history and literature. The research will mainly focus on concessive linking devices regarded as “the most complex of all semantic relations that may hold between parts of a discourse” (Kortmann 1991: 161).
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Terminology To begin with, it should be clarified what is meant by the term ‘linking devices’ in this
paper. As regards terminology, it varies greatly according to which textbook is used and in no case is it consistent. Thus, we can come across the following terms, all of which refer to the same linguistic phenomenon: ‘logical connectors’ (in particular ‘conjunctive adverbials’) – terms used by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman in The Grammar Book (1999); according to Huddleston and Pullum (2002) these are ‘connective adverbs’ – a label occurring in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Further terms representing the linking devices in question are as follows: ‘discourse markers’ (Parrot, M. 2001. Grammar for English Language Teachers and Swan, M. 1996. Practical English Usage); ‘conjunctive expressions’ (namely ‘conjunctive adjuncts’) – terms applied in Cohesion in English (1976) by Halliday and Hasan; ‘comment adverbs and viewpoint adverbs’ (Hewings, M. 2002. Advanced Grammar in Use); ‘linking adverbials and stance adverbials’ (Biber, D. et al. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English) and finally ‘conjuncts and disjuncts’ – two of four grammatical functions (the other two being adjuncts and subjuncts) distinguished by Greenbaum and Quirk in A Student’s Grammar of the English Language (1990).
Discourse and Interaction 1. Brno Seminar on Linguistic Studies in English: Proceedings 2005. Masaryk University in Brno, 2005.
COHESIVE DEVICES IN ENGLISH ACADEMIC PROSE
I have decided to label the group of expressions I will investigate ‘linking devices’ since this is a complex term which does not limit the field of my interest. Let me also quote at this stage a few lines from two different sources illustrating the overlap between different kinds of connective elements: “It should also be borne in mind that there are many ways of relating one clause to another besides the use of a connective adjunct. Coordinators are one such device; syntactically, these have distinctive properties that lead us to analyse them differently from connective adjuncts. Nevertheless, the division between coordinators and connective adjuncts is not entirely clear-cut, and items such as yet and so have some uses where they are clearly connective adjuncts, others where they are very similar to coordinators” (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 777) . “We have described linking adverbials as having a primary function of marking the relationship between two units of discourse. It is important to note, however, that linking adverbials can have functions that overlap with those of circumstance and stance adverbials” (Biber et al. 1999: 879). 2
Background
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Cohesive means Generally speaking, linking devices can be viewed as significant means of cohesion in
English, no matter whether it is written or spoken, formal or informal; however, it is particularly the register of academic prose where linking devices play a key role as cohesive means. This results from the fact that the crucial function of academic prose is referential, which involves the following features: it conveys information, presents, supports arguments and explains facts and the various relations between them. In order to fulfil this function successfully scientific prose style in general requires a high level of explicitness, clear logical organisation and an avoidance of ambiguity. To achieve all these criteria this register uses appropriate terminology (every branch of science has its own technical terms), formal language, complete sentences, relative clauses, the passive voice and other devices among which linking devices are definitely worth emphasising. They contribute greatly to a better understanding of a text as a whole since all its parts are logically connected with each other. Hence, 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”
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(Biber et al. 1999: 880). Let me illustrate this quote with three extracts chosen at random from two different linguistics books: … 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 Englishspeaker 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) … 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 have ever been taught to approach ordinary talk – or any kind of spoken language – in the same systematic way. Similarly, most people… (Cameron, D. 2001: 8) …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) 2.2
Features of linking devices To introduce linking devices in more detail, the following aspects should be
mentioned: - semantic roles - frequency of occurrence and possible cooccurrence (either with each other, or with other linkers such as coordinators and subordinators) - forms in which they are used - position in a sentence and within a text as a whole Before discussing the semantic roles and frequency of occurrence of linking devices in different parts of a text (these two features will compose the major part of my work), let me briefly comment on the forms in which they are used and their position in a sentence. Linking devices are realised not only by simple (e.g. next, though, yet) or compound adverbs (compound adverbs ending in –ly such as firstly, additionally, conversely, or other
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compound adverbs like furthermore, moreover, nevertheless), but also by prepositional phrases (for instance on the contrary, in addition, in effect), nonfinite clauses (to sum up, to put it briefly, looked at politically, and many others) and even finite clauses (that is, that is to say, what is more); so it is clear that they take different forms. According to Biber et al., the majority of linking devices in academic prose are formed by means of simple adverbs; nevertheless, prepositional phrases are also relatively common in academic language and occur to a much greater extent in this register than, for example, in conversation (Biber et al. 1999: 862). The distribution of linking devices in terms of their syntactic functions, i.e. the position(s) they take up in the sentence, is also worth mentioning. There are three main positions: initial, medial and final, the first of which is the most common position for linking devices not only within the register of academic prose, but also in conversation. Medial position has the second highest proportion of occurrences in academic prose and final position is rare, whereas in conversation it is the other way round, which means that final position is second while medial position rarely occurs. Thus, according to Biber et al., initial position can be regarded as the unmarked position for linking adverbials (ibid.: 891). In terms of a system of punctuation, it is very common to find conjunctive adjuncts occurring in written English following a colon or semicolon (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 232). The choice of position for a linking element is usually influenced by its form and semantic category; for instance, long adjuncts would not normally be used in medial position, whereas linking devices in the form of simple or compound adverbs are acceptable in all three positions. 2.3
Semantic categories With reference to the semantic roles, each of the linking devices can be put into a
semantic sub-category; these are usually labelled in the following way: - contrast/ concession, i.e. items that either mark contrast between information in different discourse units, or that signal concessive relations (in contrast/ by contrast, on the contrary, conversely, on the one hand – on the other hand; however, nevertheless, nonetheless, though, yet, and many others) - result/ inference: these linking devices draw our attention to results and conclusions (for example, as a result, thus, hence, therefore, consequently, following from this, it follows that, and others) - ordering/ listing, further subdivided into enumeration, addition, and summation (such as in the first place/ firstly, second/ secondly, to start with, to begin with; in addition/ to add/
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additionally, further, moreover; to sum up/ in sum, to conclude/ in conclusion, in short, finally, eventually, briefly/ in brief/ to put it briefly, etc.) – the presence of these connectives contributes to a lucid stratification of information, providing readers with clear signs of where they are in the text. - apposition (in concrete terms elaboration and exemplification): these linking devices are used to show that a particular unit is to be regarded either as restating/ reformulating information mentioned earlier => elaboration (which is to say, in other words, to put it another way) or simply giving examples for better illustration of what is being discussed => exemplification (for example, for instance, namely, as an illustration, …) - transition: this semantic relation signals new information, usually another topic, which may be connected only loosely, or even unconnected, e.g. incidentally, by the way, etc. 2.4
Frequency of occurrence The frequency of occurrence of semantic categories is definitely worth investigating.
According to Biber et al. (1999: 880, 881) and their corpus findings, the most common category of linking devices in academic prose is that of result/ inference. However, in my view and on the grounds of my pilot research, it may be the category of contrast/ concession that occurs with the highest frequency – if not in an academic text as a whole, then at least in certain parts of it. My two samples were the first few pages of two different linguistics books: sample I: Greenbaum, S. and R. Quirk. 1990: Chapter 1. A Student’s Grammar of the English Language. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. and sample II: Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan. 1989: Foreword. Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Oxford: OUP; the preliminary results are as follows: Out of total number of 41 linking devices in sample I there were 18 linking devices expressing concession/ contrast and only 6 signalling result/ inference. As regards sample II the total number of linking devices was 53; out of this total there were 19 concessive/ contrastive linking devices and none (0) which would represent the category of result/ inference. The rest were linking devices belonging to other semantic categories. As can be noticed, in both cases instances of concession/ contrast highly outnumbered those of result/ inference. These tentative findings have led me to a possible focus of my future research: how are individual semantic groups distributed in different parts of a text (at the beginning – in the middle – at the end)?
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2.5
Corpus The corpus of texts to be analysed would first include linguistics articles of similar
length. After arriving at particular results based on this limited research, I would gradually work up to a larger corpus comprising – besides the linguistics texts – articles from various fields of the humanities such as history, art history and literature. 3
Preliminary hypothesis The preliminary hypothesis could be formulated in the following way: at the beginning
of academic texts the highest frequency of occurrence can be represented by the category of concession/ contrast, as the author introduces different issues to be analysed later and it is crucial to emphasize the contrastive/ concessive relationships between them. It should be pointed out at this stage that the research will focus on the detailed analysis of concessive linking devices regarded as “the most complex of all semantic relations that may hold between parts of a discourse” (Kortmann 1991: 161). As for the final part of academic articles, linking devices expressing result/ inference may appear to a larger extent (and so may the group of summative linking devices); the category of result/ inference draws the reader’s attention to results and conclusions which are expected to be emphasized when closing a topic under discussion. Moreover, these linking devices also link the writer’s claim to supporting facts. Summative linking devices contribute to a lucid stratification of information and they clearly signal the end of the topic in question. With reference to the middle part it is at present impossible to offer any kind of hypothesis, as only elaborate research will show how the use of individual semantic categories of linking devices may be influenced by the particular needs and preferences of the author, or perhaps by the type of topic discussed. 4
Conclusion To sum up, linking devices, in my view, serve to raise the standard of written as well
as spoken English and support the fluency and native-likeness of any verbal discourse. All these aspects are very significant in academic environment, where English might be expected to perform the role of lingua franca. My research will attempt to offer a complex and thorough survey of linking devices functioning as cohesive means in English academic prose. I also intend that it will serve as a material for educational purposes.
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References Biber, D. et al. (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Cameron, D. (2001) Working with Spoken Discourse. London: Sage Publisher. Celce-Murcia, M. and Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999) The Grammar Book. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Greenbaum, S. and Quirk, R. (1990) A Student’s Grammar of the English Language. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, R. (1976) Cohesion in English. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, R. (1989) Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1990) Spoken and Written English. London: Longman. Hewings, M. (2002) Advanced Grammar in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hornová, L. (2003) Referenční slovník gramatických termínů. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci. Huddleston, R. and Pullum, G. K. (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kortmann, B. (1991) Free Adjuncts and Absolutes in English. Problems of Control and Interpretation. London: Routledge. Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. (1994) A Communicative Grammar of English. London: Longman. Parrot, M. (2001) Grammar for English Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quirk, R. et al. (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Swales, J. M. (2002) English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swan, M. (1996) Practical English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Urbanová, L. and Oakland, A. (2002) Úvod do anglické stylistiky. Brno: Barrister & Principal.
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