Unit 5

The Structures of English (2)

Unit5

The Structures of English (2)

Review:

What is meant by IC analysis? What are ‘surface structure’ and ‘deep

structure’? Analyze how the following sentence is

ambiguous:

Flying planes can be dangerous.

IC analysisFlying planes can be dangerous

flying planes can be dangerous

flying planes can be dangerous

can be

Labeled tree diagramS

NP VP

AdjPc ?? N

flying planes

VP Adj

AUX V

can be dangerous

Deep Structure 1Flying planes can be dangerous

can be dangerous

NP VP

AdjP N

flying planes

Deep Structure 2

can be dangerous

NP VP

S’

N

flyingplanes

NP VP

S

Aux V

(are)

Contents

6.1 English paragraphs

6.2 English texts

6.3 Cohesion in English texts

6.4 Turn taking in English conversations

6.1 English paragraphs

PP. 87-88

6.2 English texts

P. 88

Discuss PP. 90-91 No. 2

6.3 Cohesion in English texts

Sentence connection

a. Conjoining (coordination)

b. Embedding (subordination)

Means of cohesion(衔接） :

a. Lexically ( repetition, synonymy,

antonymy, hyponymy--reiteration)

b. Grammatically (ellipsis, substitution,

reference)

c. Logically (connectives)

A latest survey has been held among some citizens from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou about the Internet’s influence on people’s habit of reading. The research shows that 40% of them have strong belief that it will replace the book as the sole source of information, but the remaining 60% argue that the Internet will coexist with the traditional means of information transmission. I agree with the latter.

Identify the cohesive devices in the following passage:

Discuss

P. 93 No. 6

Reference deserves further elaboration here. The first distinction can be drawn between endophoric reference and exophoric reference. While the former points to a relation between an entity in the situational context and a linguistic item in the text (as in “He is the man you want to see!” said when the mentioned person comes over to the speaker), the latter refers to the relation between two linguistic items in the same text.

For endophoric reference, further distinction is attempted between anaphoric reference and cataphoric reference. The former involves a relation between a preceding referential expression or an antecedent and the current pronominal item (as in “John loves Jane. He takes great care of her. This is known to all.”) , whereas the latter denotes a relation between the current pronominal item and the later occurring expression (as in “This is what John does for Jane: he sends a bunch of roses to her every day.”) .

Discuss

P. 90 No. 1

6.4 Turn taking in English conversations

In conversation, dialogue rather than monologue dominates. Conversationalists take turns speaking. The chance to speak is technically termed as floor. The current speaker may try to maintain the floor, or give up the floor. While the next speaker may opt to interrupt in order to seize the floor, he or she can wait to be nominated by the current speaker, or take the hints from him such as a long pause, a gesture, a gaze, etc.

An initiation, say a question or a request, by the first speaker and the response by the second speaker, like an answer to the question and a compliance with the request, form an adjacency pair. If the second part of the adjacency pair is positive, it is preferred; if the second part of the adjacency pair is negative, it is dispreferred. The latter is characterized by the use of such signals as “well”, hesitation markers like “erm”, pauses, explanations or accounts, etc.

Discuss

PP. 91-92 No. 3, 4

Presentation session

Phatic communion in English and Chinese

Assignments:

P. 95 No. 9 P. 98 No. 5