Key Concepts of English Language and Linguistics

Biblioteca
Contemporanea
Raffaella Picello
KEY CONCEPTS
OF ENGLISH
for university students

LANGUAGE AND
LINGUISTICS
A coursebook
The birth of the English language dates back to the arrival

of three Germanic tribes who raided Britain during the
5th century BCE. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and
the Jutes, actually departed from a geographic area
corresponding to present-day Denmark and northern
Germany.
1
KEY CONCEPTS
OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE
AND LINGUISTICS
A coursebook for university students
Raffaella Picello
Proprietà letteraria riservata
© libreriauniversitaria.it edizioni
Webster srl, Padova, Italy
I diritti di traduzione, di memorizzazione elettronica, di riproduzione e di adattamento

totale o parziale con qualsiasi mezzo (compresi i microfilm e le copie fotostatiche)
sono riservati per tutti i Paesi.
Nessuna parte di questa pubblicazione può essere riprodotta, distribuita o trasmessa in qualsivoglia
forma senza l’ autorizzazione scritta dell’ Editore, a eccezione di brevi citazioni incorporate in recen-
sioni o per altri usi non commerciali permessi dalla legge sul copyright. Per richieste di permessi
contattare in forma scritta l’ Editore al seguente indirizzo:
redazione@libreriauniversitaria.it
ISBN: 978-88-3359-074-5
Prima edizione digitale: ottobre 2018 da Prima edizione
Il nostro indirizzo internet è:

www.libreriauniversitaria.it
Per segnalazioni di errori o suggerimenti relativi a questo volume potete contattare:
Webster srl
Via Vincenzo Stefano Breda, 26
Tel.: +39 049 76651
Fax: +39 049 7665200
35010 - Limena PD
redazione@libreriauniversitaria.it
Composizione tipografica
Minion (Robert Slimbach, 1990), interni
Myriad (Robert Slimbach, Carol Twombly, 1992), titoli
Futura (Paul Renner, 1927), copertina
Contents
CHAPTER 1
Historical background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Times are a-changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Theories of modern linguistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Who’ s who in linguistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Review questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
CHAPTER 2
Overview of English phonetics and phonology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Word stress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
CHAPTER 3
From morphology to syntax. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
CHAPTER 4
From Syntax to Pragmatics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Getting to the point: sentence structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
CHAPTER 5
Features of texts and text types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Contents Key Concepts of English Language and Linguistics
CHAPTER 6
Varieties of English in the age of globalisation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Why Does Language Vary? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Erasing Babel: English as Lingua Franca. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102
Review Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103
CHAPTER 7
English for Specific Purposes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105
Review questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
CHAPTER 8
English for the media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115
Newspapers: relating language to format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
The Language of Advertising. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
CHAPTER 9
The Language of Tourism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
CHAPTER 10
Introduction to Academic English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Academic writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .162
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Phonemic Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177
Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178
Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179
Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .180
Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181
Chapter 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182
Chapters 7, 8, 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Chapter 10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
4
CHAPTER 1
Historical background
The birth of the English language dates back to the arrival of three Germanic
tribes who raided Britain during the 5th century BCE. These tribes, the Angles,
the Saxons and the Jutes, actually departed from a geographic area correspond-
ing to present-day Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the inhabitants
of Britain spoke a Celtic language, but they were pushed west and north by the
invaders and most of them settled in what would become Wales, Scotland and Ire-
land. The Angles came from “Englaland” and their language was called “Englisc”
– from which the words “England” and “English” are derived.
Enter the Romans

The first serious attempt to invade part of England is recorded in 55 BCE, when
having completed the conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar decided to move with his
army towards England. After meeting the initial resistance of the Celts, the fol-
lowing year he succeeded in establishing Roman rule in the southeast.
In 43 CE the Emperor Claudius set about conquering Britain. Thus he sent
there an army of 40,000 soldiers, who first subjugated the peoples of the central and
southeastern regions and subsequently brought all England under Roman rule.
The Romans never went as far as the mountainous regions of Wales and Scot-
land. Eventually they protected the northern boundary by a stone wall stretching
across England, Hadrian’ s Wall, which allowed the territories to be ruled by the
Romans for over three hundred years.
Inevitably, Britain underwent a process of relentless Romanization that in-
cluded the use of the Latin language as plenty of Latin inscriptions have demon-
strated. They do not point to a widespread use of Latin by the native population
Chapter 1 Key Concepts of English Language and Linguistics
as Latin did not replace the Celtic language as would occur in other provinces.
Its use by native Britons was probably confined to members of the upper classes
and some inhabitants of the cities and towns. Judging by documentary evidence,
there were certainly many people in Roman Britain who could speak Latin, but
its practice was not sufficiently widespread to contrast the disruption of the Ger-
manic invasions. Its use probably began to decline after 410, the approximate date
at which the last of the Roman legions were officially withdrawn from the island.
Vikings
Jutes
Angles
Saxons
Normans
Angles, Saxon and Jute invasions.
Old English (450-1100 CE)

The following historical circumstances and achievements have marked the period
generally identified with the advent of Old English:
1. around the year 449 the invasion of Britain by certain Germanic tribes began.
It would last over a hundred years during which the invaders occupied the
south and east of the island, gradually expanding up to the highlands in the
west and north;
2. in 597 Pope Gregory sent Saint Augustine to England to begin the conver-
sion of the English. Eventually he was ordered Archbishop of Canterbury and
baptized King Ethelbert of Kent, thus introducing the influence of the Latin
language;
3. around 730 the Venerable Bede completed his Ecclesiastical History of the
English People. From his account we learn that the Germanic tribes that con-
quered England were the Jutes, Angles and Saxons, respectively moving from
6
Chapter 1
the north and the south, in Schleswig-Holstein, of the Danish peninsula, or

to the south and west of the Angles, approximately between the Elbe and the
Elms and as far as the Rhine;
4. from 787 a second wave of Germanic invaders spread across Britain. This time
they were of Scandinavian origins and included the Danes or Norsemen. First,
they raided the northeast seacoast and less than a century later they succeeded
in occupying northeastern Britain before starting a campaign to conquer all of
England;
5. in 871 Alfred became king of Wessex and reconquered the city of London.
Alfred established the Danelaw, through which he secured the kingship of all
England for himself and his successors, and promoted the translation of Latin
works into English;
6. between 700 and 750 the manuscript of the Old English epic Beowulf was written;
7. in the years comprised between 1016 and 1042 Canute became king of England,
establishing a Danish dynasty in Britain. This was brought to a halt by the death
of King Hardicanute, and Edward the Confessor became king of England;
8. in 1066 Edward the Confessor died and was succeeded by Harold, last of the
Anglo-Saxon kings, who died at the Battle of Hastings. William the Conquer-
or, the Duke of Normandy, was crowned king of England.
A question of sound
The German invaders established themselves in seven kingdoms including Kent,
Essex, Sussex, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria.
They spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now
call Old English. Very different from that of present-day English, the original pro-
nunciation of Old English words concerned in particular the long vowels. Thus
the Old English word stān is the same word as Modern English stone, but the
vowel is different. A similar correspondence is apparent in hālig-holy, gān-go, bān-
bone, rāp-rope, hlāf-loaf, bāt-boat. Other vowels have likewise undergone changes
in fōt (foot), cēne (keen), metan (meat), fyr (fire), riht (right), hū (how), and hlūd
(loud), although their similarity to their modern equivalents is partially recogniz-
able. Words like hēafod (head), fæger (fair), or sāwol (soul) show forms that have
been contracted in later English.
Old English made use of two characters to represent the sound of th: þ and ð,
thorn and eth, respectively, as in the word wiþ (with) or ðā (then). It also expressed
the sound of a in hat by a digraph æ (ash).
Similarly, Old English represented the sound of sh by sc, as in scēap (sheep) or
scēotan (shoot), and the sound of k by c, as in cynn (kin) or nacod (naked); c was
also used for the affricate now spelled ch, as in (speech).
7
Another characteristic of Old English is the scarcity of those words derived from
Latin and the absence of those from French which would be later copiously intro-
duced. Therefore, the vocabulary of Old English is almost genuinely Germanic. A
large part of this vocabulary, moreover, has disappeared from the language. When
the Norman Conquest brought French into England as the language of the higher
classes, much of the Old English vocabulary appropriate to literature and learning
died out and was replaced later by words borrowed from French and Latin.
An accurate examination of the words used in the Old English period indi-
cates that the vast majority of them are no longer in use. Those that survive, to be
sure, are basic elements of our vocabulary. Apart from pronouns, prepositions,
conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, and the like, they express basic concepts like mann
(man), wīf (wife, woman), cild (child), hūs (house), weall (wall), mete (meat, food),
goers (grass), lēaf (leaf), fugol (fowl, bird), gōd (good), hēah (high), strang (strong),
etan (eat), drincan (drink), (scleofan), libban (live), feohtan (fight).
A further and noteworthy feature that distinguishes Old English from the
language we speak today resides in its grammar. Old English was a synthetic lan-
guage, that is to say, it expresses the relation of words in a sentence largely by
means of inflections. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for four cases in the sin-
gular and four in the plural, although the forms are not always distinctive. Like-
wise, the adjective has separate forms for each of the three genders. The inflection
of the verb is less sophisticated than that of the Latin verb, but there are distinctive
endings for the different persons, numbers, tenses, and moods.
A Scene of the Battle of Hastings from the Bayeux Tapestry, late XI century.
8
Chapter 1
Under Norman rule towards the advent of Middle English (1100-1500)

These are some meaningful facts that influenced the evolution of English within
this time frame.
• In 1258 King Henry III issued the first English-language royal proclamation
since the Conquest;
• in 1337 the Hundred Years’ War began and lasted until 1453 spurring English
nationalism;
• in 1348 English replaces Latin as the language of education in most schools;
• in 1362 English replaces French as the language of law and is used in Parlia-
ment for the first time;
• around 1388 Chaucer starts writing The Canterbury Tales;
• at the turn of the century the Great Vowel Shift begins;
• in 1476 William Caxton establishes the first English printing press in West-
minster.
The Norman Conquest changed the whole course of the English language.
From then on, French became the new language of the court and administration;
Latin continued to be used by the court, the church, and scholars, Thus, French
became the new language of the court and administration; Latin continued to be
used by the court, the church, and scholars; whereas Old English was the language
spoken among the common people.
But shortly after 1200 a change took place as King John lost Normandy to
the French with the consequent loosening of ties between England and the Con-
tinent. By the fourteenth century, a series of events occurred that promoted the
use of English culminating in the Hundred Years’ War in 1337. The English
and the French became bitter rivals, a fact that helped English be rehabilitated
again as the national language and in 1362 all court proceedings were required
to be conducted in English replacing French as the dominant language of legal
matters.
Great advances were also accomplished in other fileds such as those of reli-
gious and literary texts.
Toward the end of the century John Wycliffe terminated the first complete
translation of the Old Testament into the English language and around the same
years Geoffrey Chaucer produced a highly influential body of English poetry. To
this period belong also the insightful social allegory Piers Plowman commonly
referred to William Langland and the unknown poet author of the romance Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, as well as of three other allegorical and religious
poems, including Pearl.
9
The language that was spoken between 1150 and 1500 is commonly referred
to as Middle English. The term hints at a transitional period which affected both
English grammar and its vocabulary.
On one hand, grammatical changes turned English from a highly inflected
language to an extremely analytic one. Those affecting the vocabulary, on the oth-
er hand, led to the loss of a large part of the Old English lexis and the introduction
of a conspicuous amont of words from French and Latin.
Times are a-changing

Basically, the changes in English grammar during the Middle English period may
be described as follows:
1. to begin with, a general reduction of inflections is recorded. Endings of the

noun and adjective signalling differences in number and case and often in gen-
der were so altered in pronunciation to the point of losing their distinctive
form and become obsolete. To some extent the same thing applies to verbs.
This uniformation of inflectional endings was partially the outcome of pho-
netic changes and partially resulted from the process of analogy;
2. the earliest phonetic change seems to have been the change of final -m to
-n, for instance, in the dative plural of nouns and adjectives and in the da-
tive singular (masculine and neuter) of adjectives when inflected according to
the strong declension. Thus mūðum (to the mouths) >mūðun, gōdum>gōdun.
This -n, along with the -n of the other inflectional endings, was then dropped
(*mūðu, *gōdu);
3. the vowels a, o, u, e in inflectional endings were obscured to a sound, the so-
called “indeterminate vowel”, which generally came to be written e. As a re-
sult, a number of originally distinct endings such as -a, -u, -e, -an, -um were
reduced generally to a uniform -e, and such grammatical distinctions as they
formerly expressed were no longer conveyed.
Traces of these changes have been found in Old English manuscripts as early
as the tenth century. By the end of the twelfth century they seem to have been
generally carried out. The leveling is somewhat obscured in the written language
by the tendency of scribes to preserve the traditional spelling.
Besides, during the Middle English period Latin continued to exert an impor-
tant influence on the English vocabulary. Apart from that, Scandinavian loan-
words became easily recognizable in Middle English, even though it was French
that was to have the strongest impact in terms of idiom and grammar.
10
Chapter 1
Modern English
Early Modern English (1500-1700)
A sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great Vowel Shift), which had
started in the previous century, progressed, with vowels being pronounced short-
er and shorter. From the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples
from around the world. This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant
that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of print-
ing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became
cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization
to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where
most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first English dic-
tionary was published.
Towards the end of the Middle English period, the language: 1) showed shifts
in the location of lexical stresses; 2) consolidated the phonological contrast be-
tween stressed and unstressed syllables; 3) distributional changes, new acquisi-
tions accompanied by cluster reductions and the vowel system had changed al-
most beyond recognition, now being characterized by an asymmetric relation-
ship between long and short vowels and an almost complete renewal of the set of
diphthongs.
Early Modern English was also a time of standardization: following centu-
ries of dialectal diversity, the English language had regained most of the func-
tions taken over by French after the Norman Conquest. Owing to the generalized
use of English for official purposes, the standardization of spelling, enacted by
the Chancery in the 15th century, continued at increasing speed, making written
texts difficult to assign to any particular region.
But other options were now lost to the language:
1. the final <e> was no longer pronounceable as [ә];

2. vowel-final and consonant-final forms of the possessives my/mine, thy/thine,
and of the negative no/none were increasingly limited to determiner vs. pro-
noun function, respectively;
3. formerly omissible final consonants of the prepositions of, on, and in became
obligatory;
4. the distribution of final /n/ in verbs was eventually settled (e.g. see/seen).
5. on the whole, in Middle English times phonological necessities were increas-
ingly overcome by morphological ones. Syllables not carrying the word accent
were gradually reduced, giving English the stress-timed rhythm that charac-
terizes it today;
11
6. but, above all, the inventory of consonants acquired its present structure, al-
though avoiding any massive changes. For instance, the loss of the palatal and
velar allophones of /h/, [ç] and [x], is counterbalanced by the adoption of the
phonemes /ʒ/ and /ŋ/. As a complement to the loss of many consonant clusters
in Middle English, other combinations were simplified by dropping their first
or second member, such as /wr/, /ɡn/, /kn/, and /ŋɡ/, or by assimilating both
into a single consonant, as in the case of /zj/, /sj/, /tj/, and /dj/;
7. nevertheless, the category that underwent the most dramatic phonological
changes were the vowels. Among the short vowels, there was a limited amount
of variation and change. On the contrary, the long monophthongs continued
to change, well after the Great Vowel Shift, which led to remarkable qualitative
differences between short and long vowels: both /eː/ and /ɛː/ raised further, in
the first case leading to the transition see:sea, and the sequence of the newly
formed diphthongs /әɪ/ and /әʊ/ (or /ɛɪ/ and /ɔʊ/) widened to /aɪ/ and /aʊ/.
Most of the Middle English diphthongs monophthongized, with the exception
of /ɔɪ/ (< /ɔɪ/ and /uɪ/).
The Great Vowel Shift: examples.
Middle English Early Modern English Modern English

[aː] [naːmә] ‘ name’ → [ɛː] [nɛːm] → [eɪ] [neɪm]
[ɛː] [mɛːt] ‘ meat’ → [eː] [meːt] → [iː] [miːt]
[eː] [meːt] ‘ meet’ → [iː] [miːt] → [iː] [miːt]
[iː] [riːd] ‘ ride’ → [әiː] [rәid] → [ai] [raid]
[ɔː] [bɔːt] ‘ boat’ → [oː] [boːt] → [әʊː] [bәʊt]
[oː] [boːt] ‘ boot’ → [uː] [buːt] → [uː] [buːt]
[uː] [muːθ] ‘ mouth’ → [әʊː] [mәʊθ] → [aʊː] [maʊθ]
8. finally, a conspicuous number of conditioned vowel changes took place in the

Early Modern period, including a few shortenings and lengthenings in addi-
tion to qualitative changes. The reasons for these combinative changes were
mainly: a following weakening /r/, a following /l/, a preceding /w/, a preceding
labial consonant, or a following voiceless fricative. Initial allophonic differ-
ences evolved into new phonemes in the cases of /aː ~ aː/ and /ʌ/ (and, after
the loss of non-prevocalic /r/, also /ɜː/).
Late Modern English (1700-Present)

The late Modern English period provides an essential link between the syntac-
tic innovations occurred in Early modern English and the established system of
present-day English.
12
Chapter 1
The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English
is to be found in vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising
from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology cre-
ated a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one
quarter of the earth’ s surface, and the English language adopted foreign words
from many countries.
The greatest change in this period concerned the meaning of words.
Theories of modern linguistics

Defining language
There are about 5000 languages spoken in the world today, but scholars group
them together into relatively few families – supposedly less than twenty. Languag-
es are linked to each other by shared words or sounds or grammatical construc-
tions. The theory is that the members of each linguistic group have descended
from one common language judged by experts to have been spoken in surpris-
ingly recent times – as little as a few thousand years ago.
The most widespread group of languages today is the Indo-European, spoken
by half the world’ s population. This entire group, ranging from Hindi and Persian
to Norwegian and English, is believed to descend from the language of a tribe of
nomads roaming the plains of eastern Europe and western Asia as recently as
about 3000 BCE.
From about 2000 BCE people speaking Indo-European languages began to
spread through Europe, eventually reaching the Atlantic coast and the northern
shores of the Mediterranean. They also penetrated far into Asia – occupying the
Iranian plateau and much of India.
All social animals communicate with each other, from bees and ants to whales
and apes, but only humans have developed a language which is more than a set of
prearranged signals. Our speech differs both in a physical way from the commu-
nication of other animals. It comes from a cortical speech centre which does not
respond instinctively, but organises sound and meaning on a rational basis. This
section of the brain is unique to humans.
In fact, while many species have the capacity to communicate using sounds
and gestures, and a few can even acquire certain aspects of human language, no
other species is comparable to humans with respect to the creativity and complex-
ity of the systems that humans use to express thoughts and to communicate. We
can manipulate elements in our language to express complex thoughts and ideas,
and we can understand words and sentences that we have never spoken or heard.
13
This capacity is shared by hearing people and deaf people, and it emerges very
early in the development of children, who acquire adult linguistic competence in
an astonishingly short period of time.
Language also reflects one’ s self-identity and is indispensable for social in-
teractions. We perform different roles at different times in different situations in
society. Consciously or subconsciously, we speak differently depending on where
we come from, whom we talk to, where the conversation is carried out, or on what
purposes we have.
All languages vary, and they reflect a speaker’s individual identity as well as
social and cultural aspects of a society. Not only does studying language reveal
something interesting about human society, but there are also many practical ap-
plications of the study of language that can have a significant effect on people’s
everyday lives. For example, studying languages allows us to develop better teach-
ing tools for language learning.
According to some theories, language began when our ancestors started imi-
tating the natural sounds around them. The first speech was, therefore, onomato-
poeic. Another explanation, favoured by Plato and Pythagoras, argues that speech
began in response to the essential qualities of objects in the environment. The
original sounds people made were supposedly in harmony with the world around
them. But, apart from some rare instances of sound symbolism, there is no per-
suasive evidence, in any language, of an innate connection between sound and
meaning.
Today linguists understand language as a system of arbitrary vocal signs. Lan-
guage is governed by rules, creative, universal, innate, and learned, all at the same
time.
Second Language Acquisition

The process of language acquisition is different from the process of language
learning. Acquisition takes place unconsciously, without direct instruction. Any
of us who has studied a second language in school knows that learning a language
is a conscious process requiring practice and study. Children who are exposed
to language acquire it regardless of race, class, or culture. This is not to say that
in addition to acquiring our languages, we don’ t also learn many language rules.
Think about some of the language rules you’ ve learned in school or from fam-
ily and friends. You may have learned when to use who and when to use whom,
for example, or to avoid saying ain’ t or I don’ t got none. You may have learned to
avoid saying John and me went to the store and to say instead John and I went to
the store. These rules of language also form part of our linguistic system, but they
are consciously learned rather than unconsciously acquired.
14
Chapter 1
Still, there are some questions that need to be answered, above all: does your
first language help you learn a second language, or does it interfere with that pro-
cess? Again, should we call this phenomenon we’ re talking about second language
learning or second language acquisition?
Second Language Acquisition can be characterized by what is called interlan-
guage grammar, the grammar that is influenced by both the first language (L1)
and the second language (L2) and has features of each.
The fact that you can tell what someone’ s first language is even though they
are speaking a second one illustrates the influence of L1. The speaker transfers
the phonology of the first language to the second one. So someone whose na-
tive language is Swaili will sound different speaking English as a second language
than someone whose first language is Norwegian. Interlanguage grammar is also
influenced by L2; a speaker whose L1 is French may place adjectives after the noun
in English, consistent with French placement. So they may say necklace expensive,
rather than expensive necklace. Japanese learners of English often do not use de-
terminers and articles such as the and a, producing such utterances as dog barked
or I like car. This is because in Japanese the information expressed by these Eng-
lish words is indicated in other ways than by separate words preceding nouns.
In the 1970s, attention was drawn to the fact that, although the language pro-
duced by L2 learners did not conform to the target language, the ‘ errors’ that
learners made were not random, but reflected a systematic, if incomplete, knowl-
edge of the L2. Several error analysis studies in the 1970s classified L2 learners’
errors and found that many could not be attributed to L1 influence. For example,
both L1 and L2 learners of English make similar overgeneralization errors such
as two mouses and she goed. The finding that not all L2 errors could be traced to
the L1 led some researchers to claim that L2 learners did not rely on the L1 as a
source of hypotheses about the L2. Furthermore, because of the association be-
tween contrastive analysis and behaviourist explanations of language learning,
the influence of the L1 in L2 learning was either minimized or completely ignored
by some researchers. The focus was instead on the similarities among all L2 learn-
ers of a particular language, regardless of L1.
One of the important questions for early second language acquisition re-
searchers was whether L2 learning was similar to L1 acquisition. A number of ear-
ly studies focused on learners’ use of the English morphemes such as the plural,
past tense and progressive -ing that Brown (1973) and other scholars studied in L1.
Researchers looked at the speech of L2 learners whose ages and L1 backgrounds
differed and calculated the accuracy with which they produced the morphemes.
They found an accuracy order that was similar regardless of the age or L1 back-
ground of the L2 learners. Even though it was not the same as the L1 acquisition
15
order, the similarity across L2 learners suggested that L2 learning, like L1 learn-
ing, is governed partly by internal mechanisms. This does not mean that there was
no evidence of L1 influence in the L2 morpheme studies, but the overall patterns
were more similar than different.
L2 learners were also observed to acquire other grammatical features of the
language in a predictable order. These acquisition sequences have been observed
in the language of L2 learners learning a variety of target languages. For exam-
ple, L2 learners of French and English acquire features such as negatives and
interrogatives in a similar sequence – a sequence which is also similar to that
observed in L1 learners of these languages. L2 learners of German from a va-
riety of L1 backgrounds have been observed to acquire word order features in
predictable stages.
In spite of the rejection of contrastive analysis by some second language ac-
quisition, most teachers and researchers have remained convinced that learners
draw on their knowledge of other languages as they try to learn a new one. Cur-
rent research shows that L1 influence is a subtle and evolving aspect of L2 develop-
ment. Learners do not simply transfer all patterns from the L1 to the L2, and there
are changes over time, as learners come to know more about the L2 and thus to
recognize similarities between L1 and L2 that were not evident in earlier stages of
L2 acquisition.
Main theories of modern linguistics

Linguistics is all about human language, that means it is primarily concerned
with the uniquely human capacity to express ideas and feelings by voluntarily
produced speech sounds or their equivalents, such as gestures in sign languages
used by deaf people. Linguistics can be broadly defined as the scientific study of
language or of particular languages. Scholars who systematically study language
usually refer to themselves as linguists.
Humans in all parts of the world have been interested in language for thou-
sands of years and have developed a wide variety of perspectives in language stud-
ies. As a result, linguists today approach language from a vast and growing num-
ber of different angles or specialise in certain aspects of language.
The field of linguistics encompasses a wide range of “ways” to study language,
which are reflected in the subdivision of linguistics into branches. Traditionally,
linguists identify five core branches of linguistics, phonetics (namely the study
of speech sounds in general), phonology (the study of the sound systems of indi-
vidual languages), morphology (the study of the creation, structure and form of
words), syntax (the study of structural units larger than one word, i.e. phrases and
sentences), and semantics (the study of word and sentence meaning).
16
Chapter 1
These core areas of linguistic study, however, are not the only branches that are
subsumed under the general term linguistics. A number of branches of linguistics
have appeared in recent years and decades, of which pragmatics (the study of
meaning in context) and sociolinguistics (the study of the relationship between
language and society) have been selected for this book, as they are among the
most dynamic and widely studied subfields of linguistics today. Many linguists
now include both pragmatics and sociolinguistics when they speak about the core
branches of linguistics.
Similarly to sociolinguistics, which has developed as a result of overlapping
interests of linguistics and sociology, many other branches of linguistics have
been set up to describe interdisciplinary approaches: for example, anthropo-
logical linguistics (anthropology and linguistics), biolinguistics (biology and lin-
guistics), clinical linguistics (medicine and linguistics), computational linguistics
(computer science and linguistics), ethnolinguistics (ethnology and linguistics),
philosophical linguistics (philosophy and linguistics) and psycholinguistics (psy-
chology and linguistics), to name only a few.
The branches of linguistics we have mentioned so far belong for the most part
to the traditional core or have developed from the collaboration of linguistics
and a neighbouring field of study. We will now briefly turn to two examples of
branches that are distinguished for other reasons, namely applied linguistics and
corpus linguistics.
Applied linguistics can be broadly defined as the branch of linguistics that seeks
to solve language-related problems in the real world. Originally, applied linguistics
essentially focused on the relevance of linguistic study for language teaching, par-
ticularly foreign language teaching, but has since much expanded its scope.
In order to gain a deeper insight of the function and ideas of modern linguis-
tics, one should understand how and why experts have reflected on language in
the past. Here we will focus on some key linguists who contributed with their in-
novative theories to establishing the discipline as we know it today.
A turning point in the history of linguistic thought was the discovery, in the late
eighteenth century, of the Sanskrit scholarship of India, and notably Paṇini’s gram-
mar of Sanskrit, believed to date from the fourth century BCE, which described the
language of ancient sacred texts dating from about eight centuries earlier. An ac-
curate examination of the codification showed some striking similiarities between
Sanskrit and the more familiar language families of Europe, i.e. the Romance lan-
guages, the Germanic group (e.g. German, Danish, English, Dutch) and the Sla-
vonic (e.g. Russian, Czech, Polish, Bulgarian) which proved to be so common and
regular to be accounted for as the result of mere coincidence. The resemblances were
later explained as due to a common original language called Indo-European.
17
As a consequence, for most of the nineteenth century scholars and philolo-

gists devoted most of their efforts to establishing ties between languages of the
Indo-European family. Actually, no written evidence for Indo-European (wide-
ly believed to have been spoken around 6,000 years ago) was available. All the
same, relying on recurring features between its descendant languages, explained
in terms of sound laws – the most important being Grimm’ s Law regarding proto
Germanic – a partial reconstruction known as Proto-Indo-European was devel-
oped.
Saussure and structural linguistics

Ferdinand De Saussure was born in Geneva in 1857, and enrolled at the University
of Geneva in 1875 to study physics and chemistry, before devoting his attention to
classical languages and later moving to study Indo-European at Leipzig. Here, in
1878, he published his Memoir on the Primitive System of Vowels in Indo-European
Languages. The dissertation in comparative linguistics (an approach that involve
language comparison) allowed Saussure to move to the École des Hautes Études
in Paris in 1871 as professor of Indo-European linguistics and Sanskrit and, from
1907 to 1911, of general linguistics.
With his Course in General Linguistics, which was published posthumously,
Saussure opened new horizons to the development of 20th-century structural lin-
guistics.
In what is a collection of texts adapted from his lectures, Saussure begins by
outlining the history of linguistics as marked by three main stages:
1. the first developed by the Greeks and identified as the ‘ grammar’ stage, is con-
sidered as essentially prescriptive and not founded upon scientific criteria;
2. the second, or ‘ philological’ stage, derived from the work of Friedrich Wolf in
1777. Likewise, this phase is not purely linguistic in intention, focused as it was
on the analysis of texts written in different periods;
3. the third, and for Saussure the most interesting stage, is that of comparative
philology, whose birth he refers to the work of Franz Bopp in 1816. in op-
position to the comparative school, which in its effort to establish relations
between languages had paid little attention to the nature of words as repre-
sentative signs.
According to Saussure, language functions as a system of signs as it must be

considered as a social phenomenon, a structured system that can be viewed syn-
chronically (as it exists at any particular time) and diachronically (as it changes in
the course of time).
18
Chapter 1
The sign for Saussure consists of two elements: a signifier (signifiant) and a
signified (signifie), both of which are arbitrary. The absence of any link between
the word and its referent in the real world is almost universal, the one class of
exceptions being onomatopoeic words, where a word echoes a sound associated
with the referent in question.
Likewise, Saussure stresses that the signified too is arbitrary, as each language
divides up the world in its own way. A consequence of the conceptual arbitrari-
ness of the signified is that precise translation between languages often proves
impossible. A second consequence of arbitrariness is that both signifier and signi-
fied are subject to change.
Most importantly, Saussure insisted on the separation of synchronic facts (de-
scribing the language at a particular point in time) from diachronic ones (relating
to changes which have taken place in the language), on the grounds that a native
speaker does not need to know the history of his/her language to speak and un-
derstand it.
Again, according to Saussure’ s structuralist perspective, language is based on
differences: it depends at every level on meaningful contrasts or oppositions.
If we wish to learn the meaning of the word ‘ holy’ we need to know how it dif-
fers from lay, concrete, sinful etc.: there is no inherent concept of ‘ holiness’ which
will leap out at us and enable us to understand the concept.
A final important dichotomy for Saussure was that of langue and parole,
meaning respectively the abstract language system and the concrete result of
that system in speech. In his opinion, the real object of study for the linguist was
langue (based on the double relations of syntagmatic, or combinatorial relations
between elements, and paradigmatic relations, involving items of the same cate-
gory which can be substituted for each other in a given environment) but our only
access to it is via parole, with all its hesitations, slips of the tongue, false starts and
so on. He saw the difference between the two exemplified in the contrast between
phonetics, the study and description of speech sounds, and phonology, the study
of sound systems in language.
American developments
It was, however, in the United States, between the 1920s and 1950s, that linguistics
became established as an autonomous academic discipline. This new direction
was traced by a group of linguists who came to be known as the North Ameri-
can Descriptivists, whose major figures include Leonard Bloomfield, Martin Joos,
Henry Gleason, Charles Hockett and Edward Sapir.
More than any other, though, Bloomfield is credited with establishing linguis-
tics as a science, a central concern for Descriptivist scholars.
19
In his first publication An Introduction to the Study of Language he stressed

the primacy of spoken language on written language; of observation of language
as a present-day reality to speakers, rather than from an external, historical point
of view; and showed an interest in the variety of linguistic systems in the world
and in drawing generalizations about human language in the process of observ-
ing them.
In 1933 Bloomfield published his seminal work Language, in which he at-
tempts to apply the scientific rigour of the natural sciences to linguistics through
detailed description of methodology and discovery procedures, and reflections on
corpora and sample sizes.
In his deep concern with the advancement of linguistics as a science, Bloom-
field relied on such methodologies as linguistic data collection and analysis that
could be described in terms of rules. He used each of the language families he
studied as a source of material for the development of linguistic theory, taking it
in a rather different direction from Sapir, who assumed the possibility of analyz-
ing semantics and conceptual structure on a general basis.
This approach led Bloomfield to a consequent downgrading of those areas of
linguistics, notably semantics, in which he did not detect immediate opportuni-
ties of scientific progress susceptible to the logical rigour of mathematics in the
description of rule-governed linguistic behaviour.
The Sapir - Whorf hypothesis

The Descriptivists had stressed the importance of the description of languages in
their own terms and emphasized linguistic diversity rather than universal prin-
ciples. From this approach emerged what became known as the Sapir-Whorf hy-
pothesis, after Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf, though it was
made public only posthumously.
They argued that languages were not only all structurally different, but that in-
dividuals’ fundamental perception of reality is shaped by the language they speak.
Chomsky’ s Theory of Generative Grammar

In 1957 Noam Chomsky made great impact with his essay called Syntactic Struc-
tures, which introduced a new way of looking at grammar and language and
marked the birth of generative grammar.
In his book Chomsky wondered what makes up a human language and whether
we can construct theories about linguistic systems that can be scientifically tested.
Thus, he delimited his analysis to what constituted a sentence by postulating it as a
primitive in his system, and mantained that a language was «a set […] of sentences,
each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements» (Chomsky 1957).
20
Chapter 1
Chomsky’ s theory of grammar is called generative because it is designed to

describe a precise and finite set of rules that generates the possible sentences in a
language. He went on to explain how language learning is triggered by an internal
capacity to acquire language. This capacity developed into a universal innate hu-
man ability to learn and analyze linguistic information. This Universal Grammar
provides the general rules that allow us, from an ealy age, to learn any language
proceeding from the general rules of all languages to the rules specific to our own
language. Chomsky believed that language learning was guided by an innate lan-
guage acquisition process that is a result of human evolution.
Who’ s who in linguistics

Edward Sapir (1884-1939)
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist linguist, one of the most impor-
tant figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics.
Born in German Pomerania, Sapir moved to America as a child. He studied
Germanic linguistics at Columbia, then went to California to document indig-
enous languages. Employed by the Geological Survey of Canada for fifteen years,
he came into his own as one of the most significant linguists in North America.
Sapir related linguistics and anthropology by studying the ways in which lan-
guage and culture influence each other and the relation between linguistic dif-
ferences, and differences in cultural world views. He was the first to prove that
the methods of comparative linguistics were equally valid when applied to non-
European languages. Later in his career he also worked with Yiddish, Hebrew,
and Chinese, as well as Germanic languages, and he also was invested in the de-
velopment of an International Auxiliary Language. Sapir wrote Language: An in-
troduction to the study of speech in 1921, one among his major contributions to
linguistics is his classification of American Indigenous languages. He played an
important role in developing the modern concept of the phoneme, greatly ad-
vancing the understanding of phonology.
Benjamin Whorf (1897-1941)

He is widely known as an advocate for the idea that because of linguistic differ-
ences in grammar and usage, speakers of different languages conceptualize and
experience the world differently. This principle has frequently been called the “Sa-
pir-Whorf hypothesis”, (elanborated with his teacher Edward Sapir), but Whorf
called it “the principle of linguistic relativity”, because he saw the idea as having
implications similar to Einstein’ s principle of physical relativity.
21
Whorf’ s interest in linguistics started with Biblical Hebrew, but then he went
on to study the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica on his own. Professional
scholars were impressed by his work and in 1930 he went to study in Mexico; he
joined Sapir at Yale to study linguistics while still working by day at the Hartford
Fire Insurance Company. At Yale he worked on the description of the Hopi lan-
guage, and the historical linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan languages.
In the late 20th century, interest in Whorf’ s ideas has grown. The field of
linguistic relativity studies is controversial but Whorf’ s other work in linguistics
have met with broad acceptance.
Otto Jespersen (1860-1943)

Born in Denmark, Jespersen specialized in the grammar of the English language.
He was inspired by Danish philologist Rasmus Rask and with the help of gram-
mars taught himself some Icelandic, Italian, and Spanish. At the University of Co-
penhagen he earned his M.A. in French, with English and Latin as his secondary
languages. Jespersen was a professor of English at Copenhagen from 1893 to 1925.
His early work focused primarily on language teaching reform and on phonetics,
but he is best known for his later work on syntax and on language development.
After his retirement, he remained active in the international linguistic commu-
nity as an important figure in the international language movement, an early sup-
porter of the Esperanto offshoot Ido.
Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949)

Bloomfiled was an American linguist who led the development of structural
linguistics in the U.S. during the 1930-40s. His influential textbook Language,
published in 1933, presented a comprehensive description of American structural
linguistics. He made significant contributions to Indo-European historical lin-
guistics, the description of Austronesian languages, and description of languages
of the Algonquian family. Bloomfield’ s approach to linguistics was characterized
by its emphasis on the scientific basis of linguistics, adherence to behaviourism,
and emphasis on formal procedures for the analysis of linguistic data.
Roman Jakobson (1896-1982)

Roman Jakobson, an American philologist and linguist of Russian Jewish descent,
was born in Moscow. He moved to Prague in 1920 and to the United States during
World War II. From 1933 to 1939, he taught at the Massaryck University, Brno,
but left Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation. Between 1943 and 1949 he
taught at Columbia University before becoming a professor at Harvard in 1949
and at MIT in 1957.
22
Chapter 1
The focus of Jakobson’ s writings during his Moscow and Prague periods is
primarily aimed at literature, new art aesthetics, and philology. It was after his
arrival in the United States that Jakobson increased his output in phonology and,
later, in linguistics.
Jakobson was interested in identifying universals in languages, and he conse-
quently disregarded relevant crucial differences. The idea of shared grammatical
features as opposed to shared origin was part of his theory of universals. In 1939,
he wrote an article on the structure of phonemes. These pieces were the beginning
of his work on phonology and linguistics.
The concept of distinctive features, along with other concepts related to sound
patterns, sound, and meaning, were expanded after Jakobson arrived in the Unit-
ed States. In Fundamentals of language, written with Morris Halle in 1956, Ja-
kobson theorized the idea that a set of 12 binary oppositions would be sufficient
to give an account of all of the distinctions in all languages. The languages differ
only in the manner that they combine these features.
In the following years, Jakobson promoted the application of linguistics to
literature. Some of the concepts that he used were those of iconicity, markedness,
metaphor and metonymy, and communicative functions. He created a model of
communicative functions whose main components are the addresser and the ad-
dressee and context, message, channel, and code.
Therefore, depending on the focus of the component of communication, the
functions are emotive (focuses on the addresser’ s attitude to his or her own mes-
sage; e.g., interjections and emphatic speech), conative (focuses on the addressee;
e.g., vocative), referential (refers to the context), phatic (refers to the contact/chan-
nel of communication between two speakers), metalinguistic (refers to the code
itself, language about language; i.e., metalanguage), and poetic (refers to the ad-
ditional component of a message apart from content). Each piece of discourse
requires an analysis to identify which of the above functions predominate.
Noam Chomsky (born 1928)

Better known as an American linguist, Chomsky is also a philosopher, cognitive
scientist, logician, and political activist. He is sometimes described as the “father
of modern linguistics” and has authored over one hundred books. Born in Phila-
delphia, Chomsky earned linguistic degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, then
went to Harvard and later MIT. He soon became a significant figure in the field of
linguistics, credited with the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory,
and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem. Chomsky’s linguistic theory is that the
principles underlying the structure of language are biologically determined in the
human mind and genetically transmitted. He argues that all humans share the same
23
underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of socio-cultural difference. Chomsky,

beginning with his Syntactic Structures challenges structural linguistics and intro-
duces transformational grammar. This approach takes sequences of words to have
a syntax characterized by a formal grammar; in particular, a context-free grammar
extended with transformational rules. His most influential contribution to linguis-
tics is the claim that a formal grammar of a language can explain the ability of a
hearer-speaker to produce and interpret an infinite number of utterances, includ-
ing new ones, with a limited set of grammatical rules and a finite set of terms. The
innate body of linguistic knowledge is often termed “universal grammar” and the
strongest evidence is simply the fact that children successfully acquire their native
languages in so little time. He also argues that there is an enormous gap between
children’s linguistic stimuli exposure and the rich linguistic knowledge they attain.
Universal Grammar would serve to bridge that gap.
David Crystal (born 1941)

Born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, David Crystal spent his early years in Ho-
lyhead. His family moved to Liverpool in 1951, and he received his secondary
schooling at St Mary’ s College.
He read English at University College London (1959-62), specialised in Eng-
lish language studies, did some research there at the Survey of English Usage un-
der Randolph Quirk (1962-3), then joined academic life as a lecturer in linguistics,
first at Bangor, then at Reading. He published the first of his one hundred or so
books in 1964, and became known chiefly for his research work in English lan-
guage studies, in such fields as intonation and stylistics, and in the application of
linguistics to religious, educational and clinical contexts, notably in the develop-
ment of a range of linguistic profiling techniques for diagnostic and therapeutic
purposes. He held a chair at the University of Reading for 10 years, and is now
Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. David Crys-
tal’ s authored works are mainly in the field of language, but he is perhaps best
known for his two encyclopedias for Cambridge University Press, The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Lan-
guage. Recent books include The Story of English in 100 Words (2011) and Spell it
out: the singular story of English spelling (2012).
Review questions
1. What is the Proto-Indo-European language?
2. What language was spoken by the native inhabitants of Britain before the An-
glo-Saxons came?
24
Chapter 1
3. During what period was Old English used?

4. What linguistic elements characterised Old English?
5. For a period there was a linguistic class division. Why?
6. When did English become dominant again in Britain?
7. How many branches of linguistics do you know?
8. What does arbitrariness apply to?
9. What is diachronic analysis concerned with?
10. What is meant by the terms sender, receiver, message, channel of communica-
tion, code, encode, and decode?
11. What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
12. What view did the Descriptivists hold about language?
13. How did the development of generative grammar revolutionize previous theo-
ries?
25
CHAPTER 2
Overview of English phonetics and phonology

Is phonology synonym with phonetics?
Phonetics is an essential component of applied linguistics training, the section
of linguistics which studies the language sound system in relation to its semantic
role and various sound changes that appear in conjunction with speech sound
elements together.
Phonetics is essentially concerned with the physical aspects of spoken inter-
action, the way in which sounds are produced and transmitted from speaker to
hearer. As such, it deals with how sounds are articulated and filtered by differ-
ent media before they arrive at the hearer’ s ear, as well as how these sounds are
received and decoded by the hearer. It thus tries to investigate and represent the
physical reality of speech sounds by using exact measurements and ways of rep-
resenting their features. In order to achieve this, often techniques that allow us to
make speech visible, such as waveforms, spectrograms, etc., are employed. Lin-
guists write sounds phonetically using special symbols called the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which are often the same as English alphabet symbols.
The phonetic transcription of a sound is indicated with square brackets around
the letters.
Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with the regularities in the sound
patterns that speakers of particular languages produce in order to communicate
effectively. It uses more abstract models of human speech and languages and tries
to ignore the nonfunctional elements that accompany the production of sounds.
It often attempts to represent the functional elements by providing more or less
complex rules, explaining why certain patterns are used, and how different rules
interact with each other.
How are sounds produced?

We will start our investigation by examinig at some of the physical aspects of speech.
First of all, we should be aware that phoneticians study speech sounds by looking at:
a. speech production: this is the field of articulatory phonetics, that looks at how
speech sounds are produced using the mouth, tongue, lips, and throat;
b. sound waves: in this case, acoustic phonetics investigates the acoustic struc-
ture of the sound waves that travel between a speaker and a hearer;
c. speech perception: Perceptual acoustics investigates the way speech sounds
reach the hearer.
Let’s begin by exploring how speech sounds are articulated. Speech sounds are
vibrations that travel through a medium (usually air) by displacing the molecules of
this medium, pushing them against one another so that they move each other along
in the direction of the hearer. Depending on the consistency of the given medium, the
sounds move at different speeds and have varying intensities. Speech sounds propa-
gate in the shape of waves. The degree of displacement corresponds to the height (am-
plitude) of the wave. Amplitude in sound waves corresponds to intensity – measured
in decibel – which, in turn, corresponds to our subjective impression of loudness.
The three essential ways to produce most speech sounds are the following:
1. by forcing air out of the lungs and up through the throat;

2. by sending air between the vocal cords that stretch from front to back in the
larynx. Depending on the position of the vocal cords with respect to each oth-
er, the airflow may cause the vocal folds to vibrate and produce sounds;
3. by using the tongue, lips, and jaw to shape the airflow as it passes through the
vocal tract. The vocal tract stretches from the larynx to the lips and sometimes
to the nose.
Those organs of speech, which can

hard palate move and take an active part in the artic-
nasal cavity
ulation of speech sounds, are called active
alveolar
ridge velum organs of speech. The organs of speech,
teeth or soft with which an active organ forms an ob-
palate
tip
uvula
struction and which thus serve as points
blade
front epiglottis of articulation, are called passive organs
back of speech.
vocal cords
glottis Speech sounds are grouped into lan-
larynx
guage units called phonemes. A phoneme
windpipe oesophagus
is the smallest contrastive language unit
28
Chapter 2
which exists in the speech of all people belonging to the same language commu-
nity in the form of speech sounds and may bring about a change of meaning. Lin-
guists think about phonemes as functional units. That means that being opposed
to other phonemes in the same phonetic context, a phoneme is capable of differ-
entiating the meaning like in cap /kap/ and cat /kat/, or in bit /bɪt/ and pit /pɪt/.
But what makes a sound a consonant sound or a vowel sound? What is the
difference between them? The answer can be found in the way we produce them,
with the restriction of airflow. A vowel is a voiced sound produced in the mouth
with no obstruction to the air stream. The airflow is weak. The tongue and the
vocal cords are tense.
A consonant is a sound produced with an obstruction to the airflow. The or-
gans of speech are tense at the place of obstruction. In the articulation of voiceless
consonants the airflow is strong, while in voiced consonants it is weaker.
At the articulatory level the consonants change:
1. in the degree of noise (noise consonants – sonorants);

2. in the manner of articulation (it is determined by the obstruction: complete –
the organs of speech are in contact and the air stream meets a closure in the
mouth or nasal cavities; incomplete – the active organ of speech moves towards
the point of articulation and the air stream goes through the narrowing be-
tween them; and momentary);
3. in the place of articulation (it is determined by the active organ of speech
against the point of articulation).
Vowels are sounds of pure musical tone, while consonants may be either
sounds in which noise prevails over tone (noise consonants) or sounds in which
tone prevails over noise (sonorants).
An obstruction is formed in the articulation of sonorants as well, but the air
passage is wider than in the formation of noise consonants. The airflow is weak
and it produces very little friction. That is why in the articulation of sonorants
tone prevails over noise.
There are many consonant sounds in English, but there are only twenty-four
consonant phonemes of English – the sounds that allow to distinguish between
the meanings of words to English speakers. For example, in English the sounds
/b/ and /p/ are called distinctive, because we perceive the difference between them,
and the different meanings that may result. But and put are a minimal pair, two
words that differ by only a single phoneme in the same position.
As far as trascription is concerned, when we write a sound we are using a
grapheme, which is usually represented in angled brackets (<>), whereas a phone-
me is represented either in forward slashes (//) or in square ([]) brackets.
29
All consonants are either voiced or voiceless. The airflow coming out of the
lungs can meet resistance at the larynx. The resistance can be modified by the dif-
ferent positions of and tensions in the vocal cords (or vocal folds). When we are
breathing, the vocal folds are relaxed and spread apart to allow air to flow freely
from the lungs. When we have the right amount of air and tension of the muscles
in the cords, they vibrate when we speak. This process is called voicing.
If we put our hand on our throat and make the sound [s], then keep our hand
there and switch to [z], we can feel this vocal fold vibration when producing a
longer sound. It happens with other sound pairs too, but it can be harder to feel
because the sounds are shorter.
The various parts of the mouth and throat used to make speech sounds are
called the articulators.
Manner of Articulation
Changing how air moves through the vocal tract allows us to produce different
sounds. Phoneticians call these different ways of manipulating airflow manners of
articulation. The six most common ones are:
a. Stops: These sounds completely stop the airflow. For example, to articulate [p]
we stop the airflow at our lips. To make [t], instead, we stop the airflow at the
alveolar ridge, that is just behind our upper teeth;
b. Fricatives: These sounds constrict the airflow to create friction. For example,
to make [f], we create friction between our lip and teeth. To make [s], we create
friction between the tongue and the alveolar ridge;
c. Nasals: These sounds let air flow only through our nose. For example, to make
[m], we stop airflow at the lips while air is going out through the nose. To make
[n], airflow is blocked at the alveolar ridge while air is going out through the nose;
d. Glides: The sounds in this group are made with only a slight closure of the ar-
ticulators (if the vocal tract is kept more open, the result is a vowel). The glide
sounds are [w] as in water, [ʍ] as in which (for some speakers) and [j] as in
yes: we constrict our vocal tract near the front of the palate, but air still flows
quite freely;
e. Affricates: These make a stop and then a fricative. The first sound in church is
the affricate [tʃ], which is made by combining [t] as in tea and [ʃ] as in ship;
f. Liquids: The sounds in this group, that is [l] and [r] as in rescue, result when an
obstruction is formed by the articulators but is not narrow enough to stop the
airflow or to cause friction. The /l/ is often described as a lateral liquid, because
for most speakers the tongue touches the roof of the mouth near the alveolar
ridge, and air flows around the sides of the tongue.
30
Chapter 2
Place of Articulation
In addition to a manner of articulation, consonant sounds have a place of articu-
lation. This is the location in our mouth where we change the airflow. The most
common places of articulation when speaking English are:
a. Bilabial: the bilabial sounds are made with both lips. The sounds in this group
are all made by bringing both lips together or almost together. The bilabial
sounds are [p], [b] and [m]. [w] is also sometimes classified as velar or labiove-
lar because the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during produc-
tion of the consonants;
b. Labiodental: the two sounds in the labiodental group are made with the lower
lip against the upper front teeth. The labiodental sounds are [f] and [v];
c. Interdental: the two sounds in the interdental group are made with the tip of the
tongue between the front teeth. The interdental sounds are [θ] as in think and [δ]
as in though. They are often difficult to distinguish and pronounce. The name of
the [θ] symbol is theta, which itself begins with the voiceless [d] sound, and the
name for the [δ] symbol is eth, which itself contains the voiced [d] sound;
d. Alveolar: the sounds in this group are made with the tongue tip at or near the
alveolar ridge. The alveolar sounds are [t], [d], [s], [z], [n], [I] and [r];
e. Palatal: the sounds in this group are made with the tongue near our palate, the
hard part of the roof of the mouth. The palatal sounds are [ʃ] as in shield, [j] as
in yes, [ɳ] as in canyon,[ʒ] as in leisure, [ʤ] as in joust;
f. Velar: the sounds in this group are made with the tongue near the velum, the
soft part of the roof of our mouth, behind the palate. The velar sounds are [k],
[g] as in gear and [ɳ] as in sing;
g. Glottal: this is a sound made at the glottis, the space between the vocal folds.
The glottal sound is [h] as in house. This sound is sometimes classified as a
glottal fricative.
How are vowels pronunced?

English has between fourteen and twenty vowels, depending on the dialect. As we
will see, vowels can be described in terms of the height and location of the highest
part of the tongue, and the position of the lips. All types of vowels in English are ei-
ther called monophthongs, as in the word ‘keen’ or diphthongs, as in the word ‘kite’.
One should bear in mind, however, that we do not all pronounce these words
in the same way – there is a high degree of variation in the pronunciation of vow-
els across dialects of English – so the word used as an example may not be accu-
rate for your own pronunciation.
31
front central back

high
u:
i:
ɪ ʊ:
mid-high
ɔ:
ə, ɛ: mid
e
mid-low
ʌ
æ ɒ
ɑ: low
These are the monophthongs in Standard British English:
• /i/ in fleece
• /ɪ/ in kit
• /ɛ/ in dress
• /æ/ in trap
• /ʌ/ in strut
• /ɜ/ in nurse
• /ɑ/ in palm
• /ɒ/ in lot
• /ɔ/ in thought
• /ʊ/ in foot
• /u/ in goose
• /ә/ (the final sound) in comma
Linguists also distinguish between front vowels and back vowels. If we start
by articulating the vowel in reed, extend the vowel, and slowly lower our jaw to
say the vowel in sad, we will explore the full sequence of front vowels in English,
in this order:
• [i]: High front tense vowel, in eat, each, meet, see;

• [I]: High front lax vowel (lax version of [ i ]), in it, itch, miss, sit;
• [e]: Mid front tense vowel, in ate, ache, mate, say;
• [ɛ]: Mid front lax vowel (lax version of [e]), in wet, etch, met, said;
• [æ]: Low front (lax) vowel, in mad, sad, lad, had (English has no low front
tense vowel.
32
Chapter 2
English back vowels, articulated using the back of the tongue, include the fol-
lowing:
• [u]: High back tense round vowel, sound in oops, ooze, suit, too;
• [ʊ]: High back lax round vowel (lax version of [u]), sound in should, would,
could, hook. shook;
• [ɔ]: Mid back tense round vowel sound in oats, soak, so;
• [ɑ]: Mid back lax round vowel (lax version of [o]), occurs only in some varie-
ties of English
• [ɒ]: Low back tense vowel sound in sod, cod, and for some dialects, saw, law.
In addition to the vowels listed above, English has phonemic diphthongs,

two-part vowel sounds consisting of a vowel and a glide in one syllable. In many
dialects, if you say eye slowly, you can feel the two parts of the vowel sound. Diph-
thongs are distinguished from two single vowels.
Because the articulators move between two positions, and the sound changes
between two qualities, the symbols for diphthongs are made up of two parts:
• /eɪ/ as in face
• /әʊ/ as in goat
• /ɛә/ as in square
• /ɔɪ/ as in choice
• /ɪә/ as in near
• /aʊ/ as in mouth
• /ʊә/ as in cure (for some speakers, /ɔ/ may be used instead)
• /aɪ/ as in price
In fact, many phoneticians divide the diphthongs into two types, closing
(which combines two of the sets we identified above) and centring. Closing
diphthongs are those that end in /ɪ/ or /ʊ/, where the tongue moves from a low
to a high (or close) position in the mouth. Centring diphthongs are those where
the tongue moves from a higher or lower position to a central, schwa-like posi-
tion.
Why syllables count

A syllable is the smallest unit of sound that can be pronounced all by itself. Pho-
nologists describe syllables in terms of sequences of consonants and vowels. In
English, the smallest syllable contains a single sound: either a single vowel or a
consonant that can be stretched out.
33
In English, the liquids /l/ and /r/ and the nasals /m/ and /n/ can be syllabic
consonants. Syllabic consonants are sounds that are identified as consonants but
that may fill a vowel slot in a syllable when no vowel is present. They are distin-
guished by a small mark under the consonant: /r̩ / or /n̩ /. In some pronunciations
of words like runner and ribbon, the final syllables contain no vowel sound, only
the syllabic consonant sounds: /rʌnr̩ / runner, /rɪbn̩ / ribbon.
In general, the centre of a syllable is usually a vowel or another type of sono-
rant (a sound that can be produced with either a raised or lowered velum, and are
always voiced or they would not be audible). Consonants like /d/ or /b/ can’ t be
a syllable by themselves. This core element of the syllable is called the nucleus.
Diphthongs count as a single vowel, as the change in articulator position happens
within a syllable. Therefore, a word containing two vowels also contains two syl-
lables, and vice versa.
Consonants that begin a syllable are part of the onset. An onset can contain
one or a cluster of consonants and consonants that end a syllable are part of the
coda. A coda can contain one or more consonants.
At any rate, where a syllabic consonant can occur, an alternative pronuncia-
tion is also possible, where that consonant occurs as a coda and an unstressed
mid-central vowel occurs as the nucleus. For example, in the word ‘ television’ ,
both /tɛlɪvɪʒәn/ (where /ә/ is the nucleus of the final syllable, and /n/ is the coda)
and /tɛlɪvɪʒn/ (with a syllabic /n/) are heard in Standard English.
English allows many different types of syllable. For example, there are syl-
lables consisting of just a nucleus, syllables with an onset and a nucleus, syllables
with a nucleus and a coda, and syllables with all three constituents.
In short:
1. the sonorants [l], [m], [n] are syllabic if they are preceded by noise consonants,
for example: little, table, blossom, sudden;
2. there cannot be more than one vowel within one syllable;
3. if there is one consonant (except r) after the stressed vowel it belongs to the
following unstressed syllable: stu-dent, ci-ty, pi-ty;
4. if there are two consonants after the stressed vowel, the second one belongs to
the following unstressed syllable: din-ner, mar-ry.
Phonology: connecting sounds

Phonemes and allophones
Each language has its own set of phonemes. We can think of phonemes as our
unconscious representations of the phonological units of a language. Though we
aren’ t consciously aware of the phonemes of our language, we are perfectly aware
34
Chapter 2
unconsciously and are able to follow the “rules” of the phonology of the language
effortlessly.
Each phoneme may yield different sounds, so it is important to see how such
sounds occur in a patterned way. The variants of phonemes are called allophones.
Allophones are usually phonetically similar to each other and occur in dis-
tinct places in the syllable structure (complementary distribution).
To make it clear, phonemes are the sounds we think we are physically saying,
and allophones are what we are actually saying.
For example, there is only one /p/ phoneme in English. However, there are two
allophones of /p/ – two predictable pronunciations of the phoneme /p/ – and it is
completely predictable when we get one and when we get the other.
Words such as power, panhandle, Peter, have an aspirated [p]; on the contrary,
words like present an unaspirated [p]. This aspiration of the [p] occurs automati-
cally in English when the /p/ is in a certain position with respect to other sounds:
that is to say that /p/ becomes aspirated when it occurs at the beginning of a
stressed syllable. Otherwise, it is unaspirated.
Connected Speech
Connected speech stands for spoken language as it is used in a continuous se-
quence, as in normal conversations. There is often a significant difference between
the way words are pronounced in isolation and the way they are pronounced in
the context of connected speech, as each segment is capable of influencing the
segments that surround it.
Boyer (2012) observes that in fast, connected speech some sounds may be
be deleted by the speaker. For example, the sound /t/ may be deleted between
the words ‘ want to’, making the pronunciation of ‘ want to’ sound like «wәnnә.'
Again, Knight (2012) points out that « there are some important points to remem-
ber about connected speech processes:
• they occur at the edges of words, since this is where words ‘ meet’ in sentences.
Importantly, connected speech processes are optional…
• we can think of them affecting sounds at the phonemic level rather than the al-
lophonic level. When /t/ or /d/ or /h/ is elided, for example, we do not find that a
different allophone occurs; we simply find that the phoneme is lost altogether».
We will now briefly indicate the main processes affecting connected speech.
Linking
Linking mainly takes place when there is either a consonant at the end of a word/
morpheme and a vowel at the beginning of the next, or when a word/morpheme
35
that ends in a vowel and one that begins with one come together. The first type is
what is also known as liaison and effectively represents a kind of resyllabification,
where the final (coda) consonant of the first word becomes the onset of the first
syllable of the next word. Examples are provided by get up [gɛ.tʌp], look out [lʊ.
kaʊt], nine o’ clock [naɪ.nә.klɒk] (note that '.' symbolises a syllable boundary).
Reduction
Reduction is a historical process of weakening, shortening or disappearance of
vowel sounds in unstressed positions. Reduction reflects the process of lexical and
grammatical changes.
Reduction occurs:
a. in unstressed syllables within words, eg. demonstrative;

b. in unstressed form-words, auxiliary and modal words, personal and possessive
pronouns within intonation groups and phrases.
Elision
Elision is a process where one or more phonemes are ‘ dropped’ , usually in order
to simplify the pronunciation. It may occur for both vowels and consonants, al-
though it is much more common for consonants. Where it occurs for vowels, we
have extreme cases of vowel reduction or weakening to the point that the vowel is
no longer pronounced at all, such as in words like police, correct or suppose being
realised as [pli:s], [kɹɛkt] or [spәʊz]. In rare cases, such as in some realisations of
the word perhaps, both consonant and vowel elision may even occur at the same
time, e.g. [pɹaps].
H-Dropping
As we have already heard, the dropping of initial <h> is a feature that is very
common in many accents of (especially English or English-influenced English).
Unstressed pronouns – as in give her/give him, [gɪvә]/[gɪvɪm] or tell her/tell him,
[tɛlә]/[tɛlɪm] –, or forms of the auxiliary have – as in would have, [wʊdәv], should
have, [ʃʊdәv], etc. – exihibit h-dropping even in the standard reference accents.
Cluster Reduction
When two or more consonants, often of a similar nature, come together, there is a
tendency in English to simplify such a cluster by eliding one of them. The longer
the cluster, the more of a chance there is of elision. Cluster reduction can occur in
between as well as inside words. If a reduction occurs inside a word, it may also
lead to a reduction in the number of syllables.
36
Chapter 2
Contraction
Contraction represents a special form of elision, one that involves fixed gram-
matical patterns and which has become so established that even language pur-
ists don’ t object to its use in spoken language. Contractions are also accepted in
written representations of spoken materials and to some extent even in ‘ proper
written English’ nowadays. One very common form of contraction involves dif-
ferent forms of the auxiliaries be, have, will and shall. The other type main type
of contraction involves a reduced form of the negation particle not in conjunction
with an auxiliary as in: isn’ t, doesn’ t, don’ t, hasn’ t, haven’ t, won’ t, shan’ t, can’ t,
wouldn’ t, couldn’ t, shouldn’ t, oughtn’ t, needn’ t, mustn’ t, daren’ t.
Another contraction of the same kind is ain’ t, which is extremely versatile in
that it may represent all present tense variants of either be or have.
One commonly accepted contraction of this type, however, is let’ s, whereas an
exception in terms of contractions is dunno to represent (I) don’ t know because it
involves three words, rather than just two.
Assimilation
Assimilation is a process whereby adjacent consonants become more similar to
each other in manner or place of articulation in order to facilitate the flow of
pronunciation. Assimilation can be anticipatory (or regressive) or perseverative
(or progressive). In anticipatory assimilation, one or more preceding consonants
become more similar to a following one, while in perseverative assimilation, the
opposite occurs.
Examples of regressive assimilation:
light blue /laıp blu:/ /t/ → /p/

gunpoint /ˈgumpɔınt/ /n/ → /m/
ten cups /teŋ kʌps/ /n/ → /ŋ/
Examples of progressive assimilation:
washed /wɒʃt/ /ıd/ → /t/

loved /lʌvd/ /ıd/ → /d/
Word stress
Stress refers to the relative emphasis of certain syllables in a word. This empha-
sis can be achieved in several ways, depending on the language; stress is usually
produced by an increase in articulatory force, by an increase in the airflow, and
37
sometimes by increased muscular tension in the articulators. The results of this

are higher pitch, longer duration, and greater intensity in stressed syllables than
in unstressed syllables.
In English, the position of stress is relatively free and may also be contrastive;
that is, the changing position of stress may result in meaning and category differ-
ences, as in ' con.trast/to con.' trast, ' re.port/ to re.' port.
If a word contains two or more syllables one syllable is always pronounced
with the greatest prominence. This prominence is called primary word stress.
Primary word stess is marked with the symbol ['] which is placed at the beginning
of the syllable, e.g. kitten [' kItn].
Besides primary word stress English words can have secondary word stress.
The syllables with secondary word stress are pronounced weaker than those with
primary word stress but stronger than unstressed syllables. The symbol ["] is used
to mark the secondary stressed syllables which is placed before the target syllable.
Seconday stress can appear when a word contains more than three syllables, e.g.
impossibility /ɪmˌpɒsɪˈbɪlɪti/.
It is important to know that English compounds (that is, words formed from
two stems) can have either one word stress or two word stresses depending on
the type of compound. Compound numerals and compound adjectives as well as
phrasal verbs have two word stresses, e.g. ground-breaking, short-sighted.
Other compounds have one stress which falls on the first element of a com-
pound, e.g. football /' fʊtbɔ:l/, mailbox /ˈmeɪlbɒks/.
Here are a few rules that will help in placing stress:
• one word has one main stress. If you hear two main stresses, then there are
two words. (Longer words have secondary stress, but it’ s smaller than the
main stress.);
• stress the first syllable of a bi-syllablc noun or adjective: ' pre.sent, ' re.cord,
' slen.der' ;
• stress the second syllable of a bi-syllablc verb: pre.' sent, re.' cord, de.' cide;
• stress the second-to-last syllable for words ending in -ic, -sion, -tion: ge.o.' gra.
phic, ex.' ten.sion, re.vo.' lu.tion;
• stress the third-to-last syllable for words with -cy, -ty, -phy, -gy, -al: phi.' lo.
so.phy, ne.' gro.man.cy, de.pen.da.' bi.li.ty, ge.' o.lo.gy;
• stress the first member of a compound noun or the second member of a com-
pound adjective or verb:
-- compound noun: ' black-board
-- compound adjective: hard-' working
-- compound verb: ov.er·' come.
38
Chapter 2
Sentence Stress
Certain words in a sentence/phrase may be given more prominence than others.
This is commonly known as sentence stress, but is strictly speaking not a feature
of stress, but rather a way of giving prominence by using added loudness or differ-
ent pitch/intonation to highlight words that are supposed to convey more infor-
mation than others, such as new or contrastive information.
Intonation
Intonation implies varying the pitch across a longer stretch of speech. Many lan-
guages, including English, use such pitch variations to convey surprise, irony, and
questioning. American English typically has rising intonation across the utter-
ance for what are called yes–no questions (“She bought a new car?”) and falling
intonation for information-seeking questions (also called wh- questions) (“What
does she want to buy?”), although there is much variation of these patterns in both
American and British dialects.
Stress and intonation can interact at the sentence level; word-level stress pat-
terns and pitch can be modified to indicate which part of the sentence is in focus
or which word should receive special emphasis. In English, new and important
information is typically placed at the end of a clause; therefore, utterance stress,
when used neutrally is usually associated with the end of a clause.
In any given utterance, one stressed syllable stands out as most prominent.
This stressed syllable is called the intonation nucleus. This intonation nucleus can
be moved and result in meaning changes; thus the phonological system interacts
with meaning, the semantic system.
Consider the change in meaning when various other words of the utterance
receive more stress.
Contrastive stress like that indicated by these examples rejects something
and suggests that what is being rejected has been already introduced into the dis-
course or is implied.
When intonation is defined as a complex unity of variations in pitch, stress,
tempo and timbre, it means that:
• the pitch component of intonation or melody is the changes in the pitch of the
voice in connected speech;
• sentence stress or accent is the greater prominence of one or more words
among other words in the same sentence;
• tempo is the relative speed with which sentences and intonation groups are
pronounced in connected speech;
39
• speech timbre is a special colouring of voice, which shows the speaker’ s emo-
tions, i.e. pleasure, displeasure, sorrow, etc.
Therefore, a declarative sentence is generally pronounced with a falling into-

nation («The bar is closed.» ↘).
General questions are spoken with a rising intonation: («Did you know?» ↗).
On the contrary, a special question is spoken with a falling intonation
(«What is her name?» ↘).
Alternative questions are generally pronounced with a rising intonation in
the first part and a falling intonation in the second («Do you live in town or in the
country?» ↘).
The first part of the disjunctive question (question tags) is spoken with a fall-
ing intonation and the second – with a rising intonation («She is not ready, is she?»
↗).
In question tags the intonation may sometimes either fall or rise. Falling into-
nation means that the sentence is more like a statement = « I’ m sure I’ m right. Can
you just confirm this for me?».
Rising intonation means that the sentence is more like a real question (I’ m not
sure if I’ m right about this). Correct me if I’ m wrong: You’ ve been invited to Jane’ s
party, haven’ t you?
John didn’ t fail his driving test again, did he?
Both patterns are very common in spoken English because they invite other
people to join in the conversation.
Imperative sentences are characterized by a falling tone («Stop talking!» ↘).
Requests and invitations are characterized by a rising intonation («Do come
to see me tomorrow.» ↗).
An exclamatory sentence is generally spoken with a falling intonation («What
a fantastic match!» ↘).
On the whole, much of what people say depends on the situation they are in.
Style, in sociolingustics, is a variety of a language which is associated with social
context and which differs from other styles in terms of their formality. Styles can
thus be ranged on a scale from very formal to highly informal or colloquial. The
choice of an intonational style is determined primarily by the purpose of commu-
nication and then by a number of other extralinguistic and social factors.
We may single out the following intonational styles: informational, academic
(scientific), publicistic (oratorial), declamatory (artistic), conversational (familiar).
Informational style. The basic purpose of an informative speech is to provide
the listeners with information they do not already have. Speeches given to inform
serve many useful functions in every day life.
40
Chapter 2
Reports at business meetings, classroom lessons and demonstrations, tours

through states and national parks, speeches given at socio-cultural events and
sports clubs – all are examples of informative speeches.
Along with imparting new information the speaker may also wish to persuade
listeners by influencing their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviour.
The informational style is mostly neutral, sometimes even impartial, in its
realization. The major aim of its manifestations is to inform. Press reporting and
broadcasting as well as educational texts, and dialogues designed for pure infor-
mation exchange fall within this category of the style.
As regards Academic (scientific) style, classroom lectures are the most represent-
ative texts within the range of scientific (academic) style, and tend to be generally
formal in style, but the manner of delivery may differ from one lecture to another.
Review questions
1. What does phonetics deal with?
2. What is phonology concerned with?
3. Why do linguists also define the phoneme a functional unit?
4. When are angled brackets <> and forward slashes (//) respectively used?
5. Define what a consonant sound is.
6. What are the differences between vowels and consonants?
7. What are English vowels subdivided into?
8. Comment on the main characteristics of syllables.
9. How can word stress be defined?
10. Define major phonological processes related to connected speech.
11. What functions of intonation can be generally distinguished?
12. How can a speaker place special emphasis on a particular element in a sentence?
Activities
1) Describe the following sounds in terms of voicing, place of articulation, and man-
ner of articulation.
Example: /p/ is a voiceless bilabial stop.
1. /f/ 7. /ŋ/
2. /h/ 8. /b/
3. /g/ 9. /š/
4. /θ/ 10. /č/
5. /n/ 11. /t/
6. /r/ 12. /m/
41
2) What is the place and manner of articulation of the consonants in the following
words?
3) Mark the symbol that matches the sound underlined in the word.
All the words begin with the letter w.
Ex. wild [i] [ai] [i:] wilderness [i] [ai] [i:]
won’ t [əʊ] [ʌ] [ɒ] want [æ] [əʊ] [ɒ]
walk [ɔ:] [ɒ:] [ɒ] work [ɔ:] [ɔi] [ɜ:]
wonder [ʌ] [ɔ:] [ɒ] wander [ʌ] [ɔ:] [ɒ]
woman [ʊ] [ɜʊ] [ʌ] women [ʊ] [ɜʊ] [i]
warm [ɔ:] [ai] [ɜ:] worm [ɔ:] [ɔi], [ɜ:]
word [ɔ:] [ɜ:] [ai] ward [ɒ:] [ai] [ɔ:]
wear [eə] [e] [i:] weary [eə] [iə] [i:]
weight [ai] [ei] [e] weird [ai] [ei] [iə]
4) Transcribe the following words phonemically, using syllabic consonants where

relevant. Remember that not all instances of /r/, /l/, /m/, and /n/ are syllabic conso-
nants:
a. purple e. bottom
b. bludgeon f. cycle
c. furtive g. cursive
d. kittens
5) Diphthongs are two vowel sounds which run together. Underline the correct tran-
scription of each word.
a. pay [pei] [peǝ] e. dear [diǝ] [deǝ]
b. write [rɑit] [rǝʊt] f. boy [bɔi] [bǝʊ]
c. phone [fǝʊn] [fain] g. tour [tʊǝ] [tǝʊ]
d. round [reind] [raʊnd] h. fair [fiǝ] [feǝ]
6) Write the word that matches the diphthong symbols:

[dei], [nain], [naʊ], [heә], [nәʊ], [hiә], [tʊә], [bɔi].
7) In English, vowel quality depends somewhat on stress. Some orthographically

identical words have different stress patterns depending on whether they are a noun,
verb or adjective. Transcribe your productions of the following words:
alternate
object
minute
42
Chapter 2
permit
present
produce
frequent
invalid
8) Look at the words below. There are five words spelt incorrectly in each row. Put a
circle around each one and write the correct spelling underneath:
a. earings coat jumper glasses dress shoos jeens skirt jackit trousrers
b. April Merch Septemper Febuary Octobar July June December Novembre May
c. read blew purpul green black pink yellow orang whit grey
d. cheir oven shower bed sofa wardrobe cubbord tabel washing mashine curtins
e. large boring expensiv interetsing ordinary beatiful hungray good unplesant
modern
f. one twolve thirty eight thirteen sixty four twentey one hunded fifeteen eleven
ninty nine
43
CHAPTER 3
From morphology to syntax

The scope of Linguistics
Modern linguistics is usually defined as a social science. This may be partly due
to the fact that the function of language is not just communicating facts. It means
belonging to a particular society. Language seems to be central to culture. It has
been said that when you learn a new language, you also join a new culture.
Linguistics has to do with language instead of languages. It may refer to in-
dividual languages for research purposes, but its ultimate aim is to gain a deeper
insight into the development and structures of all languages.
Linguistics includes several disciplines: phonetics and phonology, morpholo-
gy and syntax, semantics and pragmatics, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics.
The study of words and grammar is referred to by linguists as morphology
and syntax. Words are formed of morphemes: the way words are arranged in sen-
tences is called syntax. Chomsky suggested that all children have a language ac-
quisition device which enables them to make sense of meaningful sounds in the
mother tongue.
The relationship between language and meaning is frequently divided into
semantics and pragmatics. The direct understanding of words and utterances
comes within the realm of semantics. However, pragmatics investigates the dif-
ferent meanings which can emerge from the varying ways and contexts in which
language is used. It is also concerned with how we use context and shared knowl-
edge to understand the meaning of utterances.
Language and its link to society is the sociolinguist’ s area of specialty.
Amongst other things, this area of linguistic study is concerned with the nature
of language variation and the way in which this is manifested in the form of such
phenomena as dialects and accents.
As language is created and interpreted by the brain, it is the task of psycholin-

guistics to explore mental activity associated with language use. In other words,
the relationship between language and thought. Psycholinguistics often study in-
dividuals whose language use is impaired due to brain damage.
Moreover, languages differ more in morphology than in syntax. The variety
is so great that no simple scheme will classify languages as to their morpholo-
gy. Boomfiled distinguished between analytic languages, which use few bound
forms, from synthetic, which use many.
At one extreme is a completely analytic language, like modern Chinese,
where each word is a one-syllable morpheme or compound word or phrase-
word; at the other, a highly synthetic language like Eskimo, which unites
long strings into single words […] This distinction, however, except for
cases at the former extreme, is relative; any one language may be in some
respects more analytic, but in other respects more synthetic, than some
other language. (Boomfiled, 1933, p. 207)
Understanding morphology
Morphology is the study of the minimal meaningful units of language. It studies
the structure of words, although from a semantic viewpoint rather than from the
viewpoint of sound.
Every language has some (large) number of words available for its users to
choose from as they need. This stock of words can be thought of as a sort of mental
dictionary that language users – both speakers and hearers – have internalized as
part and parcel of acquiring their particular language. We call this mental dic-
tionary the lexicon.
Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning. Words may consist of one or
several morphemes in much the same way as they consist of one or more syllables.
Morphology is intimately related to syntax. For everything that is larger than
a word is the domain of syntax. Thus within morphology one considers the struc-
ture of words only, and everything else is left to syntax.
Apart from having a certain phonological form and a meaning, words also be-
long to lexical categories, which are also sometimes called parts of speech. Lexical
categories are classes of words that differ in how other words can be constructed
out of them. For example, if a word belongs to the lexical category verb, it is pos-
sible to add -ing or -able to it to get another word (e.g., wind and drink are verbs).
If a word belongs to the lexical category adjective, you can add -ness or -est to it
to get another word (e.g., quick and happy are adjectives). If a word belongs to the
category noun, you can usually add -s to it to make it plural (e.g., desk and dog are
46
Chapter 3
nouns). You can add -like to nouns to form an adjective (e.g., woman-like, city-like,
etc.). You can also add -ly to many adjectives and form an adverb (e.g., quickly,
happily, and readily).
Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are also called open lexical categories
because new words added to the language usually belong to these categories. In
contrast, closed lexical categories rarely acquire new members. Closed lexical ca-
tegories include pronouns (e.g., we, she, they), determiners (e.g., a, the, this, your),
prepositions (e.g., on, of, under, for), and conjunctions (e.g., and, or, but).
Once more, Bloomfield proposed that a word should be a minimal free form:
when, is, she, coming, tomorrow, for example, all qualify as ‘ words’ because they
could occur as one-word answers to a question (‘ When is she coming?’ – ‘ Tomor-
row’ ). But this poses problems because some items which we would probably like
to think of as words fail this criterion. In English, these would include ‘ functional’
items such as the articles a and the, or the subject pronouns: who, me, him, and
so on.
Types of morphemes
By whatever criteria we apply, then, some meaningful linguistic items look more
like ‘ words’ than others: for this reason it is often more productive to look at
meaning-bearing elements or morphemes. A morpheme has the following char-
acteristics: it cannot be further subdivided or – analyzed into smaller meaningful
units. A word like disagreement, for example, seems naturally divisible into three
elements: dis+agree+ment.
Contextually, we must also introduce the level of the morph, that is, the con-
crete realization of a morpheme, or the actual segment of a word as it is spoken or
pronounced. Morphs are represented by phonetic forms.
Today linguistis distinguish between free morphemes, which can occur in-
dependently (a smart dress, etc.). The rest are bound morphemes, which can
only occur as parts of bigger units and not on their own: as the prefix dis, or the
suffix -ment frequently used to derive nouns from verbs (instalment, arrange-
ment).
Morphemes, then, are minimal meaning-bearing units, uniting an arbitrary
form and meaning or grammatical function. A further distinction is usually
made between inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes.
Rules of Word Formation

Another important issue, at this stage of our overview, concerns morphologi-
cal formation. Morphologically complex words consist of a morpheme root
47
and one or more affixes. Some examples of English roots are build in builder,
read in reread, ceive in receive, and ling in linguist. A root may or may not
stand alone as a word (build and read do; ceive and ling don’ t). When a root
morpheme is combined with an affix, it forms a stem. Other affixes can be
added to a stem to form a more complex stem. Words are formed from simpler
words, using various processes. This makes it possible to create very large
words. Those words or parts of words that are not composed and must there-
fore be drawn from the lexicon are called roots. Roots are ‘ main’ words, those
that carry meaning. For example, we can rule out the category of affixes. So
far we have seen some examples of the ways English uses affixation to form
additional words.
Prefixes (affixes that precede the stem they attach to) and suffixes (affixes that
follow the stem they attach to) usually have special requirements for the sorts
of bases they can attach to. Some of these requirements concern the phonology
(sounds) of their bases, and others concern the semantics (meaning) of their bases
but the most basic requirements are often the syntactic part of speech or category
of their bases. If one considers the suffixes -dom and -ship, it is possible to see that
both attach to nouns (kingdom, scholarship), but not to verbs or adjectives.
The following list summarizes the most common rules governing word for-
mation by affixation:
Noun to Adjective Verb to Noun Adjective to Adverb

boy + -ish acquitt + -al exact + -ly
virtu + -ous clear + -ance
Elizabeth + -an accus + -ation Adjective to Adverb
pictur + -esque sing + -er home + -ward
affection + -ate conform + -ist side + -ways
health + -ful predict + -ion length + -wise
alcohol + -ic
Noun to Verb Adjective to Noun Verb to Adjective
moral + -ize tall + -ness read + -able
vaccin + -ate specific + -ity creat + -ive
hast + -en feudal + -ism migrat + ory
im- + prison free + -dom run(n) + -y
be- + friend
en- + joy
in- + habitat
Adjective to Verb
en- + large
en- + dear
en- +rich
Some derivation affixes do not cause a change in grammatical class.
48
Chapter 3
Noun to Noun Verb to Verb Adjective to Adjective

friend + -ship un- + do pink + -ish
human+ -ity re- + cover red + -like
king + -dom dis- + believe a- + moral
New Jersey + -ite auto- + destruct a- + moral
vicar + -age il- + legal
Paul + -ine in- + accurate
America + -n un- + happy
libr(ary) + -arian semi- + annual
mono- + theism dis- + agreeable
dis- + advantage sub- + minimal
ex- + wife
auto- + biography
un- + employment
Affixes do carry meaning and, therefore, they fall into various semantic cat-
egories. Among those most frequently recurring are:
• personal affixes, that create ‘ people nouns’ either from verbs or nouns. Among
the personal affixes in English are the suffix -er/-or which form agent nouns as
in painter, sculptor, administrator;
• negative and privative affixes which add the meaning ‘ not’ to their root as
with un-, in-, and non- (unfair, inaccurate, non-profit), or the suffix -less that
indicates a lack of something (useless, breathless);
• prepositional and relational affixes generally introducing notions of space or
time; for instance, -over as in overdue, overcrowded, or -out as in outsource;
• quantitative affixes, on the other hand, have something to do with quantity.
This is the case of affixes like -ful (resourceful, handful), multi- (multilinguism)
and also -re (refill, recharge), that evokes the notion of repeated action;
• evaluative affixes, finally, include diminutives, referring to a smaller version of
the root (for example -ette, as in kitchenette or -let in droplet) and augmenta-
tives, that indicate a bigger version of the base (for example, -mega in megabyte).
One should bear in mind that some semantically contentful affixes may
change syntactic category: for example, the suffixes -er and -ee turns verbs into
nouns, and the prefix de- turns nouns to verbs. On the contrary, affixes that are
semantically meaningful do not change syntactic category. The suffixes -hood and
-dom, for example, do not (neighboroughhood, kingdom), and in most cases pre-
fixes in English do not change syntactic category.
Apart from affixation, there are several distinct ways in which words get
formed. Moreover, languages differ greatly in the extent to which they make use
of them. The most important ones are: compounding, derivation and inflection.
49
Compounding occurs when two words, neither an affix, become one by juxta-
position. Each of them can otherwise be used independently. Examples are: play-
ground, pick-pocket, rain-bow.
In general, a compound can be recognised by its stress pattern. For example,
the main stress in the combination including an adjective followed by a noun is on
the noun if they still form two words while in a compound the stress is on the ad-
jective. Notice that the compound simply is one word, so the adjective has lost its
status as adjective through compounding, which explains the new stress pattern.
Derivation means that only one of the parts is a word; the other is only found
in combination, and it acts by changing the word class of the root. Examples are
the affixes /dis/, /ment/ and so on. When these types of morphemes are added to
a root, a new word with a new meaning is formed.
For example, let’ s take the suffix -ify in the verb ‘ clarify’ , which means ‘ to
make clear’ , and the suffix -ation’ , which in turn means ‘ the process of making
clear’ . We can conlude that derivational morphemes, as they are called, have a
semantic meaning, although they are not words. But the derived word may also
belong to a different grammatical class compared to the original word.
Inflection implies that one part is an independent word, the other is not. It
does however not change the category, it adds some detail to the category (inflec-
tion of verbs by person, number, tense…).
To fit a word into a syntactic construction, it may have to undergo some changes.
In English, the verb has to get an ‘ s’ suffix if the subject is third person sin-
gular. The addition of the ‘ s’ does not change the category of the verb; it makes
it more specific, however. Likewise, the addition of past tense. Inflectional mor-
phemes indicate relationships between different parts of a sentence: thus, -s ex-
presses the relationship between the verb and the third-singular person. -ed hints
at the time an utterance is spoken.
Identifying word classes

Traditionally, a distinction is also made between content and function mor-
phemes. Content morphemes are said to have more concrete meaning than
function morphemes. Function morphemes, on the other hand, contain pri-
marily grammatically relevant information. Sometimes, it is said that content
morphemes carry semantic content (roughly, they refer to something out in the
world), while function morphemes do not. A free root like cat is a prototypical
content morpheme with a fairly concrete meaning. It carries semantic content in
the sense that it refers to certain domestic animals. The affix -ing, on the other
hand, is a prototypical function morpheme; it marks aspect on a verb but doesn’ t
have semantic content in the way that cat does.
50
Chapter 3
Content morphemes include all derivational affixes, bound roots, and free
roots that belong to the lexical categories of noun, verb, adjective, and adverb.
Free content morphemes, that is, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, are also
called content words.
Function morphemes include all inflectional affixes and free roots that belong
to lexical categories: preposition, determiner, pronoun, or conjunction. Free func-
tion morphemes, that is, prepositions, determiners, pronouns, and conjunctions,
are also called function words.
The property of an affix to be used to coin new complex words is referred to
as the productivity of that affix. Not all affixes possess this property to the same
degree; some affixes do not possess it at all. For example, nominal -th (as in length)
can only attach to a small number of specified words, but cannot attach to any
other words beyond that set. This suffix can therefore be considered unproductive.
Even among affixes that can in principle be used to coin new words, there seem
to be some that are more productive than others. For example, the suffix -ness (as
in cuteness) gives rise to many more new words than, for example, the suffix -ish
(as in apish). The obvious question now is which mechanisms are responsible for
the productivity ofa word-formation rule. So, what makes some affixes productive
and others unproductive?
Differences in productivity between affixes raise the question of productivity
restrictions.We have seen that apart from contraints on usage, structural con-
straints play an important role in word-formation. Possible words of a given mor-
phological category need to conform to very specific phonological, morphologi-
cal, semantic, and syntactic requirements. These requirements restrict the set of
potential complex words, thus constraining productivity.
Allomorphs
Sometimes, one morpheme can have two or more phonological forms – in other
words, the same morpheme can be pronounced in different ways but mantain the
same meaning. The choice between the different pronunciation is determined by
the context. These different forms are called allomorphs.
For example, the English past tense morpheme (the -ed suffix in walked) has
several allomorphs. It is pronounced [d] after the alveolar stops [t, d]; [t] after
voiceless stops like [p]; and {d} everywhere else.
If we considers the plurals of most English nouns, such as desk-desks, lift-
lifts, course-courses, the obvious conclusion will be that they are formed by adding
-s. On the other hand, if we consider pronunciation, we will observe that some
changes occur. In fact, this -s suffix has three allomorphs: [s] (as in desks), [z] (as
in lifts), and [z] or [әz] (as in courses).
51
As a consequence, we can conclude that the English plural morpheme is pro-

nounced [z] after sibilants (as in churches, brooches); the [s] allomorph occurs after
all voiceless stops; and the [z] allomorph occurs everywhere else, e.g. after a vowel
or a voiced consonant.
One may be tempted to think that the allomorphy involved here (e.g. the
choice of allomorphs), because it depends so much on phonology, is not really a
morphological matter at all. But that is not quite correct.
Just as affixes can have allomorphs, so too can words. For example, many
English words change their form by changing the vowel. Linguists call this vowel
ablaut. English vowel ablaut marks past tense on verbs and plural on nouns. The
first form the past tense by vowel ablaut: begin/began, know/knew, drive/drove;
some English plurals formed by vowel ablaut are: tooth/teeth, foot/feet, woman/
women, mouse/mice.
Review questions
1. Can a morpheme be represented by a single phoneme?
2. Can a free morpheme be more than one syllable in length?
3. Does the same letter or phoneme – or sequence of letters or phonemes – al-
ways represent the same morpheme? Why or why not?
4. Can an English word have more than one prefix or suffix? If so, provide examples.
5. What are two key differences between inflectional and derivational mor-
phemes in English?
6. What lexical categories does productivity refer to?
7. What phonological factors determine the distribution of the allomorphs [t],
[d], and [d] or [әd] of the past tense suffix -ed?
8. In English, do some morphemes have both a free and a bound allomorph?
Activities
1) The following words are made up of either one or two morphemes. Identify the mor-
phemes and decide whether each is free or bound, what kind of affix (prefix or suffix),
if any, is attached, and (where possible) if the affix is inflectional or derivational.
a. cats g. succotash
b. unhappy h. bicycle
c. rejoin i. greedy
d. catsup j. entrust
e. milder k. signpost
f. hateful l. spacious
52
Chapter 3
2) Divide the words below into their component morphemes and describe the mor-
phemes as bound or free. Remember that words may consist of one, two, or more
than two morphemes.
a. comfortable d. rationalisation
b. reconditioned e. environmental
c. senseless f. thickeners
3) Each of the following sentences contains an error made by a non-native speaker

of English. In each, identify and correct the incorrect word.
a. I am very relax here.
b. I am very boring with this game.
c. I am very satisfactory with my life.
d. Some flowers are very attracting to some insects.
e. Many people have very strong believes.
f. My culture is very difference from yours.
g. His grades proof that he is a hard worker.
4) In each group of words that follows, identify the lexical categories of the bases and
the lexical categories of the whole words.
a. government, speaker, contemplation
b. fictional, childish, colourful
c. calmest, lovelier, silver
5) Identify the bound affixes in the following groups of words and name the lexical
category of their bases. Then say whether the affix changes their lexical category,
and if so, say to what.
a. spiteful, healthful, truthful
b. unsure, untrue, unimportant
c. retake, review, relive
6) The words district and discipline show that the sequence of letters d-i-s does not
always constitute a morpheme. (Analogous examples are mission, missile, begin,
and retrofit.) List five more sequences of letters that are sometimes a morpheme and
sometimes not.
7) In each group of words that follows two words have the same morphological
structure, one has a different suffix from those two, and one has no suffix at all.
Your task is to tell which two words have the same suffix, which one has a different
53
Contents Key Concepts of English Language and Linguistics
suffix, and which has no suffix at all. Having done this, tell the meaning of each
suffix.
Example: writer -er is a derivational suffix meaning ‘ one who…’
higher -er is an inflectional suffix marking the comparative.
silver there is no suffix.
learner this is the same -er as in rider.
a. deeper b. instant c. friendly

leather intelligent sadly
runner inflame softly
heather incomplete silly
d. tons e. handling f. driven
lens fling raven
vans inkling golden
runs wrestling given
8) In each of the following groups of word forms, identify those that are (or can be,
according to context) forms of the same lexeme:
(a) woman, woman’ s, women, womanly, girl
(b) greenish, greener, green, greens
(c) written, wrote, writer, rewrites, writing
9) From the examples given for each of the following suffixes, determine: (A) the
lexical category of the word whose stem the suffix combines with, and (B) the lexical
category of the words resulting from the addition of the suffix.
a. -ify: solidify, intensify, purify, clarify, rarefy
b. -ity: rigidity, stupidity, hostility, intensity, responsibility
c. -ize: unionize, terrorize, hospitalize, crystallize, magnetize
d. -ive: repressive, active, disruptive, abusive, explosive
e. -ion: invention, injection, narration, expression, pollution
f. -less: nameless, penniless, useless, heartless, mindless
54
CHAPTER 4
From Syntax to Pragmatics

Syntax explores the arrangement of words and morphemes, known as lexicon,
in the construction of larger units such as phrases, clauses, and sentences. This
process involves the basically subconscious rules (which are innate) and catego-
ries that are part of each person’ s linguistic competence. In the study of syntax
linguists divide words into different categories for the purposes of sentence-
building.
There are many approaches to the study of syntax. Descriptive syntax or
grammar refers to the mostly subconscious rules of a language that one uses to
combine smaller units into sentences. On the other hand, prescriptive syntax or
grammar refers to the concept that there is a correct and an incorrect way to
speak, write, or sign.
The model of syntax called generative grammar (which was referred to Noam
Chomsky in the first chapter) incorporates descriptive and mathematical concepts
but primarily is based on the assumption that many elements of syntax cannot be
discovered just by studying linguistic performance but are instead a reflection of
how the brain works to form syntactic structures such as sentences. Generative
grammar assumes that the general similarities found in all language are a result
of the mechanism in which the brain must process linguistic input. What a person
says, writes, or signs is the result of the complex processing of learned informa-
tion in a partially innate way. This processing system is the result of human and
prehuman evolution.
Getting to the point: sentence structures

The constituents
We have already said that sentences are rule-governed structures resulting from
the combination of smaller units. These units are called constituents. In tradi-
tional approaches to grammar, a sentence is seen as having at least two main con-
stituents: one is the subject (or topic), and the other is called predicate (which
provides information about the topic). For example, in the sentence The lecturer
introduced the topic, The lecturer is the subject of the sentence and introduced the
topic is the predicate.
In most modern syntactic analyses, introduced is ackowledged as the predi-
cate, while the expressions the lecturer and the topic complete the meaning of the
predicate. These are called arguments. Arguments are necessary to complete the
meaning of the predicate. According on the type of verb, one or more argument
might be obligatory.
In addition to arguments that are obligatory, a predicate may be completed by
elements, called adjuncts, which are optional elements. For instance, in the sen-
tence The lecturer of anthopology enthusiastically introduced the interesting topic –
the elements anthopology, enthusiastically, and interesting are adjuncts. Adjuncts
add information that is not essential to the meaning of the predicate.
Parts of speech: a few helpful clues

In English, the grammatical category of noun can be identified with morpho-
logical, distributional. and meaning-based criteria. For example, the English
plural ending -s allows a distinction between nouns and non-nouns. Nouns
can occur with the plurnl sufftx -s (seal/seals, photo/photos, memory/mem-
ories, weigth/weigths, other/others), non-nouns (adjectives, adverbs and so
on) do not.
As for proper nouns, such as James or Venice, that don’ t usually have plural
forms, one should be aware that they can take the plural in certain contexts. For
example: There are four Lauras in my office or I have visited two Venices: one in
Italy and one in Los Angeles.
Another -s suffix in English marks agreement with a third person singular
subject, as in She learns, It hails.
In addition, it is possible to identify a common noun from its position as in
That teacher is very knowledgeable, in which only another noun could replace the
word teacher between the determiner and the verb.
As you may expect, in English each grammatical category also has sub-cate-
gories. Sub-categories of nouns include the following:
56
Chapter 4
• common nouns occur with determiners before them, or they have a plural
form;
• proper nouns don’ t normally occur with determiners before them in English
nor have a plural form;
• pronouns don’ t occur with detenniners in English, but do have plural forms:
the first plural person we, the second person plural you, and the third plural
person they.
Morphological criteria that are helpful in the recognition of verbs include the
fact that they can occur with past tense forms, e.g., the suffix – ed, as well as the
notion that third person agreement can occur only with verbs.
An important distributional criterium establishes that only verbs come after
a noun to form a sentence. Thus, linguists classify verbs according to the number
of nouns the verb occurs with: ditransitive verbs are verbs that require two nouns
after them (e.g. give); transitive verbs: are verbs that require one noun alter them
(e.g. ride); intransitive verbs a re those verbs which don’ t require anything after
them (e.g. laugh).
Other lexical categories (also called open-class as new words can be added)
may be summarized as follows:
• in English, only adjectives can be found between a determiner and a noun as

in the fastest train;
• in English only adverbs can occur in the sequence determiner + noun + verb
+…. as in The boat sailed slowly.
Functional categories (also known as closed class categories they don’ t gener-
ally add new words) in these categories include determiners, complementizers,
and conjunctions, which behave as follows:
• determiners, which include articles, demonstratives, and quantifiers like each

and every, precede a noun (or an adjective+noun sequence) as in every single
day;
• complementizers (if, whether, and that) can occur before an embedded sen-
tence, as in They didn’ t know if he had won;
• conjunctions, also called coordinators, include and, or, and but. They join two
words or phrases of the same category, as in: sisters and brothers, read or write;
but they can also join sentences and other units within sentences.
57
First steps towards structure: the phrase

A phrase is any constituent of a larger unit called clause. Linguistis commonly name
phrases after one of their main elements. So we speak of noun phrases, verb phra-
ses, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, and prepositional phrases. A phrase may
consist of a string of words or just one word. In the sentence Sean teaches at univer-
sity, Sean is a phrase, and so are teaches at university, at university, and university.
The head of a phrase is the word that determines the syntactic or phrasal cat-
egory of that phrase. Therefore, the head of a noun phrase is a noun, the head of a
verb phrase is a verb, and the head of a prepositional phrase is a preposition. If the
phrase consists of one word, then that word is the head of the phrase. If a phrase
has two or more words in a lexical category, then the one that carries the central
meaning of the phrase is the head of the phrase. So, in the noun phrase the date of
the wedding, there are two nouns, date and wedding. Because the phrase is about the
date of the wedding and not about the wedding itself, the head of the phrase is date.
Other parts of a phrase that are not the head are called the phrase’s dependents.
A noun phrase can function as the subject, direct object, and indirect object
in a sentence. A noun phrase can consist of a single noun or pronoun or a of long-
er forms. A noun phrase consists of personal pronouns, proper names, and any
other expressions that have the same function. The most reliable test that one can
use to check whether some constituent is a noun phrase or not is to try to replace
it with a pronoun. Ex: A palace, that student, the journalist.
Another common unit of structure that syntacticians use is the verb phrase.
Ex.: All cheered up, you are wearing nice clothes, we sat by the fire. Whereas intran-
sitive verbs can form a verb phrase by themselves, verb that combine with a noun
phrase are transitive verbs.
In addition to noun phrases and verb phrases, other important phrasal cat-
egories are adjective phrases, adverb phrases, and prepositional phrases.
Adjective phrases are headed by an adjective but might also include degree
modifiers (very, absolutely, etc.). The adjective phrase might include an adverb or
a determiner (that is, definite and indefinite articles, demonstratives, possessives,
and interrogatives). Degree words form a unit with the adjective: adjective phrases
in turn modify nouns. Ex.: an enchanting view, the faintest idea.
Adverb phrases are headed by an adverb and might also include other adverbs
and an adjective phrase or phrases. Adverb phrases modify verbs adding informa-
tion concerning frequency, duration, time, manner and purpose. Ex.: very quickly,
next month, at the same time.
Prepositional phrases, in turn, are headed by a preposition and include a
noun phrase. Both adjective and adverb phrases can include prepositions. In the
58
Chapter 4
sentence The athlete from Sweden has arrived in the stadium there are two prepo-
sitional phrases in this sentence: from Sweden and in the stadium. The function
of from Sweden is to modify the athlete; it tells you where he/she is from. It is an
adjective phrase, but because it is also a prepositional phrase some linguists would
call it an adjectival prepositional phrase. The phrase in the stadium is an adverb
phrase. It modifies the verb by telling us where the athlete has arrived.
Sentence creation
A sentence can be defined by its structure (the number of independent and de-
pendent clauses it contains) or by its function (declarative versus imperative, for
example).
A sentence can also be either active or passive.
A clause has both a subject and a predicate; a clause that cannot stand by itself
as a sentence is called a dependent clause.
So far we have discussed relatively simple sentences involving a single finite
verb. We can also identify other constructions in which there are two or more
sentences or parts of sentence including a finite verb (i.e. clauses). In some cases,
two conjoined sentences can have equal importance and function independently:
these sentences are known as compound sentences: The student opened his book
and began to read.
On the other hand, sentences with at least one dependent or subordinate
clause are known as complex sentences:
They told him that he had won the lottery.

Emily pointed at the man who had stolen her bag.
The subordinate clause in second sentence is known as a relative clause. Rela-

tive clauses are used to modify nouns within the main clause, and thereby qualify
them in the way that an adjective would (this is why they are defined ‘ adjectival
clause’ from traditional grammar): they are introduced by relative pronouns such
as which, where, when or who. We need to distinguish two kinds of relative clause:
• restrictive relative clauses provide essential information about the noun to

which they refer;
• non-restrictive relative clauses are adjuncts, providing additional informa-
tion about the noun in question.
In addition, sentences that have two or more independent clauses and at least one
dependent clause are called compound-complex sentences. Consider the sentence:
59
While the chef entered the kitchen, his assistants were texting, but they imme-
diately stopped.
While the chef entered the kitchen is a dependent clause; his assistants were tex-
ting could stand alone as a simple sentence and is, therefore, an independent clause
of the larger sentence. The same is true of they immediately stopped. This independ-
ent clause is attached to the rest of the sentence by the coordinating conjunction but.
Sentences can also be classified on the basis of their meaning, function or
voice (the relationship of the grammatical subject of a verb to the action conveyed
by that verb). These are some of the most common sentence types that belong to
this category:
• Declarative sentences make a statement: The battle was over.

• Interrogative sentences ask a question: What have you done to your hair?
• Imperative sentences express a command or make a request: Visitors to the
museum must not eat or drink in the premises.
• Exclamatory sentences express strong or sudden feeling: How I wish she
wasn’ t complaining all the time!
To the sentences listed above, we must add active and passive sentences. In
an active sentence, the subject of the verb performs an activity, as in the sentence
Andrew welcomed the tourists. In the passive version of this sentence, the subject
is receiving the action of the verb. Thus, what was the direct object of the above
sentence becomes the grammatical subject and what was the grammatical subject
is moved to the position of the object and the sentence is transformed into: The
tourists were welcomed by Andrew. Note that this passive construction has earned
the preposition by and the auxiliary verb were. In addition to these types of sen-
tences, various combinations of types are possible.
Semantics
Semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions, such as mor-
phemes, words, phrases, clauses, and sentences, isolated from the context in which
they are produced, and from various characteristics of the sender or receiver of
the message.
Every language contains only a finite number of words, with their meanings
and other linguistic properties stored in the mental lexicon. However, every lan-
guage contains an infinite number of sentences and other phrasal expressions,
and native speakers of a language can understand the meanings of any of those
sentences. Since speakers cannot memorize an infinite number of distinct sen-
60
Chapter 4
tence meanings, they need to understand the meaning of a sentence based on the
meanings of the lexical expressions in it and the way in which these expressions
are combined with one another.
There are different linguistic approaches to semantics. In particular, lexical se-
mantics deals with the meaning of words and structural semantics deals with the
meaning of utterances larger than words. Moreover, referential semantics looks for
meaning in connections between words and things in the external world, and what
is known as cognitive grammar looks for meaning in terms of links to concepts.
But how can we define meaning? The idea that words in a language corre-
spond to or stand for the actual objects in the world is found in Plato’ s dialogue
Cratylus. However, it applies only to some words and not to others, for example,
words that do not refer to objects. Moreover, de Saussure argued that the relation
between the word (signifier) and the concept (signified) is an arbitrary one, i.e. the
word does not resemble the concept. In addition, when we attempt to explain the
meaning of a word we do so by using other words.
In 1923 C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards made an attempt to define meaning.
As we use the word “mean” with different purposes, they provided a list of some
definitions of the word “meaning”:
1. An intrinsic property of some thing

2. Other words related to that word in a dictionary
3. The connotations of a word
4. The thing to which the speaker of that word refers
5. The thing to which the speaker of that word should refer
6. The thing to which the speaker of that word believes himself to be referring
7. The thing to which the hearer of that word believes is being referred to.
Lexical semantics
Linguists who examine the meanings of words, and the relations among words’
meanings, study lexical semantics. Thematic roles (that is, any set of semantic roles
that a noun phrase may have in relation to a verb, for example agent, instrument,
recipient, cause, location, experiencer, and others) provide one very popular frame-
work for investigating lexical semantics, in particular the lexical semantics of verbs,
but that is not the only one. The approach of lexical semantics is important, as it
shows that the meaning of a word often influences how it fits into syntax; for ex-
ample, the fact that the verb ‘wash’ can have two different patterns of thematic role
explains why it can be used grammatically either with or without an object.
We can imagine that in each person’ s brain, there is a lexicon or dictionary
containing the definitions of all the words that a person knows. In order to inter-
61
pret an utterance, we quickly browse through the mental lexicon for the meaning
of those words. Analogously, when we need to express a concept in an utterance,
we browse through the mental lexicon for the appropriate words to use. But there
are different types of meaning that words can have. First of all, some words have
an actual concrete item or concept (idea, action, or state of being) that the word
refers to – its referent. The referential meaning describes the referent. The refer-
ential meaning of a word is its definition.
Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other syntactic categories of words can be di-
vided into semantic classes. Consider the words arrive and run: they are both
verbs of motion, for example, but differ in that only run implies the idea of speed.
Let’ s begin by exploring the semantic features of nouns:
Concrete and abstract nouns

Concrete nouns are names for things in the physical world: cooker, necklace,
Mount Everest, leg.
Abstract nouns are not physical objects: tourism, satisfaction, art, thought.
Some words have two (related) meanings and can, therefore, belong to more
than one category; light, for example, is both abstract (The light in the northern sky
is colourful at some time of the year) and concrete (Switch off the light.).
Count and noncount nouns

Count nouns are those that we can, count. Count nouns (shell, cake, wheel)
therefore have plurals, can be preceded by numerals and certain quantifiers such
as each, both, every, few(er), and several.
Noncount nouns (milk, jewelry, furniture, music, terrorism, isolation) cannot
be pluralized, nor can they occur with numerals or the quantifiers listed above.
They can, however, occur with quantifiers much, most, all, and less.
You probaly already know that many nouns can be both count and noncount.
For example, chocolate and paper can be count or noncount.
I ate the whole box of chocolates. I adore chocolate!
He wrote six papers. He bought some paper.
Common and proper nouns

Common nouns are nouns that have more than one referent, or entity to
which the noun refers. Proper nouns, on the other hand, have only one referent;
they are the names of unique entities.
Sometimes the same word can function as both a proper and a common noun.
Proper nouns have only a single referent and therefore can’ t be plural, so they are
by definition count nouns. But in the sentence There are several Daves in my class,
62
Chapter 4
Dave is arguably no longer a proper noun but a common (count) noun because it
refers to a member of a set of more than one.
Compositional semantics
When adopting this approach, linguists try to describe the variety of patterns in
which the meanings of the words combine.
According to this approach, the semantic meaning of any unit of language is
determined by the semantic meanings of its parts along with the way they are put
together.
In practice, the compositional principle may prescribe that where a sentence
consists of the elements noun + verb, the meaning of the sentence is true only if
the noun refers to one of the individuals with the property described by the verb.
Consequently, a meaning can be predicted for all the possible sentences in this
language frame.
According to compositional semantics, the meaning of a sentence like The
surgeon was talking to the patient is determined both by the meanings of the indi-
vidual morphemes that make it up (The, surgeon, talk, to, the, patient, “past”) and
the morphological and syntactic structures of the sentence. The compositional
rule doesn’ t apply only to sentences. It also implies that the meaning of the verb
phrase was talking to the patient is determined by the meanings of its parts.
Sense
As we have seen, words can also refer to abstract ideas (love, surprise, religion)
and symbolic representations (Buddha, Druids). Although they have no concrete
referent, people understand them since they evoke a mental representation. Sense,
which is an additional meaning beyond referential meaning, allows us to under-
stand words that have no concrete referent.
Semantic Fields
Another crucial feature concerning word meaning is that words can be divided
into semantic categories called semantic fields. Semantic fields are classifications
of words associated by their meanings, such as feelings, jobs, people’ s appear-
ance; the fields may vary across speakers, and words may fit into more than one
category. The meaning of the word ball in the semantic field ‘ toys’ overlaps the
meaning in the semantic field ‘ games’ and possibly ‘ sports’ .
The meaning of sentences: Entailment

An entailment is a proposition (expressed in a sentence) that follows necessar-
ily from another sentence. For example, the word man has the semantic features
63
[+human,+male +adult], and the meaning of the word bachelor includes the fea-
tures [+human, +male, +adult, –married]. The meaning of bachelor thus entails
– the meaning of man.
Meaning Relationships
The analysis of the meaning of a word involves knowing the semantic relations
among words. We have already studied that two words may be phonologically
related (because share the same pronunciation), they may be morphologically re-
lated (because both share the same root), or syntactically related (for example,
because they are both transitive verbs).
Now we will introduce another way by which two words can be related, and
that is semantically. Semantic relationships among words, in turn, are multiple:
Antonyms
Antonyms are “opposite” in some sense: we all know that rich is the opposite of
poor, awake is the opposite of asleep. In order for two words to be antonyms of
one another, they must have meanings that are related, yet these meanings must
contrast with each other in some significant way.
Actually, there are several ways for a pair of words to be opposites: antonyms
can be gradable; that is, the antonyms are two ends on a scale, and there can be
various gradations of each term. In fact, what is considered beautiful or unattrac-
tive varies from person to person.
Degree can be expressed in different way: by comparative and superlative
morphology (healthier, hottest) or syntactically (more gigantic, extremely minus-
cule). Complementary antonyms are another subcategory of antonyms: in which
one ‘ excludes’ the other. these are ‘ absolute’ opposites in the sense that if you are
dead, you cannot also be alive, if something is legal, it cannot be illegal and so
on. Finally, relational antonyms include pairs in which each member describes a
relationship to the other: father/son, lawyer/client, husband/wife.
Synonyms
Words that are different in form but similar in meaning are called synonyms.
Synonyms are derived from a variety of sources, and we make choices among
synonyms for a variety of reasons. Some synonyms appear as a result of language
change over time; others owing to style and register choices.
Hyponyms
Another word-meaning relationship is hyponymy. A hyponym is a word whose
meaning is included, or entailed, in the meaning of a more general word. For ex-
64
Chapter 4
ample, thoroughbred is a hyponym of horse, and house is a hyponym of building. A

hyponym can itself have hyponyms, Hyponymy expresses how we assign mean-
ing to larger categories and to smaller categories included in these larger ones. We
use hyponymy in language to make general statements more specific.
Homonyms
Words that sound the same but have different meanings are called homonyms.
The verb bear can mean ‘ to have children’ or ‘ to tolerate’ . So, She can’ t bear chil-
dren is ambiguous because bear is a homonym.
Homophones do not necessarily share the same spelling (to/too/two), but they
sound the same. homographs have different meanings, the same spelling, but dif-
ferent pronunciations (the bow of a tie versus a bow and arrow).
Figures of speech
Figurative language expresses nonliteral meanings, meanings that diverge from
the primary meaning of a word. Primary meanings of words are the first to be
indicated in dictionary definitions and are the most frequent or common mean-
ings we associate with a word. And though we may think that the use of figurative
language is confined to literature, in fact, most of our everyday language use is
nonliteral, from what we say in casual conversation to what we hear in a weather
report on the news to political speeches.
Metaphor
One of the most recognizable use of figurative language is metaphor. A metaphor
is a figure of speech that sets up an analogy between two words or phrases: some-
thing is something else. It is important because actually it reflects our conceptual
structures, our view of the world.
Personification
Personification, another subtype of metaphorical language, gives human attrib-
utes to something that is not human.
Synesthesia
Synesthesia is a type of metaphorical language in which one kind of sensation
is described in terms of another (colour is attributed to sounds, odour to colour,
sound to odour, etc.). Examples include “sweet” smells (taste attributed to smell),
“loud” colours (sound attributed to colour), and so on.
65
Metonymy
Another type of figurative speech is metonymy; we refer to something by describ-
ing it in terms of something with which it is closely associated. A well-known
example of metonymy is The pen is mightier than the sword, in which pen refers to
writing or diplomacy and sword to action or war.
Simile
Similes differ from metaphor and metonymy in that they involve a comparison of
two unlike things and usually involve the words like or as: He eats like a pig, My
brain is like a sieve.
Idioms
Another type of figurative speech are idioms. Like other kinds of figurative language,
idioms are collocations of words or phrases with non-literal meanings. Examples are:
tongue in cheek, pull one’s leg, a chip on one’s shoulder, foaming at the mouth.
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the systematic study of how people understand and communicate
more than the literal meaning of words or sentences when they speak, write or
gesture, or, in more general terms, when they interpret and produce what linguists
call ‘utterances’. Utterances are spoken, written or gestured contributions within
a particular social context that derive their meaning partly from that context.
Therefore, pragmatics is also called the study of meaning in context, or meaning
in interaction.
These terms take into account that contexts develop dynamically, most mark-
edly when we engage face-to-face with others. Our utterances are not only shaped
by the contexts in which they occur but also create new contexts for what can fol-
low. In other words, they are not only context shaped but also context renewing.
Differences in how humans from different cultures use and understand lan-
guage, and linguistic phenomena that occur when people from different cultures
communicate, are examined and compared within cross-cultural pragmatics
and intercultural pragmatics.
Pragmatic competence is the ability to use language appropriately within so-
cial contexts.
Deixis
Among some important notions of pragmatics we would like to focus briefly on
deixis. Deixis refers to all linguistic means that have mainly to do with point-
66
Chapter 4
ing at extralinguistic contexts All linguistic expressions that are used to point at
someone or something, such as me and you, or here and there, are called deictic
expressions (or deictics).
We use deictic expressions to point at persons (person deixis), at places (place
deixis), or at particular points of time (time deixis). Some authors also describe
further dimensions of deixis, such as social relationships that are reflected in lan-
guage (social deixis) or pointing activities within a text (discourse deixis).
All dimensions of deixis have in common that they cannot be understood
out of their context. Therefore, understanding deixis has a lot to do with finding
out from which perspective something is being communicated. This perspective
is called the deictic centre. The deictic centre is easiest to identify in face-to-face
interactions in which all participants of a conversation are present. When speak-
ers use deictic expressions in such a context, we usually take their perspective to
be the deictic centre of their utterances. Additionally, they may accompany and
support deictic expressions with nonverbal signals such as gestures or gaze.
However, we may also shift the deictic centre and still be understood. Identi-
fying the deictic centre is relevant for all types of deixis. This will become more
apparent as we take a closer look at the three main types of deixis:
1. Person deixis is about pointing at persons;

2. Place deixis is about pointing at the location of individuals or things;
3. Time deixis also distinguishes between close to the deictic centre and away
from the deictic centre.
This is reflected in expressions like now, today or this week for a time close
to the moment of speaking, and then, yesterday or next month for a time remote
from the moment of speaking, i.e. either in the past or in the future.
Speech acts
We use language to do an extraordinarily wide range of activities: for example,
to convey information, request information, give orders, make requests, make
threats, give warnings, make bets, give advice, offer apologies, tell jokes, pay com-
pliments, and so on.
Thus, utterances can be used to perform actions. Actions performed via utter-
ances, such as requesting, threatening, or thanking, are based on speech acts. The
systematic study of speech acts is based on speech act theory.
All actions performed by utterances can be divided into three related acts:
the locutionary act, the illocutionary act, and the perlocutionary act. The locu-
tionary act is the physical act of produring understandable language that may be
67
regarded as meaningful within a given context. Consider the indirect request: Do

you know where I left my textbook?
What we intend to do by producing an utterance is called the illocutionary
act, i.e. in this case the intention of asking for information.
The cognitive or emotional effect an illocutionary act has on an addressee or
addressees in reality is called the perlocutionary act (or perlocutionary effect).
Certain speech acts are so common that many languages have particular syn-
tactic structures conventionally used to mark them. Some examples of different
types of sentence structures for English are:
Declarative: I am writing a press release.
Interrogative: Are you writing a press release?,Who is writing a press release?,
What are you writing?
Imperative: Write the press release.
Apparently, it looks as though declarative sentences, which in English usually
follow the basic word order of Subject+Verb+(Object) are the most suitable for
making assertions. Interrogative sentences, which usually have a verb form and/
or a wh- word like who or what at the beginning of the sentence, are intended for
asking questions; and imperative sentences, which usually lack a subject (which
is understood as ‘you’) are made for giving orders. This association is fairly com-
mon and often possible. But do not confuse the sentence types (declarative, inter-
rogative, and imperative) with speech acts (assertion, question, and request) as the
association does not always work. As is often the case with pragmatics, the first
thing one needs to consider is context.
Review questions
1. What are the constituents of a sentence?
2. What is meant by functional categories in semantics?
3. What is the difference between a compound sentence and a complex sentence?
4. What functions can a Noun Phrase perform?
5. What information does the referent of a word provide?
6. Is ‘ symbol’ a member of a closed class of words or an open class?
7. Is semantics concerned only with complete sentences?
8. Compare the senses of kill, murder, assassinate. (assassinate entails murder, mur-
der entails kill – kill does not entail murder, murder does not entail assassinate).
9. How can we distinguish a noun from other parts of speech? And a verb?
10. Provide at least two examples of gradable (cold-cool-warm-hot, wet-dry) and
complementary (single-married, dead-alive) synonyms.
68
Chapter 4
Activities
1) Identify the head words in the phrases below:
a. the small glass that contains 3 ounces of water
b. very rapidly
c. somewhat happy
d. might have wished
e. in the heat of the summer
f. farmers hoping for rain
2) Consider whether the following words are count or noncount, and give evidence
(you can use them in sentences) to support your ideas:
truth, courage, music, fish, money
3) Determine the syntactic categories of the words in the following sentences:

a. Hilary put some vases on the window sill.
b. The neighbours enjoyed the beautiful sound.
c. Ron opened the door with a key.
4) Combine the following pairs of sentences into a single sentence by means of the
co-ordinating conjunctiction given in brackets.
a. My mother was baking cakes. My mother was baking biscuits. (and)
b. This poison is deadly. This poison is fast-acting. (both… and)
c. Is he a fair ruler? Is he a just ruler? (and)
d. Would you like tea? Would you like coffee? (or)
e. She does her work quietly. She does her work conscientiously. (but)
f. They stared at her in complete amazement. They stared at her in utter amaze-
ment. (and)
5) Combine the following pairs of sentences into a single sentence by means of the
co-ordinating conjunctiction given in brackets, in each case making the verb agree
with the new co-ordinate subject.
a. Mum was working in the garden. Dad was working in the /. garden. (and)
b. My brother speaks French. Your brother speaks French. (and)
c. Her brother speaks French. Her sister speaks French. (either….or).
d. Her aunt was in Paris last year. Her parents were in Paris last year. (either… or)
e. Her aunt was in Paris last year. Her parents were in Paris last year. (neither…
nor)
f. I am going to the concert. You are going to the concert. (neither… nor)
69
6) Pick out the main clauses and subordinate clauses in the following sentences:
• I’ ll come whenever I can.
• Do you know what she did whell I told her what you’ d said..
• I don’ t know whether we should be doing this.
• As I drove towards his house, I was hoping that he would be out.
• I didn’ t like what I was doing but I had no choice.The children laughed at the
antics of the clowns.
• The children laughed as the clowns poured water over each other.
• Stay where you are until I come.
• If you go, I will go too.
• I could see that she was worried.
7) Combine the following pairs of sentences into a single sentence by means of a

relative pronoun.
a. I’ II catch the number 52 bus. The number 52 will take me right to the Library.
b. That is the nurse. That nurse checked my blood pressure.
c. Penguins are birds. Penguins cannot fly.
d. People need their cars. People live in rural areas.
e. The professor of Chemistry was a very kind man. I forgot his name.
f. My cousin is coming to visit us She lives in Liverpool.
8) Match the phrase in the left-hand column with the phrasal category in the right-
hand column in which the phrase would be classified.
(1) can study a. noun phrase
(2) sufficiently soft b. verb phrase
(3) very softly c. adjective phrase
(4) after the movie d. adverb phrase
(5) an effectively e. prepositional phrase
presented talk
(6) hard as a rock
(7) rapidly
(8) furniture
(9) against the tide
(10) difficult problem
9) Provide a hyponym of the following words:

appliance | musical instrument | furniture | fish | flower
70
Chapter 4
10) Add at least six adverb phrases to the text to make it more interesting and de-
scriptive:
I was sitting at my desk, staring out the window. A car raced by and I wondered
where it was heading. A police car sped by. A child riding her bike down the street
stopped to watch the exciting chase.
11) Find antonyms of the following terms:

a. over ....................
b. chicken ....................
c. near ....................
d. quickly ....................
e. black ....................
f. now ....................
g. give ....................
12) Provide a homonym, homophone, or homograph for each of the following words:
compact ....................
bat ....................
see ....................
pupil ....................
refuse ....................
aisle ....................
pail ....................
bank ....................
race ....................
alter ....................
braid ....................
13) Identify the meaning relation of the words for each of the following pairs:
a. leave ~ return
b. door ~ house
c. young ~ old
d. bright ~ intelligent
e. flower ~ rose
f. examiner ~ examinee
g. freedom ~ liberty
71
14) Determine the sentence types.

a. Pick up those sheets!
b. Your hair is purple!
c. Are the scarlet dahlias blossoming?
d. The scarlet dahlias are blossoming
72
CHAPTER 5
Features of texts and text types

What is a text?
Broadly speaking, anything may be described as a text if people can engage with
it to produce meanings about themselves, their society and their beliefs. In par-
ticular, media texts are objects produced with the explicit intention of engaging
an audience. In some cases (movies in a theatre) they are transient. Even where
they are permanent (e.g. a copy of a magazine), there is a kind of transience in the
fact that they are continually being produced – the next edition, the next in the
series. In this way, media texts comprise plenty of materials and produce a flood
of meanings. They are a moving target, and textual analysis is in some ways an
attempt to restrain that flow, and subject it to careful attention.
Media texts also have a variety of forms both within media (publishing news-
papers or novels) and across media (the front page of a website to the titles of a TV
programme). This variety has to be taken into account with regard to the produc-
tion of meaning and the process of influence.
Graddol and Boyd-Barrett (1994) discuss the nature of text, its range and its
materiality.
They point out that, even in respect of the original definitions of text, an in-
sistence on written forms excluded other verbal forms and attributes – spoken
and non-verbal. But then they also identify two kinds of materiality to the wider
range of texts (including media). On one level they refer to ‘ communicative ar-
tefacts’ , to ‘ commodities which can enter social and economic relations’ ; these
could be DVDs. On another level they talk about ‘ semiotic materiality’ . In this
respect Graddol and Boyd-Barrett (1994) argue that, however semiotics seems to
be about immaterial meaning, in fact it is also about the material signifier. One
might refer to the smile of the model on the magazine cover. This then leads on to
immaterial factors.
Tolson (1996) talks more about the ‘ reader’ of texts, and about the process of
making sense of them: «meanings are derived from meaning systems to which
everyone in our culture has access. The text itself works to structure these mean-
ings», but also the reader «comes to the text with all sorts of prior knowledge and
expectations […] The modern consumer of the media is a reader of many different
kinds of text, which inter-relate and feed off one another».
The connection between text and meanings is also about the relationship be-
tween media and audiences, or between media and society. One kind of model
tends to assume that the text is a vehicle for meaning. Early effects theory (the
hypodermic theory), or deterministic media – society models (classic Marxist
models), and at least some structuralist analysis, all assume that the text carries
messages which are either conveyed into the consciousness of the audience and/or
do something to the receiver.
Another kind of model sees the text as a kind of stimulus at the interface be-
tween producer and audience. The stimulus may be designed to achieve certain
kinds of response, yet may also achieve unexpected reactions. In this respect one
may cite Roland Barthes’ notion of writerly and readerly texts. The readerly text
is one in which familiar features (or conventions) make it ‘ easy’ for the reader to
make sense of it. It is undemanding. Barthes identifies a narrative feature of such
texts – the hermeneutic code – which closes down the reader’ s ability to look for
choices of meaning.
Genre material, with its strong conventions, and assumptions about how it is
to be understood, fits this version. The writerly text is one in which conventions
and predictability do not figure so boldly, and the text may stimulate reflection and
alternative meanings for the reader, who in effect becomes a writer of meanings.
Texts exist in contexts, as do the readers who produce meanings from the text
and who may be influenced by it. This sense of context and its influence is complex
and far reaching. Any media text exists in the context of all other media texts,
especially those which bear particular comparison with it.
Readers have a residual, even unconscious knowledge of at least some of those
other texts. They use them to make sense of the text. They are part of a kind of
conceptual context. There is also a material context when texts are part of a flow of
reading. A news article is a text which is part of larger text – the whole newspaper
being read. A TV programme may be part of a flow of programmes in an evening’ s
viewing. There is an environmental context in which both text and reader exist. A
movie viewed in the home via DVD with others will be viewed differently from the
same movie as text viewed individually in a theatre. There is a social context which
is part of the environment. This is defined in various ways. It is partly a matter of
74
Chapter 5
social conventions, in which, if reading a newspaper in a public place, one is not

at liberty to turn to a stranger to discuss what is read – as one would be if sitting
at home with a partner. It is also a matter of reading conventions, in which one is
not expected to engage with a TV programme as intensely in private as one would
be in public as part of an audience for a performance of a play. This social context
will affect what is attended to and how. There is an experiential context which the
audience brings to its understanding of media texts. That is to say, we have an ever
expanding experience of texts and of ways of understanding them, which we bring
to bear unconsciously on any individual text. Then there is an ideological context:
the dominant values held by the culture which produces and consumes the text.
These values inform the text as it is made and the text as it is read. This is a con-
text of ideas. In everyday usage a ‘ text’ denotes a unit of written language, and
‘ an utterance’ normally denotes a unit of spoken language. But here the concept
‘ text’ covers both written and spoken language; ‘ text’ is defined in the following
way: a ‘ text’ (or strictly speaking a ‘ text act’ ) is a communicative act that a sender
performs when uttering a complete intentional unit of several written or spoken
sentences delimited by silence or blank space, or by shift of sender.
It is a criterion for textuality (among others) that a text consist of several sen-
tences. One single uttered sentence counts as a speech act, and in a dialogue a
remark need not contain more than one sentence or an elliptic sentence. A speech
act, e.g. an oral promise, is defined in the following way: a speech act is a commu-
nicative act that a speaker performs when uttering a single sentence.
Discourse analysis
Although the origins of the word ‘ discourse’ are not entirely clear, applied lin-
guists usually agree that the term ‘ discourse analysis’ was first used in the ear-
ly 1950s by the American Descriptivist Zellig Harris. The purpose of discourse
analysis is to demonstrate the way that the communicative forces of discourse
collectively result in meaning.
The discourse analyst uses a spoken or written text as his/her source of data
and aims to identify features of language use which shed light on the communi-
cation of meaning, intention and inference. These features can include not only
lexis and grammar, but also inferred meanings and body language. Researchers
analysing discourse often use terms such as cohesion and coherence. In general
terms, according to Quine (1986), «Cohesion refers to the grammatical and lexical
relationship within a text, whereas coherence refers to the arrangement of ideas
and operates at the level of semantic logic».
The linguistic approach to discourse analysis can be described as the exami-
nation of how humans use language to communicate and how linguistic messages
are constructed and interpreted.
75
In discourse analysis, researchers recognize the central position of people

as speakers, writers, readers and hearers. As Manning (2008) describes it, «It is
speakers and writers who choose a topic, convey meaning, use pragmatic strate-
gies and structure language production, while hearers and readers interpret and
draw inferences».
Evidence suggests that some learners process a text by starting with the small-
est units of language before building up the full meaning, while others start with a
more global view and then go back to the smallest details. Others experts consider
the way learners employ existing knowledge to help them process new information.
As far as linguistic output is concerned, it is obvious that spoken and written
language require different skills. Speaking benefits from a wide range of effects
including voice quality, facial expression and body language. These areas are also
known as paralinguistic cues (Davies, 2001). By using these aids, speakers are
able to modify the power of the words that they use.
Many scholars agree that communication through speech is extremely chal-
lenging. Speakers need to monitor what they have just said while simultaneously
continuing the conversation with their interlocutor and planning their next re-
sponse or utterance. Unlike writing there is no long-lasting record of a speech act.
Although the writer is not able to benefit from paralinguistic clues in the same
way as the speaker, he/she is often able to review existing writing and make pauses
when necessary without worrying about being interrupted. In other words, time
can be taken to reword or reorganize what has been written and to consult refer-
ence materials for additional support.
Some researchers claim that communication through texting, social networks
and other online forums «blends the nature of writing and speaking in some as-
tonishing new ways» (Glass, 2003). Indeed, this new communication modes can
be considered quite groundbreaking. For instance, recent research into the use of
emoticons and smileys in e-mail communications shows that they actually add
crucial paralinguistic features.
To sum up, in discourse analysis researchers are concerned with how lan-
guage is actually being used and how the different features of discourse can help
understand the ways in which real communication is achieved.
Main text types

In the definition of ‘ text type’ or ‘ genre’ all the following three viewpoints have to
be incorporated: the social practice under which it is uttered, the subject that it is
about, and its linguistic form. A text type can be defined in the following way: a
text type is a historical evolved type of text with collectively accepted standards
for subject matters and textual forms by which the sender and the receiver most
expediently may achieve their collaborative purpose in types of social practice.
76
Chapter 5
This definition assumes that sender and receivers when cooperating have a
common direction of their verbal exchange. Of course the purpose of every text
is unique, but what sender and receivers do have in common in relation to a given
text is a typification of social practices, the typification of discourse subjects, and
a typification of textual form.
Text acts are subdivided in three main types: practical texts, factual prose
and literature differentiated on many dimensions, such as monologue or dialogue,
means to an end or an end in itself, oral or written, long or short, fleeting or per-
manent, used up or reusable, addressed or to the general public.
At the same time any text can be described in three dimensions correspond-
ing to its function in the type of situation in which it occurs, the subject it deals
with and its typical form. It is necessary to make a distinction between four lev-
els in verbal communication: the level of reference and predication, the sentence
level, the paragraph level and the text level.
A text can come in any form and be any kind of writing. Letters, adverts,
user-guides, emails, postcards, notes and magazine articles are all different types
of text.
When reading something, it helps to know what type of text it is. It also helps
to know why it has been written. For example:
• an advert is written to persuade the reader to buy something:

• a user-guide is instructive and is written to tell the reader how to use some-
thing (such as a video recorder or washing-machine);
• a formal letter might be written to inform the reader about school dates;
• a personal letter might be written by a friend, describing a holiday.
Again, texts such as letters often look the same but can have different pur-
poses. In fact:
• a personal letter from a friend can be set out in whatever way the writer wish-
es and will often describe a person, place or thing;
• a circular letter is sent to many people and, like an advert, will often try to
persuade the reader to buy something.
Key features of non -fiction texts

In this book we will only examine non -fiction texts.
A non-fiction text is based on facts. It is really any text which isn’ t fiction (a
made-up story or poetry). Non-fiction texts come in a huge variety of types. You
find them everywhere in life, from the back of the cereal packet at breakfast, to a
text book at the library. They can range from a newspaper article to a review of a
77
new computer game. They are written for many different purposes, and are aimed
at many different people or audiences.
Non-fiction texts include:
• advertisements;
• reviews;
• letters;
• diaries;
• newspaper articles;
• information leaflets;
• magazine articles.
Descriptive texts
A descriptive text is a text that wants you to visualize what is being described:
• a novel might want the reader to imagine the characters and see them in your
mind;
• a travel book will want the reader to see the country being described.
Descriptive texts usually make use of adjectives and adverbs, use comparisons
to help picture the scene (something is ‘ like’ something else), employ the reader’ s
five senses (how something feels, smells, looks, sounds and tastes).
Informative texts
An informative text is a text that wants to advise or tell the reader about some-
thing. For example:
• a newspaper article may give you information about a health issue, such as
giving up smoking;
• a website may give you information about a movie, a band or something that
the reader is interested in.
Informative texts usually: avoid repetition. contain facts. give information in

a clear way, introducing the subject and then developing it.
Instructional texts
Like all text types, variants of instructions occur and they can be combined with
other text types. They may be visual only (e.g. a series of diagrams with an image
for each step in the process) or a combination of words and images. Instructions
78
Chapter 5
and procedural texts are found in all areas of the curriculum and include rules for
games, recipes, instructions for making something and directions.
An instructive text is a text that instructs or tells the reader how to do some-
thing. For example:
• a recipe instructs the reader how to cook something;

• a leaflet that comes with an appliance tells the reader how it works or how to
take care of it.
On the whole, instructive texts: include verbs, placed at the beginning of the
sentence, that tell the reader to do something, mainly imperatives (both positive
and negative); the language is direct and unnecessary words are left out: they also
make frequent use of the modals ‘ must’ and ‘ must not’ , and use diagrams or pic-
tures to help understanding, use numbered or bulleted points. They may also give
advice or suggest possible alternatives.
Persuasive texts
A persuasive text can be written, oral or written to be spoken, e.g. a script for a
television advert or presentation. The persuasive intention may be implicit and not
necessarily recognizable by the reader or listener. These texts essentially aim to
convince the reader in various ways of something. The writer may try to convince
you to accept his or her point of view, change your way of thinking or even try to
encourage you to take action.
Texts vary considerably according to context and audience so that persuasion
is not always a distinct text-type that stands alone. Elements of persuasive writ-
ing are found in many different texts including moving image texts and digital
multimedia texts. Some examples may include evidence of bias and opinion being
subtly presented as facts.
Persuasive texts generally may include capital letters, exclamation marks,
questions and repeated words to catch your attention; use positive adjectives to
make something sound attractive. By doing so, the often take the form of an ad-
vert and, above all, they give only one side of an argument.
On the other hand, persuasive writing such as newspaper articles presents a
controversial issue that is open to discussion. Here, again, a persuasive article pre-
sents the writer’ s subjective opinions. But there is wide latitude in what persuasive
writers do: some writers present two or even three points of view and leave you to
make up your own mind about which side to take. Other writers present only one
side, an obvious attempt to change your mind or to get you to adopt their posi-
tion. Still other writers may resort to bias, slanted language, emotional appeals,
79
and other manipulative devices. Whichever technique the opinion writer uses,
the most important step is to determine his or her central argument, also called
the claim – the proposition or idea to be backed up and defended – that lies at the
heart of the piece and that may be explicit or implicit.
Claims of fact can be verified, measured, tested, and proved by citing factual
evidence, the results of scientific research, or in the case of predictions, by the
passage of time. Claims of value involve matters of taste, morality, opinion, and
ideas about right and wrong, and because of this, they are harder to prove than are
claims of fact. The support for a claim of value is usually in the form of reasons,
examples, reference to a book of rules or other reliable source (such as the Consti-
tution), and personal experience.
Once you have located the writer’ s argument or claim in an opinion piece,
then you can identify and evaluate the evidence used to support it. Writers of
opinion pieces may use a single kind of evidence, or they may combine various
kinds. Here are the most common: facts and statistics, which may derive from sci-
entific studies, research reports, government-sponsored investigations or surveys,
census reports, clinical tests, and so forth; examples and observations from the
writer’ s experience or from reading; rational, plausible explanations (good rea-
sons) that answer the question “why?”; and finally, quotation or testimony from
authorities and experts in a particular field.
Last, look for evidence of bias – prejudice or unfair preconceived ideas. Obvi-
ously, complete objectivity is humanly impossible, since we are all the products
of our environment, ethnic and religious heritage, social class, and the like. Yet
a writer should not come across as having an axe to grind – a particular point of
view that he or she batters the reader with.
Once you have finished reading an opinion piece, ask yourself if the writer
treats the issue fairly, whether there is sufficient evidence to support the argu-
ment, and whether the writer appeals to your sense of reason or to your emotions.
Literary non-fiction
Literary non-fiction is a type of writing which uses similar techniques as fiction to
create an interesting piece of writing about real events. These techniques help to
create non-fiction which is enjoyable and exciting to read. Some travel writing, au-
tobiographies, or essays that consider a particular viewpoint are key examples of
literary non-fiction. Their main purpose is to entertain whilst they inform about
factual events or information.
Literary non-fiction texts include:
• feature articles;
• essays;
80
Chapter 5
• travel writing;
• accounts of famous events;
• sketches (normally a fact file profile that gives key information about a person,
place or event);
• autobiographies (where people write about themselves) or biographies (where
someone else writes about you) – these texts may be written by sportspeople,
politicians, celebrities or other people who aren’ t well-known.
Biography
A biography is writing about someone’ s life. If someone is writing about their own
life it becomes an autobiography. These forms can also widen out to focus on a
specific part of someone’ s life, or their family.
A biography is usually written both to inform and to entertain. This means
it is a mix of factual information and creative writing. The audience is usually
made up of people who are interested in the person being written about. However,
sometimes biographies of people who aren’ t well known can be interesting be-
cause of an experience that they’ ve had.
Information leaflet
Information leaflets inform people about a particular subject. In leaflets it’s not just
the content and language that’s important, but also the layout and presentation.
Letter
Letters are written for many purposes and audiences:
• they can be written to someone close to us, like a parent or friend, or to a

stranger;
• they can be formal, such as a letter of complaint, or informal, to someone you
know well;
• they are usually structured in a particular way to show that the text is directed
at someone, using a salutation ‘ Dear…’ and an appropriate ending ‘ Yours sin-
cerely…’ .
Open letters
An ‘ open letter’ is a letter which is either addressed to the public or is to a spe-
cific person, like a politician, but published in a public forum such a popular
newspaper with a big audience. An open letter is often used to protest about
something.
81
Review
The most common types of review are film and book reviews, but people also review
music, television programmes, theatre performances and computer games. All re-
views share a number of different purposes. For example, a film review needs:
• to inform - the review needs to tell people who is in the film, who it is by and
where or when readers can see it;
• to describe - the review should describe the story, characters and some of the
action – without spoiling the plot or giving too much away;
• to entertain - to use humour to provide the reader with their opinion of the
item that they are reviewing;
• to analyse - a good review gives an opinion on whether the film is good or not
and why;
• to advise - the review should tell the reader whether or not to go and see the film.
Reviews will vary in their audiences: it could be people who are specifically in-
terested in that film or book, who are actually considering going to see the film or
buy the book. But it could also be people who are just generally interested in films
or books, who like to read about them. A review of a kids’ film is probably aimed
at parents, who will want to know whether or not to take their children to see it.
A review in a specialist games magazine will use very different terminology than
a review of a computer game in a national newspaper. The readers in the games
magazine will have more specialist knowledge, and might judge the game against
specific things that a games expert may want from a game.
Newspaper article
There are several different types of newspaper articles:
• news articles - these are found at the front of a newspaper. They inform read-
ers about things that are happening in the world or in the local area. They will
be full of facts, like names, dates and places;
• feature articles - these explore news stories in more depth. The purpose of a
feature is not just to tell you what has happened, but to explore or analyse the
reasons why. These kind of pieces normally name the writer who wrote them – a
byline;
• editorials, columns and opinion pieces - these are pieces by ‘ personality’
writers. They might be there to inform (because the writer’ s expert opinion is
valued), or they might be there to entertain (because the writer has a comic or
interesting way of describing everyday life). They are likely to have a more per-
82
Chapter 5
sonal style that the writer regularly uses when writing – this could be shown
through particular vocabulary or the opinion of the writer.
As for their main language features, newspaper pieces are often written in the
third person and present tense. The passive voice is also frequently used to avoid
personalisation, to avoid naming the agent of a verb, to add variety to sentences or
to maintain an appropriate level of formality.
The type of newspaper that the article is published in makes a difference to
the way it is written. If it is in a magazine it will have shorter sentences and para-
graphs and use more basic vocabulary; alternatively, if it is in a broadsheet the
sentences will be longer and more complicated, and the vocabulary will be more
advanced. Some newspapers also have particular political points of view, which
might affect how they report events in the news.
Essay
Essays are not only written by students. People who are considered experts in a
particular topic often write essays to show a new viewpoint on something. For ex-
ample, lecturers at universities often write essays to explain a different idea about
a topic. The essay is a form of literary non-fiction in which a writer expresses an
opinion on something, or makes an argument, in a creative form. Essays use liter-
ary devices and are usually written using formal language and specialist vocabu-
lary that those people interested in the subject would understand. They aim at
developing a line of argument and, owing to that, they have a clear structure that
introduces their idea, develops their viewpoint using different points to support
them, and concludes with a summary of the essay.
Travel writing
Travel writing is writing about visiting different places. It can appear as a newspaper
article, informing readers about a specific destination. It can also be a form of liter-
ary non-fiction, written as a book, telling a longer narrative about a journey or place.
This differs from a travel blog because the writing is more detailed and less informal.
Travel writing is usually written in the first person; it is often descriptive, writ-
ing about charactetistics of places, monuments, the people, and so on; its aim is to
entertain as well as inform.
Blog
The origin of the word ‘ blog’ is as an abbreviation for ‘ web-log’ – that is, an online
diary. Blogs are written by many people all over the world, for lots of different pur-
poses. They can be diaries, or records of what you cook, a travel log for people vis-
83
iting different destinations or book review blogs, or many other sorts of blogs. The
purpose of the writing depends on what kind of blog it is. Blogs normally feature
several pictures to make them look attractive; they vary the size, font and appear-
ance of text for effect; use links to connect to other web-pages; more often than
not include videoclips; usually sound quite personal – written in the first person
and written partly for the author’ s own benefit and, therefore, the language used
is often informal and chatty.
However, blogs can also be used by organisations to communicate informally
with their audience. Because they are online, they can be regular, and respond to
events quickly.
Review questions
1. How do texts interact with the reader?
2. What is meant by the concept of ‘ materiality’ of texts introduced by Graddol
and Boyd-Barrett?
3. What are paralinguistic clues?
4. What characterizes instructional texts?
5. In what senses texts can be vehicles of ideology?
6. What is meant by the expression ‘ claim of value’ ? How does it differ from a
‘ claim of fact’ ?
7. In what cases can visual elements be complementary to text? Why?
8. In your opinion, what is the problem with using data from online sources?
9. Is it possible to identify the truth of a text?
10. Which information would you include in a book review?
84
CHAPTER 6
Varieties of English in the age of globalisation

Most people are aware of the fact that systematic differences exist among lan-
guages – for example, that English is different from Dutch, which is different from
Chinese, and so on. However, many people are probably not aware of the extent
to which systematic differences exist within languages. Internal variation refers
to the fact that within a single language, there are different ways of expressing the
same meaning. This property is inherent to all human languages and to all speak-
ers of a language. Thus, no two speakers of a language speak exactly the same way,
nor does any individual speaker speak the same way all the time.
The term language variety is used by linguists as a cover term to refer to any
form of language characterized by systematic features. The term may be used in
reference to a distinct language such as French or Italian, in reference to a par-
ticular form of a language spoken by a specific group of people, such as Austral-
ian English or New York English, in reference to the speech of a single person,
or even in reference to the way a single person speaks in a particular context. In
addition to this cover term, there are more specific terms that are used to talk
about these different types of language varieties. Every native speaker speaks
his own idiolect, which differs systematically from the idiolects of other native
speakers. Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between these lan-
guage varieties and social structure as well as the interrelationships among dif-
ferent language varieties.
When a group of speakers of a particular language differs noticeably in its
speech from another group, we say that the groups are speaking different dialects.
Linguistically speaking, however, a dialect is any variety of a language spoken
by a group of people that is characterized by systematic differences from other
varieties of the same language in terms of structural or lexical features. In this

sense, every person speaks a dialect of her native language.
However, the appropriate term for systematic phonological variation is ac-
cent. Generally speaking, accent is often used in reference to “foreign accents” or
regionally defined accents such as southern or northern accents. However, here
again it must be noted that every person speaks with an accent. Therefore, every
speaker of English speaks with an accent of some sort.
A group of people speaking the same dialect is called a speech community.
Speech communities may be defined in terms of a number of extralinguistic fac-
tors (not based in linguistic structure), such as region, socioeconomic status, age,
gender, and ethnicity.
However, it is rarely the case that there exists a speech community in which
a “pure” dialect – e.g., purely regional, purely ethnic, etc. – is spoken, because
the identification of any speech variety as a pure dialect requires the assumption
of communicative isolation. Communicative isolation results when a group of
speakers forms a coherent speech community relatively isolated from speakers
outside of that community. This type of isolation was perhaps once a possibil-
ity but is becoming increasingly rare these days owing to social and geographic
mobility, mass media, etc. It is far more common that a particular dialect of a
speech community is influenced by regional, social, and cultural factors. Thus, in
most instances the varieties spoken among members of a speech community are
not pure dialects but instead are influenced by the interaction of many different
factors.
Contrary to the common view that every language consists of one “correct”
dialect from which all other “inferior” or “substandard” dialects depart, all dia-
lects are linguistically equivalent. This misconception has arisen from social ste-
reotypes and biases. It is very important to realize that a person’ s use of any par-
ticular dialect is not a reflection of his or her intelligence or judgment. Linguisti-
cally speaking, no one dialect or language is better, more correct, more systematic,
or more logical than any other. Rather, every language variety is a rule-governed
system and an effective means of communication.
The notion of standard dialect is very often a complex one and in many ways
an idealization. From a descriptivist perspective, the standard dialect is very of-
ten the variety used by political leaders, the media, and speakers from higher
socioeconomic classes. It is also generally the variety taught in schools and to
non-native speakers in language classes. Every language has at least one standard
dialect, which serves as the primary means of communication across dialects.
Other dialects can be called nonstandard dialects but should not be considered
inferior.
86
Chapter 6
Why Does Language Vary?

The spread of English that resulted from the expansion and domination of the Brit-
ish Empire only marks the beginning of the language dissemination across the
globe. Today English is the primary language in sixty countries and continues to
spread, especially as a second language. A useful model to document the expan-
sion of English today, developed by an Indian-American linguist, Braj B. Kachru,
employs three concentric circles to reflect the different ways in which English con-
tinues to gain new speakers.
Expanding Circle
Outer Circle
Inner Circle
eg. UK & US
eg. Singapore
& India
eg. China, Russia

and Vietnam
Kachru’ s model (Crystal 1995, p. 107)
According to Kachru (1985, 1992) the spread of English can be visualized in

terms of three circles: the inner circle includes those countries where English is
the L1 for the majority of the population, such as the United Kingdom, the United
States of America, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But it has to be
noted that English is not the only language spoken in these countries because it is
in contact with heritage languages or languages of the immigrant population. The
outer circle includes those countries where English is a second language used at
the institutional level as the result of colonization (India, Nigeria, the Philippines,
etc.). The expanding circle comprises those countries where English has no offi-
cial status and is taught as a foreign language (Continental Europe, Japan, China,
South America, etc.).
The contact between English and other languages in the three circles and the
spread of English in the outer and expanding circles bears important sociolinguis-
tic and psycholinguistic implications. Sociolinguistically, the spread of English
has important implications regarding the ownership of English and its varieties.
87
Just as there are many types of variation, so are there many factors that influ-
ence variation, and although we can isolate several factors that tend to be par-
ticularly influential, it is important to remember that all of the factors that will
be discussed play a role in determining the language variety used by any given
person at any given time.
To understand these factors, we must distinguish between the regional and
geographic factors that influence variation, which are said to typify regional dia-
lect variation. A second set, which is equally important, includes attributes such as
social class, age, gender, and ethnicity. These factors typify social dialect variation.
One the most obvious reasons for the existence of different language varie-
ties is that languages are spoken in different geographical locations. This type of
variation based on geographical boundaries, known as regional variation, is re-
sponsible, for example, for the differences between American English and British
English, or between the Portuguese spoken in Portugal and that spoken in Brazil.
Why is the geographical factor so crucial in determining a dialect? Language
varieties tend to be most influenced by the people you are in face-to-face commu-
nication with, so people who live close to each other will have considerably more
influence on each other’ s dialects than people who live farther apart. So it is often
really the patterns of settlement that people fall into, rather than the geography of
the region itself.
This is not to say that physical geography cannot play any role in regional
dialects. Being isolated from speakers of other varieties tends to allow a dialect to
develop in its own way, through its own innovations that are different from those
of other dialects. Regional dialect boundaries therefore often coincide with natu-
ral barriers such as rivers, mountains, or swamps. For example, very distinctive
varieties of English have developed and have been preserved in some coastal areas
of Virginia and in regions in the vicinity of the Appalachian mountain range, ow-
ing in part to the geographic isolation of these areas.
English Around the World

Until the end of the twelfth century, the English language was geographically con-
fined to the British Isles, excluding the Celtic-speaking parts of Cornwall, Wales,
Scotland and Ireland, but later two episodes of expansion initiated the global dis-
tribution of English. The first phase was the spread of English in the British Isles,
which originated from England and started roughly in the twelfth century. The
second phase of expansion, connected with the so-called ‘colonisation’, began
during the early seventeenth century, originated in all parts of the British Isles
and led to the spread of English beyond the British Isles and its distribution in
many territories overseas.
88
Chapter 6
The first phase of the spread of the English language which caused its dis-
semination in the British Isles is of primary importance as it was largely respon-
sible for the emergence of the sub-varieties of British English, e.g. English Eng-
lish, Irish English, Northern Irish English, Welsh English, Scottish English, and
Scots as a separate language, and also played a major role in the development of
distinct overseas varieties due to the emigration of speakers of these different
sub-varieties.
Until the end of the sixteenth century the English language was limited to
the British Isles. From the second phase onwards, which saw England enter the
race for colonial territory comparatively late in the early seventeenth century with
the establishment of settlements in North America, a large number of territories
throughout the world were influenced by English colonization and the expansion
of the British Empire.
The dialects of Old and Middle English

Linguists have conventionally identified four dialect areas for the Old English pe-
riod. First of all note that by England that region of mainland Britain is meant
which does not include Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. These three areas were
Celtic from the time of the arrival of the Celts some number of centuries BC and
remained so well into the Middle English period.
The dialect areas of England can be traced back quite clearly to the Germanic
tribes which came and settled in Britain from the middle of the 5th century on-
wards. Of these tribes the most important were the Saxons as they established
themselves as the politically dominant force in the Old English period. A num-
ber of factors contributed to this not least the strong position of the West Saxon
kings, chief among these being Alfred. The West Saxon dialect was also strongest
in the scriptorias (i.e. those places where manuscripts were copied and/or written
originally) so that for written communication West Saxon was the natural choice.
A wide range of documents have nonetheless been handed down in the lan-
guage of the remaining areas. Notably from Northumbria a number of documents
are extant which provide a fairly clear picture of this dialect area. At this point one
should also note that the central and northern part of England is linguistically
fairly homogeneous in the Old English period and is termed Anglia. To differenti-
ate sections within this area one speaks of Mercia which is the central region and
Northumbria which is the region situated north of the river Humber.
A few documents are available to us in the dialect of Kent (notably a set of
sermons). This offers us a brief glimpse at the characteristics of this dialect: for
example, the fact that Old English /y:/ was pronounced /e:/ thus giving us words
like ‘evil’ in Modern English where one would expect something like ‘ivil’.
89
Following the invasion of England by the Normans in 1066, the West Saxon
‘standard’, which had already started to decline due to natural language change, was
dealt a death blow: Norman French became the language of the English court and
clergy. English sank to the level of an unwritten dialect. With the loss of England for
the French in 1204 English gradually emerged as a literary language again.
Therefore, we can describe each dialect as follows:
1. The Northern dialect is the continuation of the Northumbrian variant of Old

English. Note that by Middle English times English had spread to (Lowland)
Scotland and indeed led to a certain literary tradition developing there at the
end of the Middle English period which has been continued up to the present
time. Velar stops are retained (i.e. not palatalised) as can be seen in word pairs
like rigg/ridge; kirk/church.
2. The Kentish dialect is the most direct continuation of an Old English dialect
and has more or less the same geographical distribution. The two most notable
features of Kentish are the existence of /e:/ for Middle English /i:/ and the so-
called “initial softening” which caused fricatives in word-initial position to be
pronounced voiced as in vessel, vane and vixen.
3. West Saxon is the forerunner of this dialect of Middle English. Since incur-
sions were made into Celtic-speaking Cornwall, the area covered in the Mid-
dle English period is greater than in the Old English period. This area becomes
linguistically uninteresting in the Middle English period. It shares some fea-
tures of both Kentish and West Midland dialects.
4. The West Midland dialect is the most conservative of the dialect areas in the
Middle English period and is fairly well-documented in literary works. It is the
western half of the Old English dialect area Mercia. The retention of the Old
English rounded vowels /y:/ and /ø:/ which in the East had been unrounded to
/i:/ and /e:/ respectively.
5. The East Midland dialect is the dialect out of which the later standard devel-
oped. To be precise the standard arose out of the London dialect of the late
Middle English period. It is worth observing that the London dialect naturally
developed into what is called Cockney today, while the standard became less
and less characteristic of a certain area and after the 19th century became the
sociolect which is termed ‘Received Pronunciation’. Its linguistic features are
quite similar to those of the late incipient Middle English standard.
Contextual variation: the cases of Scotland and Ireland

While social variation to a large extent – although not exclusively – is variation
between individuals belonging to different societal groups, contextual variation
is variation within the individual: we all vary our language between contexts.
90
Chapter 6
In Scotland. until the Highland Clearances (the forced emigration of inhabit-

ants of the highlands and western islands that began in the mid-18th century to
allow for the introduction of sheep grazing), the people in the Highlands were
mainly Gaelic-speaking. Scottish Gaelic has been retreating in the face of some
form of English ever since then, and is now mainly spoken in the Hebrides, and
even there alongside English. Although Gaelic was once spoken in parts of the
Lowlands as well, the people in most of the Lowlands of Scotland have spoken a
Germanic language since at least the seventh century. Originally this Germanic
language was used throughout Northumbria (the land between the Humber and
the Firth of Forth), but before the Norman Conquest the northern part of North-
umbria, as far south as the Tweed, had become part of Scotland, and this language
became a dominant one in Scotland. By the time of James VI of Scotland (who
became James I of England), the version of this language spoken in Scotland had
become known as ‘ Scottis’ . With the union of the crowns, Scottis fell more and
more under the influence of English norms, but it survived as a vernacular lan-
guage, and is today called Scots.
Many Scots have a range of varieties available to them, from Scots at the most
local end of the scale to standard British English (at least in its written form) at the
most formal end. While it is in theory possible to distinguish, for example, Scots
/hem/ hame from English /hom/ home pronounced in a Scottish way, in practice
it is no simple matter to draw a firm line between Scots and English. If we wish
to call this entire range ‘ Scottish English’ , perhaps on the grounds that there is a
Scottish standard of English, we must nevertheless recall that Scottish English is
not uniform in pronunciation, grammar or vocabulary, and is sometimes more
like the English of England, and sometimes more like Scots.
Although English was established in Ireland by the fourteenth century, there
appears to have been a decline in its usage until the sixteenth century. By the time
of Elizabeth I, the English did not expect the Irish – not even those of English
descent – to speak English. In spite of that, there is evidence that English speakers
in Ireland at the period were bilingual in English and Irish. Whatever the state of
English in Ireland in the sixteenth century, there was a resurgence in its use in the
seventeenth century when Cromwell settled English people there to counteract
the Catholic influence.
The English deriving from this settlement is now usually called ‘ Hiberno-
English’ , or ‘ Southern Hiberno-English’ to distinguish it from the language of the
English settlers in Ulster. Meanwhile, Ulster had been ‘ planted’ with some Eng-
lish, but mainly with Scots settlers under James I. The language of the Scots set-
tlers is called ‘ Ulster-Scots’ , and the people are known as the ‘ Scots-Irish’ . There
were approximately 150,000 Scots settlers in Ulster, and about 20,000 English
91
ones in the early seventeenth century. Although the Scots were much more nu-
merous and the influence of their language on their English co-settlers persists to
the present day, we can still find a Northern Hiberno-English in the areas which
were English-dominated which is distinct from the Ulster-Scots.
Because of the number of emigrants from Scotland and Ireland, these varie-
ties of English have had a surprisingly strong influence on the development of
varieties outside the British Isles, often in ways which are not appreciated. While
the varieties from Scotland and Ireland are often different, they also have much
in common. There are at least two possible reasons for this. The first is that where
there is substrate influence on English in these two cases it is from two closely
related Celtic languages, Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Parallel influences are likely
to have led to parallel developments, so we would expect similarities in the two
varieties for that reason. It turns out, though, that most of the parallels of this type
are in vocabulary. The second reason is the history of Ireland. We have seen that
much of the plantation in Ulster was from Scotland in the seventeenth century,
and that Ulster-Scots is a direct descendant of a Scottish variety of English.
This common development means that similarities in the two varieties derive
from their common source. Moreover, the two varieties did not have very long to
drift apart before the emigration from Scotland and Ireland began.
How is American English different?

It is sometimes said that American English still has features which are archaic
from the point of view of British English. Let’ s take some features of General
American English (which we will name GA) – what is sometimes described as the
‘ standard’ American dialect and accent, typically found in the middle states and
in the west – and compare them with the language of a British Received Pronun-
ciation speaker.
In GA the vowel in words such as ask, dance, bath and half is [æ], not [a:] as in
RP. The [æ] began to be lost in southern British English from the late eighteenth
century. In GA the letter r is pronounced in all positions, but in RP it is only pro-
nounced before vowels (e.g. very, paragraph).
It is claimed that post-vocalic r began to disappear from London speech from
the late seventeenth century.
In RP the vowels in pairs like cot/caught are distinct: [o] and [o:] respectively.
However, in GA these vowels have merged in various ways. For example, in south-
western American speech [a] is used in both cot and caught. This is similar to an
older pronunciation in British English: note that Chaucer spelt ‘ not’ as nat.
Perhaps the most striking morphological difference between GA and British
English is the use of the past participle form gotten in GA. This was in fact the
92
Chapter 6
usual form in British English two centuries ago. In GA the season following sum-
mer is referred to as the fall, as used to be the case in British English where the
term autumn is now used.
In GA the word mad is frequently used to mean ‘ angry’ , a sense that was fairly
common in British Early Modern English, but is less so now.
English in Australia and New Zealand

The same process of dialect mixing that triggered a distinctive American variety
lies behind the Englishes spoken in Australia and New Zealand. British convicts
who were deported to Australia in the late 18th and 19th centuries were frequently
of Cockney and Irish extraction, so that these dialects have a particular impor-
tance for the formation of the distinctive Australian accent.
Colonial lag is evident in the preservation of some archaic English words,
such as the Australian tucker ‘ food’ , from the word tuck, still preserved in old-
fashioned English tuck shops and tuck boxes, and dunny ‘ toilet’ , which was current
in English slang of the late 18th century.
Other features which are uniquely Australian are words formed by adding an
‘ ie’ ending, as in barbie ‘ barbeque’ , coldie ‘ cold beer’ , rellies ‘ relatives’ , and even
Aussie, as well as contractions like arvo ‘ afternoon’ , journo ‘ journalist’ , and beaut
‘ beauty’ . British settlers in Australia adopted local words from Aboriginal lan-
guages to describe cultural objects and practices specific to Australia, such as the
boomerang, and indigenous animals such as koala, wallaby, and kangaroo.
Sadly, the story that the name of the kangaroo derives from the locals’ witty
response, ‘ I do not know’ , when asked the name of the animal, appears to be
entirely fictional; rather more prosaically, the word kangaroo comes from a na-
tive word ganurru. The word and the animal were introduced to the English in
an account of Captain Cook’ s expedition of 1770. Shortly after this, during his
tour of the Hebrides, Dr Johnson is reputed to have performed an imitation of
the animal, gathering up the tails of his coat to resemble a pouch and bounding
across the room. Later voyages to Botany Bay brought English settlers into contact
with Aboriginals who knew the kangaroo by the alternative name patagaran, but
who subsequently adopted the word kangaroo. Kangaroo, therefore, is an interest-
ing example of a word borrowed into one Aboriginal language from another, via
European settlers.
The first settlers in New Zealand arrived in the 1790s, although official colonies
were not established until 1840. Because this is a more recent variety, more is known
about the dialects of the earliest settlers who first migrated from Britain to New
Zealand. Recordings made in the 1940s of speakers born and raised in New Zealand
reveal a liberal and apparently random conglomeration of features drawn from a
93
great variety of English dialects. Greater affinity to Britain has led to the acceptance
of more influence from the English spoken in Britain, while a desire to set the New
Zealand usage apart from that of Australia has prompted further distinctive differ-
ences in accent. Where the Australian accent tends to pronounce the place name
Sydney as ‘Seedney’, New Zealanders prefer a ‘Sudney’-style pronunciation.
The influx of English speakers triggered a dramatic decline in the indigenous
Maori language, which had been spoken by the Polynesian peoples who had set-
tled the islands during the first millennium; the number of monoglot Maoris
dropped by 75 per cent during the 19th century. While village schools instructed
their pupils in Maori, this was a bridge to enable the acquisition of English literacy
and culture, and by the early 20th century the use of Maori had been officially
outlawed in school playgrounds.
More recently, a willingness to embrace Maori culture has led to the deliberate
adoption of words from the indigenous languages, especially in toponyms. In some
cases indigenous names are used alongside English ones: Mount Taranaki/Mount
Egmont and Aoraki/Mount Cook. More common Maori loanwords have also been
adopted into wider use, such as puku (stomach), kai (food), ka pai (good), maunga
(mountain), waka (boat), wai (water), wahine (woman), and kia ora (hello); beyond
a handful of words like kiwi and haka, few are known outside New Zealand. But,
while the 1987 Maori Language Act gave English and Maori equal status as co-offi-
cial languages, the relatively small number of Maori speakers (around 14 per cent of
the total population of more than four million), combined with their relatively low
social position, means that the language continues to be under threat.
Social Influences on Language Variation

Lexical variation refers to different forms used for the same concept. Regional
variation accounts only partially for this diversity. Although regional dialects
are particularly salient, there are plenty of language varieties that can be found
within any given regional dialect. Now we will explore the factors that lead to this
linguistic differentiation within regional dialects. These additional factors are at-
tributes such as socioeconomic class, age, gender, and ethnicity. These are speaker
characteristics that are associated with the social groups to which speakers be-
long, and they reflect what are known as social dialects of a language.
One of the social factors that influence language variation is socioeconomic
class, which generates the notion of “prestige” and the role it plays in deciding which
dialect is considered standard: the dialects spoken by people with higher prestige
– generally those of a higher socioeconomic status – are considered the standard.
In addition to region, socioeconomic class, and age, another factor that influ-
ences language variation is gender. Gender does not imply a dichotomous catego-
94
Chapter 6
ry, divided into males versus females, but rather cultural patterns of masculinity
and femininity. While there certainly are differences in language varieties that are
based on biological sexual differences between males and females (e.g., women’ s
voices on average are of a higher pitch than men’ s because of differences in the
average shape and length of the larynx and vocal folds), these are not the types
of differences we mean when we talk about language and gender. Gender can be
thought of as a set of ongoing behaviors.
Finally, ethnicity influences variation in multi-ethnic communities. Part of
the reason for this is that ethnic groups are often associated with particular lan-
guages that represent the group’ s heritage and culture; pronunciations, words,
and constructions from such a language may influence how the group speaks the
standard language variety of the country or region they live in.
Compounded with this is again the factor of language and identity: members of
an ethnic group may want to associate themselves with a particular ethnicity, or dis-
tance themselves from other ethnicities and groups, through their use of language.
As with any language variety, however, it is important to remember that no
variety can be linguistically superior or inferior to any other.
Contact or contamination?
In language contact situations, two or more distinct languages or dialects come
into contact with each other either directly through social interaction of the
speakers or indirectly through education or literature. Language contact situa-
tions differ in the intensity of contact, the kind of contact, and the outcomes of
the contact, and such situations often result in changes to one or both of the lan-
guages involved. One common outcome is borrowing, which usually involves the
transfer of lexical items or even structural properties from one language to an-
other. Other outcomes of contact include language convergence (where languages
in contact become more alike), language death (where a language has no more
speakers left), and the creation of contact languages such as bilingual mixed lan-
guages, pidgins, and creoles. The prestige and power relationships between speak-
ers of the languages involved in contact situations affect the direction of influence
and the outcome of the contact situation.
Language contact involves the contact of two or more distinct languages ei-
ther indirectly through the written form and other media, or directly through
social contact between speakers. An example of the former is the contact between
modern English and many other languages around the world: English is learned
as a second language all over the world, frequently without there being any so-
cial contact between native speakers of English and the second-language learners.
This kind of language contact is becoming more common due to globalization.
95
The more usual type of contact historically, however, involves direct social
contact between speakers, since languages and their speakers do not exist in isola-
tion but rather in social settings. Thus, when we talk about language contact, we
are not actually talking about the contact of languages, but rather the contact of
people who speak the languages.
Speakers of languages are continually coming into contact with speakers of
other languages, creating a variety of contact situations, each with a potentially
different result. Such contact may be caused by trade, conquest, migration, or oth-
er factors. Two thousand years ago, the expansion of the Roman Empire through-
out Europe led to contact between Latin and a variety of local languages, many
of which did not survive the contact – that is, they were replaced by Latin, and,
as a result, people no longer spoke the local languages. In the past century, the
arrival of immigrants from Mexico, Cuba, and other Latin American countries
to the United States has resulted in close contact between Spanish and American
English; we will have to wait and see what the outcome of this contact situation
will be.
Episodes of Lexical Borrowing: pidgin and creole languages

In language contact situations, the linguistic systems involved are often influenced
by borrowing, the adoption by one language of linguistic elements from another
language. Borrowing can be lexical (e.g., the borrowing of words and phrases) or
structural (e.g., the borrowing of phonological, morphological, or syntactic pat-
terns).
Lexical borrowing is the adoption of individual words into one language from
another language. These words are commonly referred to as loans or loanwords. Ex-
amples of borrowings into English include the words ballet and chaise from French,
macho and taco from Spanish, pizza and spaghetti from Italian, zeitgeist and sauer-
kraut from German, and skunk and wigwam from Algonquian. The pronunciation
of such borrowings is adapted to English phonology, illustrating the fact that the
effects of borrowing rarely enter the domain of phonological structure.
Couriously, there are certain types of words that do not tend to be borrowed
between languages. These fall into two main categories: “core” vocabulary and
grammatical function words. Core vocabulary consists of the words for basic
items that most societies have words for: things like body parts (head, arm, leg), fa-
milial relations (mother, sister, uncle), or basic environmental entities (sun, moon,
water). These tend not to be borrowed sacrament, sombrero, pajama, mosque, ka-
raoke, etc.), or political terms (lieutenant, propaganda, democracy, czar, etc.) are
often borrowed because one language had no need for the terms until they were
introduced by the other language’ s culture and society.
96
Chapter 6
All change resulting from contact, including borrowing, is related to certain

nonlinguistic characteristics such as intensity of contact, which is determined by
the duration of the linguistic contact as well as by the level of interaction among
the speakers.
The degree of intensity of the contact is directly related to the nature and de-
gree of contact-induced change. Lexical borrowing requires only a low intensity
contact situation, because single words can be adopted without an indepth knowl-
edge of the grammatical system of the donor language. However, the adoption of
structural elements or rules embedded in the phonology, morphology, or syntax
of one language into another requires the existence of at least some speakers who
are knowledgeable about both languages. In other words, structural borrowing
requires the existence of bilingualism, which requires a relatively intense degree
of contact between the groups in order to develop.
Native language (L1) interference plays an important role in shaping the result
of language contact, especially in contact situations that result from immigra-
tion. Many adult immigrants learn the language of their new home (their second
language, or L2) through interaction with native speakers, rather than in a school
setting. This can be referred to as second-language acquisition in a natural setting.
In this case, the immigrants’ native language influences the way that the second
language is learned. This is also called transfer or substrate influence, since im-
migrant languages are frequently substratum languages. For example, many Chi-
nese immigrants to Italy do not use prepositions when they speak Italian.
The outcomes of language contact are as varied as the contact situations that
produce them If speakers of different adstratal languages enter into an extensive,
long-term contact situation, language convergence may result.
Convergence occurs when two languages become more similar due to contact
between them. If there is extensive, long-term contact between languages that
have an unequal prestige relationship, language shift may result. This is a shift by a
group of speakers toward another language, abandoning their native language. If
the shifting group is the only group of speakers who used their original language,
that language will no longer be spoken once the shift is completed.
Finally, two distinct outcomes of highly intensive language contact situations
are the creation of pidgin languages and creole languages.
Pidgin languages that typically develop in trading centers or in areas under
industrialization, where the opportunities for trade and work attract large num-
bers of people with different native tongues. Thus, the etymology of pidgin should
come as no surprise: the word pidgin is actually a pidginized form of the English
word business. Pidgin languages develop whenever speakers of different languag-
es do not share a language in common but need to communicate. An example of
97
such a trade pidgin is Chinook Jargon, a pidgin spoken by Native American, Brit-
ish, and French traders in the Pacific Northwest in the nineteenth century.
After crystallizing from their initial stage, called prepidgin jargon, pidgins
can develop in different ways. Prototypical pidgins are pidgins that emerged
rather abruptly in situations where the contact is limited to certain social settings
(such as trade).
Prototypical pidgins have reduced grammar and vocabulary. Furthermore,
they are nobody’ s native language. Expanded pidgins, on the other hand, are not
limited to certain social settings. They have larger lexical and structural resources
than prototypical pidgins, and they are as linguistically complex as any other lan-
guage. A pidgin can evolve from a prepidgin jargon to a prototypical pidgin to an
expanded pidgin.
Many pidgin languages, regardless of their source languages, share certain
characteristics:
a. phonology. Consonant clusters are often reduced in pidgins;

b. morphology. A common feature of pidgin morphology is the absence of af-
fixes;
c. syntax. The basic word order for pidgins tends to be subject-verb-object (SVO).
Like other SVO languages (such as English), pidgins generally use prepositions
rather than postpositions (in the house rather than *the house in), auxiliaries
are usually ordered before main verbs (must go rather than *go must), and
nouns before relative clauses (the man who snores rather than *who snores
the man);
d. semantics. Pidgins, especially prototypical pidgins, usually have comparatively
small vocabularies. To compensate for the lack of variety, however, meanings
are extended. Thus [stik] means not only ‘ stick’ but also ‘ tree’ , and [wikɔp]
means not only ‘ wake up’ but also ‘ get up’ . Because there are not many words
in the vocabulary of the typical pidgin, compounds are more frequent. For
example, compounds such as dog baby and cow baby could be used for ‘ puppy’
and ‘ calf.’
Whereas pidgins are not the primary languages of their users, creole languag-
es arise in situations where the speakers in contact are in need of a common, pri-
mary means of communication. Creole languages develop from a pidgin language
or prepidgin (or, more precisely, precreole) jargon when it is adopted as the first, or
native, language of a group of speakers. All creoles seem to be languages that were
initially non-native to any group of speakers and were adopted as first languages
by children in some speech community. This process is called nativization.
98
Chapter 6
This situation characterized plantation settings in the Caribbean and parts

of the southern United States in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Here,
a large number of Africans speaking a multitude of mutually unintelligible na-
tive languages came together with a small number of Europeans. This situation
created the need for a common means of communication among the Africans
as well as between the Africans and the Europeans. Examples of creoles include
English-based Jamaican Creole, Guyanese Creole, Gullah (a creole spoken in the
coastal and island regions of South Carolina and Georgia), French-based Haitian
Creole, and the Spanish/Portuguese-based creoles Papiamentu (Aruba, etc.) and
Palenquero (Colombia).
Another aspect of creoles is that the formation of many creoles involves re-
peated second-language acquisition, that is, second-language acquisition by suc-
cessive groups of people. For example, the early contact variety of what is now
Haitian Creole was much closer to French dialects than Haitian Creole is today.
The subsequent divergence from French is the result of repeated second language
acquisition of the available contact variety by successive waves of African immi-
grants. This led to greater substrate influence as well as to drastic changes in the
structure of Haitian Creole.
The linguistic structure of a creole depends on the varieties that came into con-
tact to form it. In the case that the precreole language was a crystallized or expanded
pidgin, the creole bears many of the same features as its predecessor language.
However, if the precreole language was a jargon, or if it is a case of repeated
second-language acquisition, the creole tends to bear less structural resemblance
to the languages that came into contact to form it. Instead, such creoles seem to
develop based on more universal principles (be they linguistic, social, or cogni-
tive), as evidenced by the striking structural similarities between creoles that de-
veloped from a rather diverse set of input varieties.
Bickerton (1975; 1981) and other scholars have catalogued many of the simi-
larities among such creoles. One of the most striking of these similarities is the
inflectional tense, mood, and aspect (TMA) system used with verbs.
Lexical borrowing II: sources of English Words

The languages of the inhabitants of the British Isles were predominantly Celtic
upon the withdrawal of Roman troops in the early fifth century C.E., despite four
centuries of Roman domination. Shortly thereafter, Germanic tribes entered, de-
feated the Celts, and took control not only politically, but linguistically as well.
The arrival of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes signified the arrival of Germanic
languages (the name English comes from the tribe of the Angles), which pushed
speakers of the Celtic languages out of the center of Great Britain and into the
99
periphery (Wales and Scotland), where they remain today. Many words of Scandi-
navian origin entered the English language during the Norse invasions that took
place between the ninth and eleventh centuries C.E.
Included in these borrowings are the pronouns they, them, and their, which
are words that are normally rather resistant to borrowing. Other examples of Eng-
lish words that were borrowed from Scandinavian languages are listed below.
1. Borrowings from Scandinavian languages: anger, blight, clumsy, doze, eggs,

garden, gate, geyser, law, ski, window. As mentioned earlier, English has bor-
rowed more words from French than from any other language. The Normans
invaded England from Northern France and took control at the Battle of Hast-
ings in 1066 C.E. While Normandy and England were united for less than 200
years, the mark Norman French left on the English vocabulary is immense.
2. Borrowings from French: art, beauty, butcher, carpenter, cartoon, catch, cattle,
cell, charity, chase, color, company, corpse, county, court, design, dinner, dress,
enemy, fork, format, govern, grace, grocer, jail, judge, jury, lease, mercy, minister,
miracle, napkin, painter, paradise, passion, plate, porch, power, reign, saint, sol-
dier, suit, supper, table, tailor, troops.
In later centuries a number of Parisian French words entered the English lan-
guage. Some words were even borrowed twice, first from Norman French and
later from Parisian French. For example, chef and chief were both borrowed
from French chef. Many recent French borrowings can be easily identified as
such, for example, brassiere, fiancé(e), résumé, and hors d’oeuvres. But others, es-
pecially the earlier borrowings, look and sound surprisingly English.
Although England was part of the Roman Empire for over 400 years, Eng-
lish was not strongly influenced by Latin until after the fall of the Empire.
Latin words entered English during one of two major periods: accompanying
Christianity into England (ca. 600 C.E.) and during the Renaissance (sixteenth
through seventeenth centuries).
3. Borrowings from Latin: abbot, agenda, alibi, animal, bonus, circulate, clerk,
colloquium, data, deficit, diet, exit, extra, indicate, item, maximum, memento,
nominate, penicillin, pope, priest, propaganda, radium, spectrum, sponsor, veto,
via. Latin was not the only classical language to affect English during the Re-
naissance. Many words of Greek origin were borrowed as well. Many of the
English words of Greek origin listed in (4) passed through Latin due to sub-
stantial Greek-Latin contact prior to and during the Roman Empire (e.g., Eng.
stadium < Lat. stadium < Gr.), but others were borrowed directly from Greek.
4. Borrowings from Greek: analysis, angel, bacteriology, botany, catastrophe, cli-
max, comedy, democracy, dialect, dialogue, episode, pediatrics, physiology, phys-
ics, philosophy, pneumonia, psychiatry, scene, system, theater, tyrant, zoology.
100
Chapter 6
As the British began to colonize lands outside of Europe, English came into
contact with a greater variety of languages. Many borrowings from Native
American languages are plant terms, animal terms, and terms for other items
that were new to New World immigrants.
5. Borrowings from Native American languages: caucus, chipmunk, hickory, ig-
loo, kayak, moccasin, moose, muskrat, opossum, pecan, raccoon, sequoia, skunk,
teepee, tomahawk, totem, wigwam.
English and Spanish did not come into intensive contact in Europe, but rather
in America. It is worth noting that many of the Spanish words listed here actu-
ally have their origins in Native American languages.
6. Borrowings from Spanish: adobe, alligator, armada, cafeteria, canyon, cargo,
cockroach, coyote, guerilla, matador, mosquito, mustang, plaza, poncho, potato,
renegade, rodeo, sombrero, tornado.
Names for items that people consume (be it foods, drinks, or drugs) are fre-
quently borrowed along with the introduction of the item. Examples are cigar,
marijuana, tequila, and vanilla from Spanish; bratwurst, frankfurter, pretzel,
and sauerkraut from German; chutney and basmati from Hindi; bagel and lox
from Yiddish; hashish and kabob from Arabic; yogurt from Turkish; sake, sushi,
and wasabi from Japanese; vodka from Russian; and whiskey from Irish. The
following are borrowings from a variety of languages that English speakers
have come into contact with. Many of the words entered the English language
because the item, idea, or concept they represent was imported as well.
7. Borrowings from Celtic languages (Irish, Welsh, etc.): bog, clan, glen, lepre-
chaun, penguin, slogan, shamrock.
8. Borrowings from German: angst, delicatessen, kindergarten, lager, poke, pum-
pernickel, noodle, schnitzel.
9. Borrowings from Dutch: bow, commodore, cruise, dock, freight, leak, lighter,
pump, scour, scum, stripe, yacht.
10. Borrowings from Yiddish: klutz, schlep, schmuck.
11. Borrowings from Italian: alto, attitude, balcony, fiasco, fresco, opera, pasta, pi-
ano, replica, soprano, spaghetti, studio, torso, umbrella.
12. Borrowings from Arabic: emir, gazelle, ghoul, giraffe, harem, lute, minaret,
mosque, sultan.
13. Borrowings from Japanese: anime, bonsai, futon, karaoke, kimono, tempura,
typhoon.
English is not alone, or even particularly rare, in having a substantial propor-

tion of its lexicon of foreign origin. Any language whose history contains a series
of periods of contact with other languages is going to have numerous borrowings
from those languages.
101
Erasing Babel: English as Lingua Franca

Seidlhofer (2011) defined ELF as «any use of English among speakers of different
first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and
often the only option».
Although the origin and development of lingua francas are not the same as
those of pidgin languages, both serve the purpose of providing a means of com-
munication among people who do not share a first language. Thus, at various
times over past centuries, languages such as Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and
Portuguese have served as lingua francas, and in the case of Arabic and Portu-
guese still do so today. Meanwhile not only has English itself existed previously as
a lingua franca in various parts of the world at different points in its history, but
over the past few decades it has become the world’ s primary lingua franca to an
extent that is and has been unprecedented among the others.
The reasons for the supremacy of English have been explained by Crystal
(2003).The first two relate more to Outer than Expanding Circle settings, although
even this is changing in some respects as English fulfils an increasing number of
new functions, such as education, in the Expanding Circle.
Historical reasons
Because of the legacy of British or American imperialism, the country’s main in-
stitutions may carry out their proceedings in English. These include the governing
body (e.g. parliament), government agencies, the civil service (at least at senior levels),
the law courts, national religious bodies, the schools, and higher educational institu-
tions, along with their related publications (textbooks, proceedings, records, etc.).
Internal political reasons

Whether a country has imperial antecedents or not, English may have a role in
providing a neutral means of communication between its different ethnic groups
as it does, for example, in India. A distinctive local variety of English may also
become a symbol of national unity or emerging nationhood. The use of English in
newspapers, on radio, or on television, adds a further dimension.
External economic reasons

The USA’ s dominant economic position acts as a magnet for international busi-
ness and trade, and organisations wishing to develop international markets are
thus under considerable pressure to work with English. The tourist and advertis-
ing industries are particularly English-dependent, but any multinational business
will wish to establish offices in the major English speaking countries.
102
Chapter 6
Practical reasons
English is the language of international air traffic control, and is currently devel-
oping its role in international maritime, policing, and emergency services. It is
the chief language of international business and academic conferences, and the
leading language of international tourism.
Intellectual reasons
Most of the scientific, technological, and academic information in the world is ex-
pressed in English, and over 80 per cent of all the information stored in electronic
retrieval systems is in English. Closely related to this is the concern to have access
to the philosophical, cultural, religious, and literary history of Western Europe,
either directly or through the medium of an English translation. In most parts
of the world, the only way most people have access to such authors as Goethe or
Dante is through English.
Entertainment reasons
English is the main language of popular music (particularly hip hop), and permeates
popular culture and its associated advertising. It is also the main language of satellite
broadcasting, home computers, and video games, as well as of the performing arts.
To these above points made by Crystal we could add prestige since, in many
cultures, the ability to speak English is perceived as conferring higher status on
the speaker.
As emerged in later research (i.e. Jenkins, 2009; Kirkpatrick, 2008), in lingua
franca contexts the way English is used shows that these situations are about co-
operation and collaboration by all speakers, making the necessary effort so that
successful communication can happen. This means there is indeed a balance of
linguistic forces at play in ELF communication. While there is a great deal of
shared linguistic common ground among ELF speakers, making communica-
tion possible, there is also great deal of local variation and substantial potential
for accommodation, as speakers adjust and negotiate their speech for the specific
situation at hand. ELF communication is known to bypass whatever syntactic,
semantic and stylistic problems may arise, by use of code-switching, repetition,
echoing of items that would be otherwise considered as errors, avoidance of local
idiomatic language and paraphrasing.
Review Questions
1. Do linguistic features determine whether a certain form of language use is
called a language?
103
2. Are dialects homogeneous?

3. What is a linguistic variety?
4. What is the difference between a dialect and an accent?
5. Does language variation occur at every linguistic level?
6. Why are there so many differences within a language community?
7. What social factors can the distribution of language variants across a society
be related to?
8. What does Kachru's classification say?
9. What is necessary for a language to be an international language?
10. When does a language achieve a global status and how is it achieved?
11. What is a language shift?
12. How does ethnicity affect language variation?
13. Give examples of variation at the level of phonology, morphology, syntax, lexi-
con, and pragmatics from a language you know well.
14. What are the features of a pidgin language?
15. When does a pidgin become a creole language?
16. What is a lingua franca?
17. What reasons led to the widespread use of English as lingua franca?
104
CHAPTER 7
English for Specific Purposes

The nature and role of ESP
English for Specific Purposes (ESP) can be differentiated from English for General
Purposes in that the former are more directed towards the immediate profession-
al or academic demands and applicable situations.The P in ESP is always a profes-
sional purpose – a set of skills that learners currently need in their work or will
need in their professional careers. This broad definition can be taken to include
business skills, such as English for Job-hunting or Presentations, but many ESP
teachers see their field as distinct from mainstream Business English. Preparation
for an exam (such as KEY, PET or FCE and many others) is not usually considered
to be ESP (even though there is a particular reason for studying). ESP exams do
exist, of course, but they tend to focus on the learners’ ability to function effec-
tively at work, rather than purely their level of English.
ESP contrasts with General English, which is aimed at a very wide range of
learners. It also contrasts with Business English, although there is considerable
overlap between the two branches. A lawyer and a marketing executive might both
benefit from attending the same Business English course, focusing on the generic
skills they both need at work (such as writing an email or participating in a meet-
ing), but they might get more from attending an ESP course in legal or marketing
English respectively as this will focus more precisely on their needs. As Harding
(2007) put it, «In ESP the practical application and use oflanguage overrides other
aspects oflanguage learning. The vocation can be anything from A to Z, from ar-
chitects to zoologists, by way of bricklayers, lawyers, and tour guides. The sense of
purpose gives the language work an immediacy and a relevance which is perhaps
not always found in other sectors of English Language Teaching».
When did ESP become a discipline of its own right?

As with most disciplines in human activity, ESP was a phenomenon grown out of
a number of converging trends of which we will mention three most important:
1. the expansion of demand for English to suit specific needs of a profession;

2. developments in the filed of linguistics (attention shifted from defining formal
language features to discovering the ways in which language is used in real
communication, causing the need for the development of English courses for
specific group of learners);
3. educational psychology (learner’ s needs and interests have an influence on
their motivation and effectiveness of their learning).
A number of classifications within ESP have been suggested relatively late in

time, if we assume that ESP began in the 1960s. Hutchinson and Waters (1987)
define ESP as an approach rather than a product – meaning that ESP does not in-
volve a particular kind of language, teaching material or methodology. The basic
question of ESP is: Why does this learner need to learn a foreign language? The
purpose of learning English became the core.
Strevens’ (1988) definition of ESP makes a distinction between 1) absolute char-
acteristics (language teaching is designed to meet specified needs of the learner;
related in content to particular disciplines, occupation and activities; centred on the
language appropriate to those activities in syntax, text, discourse, semantics, etc.,
and analysis of the discourse; designed in contrast with General English) and 2) two
variable characteristics (ESP may be restricted to the language skills to be learned,
e.g. reading; and not taught according to any pre-ordained methodology).
Robinson’ s (1991) definition of ESP is based on two criteria:
1. ESP is normally ‘ goal-directed’ ;

2. ESP courses develop from a needs analysis which aim to specify what exactly it is
that students have to do through the medium of English, and a number of char-
acteristics which explain that ESP courses are generally constrained by a limited
time period in which their objectives have to be achieved and are taught to adults
in homogenous classes in terms of the work or specialist studies that the students
are involved in. Each of these definitions have validity but also weaknesses.
Considering Hutchinson and Water’ s definition, Anthony (1997) noted that it

is not clear where ESP courses end and General English courses begin because nu-
merous non-specialist ESP instructors use ESP approach in that their syllabi are
based on analysis of learner needs and their own specialist personal knowledge
106
Chapter 7
of English for real communication. Strevens’ definition, by referring to content

in the second absolute characteristic, may confirm the impression held by many
teachers that ESP is always and necessarily related to subject content. Robinson’ s
mention of homogenous classes as a characteristic of ESP may lead to the same
conclusion. However, much of ESP work is based on the idea of a common-core
of language and skills belonging to all academic disciplines or cutting across the
whole activity of business. ESP teaching should always reflect the underlying con-
cepts and activities of the discipline. Having all these on mind, Dudley-Evans and
St John (1998) modified Strevens’ definition of ESP:
1. Absolute characteristics:
a. ESP is designed to meet specific needs of the learner;
b. ESP makes use of the underlying methodology and activities of the discipli-
nes it serves;
c. ESP is centred on the language (grammar, lexis, register), skills, discourse
and genres appropriate to these activities.
2. Variable characteristics:
a. ESP may be related or designed for specific disciplines;
b. ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from
that of general English;
c. ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level in-
stitution or in a professional work situation; it could be used for learners at
secondary school level;
d.ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced learners;
e. most ESP courses assume basic knowledge of the language system, but it can
be used with beginners.
How many types?

ESP has traditionally been divided into two main areas according to when they
take place:
1. English for Academic Purposes (EAP) involving pre-experience, simultane-

ous/inservice and post-experience courses;
2. English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) for study in a specific discipline
(pre-study, in-study, and post-study) or as a school subject (independent or
integrated).
Another division of ESP divides EAP and EOP according to discipline or pro-
fessional area in the following way:
107
1. EAP involves English for (Academic) Science and Technology (EST), English
for (Academic) Medical Purposes (EMP), English for (Academic) Legal Pur-
poses (ELP), and English for Management, Finance and Economics;
2. EOP includes English for Professional Purposes (English for Medical Purpos-
es, English for Business Purposes – EBP) and English for Vocational Purposes
(Pre-vocational English and Vocational English); in EAP, EST has been the
main area, but EMP and ELP have always had their place.
Recently the academic study of business, finance, banking, economics has

become increasingly important especially Masters in Business Administration
(MBA) courses; and EOP refers to English for professional purposes in adminis-
tration, medicine, law and business, and vocational purposes for non-profession-
als in work (language of training for specific trades or occupations) or pre-work
situations (concerned with finding a job and interview skills).
Furthermore, a few years ago Harding (2007) indicated that in recent years
there has been a renewed demand for English for Specific Purposes courses. His
reasons to explain this increased interest include better student levels of profi-
ciency at the end of high school (Denman et al., 2013), the perception of English
as key to finding a job as it is the language of international communication, and
more use of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) at the high school
level (Nordmeyer & Barduhn, 2010). In fact, CLIL has led to a shift from language
based ESP to a content subject aimed language learning with special implications
in attitudes and student creativity.
Discourse Analysis in ESP

Discourse analysis takes a variety of different forms, but in ESP it has traditionally
involved attention to features of texts and their rhetorical purposes as a basis for ped-
agogical materials. This approach has been strongly influenced by Systemic Func-
tional Linguistics (e.g., Halliday, 1994), a sophisticated theory of language concerned
with the relationship between language and the functions it uses to perform in social
contexts. In this view, language consists of a set of systems from which users make
choices to most effectively express their intended meanings, and this fits neatly with
ESP’s aims to clarify the academic and professional genres that will enhance or de-
termine learners’ career opportunities. Genre analysis has thus become the principal
form of discourse analysis in ESP, providing a very focused methodology and ena-
bling researchers to identify the structural and rhetorical features that distinguish
the texts most relevant to particular communities and contexts.
Genres are abstract, socially recognized ways of using language that we draw
on to respond to perceived repeated situations. In ESP a fruitful line of research
108
Chapter 7
has been to explore and identify the characteristic lexico-grammatical features

and rhetorical patterns of particular genres. This has helped to reveal how texts
are typically constructed and how they relate to their contexts of use through
specific social purposes, as well as providing valuable input for genre-based teach-
ing. Genre analyses also characterize the processes by which texts and events are
mediated through relationships with other texts, drawing on the concept of inter-
textuality (Bakhtin, 1986). The idea that any instance of discourse is partly created
from previous discourses and reflected in subsequent ones is an important way of
conceptualizing cultures. It also helps us to understand the ways that texts cluster
constitute particular social and cultural practices, networked in a linear sequence,
as in the case of a formal job offer for instance, or more loosely cohering as a rep-
ertoire of options, say in the choice of a press advertisement, poster campaign, or
mail shot to announce a product launch. Analyses have been greatly facilitated in
recent years by the use of large text corpora and computer concordancing pro-
grams, which make reliable quantitative analysis more feasible. Researchers can
now collect representative samples of texts differentiated by both genre and field
and, with frequency counts and collocational analyses, produce more targeted
and more plausible linguistic descriptions.
This is not the only way to see genre however, and analyses have broadened in
recent years beyond the study of discoursal features to investigate the contexts in
which they are produced and used. This involves studying genre «as the motivated,
functional relationship between text type and rhetorical situation» (Coe, 2001, p.
195) and aims to extend text analyses to uncover something of the attitudes, values,
and beliefs of the communities of text users that genres imply and construct.
Clearly ESP has moved some way from its original exclusive focus on text fea-
tures. In the past, materials were often based solely on the lexical and grammatical
characteristics of scientific and business discourses in isolation from their social
contexts. Today these materials have largely been replaced by those that acknowl-
edge wider interactional and semiotic contexts, where language and tasks are more
closely related to the situations in which they are used. ESP practitioners now ad-
dress wider communicative skills in their teaching. In the area of research, ESP
attempts to go beyond texts to understand how they work in particular disciplines
or professions, seeing genres, for instance, as recognizable kinds of social activity
embedded in particular kinds of interaction rather than just arrangements of forms.
To understand language and the functions it performs for people, we have to
appreciate how it is used within particular contexts, identifying the purposes and
participants that are integral to the construction of particular communicative pro-
cesses and products. We need, for instance, to understand the interpersonal con-
ventions a sales manager might observe when giving a client presentation or the
109
knowledge a chemist assumes of his or her audience when writing up a lab report. In
the classroom, these concerns translate into finding ways of preparing students to
participate in a range of activities and to see ESP as concerned with communicative
practices rather than more narrowly with specific aspects of language.
Building vocabulary for ESP

According to Read (2007), methods for identifying vocabulary for specific pur-
poses have varied greatly and have lacked systematicity. Nation (2008) points out
that very few statistical studies have been carried out in technical vocabulary.
According to Paltridge and Stanfield (2013), one approach to identifying
specialized vocabulary is to consult experts in a particular field to help identify
technical vocabulary (Schmitt 2010). Schmitt lists various difficulties with this
method, including the fact that it is likely several experts on the same topic might
well produce quite different lists, depending on variables such as their level of
knowledge of the subject, the systematicity of their approach to developing the
list, and how diffi cult it is to identify the technical words. Schmitt suggests that
technical dictionaries may well have been developed using this method.
Categorization of words has also been done using a scale. Chung and Nation
(2003) conceived a four – step scale to categorise technical vocabulary in an applied
linguistics textbook and an anatomy textbook. The first item on the scale represents
words with meanings that have no specific connection to a subject area. The second
item contains words which are minimally related to the subject area. The third is for
words that are more closely related to the subject area. The last data are for words that
relate closely to the technical subject area. These words would not be known generally.
Corpus studies have also contributed a great deal to our quest to identify and
understand more about specialized vocabulary. They have been particularly use-
ful for developing word lists for use in language classrooms and for independent
study. Corpus – based studies allow for larger – scale investigations of words in
context. An example of a corpus – linguistic approach as a way to classify special-
ized vocabulary comes from Crawford Camiciottoli (2007). She divided the words
in her Business Studies Lecture Corpus into five main semantic categories. Craw-
ford Camiciottoli (2007) uses several corpora to compare her findings, including
a more widely based corpus of different academic disciplines. This corpus – based
approach yields a very different view of specialized vocabulary than the Chung
and Nation (2003) scale. Whereas Crawford Camiciottoli focusses on the relation-
ship between the function of the lexical items in her corpus to business studies,
Chung and Nation (2003) focus on the closeness of the relationship between the
words and the subject area.
110
Chapter 7
Review questions
1. What features of language do we typically find in ESP?
2. How does ESP differ from General English Learning?
3. What is meant by EOP?
4. What are most relevant language skills needed to learn ESP?
5. What are the main linguistics approaches to ESP?
6. Is Dudley-Evans and St John’ s definition of ESP strictly related to subject con-
tent?
7. Which role do genres play in ESP discourse analysis?
Activities
1) Below are 20 words; ten are typical in business, and ten are unusual in business
compared to everyday English. Which ones do you think are typical in business, and
which ones are more usual in everyday English?
We, I, business, oh, problem, house, need, silly, issue, cool, if, terrible, customer,
hate, sales, was, contract, lovely, hmm, no.
2) Insert the following health-related terms in the right column.

eye drops | nurse | diagnosis | syringe | ophtalmologist | vaccination | X-rays |
bandage | dose | shot/injection | pill/tablet | plaster | operation/surgery | specialist
| maternity ward | general practitioner | tranquilizer | midwife | surgeon |prescrip-
tion | operating theatre | Surgery | pain-killer
Medicines Treatments People Places/Facilities
3) Here are some ways in which speakers in different work situations introduce the
topic of the conversation. What do you think each conversation will be about? What
kind of a conversation will it be: getting information, making a request, etc?
1. I’ ve got a couple more queries actually, Mary, then I’ ll leave you to get on.
2. Shall we arrange a meeting with Jenny?
111
3. Uh, just wanted to tell you about my conversation with Tony.

4. Just wanted to come and chat to you a little about the company.
5. I don’ t know if you’ ve heard, but if you haven’ t heard, it’ s confidential.
6. Something very important I need to tell you.
4) Complete the conversation below with appropriate words and expressions for
talking about problems, suggesting solutions and evaluating solutions. Notice that
the last two are idiomatic.
could | I’ ll | annoying | problem | good idea | mistake | get it straightened out | a
real pain in the neck
A: What’ s the 1) ?
B: I just made a huge 2) !
A: Why what happened?
B: I sent a customer the wrong order, and he called up and complained!
A: Well, that’ s 3) .
B: Yeah, it’ s 4) . I need to 5) .
A: Maybe you 6) offer him a big discount with the next order.
B: Yeah, that’ s a 7) . I think 8) do that.
5) Plan a conversation to either make an arrangementor Ask for information/fa-

vour. Before you begin, plan your conversation:
• Greet your partner and ask how they are
• Tell your partner what you want to talk to them about.
You could begin with:
I just wanted to…
I’ d like to…
• Now ask your questions, make the arrangements, etc.
• Now show your partner you have finished, for example you can say:
I think that’ s everything.
I think that’ s my last question.
I just wanted to check that.
• End on a positive note, for example:
That’ s great!
Thanks for all your help.
That’ s very helpful.
112
Chapter 7
I’ m glad I asked you about that.

I’ m glad we’ ve sorted that out.
6) Match each idiom (1-10) to its correct meaning (a-j).

1. to cold call
2. to balance the books
3. to be snowed under
4. to get the sack
5. to have a white-collar job
6. to break even
7. to reach the bottom line
8. to be 404
9. to have a blue-collar job
10. to have dead-end job
a. to work in a position requiring unskilled or manual labour

b. to reach the same amount of expenses and profits
c. to be dismissed from your job
d. to obtain the total, the final figure on a balance sheet or the most important
feature of something
e. to do a job that has no chance of promotion or advancement
f. to work in an office
g. to be considered clueless
h. to make certain that the amount of money spent is not more than the amount
of money received
i. to contact potential employers or customers without an appointment or previ-
ous contact
j. to be very busy
113
CHAPTER 8
English for the media

The term “mass-media” refers to the means of communication, as television and
newspapers, that reach great members of people. In fact, mass-media are the
means of giving news and opinions to large members of people, especially radio,
television. newspapers and magazines and the Internet.
As language users and receivers, the employment and manipulation of lan-
guage in the mass media is undoubtedly interesting to everyone, and linguists are
no exception. The linguistic means advertisers use to try and persuade us, the way
news stories are told are all interesting uses of language in their own right. How
the media use language often seems exxagerated and too sophisticated. In spite of
that, media generate a lot of the language that is heard in society and reflected in
frequent ordinary speech.
Furthermore, language is an essential part of the content of what the media
deliver to us. That is, language is a largely accessible tool and expression of medial
messages which should not be taken for granted as to both the content of what is
transmitted by the media and with the way in which language carries that con-
tent. One should neer underestimate how media language affects attitudes and
opinions in society through the way it presents people issues.
Again, media language offers the linguist advantages over direct spoken
communication. In collecting data from ordinary conversation, one of the big-
gest problems faced by sociolinguistic researchers is Labov’ s “Observer’ s Para-
dox” (1972): that we want to observe and record speakers talking the way they do
when they are not being observed and recorded. In the media, this is overcome
since media language is de facto intended for mass public consumption. The radio
broadcaster is already doing all the necessary monitoring in order to cater to her
public, and the fact that someone is recording her makes no change in her aware-
ness of the way she speaks.
Interestingly, media language reveals a lot as a mirror of the wider society and
culture.
Media are everywhere

Most people experience the media as consumers – solely through various forms
of output, the end result of media production. That is to say we read newspapers,
magazines and comics, we watch films and TV shows, listen to the radio and
music, as well as using the internet and playing computer games. And, of course,
we experience a range of media products in a variety of places – a pop song can
appear on the radio, as a soundtrack to a film or in the background of a TV show.
Apart from economic and productivity factors, we can consider media output
as a site for the generation of meaning value: what media output says and how it
says it, and what meanings it has for us as individuals and social beings. Mean-
ing here refers to the ways in which we are affected psychologically, emotionally,
culturally, physically and intellectually by media output; the way in which it en-
tertains, stimulates, informs us – giving us pleasure, shock or food for thought.
When we study texts, we are interested in asking questions about meaning
rather than the physical results of production, distribution and consumption, or
the way that output is produced, marketed and sold as a commodity defined by its
economic status. Of course, we should be aware of the way in which these three
ways of labelling media output interact, but for now let us insist upon the distinc-
tion as a means of exploring the particularities of text and the construction and
relay of meanings.
The meanings of media language

No great effort is required to understand the meaning of media output as text –
millions of us do it every day as a natural habit. We log on to websites, listen to the
radio and watch TV. We encounter advertising across all media forms in a myriad
of ways. So fast and so often do they appear that individual adverts barely regis-
ter in our consciousness. But then we don’ t have to stop and pay attention in the
face of each advert we come across. The rapidity with which we encounter media
output and make sense of it, at least superficially, is thus shared across all media
and is a key characteristic of contemporary life. Making sense of media texts is
habitual, a constant in our everyday existence.
When we watch TV or listen to the radio, presenters and actors speak our
language and refer to things, places and people we recognise in familiar ways: if
116
Chapter 8
they did not, the media might not retain our attention.We also understand aspects
of the output of the media that are harder to explain in the same way as written
or spoken language or recognisable images. Visual media such as film, TV and
photography, for example, use aspects of light, colour and so on in a creative, al-
lusive manner.
With these observations in mind, we very rarely stop to consider the range
of meanings any one of the many thousands of media products might contain
for the people they are aimed at. When we read newspapers, watch films, look at
photographs or play games, their meanings appear to be simple because we have
no need to recall the work that has gone into preparing us for the act of reading
or interpretation.
First, this work is that of media producers themselves. The expectations and
ideas of writers, filmographers, musicians, programmers and designers, as well
as the conventions and institutions they work within and the contexts that they
share with us as consumers, all contribute to the way in which meaning can occur.
Secondly, we media consumers do ‘ work’ that results from our upbringing and
those wider cultural, social and historical contexts we lead our lives. Of course, to
pay attention to the general factors contributing to and affecting our understand-
ing of any media output might prove counterproductive to its purposes (polemic,
entertainment, educational, selling goods, etc.) and our reasons for consuming it
(pleasure, information, ‘ relaxing’ , etc).
Thirdly, the main work that has gone into preparing us for our consumption
and pleasure in the media is our regular acquaintance with its various forms:
newspapers, TV and so on. This encounter with the media and the acquisition of
a sense of how it works is akin to our acquisition of our mother tongue – it starts
pretty much from the day we are born, often without choice.
Media products come in a range of formats and make meaning through a
variety of means, with many purposes, as part of a relationship between producer
and consumer. Therefore, we can see that texts and textual meanings are always
contextualised. In each case meaning is shaped first and foremost by the manner
and mode of communication.
Interpreting media texts

Many of us often struggle to convey exactly what media texts mean to us with
any precision and we often use very generalised evaluative expressions (cool, OK,
brilliant, rubbish, etc.). We do, however, tend to convey some very precise things
when we talk about how moving a film is, how funny a radio interview is, how
exciting or involving a pop song or computer game has been, or how concerned
we are by a newspaper story. But these examples suggest an often under-developed
117
way of speaking, where conversation tends to the superficially descriptive, rather

than any systematic approach to an understanding of why we might exhibit such
reactions towards media texts.
As academic students, what you need in order both to understand and explain
how the media make meaning is a common technical language that, as far as pos-
sible, avoids wholly subjective judgments.
In this way, we should be like the most effective of media producers and, al-
though even ‘ objective’ academics rarely escape their subjectivity, by using a set of
clearly defined terms we can support precisely argued and detailed interpretations
of the media with schematic and methodical analyses.We can employ particular
and transferable terms that will allow us to make sense of similar operations but
different characteristics across media forms. These terms comprise a ‘ meta-’ , or
greater, framing language to make sense of the media.What matters most is that
we use this to get to grips with some methodical means of making sense of how
meaning is made.
Here, we explore and enlist two interrelated approaches to explaining how
the selection and organisation of media resources make meaning. These are two
approaches that attend to different aspects of media meaning in different ways,
asking different questions but ultimately working together as resources both in
support of interpretations of the way in which meaning works and claims for the
social significance of media meanings.
Analytical tools
For many people, the experience of consuming media texts feels very personal
and intimately connected with the way we think of ourselves and indeed interact
with others, in a spontaneous, unconscious manner. We laugh, we cry, we get ex-
cited – scared, agitated, concerned – in our consumption.
In those media that deal with ‘ actuality’ –such as newspapers, broadcast news,
website updates and documentaries, and photographic reportage – we experience
a parade of people talking or writing to us as individuals, supported by images of
things which are explained in familiar terms for us. In the story-telling media –
like film and TV drama or comedy, or comic books – we are placed in the position
of spectators at the creation of events, whether ‘ realistic’ or fantastic, which seem
to be unfolding before our eyes. We feel this personal involvement because the
producers of media texts have mastery over a series of production techniques that
we label media rhetoric.
The first step in our approach to comprehending the manner in which texts
are meaningful we therefore call rhetorical analysis.
118
Chapter 8
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the construction and manipulation of language by the creator of a text
for affective purposes. Rhetorical analysis asks: how are media texts put together
as media texts? How do they organise and present meaning? Rhetorical analysis
approaches media texts and their meanings as constructed out of the use of avail-
able techniques, styles and conventions in any medium. The intention of this con-
struction is to position audiences in particular ways in order to elicit emotional,
psychological or physical responses from them.
Ultimately, the aim of media in organising meaning is to get audiences to
pay attention, and so aid cognition or their interpretation of the media text as a
mode of communication. In this way we can examine photography, typography,
film frames, page layout and design, musical conventions and so on, as well as the
particularities of the use of words in the press and magazine journalism, in broad-
casting, in songs, on websites, in dramatic dialogue and across all media forms.
Cognition
Cognition refers to the way in which we, as individuals, acquire knowledge as well
as apply it – the process through which we comprehend events and ideas in order
to come to understand the world.
This approach to considering media forms and the way that they express
ideas, to represent and reflect the real world or to construct fictional worlds, is
one step towards overcoming a sense that the media simply reflect the world in
some straightforward manner, operating as transmitters of information-based
messages. In fact, rhetorical analysis suggests that meaning is not mainly about
information, the tangible content of the media, but is tied to the way that we learn
about that information: its presentation and the particularities of the medium. As
Marshall McLuhan (1965) wrote in the introduction: ‘ the medium is the message’ .
The modern media are involved in a complex and sophisticated activity of
social communication. We may not always recognise this activity because media
workers are so skilful that their communication often seems ‘ natural’ and ‘ obvi-
ous’ , partly due to our familiarity with media forms.
Distincitive typologies
The world of modern mass media also includes an essential and unavoidable
aspect of easily accessible information, namely advertising. This is also a vast
field as it aims to draw attention to a product or service not only to give informa-
tion but also, more importantly, to sell that service or product. While shopping,
reading a newspaper, watching a television programme or driving to our work
119
or just walking here or there, you cannot avoid seeing, if not reading, so many
advertisements.
In this way, mass media present us with a wide range of linguistically distinc-
tive varieties. For example, whether it is a daily newspaper, a weekly magazine, a
scientific journal, a TV programme in a local or an international satellite chan-
nel, a radio transmission or an internet web site, we are face to face with so many
diverse categories. These categories include news reports, editorial comments, ar-
ticles, reviews, letters, captions, headlines, sub-headings, announcements, televi-
sion programmes, sports results, cartoons, crossword puzzles, and many kinds of
advertisements.
To what extent is it possible to define or identify the characteristics of the
English language used in each and all of these varieties in a way that can be useful
in the context of ESP?
As research has shown, it is unlikely to find linguistic characteristics shared
by all types of mass media. However, we will concisely attempt to outline some
fundamental issues related to language and the press in the sense of newspapers.
Newspapers: relating language to format

A newspaper can be categorised according to its audience and size. As a rule,
national newspapers carry local news only when those events appeal to a na-
tional audience: a major earthquake, a school bus accident that kills a number of
children, the opening of an important research laboratory. Examples of national
papers are The Times, a general interest newspaper, whereas The Wall Street Jour-
nal, which excels in business and financial news. At the same time, newspapers
like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post publish
several editions a day and reach hundreds of thousands of readers. They serve not
only their own cities but the entire region as well. They are often available at news-
stands all over the country and even the world.
Such newspapers aim for a balance of international, national, regional, state,
and local news, as well as appealing entertainment features. They subscribe to
most of the wire services, but they also maintain their own offices and corre-
spondents in cities around the world.
Like the major newspapers, smaller dailies serve their communities with a
range of information, but they have little influence beyond their own city. Exam-
ples are The Canterbury Times, The Oxford Star etc.
These papers vary considerably in quality. Some are very conscientious about
covering and investigating local events, but others have only limited staff and fill
their pages with material from wire services and agencies.
120
Chapter 8
Tabloids are newspapers printed on paper that measures about half the
standard size. Many tabloids are respected newspapers that simply consider this
size more convenient for readers. Some tabloids, however, deal in sensational-
ism placing an over-emphasis on crime, violence, gossip, scandal, and shock-
value stories.
Minor newspapers serve special interest groups: non-English speakers or
members of particular religions, ethnic groups, or organizations. Other newspa-
pers, called underground or alternative newspapers, present views that differ from
those of the establishment (government, business, regular media, and the people
that support these established institutions).
Which language?
The use of language in the presentation of news, and elsewhere in the media, rep-
resents a form of interaction between language and society which affects us all. In
this process, according to Crystal (1985), features of style have developed that are
idiosyncratic (that is, peculiar) to the genre of newspaper magazine writing. These
features are frequently used, thus giving credence to the notion of “journalese” or
media style. Well-known examples from English are:
1. altered order of subject and verb, e.g… commented Dr Brown;

2. the use of long lists of descriptive adjectives, e.g. Tall, blue-eyed, 32-year-old
publisher John Brown said…;
3. the distinctive grammar of headlines.
Furthermore, newspapers and magazines do their best to excel other newspa-

pers and magazines not only in the quality of analysis, reporting and presentation
but also particularly in the quality of writing.
Headlines
The large font size and skeletal wording of the headlines attract attention and
underline the urgency or importance of a story. At least one of the W’ s (when?,
where?, who?, etc) will be mentioned to entice the reader to go on to read the entire
article, which is obviously one of the main purposes of the headline. The headline
is also the newspaper’ s opportunity to establish its angle (and stance) on a story,
and signal its significance to the readership. It summarises the most salient as-
pects of the reported event in terms of newsworthiness, which are then developed
in the lead, and in the story satellites. The headlines are written by the editor, or
subeditor, not the reporter.
121
The lead
The opening sentence, or lead, of a story may overlap the headline to some
extent. The print is usually bolder and/or larger than the rest of the story and it
will repeat, extend, and elaborate further the W’ s mentioned in the headline, as
well as adding further W’ s, in particular when? and where? It may also preview
other information that the rest of the story will describe in greater detail in the
satellites. The lead may be preceded by a by-line which names the reporter or the
source of the story, for example a news agency (such as Associated Press, Agence
France Presse, Reuters, etc), and sometimes a location.
The specialised vocabulary of headlines tends to be unusual, sensational and
brief with extensive use of rhetorical devices such as metaphor, metonymy, and
alliteration. Some linguistic features are adopted which make headlines particu-
larly memorable and effective. Bell (1991) and Morley (1998), analysing the dis-
tinctive characteristics of newspaper headlines, have identified the typical lin-
guistic features as:
• the omission of words (usually function words which are essential to the
grammatical structure, but do not carry intrinsic meaning);
• the use of short, loaded (sensational or emotionally charged lexis, with con-
notations that go beyond the literal meaning) words; sometimes a single well-
chosen and emotionally charged word summarises the event;
• nominalization; the frequent use of complex noun phrases in the subject po-
sition (where modifiers add further information to the noun and where the
noun is the last word. Ex. Russia backs Kyoto environment pact;
• the use of gimmicks (puns, word play and alliteration). This is concerned with
creating ambiguity, as the writer implies a second meaning, Gimmicks may
have the form of homophones, homonyms, intertextuality (reference to famil-
iar phrases which are already known to the reader), methaphors, alliteration
and rhymes.
122
Chapter 8
Verbal rhetorical devices commonly occurring in headlines

Alliteration is the repetition of starting letters of words in a phrase
Alliteration or sentence, effectively creating a kind of affective rhythm. In this
example there are three alliterative phrases in the headline.
Metaphor is the substitution of one idea for another. Metaphor is
Metaphor sometimes confused with simile where one idea is compared to
another; for example, to take arms against a sea of troubles.
Cliché is the use of well-worn phrases, ideas, metaphors, allusion
Cliché
and so on to generate recognition, quickly deploying meaning.
Metonym refers to a part of something used to represent it as a
whole (e.g. ‘ I’ ve bought some wheels’ for ‘ I’ ve bought a car’ ). You
Metonym
may also find the term synecdoche used in place of metonym, and
for our purposes these terms can be used interchangeably.
Hyperbole Hyperbole is extravagant and obvious exaggeration: a million thanks.
Rhyme is an obviously poetic rhetorical device. It is used relatively
sparingly in such media forms, except for humorous intent as
here. The headline makes use of a famous pop song and is also
therefore allusive. Allusions make direct or indirect references to
Rhyme and allusion
other ideas, places, people or texts, generating affect based around
the pleasure of recognition.
Rhymes and alliteration are often used in advertising to make a
product memorable.
A pun is a play on words alike or nearly alike in sound but different
Pun
in meaning: “all the fax about new technology”.
An ellipsis is simply the omission of data, usually of what we take
Ellipses to be obvious. It is often written as a row of three dots. The use of
ellipses in this headline fakes coyness about the use of bad language.
Word bank: newspaper jargon

Assignment – A story a reporter is given to cover.
Beat – A type of news, such as education or government, that a reporter
regularly covers.
Byline – Name of a writer at the head of a story.
Circulation – The total number of copies of the newspaper delivered inone
day.
Copy – All material for publication, whether written stories or pictures.
Copy editor – A newspaper worker who corrects or edits copy written by a
reporter and writes headlines.
Cutline – Descriptive information below a picture.
Dateline – The line at the beginning of a story giving the place of the
reported incident.
Deadline – Time at which all copy for an edition must be in.
Dummy – A diagram or layout of a newspaper page, showing the placement
of stories, headlines, pictures and advertisements.
123
Edition – The issue for one press run.

Editorial – An expression of opinion by the newspaper’ s editors, usually refl
ecting the opinion of the publisher or owner of the newspaper.
Feature – A story in which the interest lies in some factor other than the
news value.
Five W’ s – Who, what, when, where and why (sometimes “H” for how), the
major questions answered in the lead of a well-written news story.
Jump – To continue a story from one page to another.
Libel – Publication of material unjustly injurious to someone’ s reputation.
Managing editor – The editor who directs the daily gathering, writing and
editing of news and the placement of news in the paper.
Masthead – The matter printed in every issue of a newspaper or journal,
stating the title, ownership, management, subscription, and advertising rates.
Publisher – The chief executive and often the owner of a newspaper.
Review – An account of an artistic event that offers a critical evaluation, the
opinion of the writer.
Rewrite – (1) Write a story again to improve it, (2) alter a story that appeared
somewhere else, (3) or write a story from facts called in by a reporter.
Typo – Short for “typographical error”, a mistake made during the production
of a story.
Online news
The word ‘ media’ has come to refer both to the technologies of communication
and to the public and private corporations that use them. Thanks to the low cost of
electronic communication, the way content becomes public is changing. While in
the past news was dependent on publishing or broadcasting companies for getting
from source to audience, it can now take a more direct way. Diverse information
types, such as hard news, service information, social comment, advertisements,
sport, etc., today can get everywhere. News sources are changing, and so are news
audiences. Besides, what we consider ‘ news’ may be changing.
Four characteristics of electronic communication are especially typical of
news. First, writing, sound, image and video are integrated in a single product;
second, an unlimited amount of diverse information objects can be included in
a single text; third, the new means of communication results in various patterns
of interaction, among different types of interlocutors. Finally, a different medium
has different connotations. The word ‘ news’ can mean both ‘ important or inter-
esting recent happenings’ and ‘ information about such events, as in the mass me-
dia’ , the second largely defined by the form and distribution of traditional print
and broadcast.
124
Chapter 8
Thus, a text belongs to a particular genre if it displays the content, the form
(physical and linguistic) and the distribution conventionally associated with some
socially established task. Meaning is inferred from the form and the distribution.
Early online news layout looked at conventions developed in print and broadcast,
using continuity in form and content to introduce to new genres.
The twenty-four-hour or weekly distribution cycle and the physical proper-
ties of newspaper have led to the ‘ news story’ format, in which a typical crucial
event is turned into a narrative ordered by decreasing importance: the so-called
‘ inverted pyramid’ of the newspaper article. The language of broadcasting, on the
contrary, is bound by time limits, which favour oral presentation styles, conversa-
tional tone and soundbites.
Typically, in online news design content is layered, so that news is presented
at several levels of detail. This layering weakens the concept of the ‘ news story’ in
two ways.
Firstly, it removes the need for a ‘ basic level’ of story. The traditional journalist
or subeditor chooses a level of detail at which to build a news story depending on
topic and perceived prominence on the day. In newspapers, this story level is typi-
cally embodied by the news article, on which headlines, pictures, background, or
comment are thriving. In non-linear text, content is broken down into more finely
grained textual and visual elements, each of which must be self-supporting, and
none of which need correspond to the familiar ‘ news story’ .
Secondly, layering weakens the boundaries between stories.There is less pres-
sure in hypertext to identify unobtrusive news ‘ events’ . News elements are planted
in and linked to wider content. A summary outline of one news item can simul-
taneously be a detail of another. A news topic is no longer developed in a series
of static texts emitted at regular intervals with implicit links to other texts. It is
developed as a cluster of dynamic, related, hierarchically-structured texts, like
overlapping groups of concentric circles.
As a consequence, online news style is constantly flowing in the attempt to
blending together the traditional news article genre with hypertext. It is evolving
in response to both new technological constraints and new audiences.
Electronic forms of news dissemination include multimedia ‘ webcasts’ , e-
zines, news alert services, news tickers, e-journals and (we)blogs, newsgroups,
personalized news trackers and email. Stylistic conventions can be traced in:
compression, driven by the tiny window on the vast information world; para-
graphs consisting of a single idea in a single sentence; significant ideas expressed
by bulleted lists of noun phrases rather than in clauses; tables, charts and graphs
are commonly included.
On the whole, we can observe that different modes of presentation suit differ-
ent aspects of news reporting: audio, image, graphics, video and text are equally
125
easy to present online, so that the visual expression of information (as opposed to
illustrative visuals) is increasing as reliance on the word declines.
Also, language is above all tailored to audience, and the new configurations of
audiences together with interactivity are leading to new styles of language.
The Language of Broadcasting

Today, radio is everwhere: in kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms, in cars and
elevators, on the beach, and on the street. People tune in while they jog and while
they do homework. They buy tiny pocket versions and huge boom boxes. They re-
main glued to battery-operated radios in emergencies when power outages silence
the TV.
The language used in television plays a less important role than it does on the
radio. As Crystal (1985) argues, here, speech is everything. Sound effects, music,
and silence are important but radio is, without equal, the speaker’ s medium. The
human voice receives undivided attention. Because there is no opportunity for
immediate playback if something is misunderstood, broadcasting language has
to be clearly organized and make use of relatively short and uncomplicated sen-
tences.
According to Crystal, radio has uniquely interesting features for the linguist.
These features include:
1. it is person-to-person communication that is mouth-to-ear, but not face-to-

face, and direct feedback is not possible;
2. the fully auditory world (that is: no pictures, nothing seen and there is nothing
else but sound) can involve the emotions and imagination of the listener in a
distinct way;
3. its simultaneous reception by millions promotes the language it uses as a
standard.
However, the language professional broadcasters use is a controversial one. As

Crystal argues, the relative merits of standard vs regional and formal vs informal
usage continue to be debated.
The Appeal of Television

A century ago, there was no broadcasting for listening (to radio) or viewing
(watching TV). Since broadcasting began, the popularity and power of broadcast-
ing have increased so much that new varieties of language have appeared. Televi-
sion itself has so much expanded in use and variety that it is doubtful if there is
somebody on earth who has not watched or is not watching television.
126
Chapter 8
Therefore, there is no such thing as a single homogeneous language of broad-

casting especially of Television. According to Crystal (1985), in aiming to inform,
educate, and entertain, broadcasting reflects all aspects of contemporary society
and its language. The result is a range of linguistic variety that exceeds even the
heterogeneity of the press: discussions, news reports, comedies, games, popular
science, plays, children’ s programmes, etc.
Television is undeniably one of the most important forces in modern life.
According to Beckert (1993), the sheer quantity of viewing-expanded by ad-
vances in cable and videotape recording [and we may add satellite channels]
– makes it a dominant activity in many people’ s lives. It is said that TV is at
its best in nonfiction programmes – news, sports, documentaries and the like.
However, commercial TV, funded by advertising, is a key factor in what viewers
get to see.
The Language of Advertising

Advertising aims to attract our attention to a product or service. Whenever we
open a newspaper or a magazine, turn on the TV, browse the Internet, travel to
work, or are simply looking around, we are confronted with advertisements. We
cannot avoid seeing advertisements and we all probably come across dozens and
dozens everyday.
According to Crystal (1985) the largest and most noticeable group belongs to
commercial consumer advertising. In addition, there are also trade advertising
(from manufacturers to retailers), prestige advertising (e.g by government depart-
ments), classified advertising (e.g. house sales), and direct mailing. Crystal adds
that advertising activities involve posters, signs, notices, showcards, samples, cir-
culars, catalogues, labels, wrapping paper, price tags, tickets, footballers’ shirts,
and many other devices. Furthermore, the ears can be assailed as well as the eyes
with street cries, loudspeaker messages. There is also the so many auditory and
visual effects heard and seen in radio, television and the Internet.
In most cases, according to Crystal, it is the visual content and design of the
advertisement that makes the initial impression and causes us to take note of it.
Crystal goes on to say that in order to get people to identify the product and per-
suade them to buy it, ads depend completely on the use of language.
In this way, the psychological and linguistic elements are essential in adver-
tising. The psychological effect and the language use both combine to produce a
good image of the product.
A great deal of market research is naturally available to show how (or whether)
ads succeed in their aims. Many firms and advertising agencies conduct such re-
127
search asking people whether they can recall the content of ads. However, objec-
tive evidence is difficult to find.
On the other hand, analyses of advertising styles by linguists and professional
agencies have pointed out certain important features of this language variety. Ac-
cording to Crystal, the most obvious features are:
1. the language is generally laudatory, positive, unreserved, and emphasizing the

uniqueness of the product (There’ s nothing like…);
2. the vocabulary tends to be vivid and concrete;
3. figurative expressions are common (eating sunshine for cereals; smiling colour
for hair shampoo);
4. rhythm, rhyme, and other phonetic effects are noticeable (Milk has gotta lotta
bottle);
5. there may be deviant spellings, especially in the brand names (Rice Krispies);
6. considerable use is made of inexplicit (vague) grammatical constructions (x
gets clothes cleaner, x costs less, many people say, etc.)
All this makes the language of advertisement and advertisements themselves

subject to controversy as far as their effect on people (especially children) is con-
cerned. The language of advertisement needs careful investigation and monitoring.
Review questions
1. What is meant by ‘ manipulation of language’ in mass media?
2. Why do linguists study media language?
3. How do ordinary people usually relate to the messages conveyed by media?
4. Is media language homogeneous?
5. What is the purpose of using rhetorical techniques in media products?
6. Distinguish among different types of newspapers.
7. What features of style are typical of newspapers language?
8. Where would a reader first foresee a newspaper’ s viewpoint on a story?
9. What is the purpose of using puns, word play and alliteration in newspapers’
headlines?
10. Discuss how radio is different from other forms of media.
11. How has electronic communication changed news dissemination?
12. What electronic formats of news presentation can you name?
13. What are the consequences of online news content layering?
14. How many forms of advertising are there according to Crystal?
15. Which linguistic techniques do advertisers employ to make their message
memorable?
128
Chapter 8
Activities
1) Insert these words in the correct column:
advertorials | banner | ads | billboards | cinema | commercials | communicate |
endorse | exhibitions | free samples | Internet | leaflets/flyers | outdoor advertising
| place | point-of-sale | pop-ups | posters | press | product placement | radio | run |
sponsor | sponsorship | target | television | viral advertising
Advertising media Methods of advertising Verbs related to advertising
2) Which verbs combine with these nouns? Brainstorm with the rest of the group,
then check your guesses in your dictionary.
1. a campaign 4. a product
2. an advertisement 5. an event
3. a consumer 6. a message
3) Match the words in bold in the word pairs (1-5) to their meaning (a-e).
1 publicity stunt a) newspapers and magazines
2 design features b) a short phrase that is easy to remember
3 Honda slogan c) a series of actions intended to get a particular result
4 poster campaign d) an important, interesting or typical part of something
5 press coverage e) something done to get people’ s attention
4) Read over the newspaper headlines. See if you can identify the problem with any six
of them. Quite often, the headline has a double meaning, which can lead to confusion.
Man gets nine months in violin case
Nurses appeal to prime minister
Farmer bill dies in House of Commons
Juvenile court to try shooting defendant
Miners refuse to work after death
Man robbed by restaurant
Footballer on the mend after fatal car crash
Workers sent threatening letters
129
Killers in open prisons to ease overcrowding

Robber jailed for shooting dead witness
Man hit by car in hospital
5) Write the name of a newspaper heading from below next to each headline (1 to
10). Then, invent one more headline for each section.
International | Environment | Classifieds | Home news | Technology | Film | Health
| Economy | Gossip | Travel
1. Treat yourself to a relaxing spa.
......................................
2. Great weekend breaks in Scotland.
......................................
3. Police demand pay increase.
......................................
4. Is this the end of the recession?
......................................
5. Latest Spielberg film opens in London.
......................................
6. Jobs in Dubai for £100,000 pa.
......................................
7. Rock star in hotel scandal.
......................................
8. Latest range of mobile phones.
......................................
9. G8 meeting in Rio.
......................................
10. Pollution levels becoming “unbearable”.
......................................
130
Chapter 8
6) Choose the most suitable words to complete these sentences.

1. A lot of cosmetics companies give away leaflets / commercials / free samples so
that customers can try the product before they buy.
2. Advertising companies spend a lot of money on creating clever slogans / post-
ers / exhibitions that are short and memorable, such as the message for Nike:
‘ Just do it’ .
3. Celebrity exhibition / research / endorsement is a technique that is very popular
in advertising at the moment.
4. If news about a product comes to you by word of mouth / the press / the Inter-
net, someone tells you about it rather than you seeing an advert.
5. Many companies use post and electronic slogans / mailshots / posters because
they can target a particular group of consumers all at the same time.
7) Look at the three extracts below from BBC radio programmes. Which one tells
you:
a. how to access the BBC via the internet?
b. why the internet can be expensive?
c. how the internet works?
1. Understanding the internet requires a leap of the imagination, there are
no managers or owners. First, your home computer connects to an internet
service provider – either a university or a private company. Now you have
direct access to computers around the world offering millions of menus and
letting you talk to others directly or discuss any topic under the sun.
2. For £5.50 you can surf the net for an hour in this café, or in any other
‘ Cyberia’ cyber-café in the country. But because they pay by the hour,
customers watch the clock. If telephone calls to the internet were charged
at a fixed rate and not by the hour, this café and many others like it would
reduce their rate, giving e-commerce a boost.
3. A reminder that all this and more can be found on the Home Truths
website. To log on simply go to www dot bbc dot co dot uk forward slash
Radio 4 forward slash Home Truths.
8) The words in bold are important when we talk about the internet. Read the above
passages again and match words from the text with the definitions and descriptions
below.
a. to look at different pages of information on the internet
b. a collection of pages on the internet belonging to the same company, pro-
gramme or individual
131
c. an electronic form of doing business

d. lists of different types of information or things you can do on the internet
e. to connect your computer to the internet, or to a website on the internet
f. words for the symbols . and / when they are in internet addresses
g. a company which connects your computer to the internet through a telephone line
h. an adjective which refers to the world of electronic communication networks
and communities that can be reached through a computer.
9) Write the name of a shop from below next to each text message advertisment.
dry cleaner’ s | delicatessen | nightclub | video rental shop | supermarket | health
food shop | garage
1
This week’ s specials: Mon: filet Mignon €9.95, Tues: Chicken wings €1.99; Thu-
Sat: Coke 12pk €2.99; Fri: Roses 20pc €4.99 + fresh salmon €6.99.
2
New French cheese collection now available at our shop. Come and taste our high
quality cheeses on Friday 1pm to 8pm. French red wines starting at €5.99.
3
Nutrition expert in our store on Wednesday 7/11 from 2 pm to 5 pm. Check your
body fat % free and get a diet plan and 20% off of Nutrix6 supplement 7/9-7/21.
4
Join our VIP Club and Get 2 videos for the price of one with your next rental!
Send text message INFO to 41513 to join! As a VIP Club member you’ ll get every
5th rental free of charge.
5
You have also been entered in our New Car Giveaway sweepstakes for a brand new
four-wheel drive. Check out our website for more details.
6
Get five shirts professionally cleaned free this Friday! Our VIP customers enjoy
next day service at 30% off regular prices. All stains removed professionally.
7
Join our VIP Club now and your next drink is free. As a VIP Club member you’ ll
get special offers sent directly to your mobile phone + a free admission pass. Text
INFO to 41513 to join now.
132
Chapter 8
10) Read the advert and complete the table.
Hair Loss Solution!

Worried about hair loss? Concerned that it’ s affecting your self-confidence?
Buy Invigoren® for a full head of hair and restored confidence!
If you’ re experiencing hair loss, you’ re not alone. Millions are faced with the
prospect of thinning hair during their lifetimes. For years, scientists have
been searching for an easy, effective solution to prevent hair loss.
Invigoren® has that solution!
Formulated with scientifically-tested natural ingredients that target the root
cause of hair loss, Invigoren® represents a clinically-proven solution. The
powerful, natural ingredients in this unique product will stop the root cause
of hair loss and help grow strong, healthy hair without any nasty side effects.
Follow our three simple steps and watch how Invigoren® brings back a full
head of hair.
1. Apply the liquid. 2. Leave for eight hours. 3. Wash off!
It’ s that simple. After six weeks of this, you’ ll soon notice tiny hairs sprouting
out from your scalp. Practically odour-free and guaranteed to work 87% of
the time, Invigoren® is the solution that you’ ve been looking for.
Invigoren® is safe and effective and based on natural ingredients. And
independent medical studies have shown that it works!
“Finally, I can use my comb again! I feel like a new man”.
Jeff Masters, 44
Buy your bottle of Invigoren® NOW and you’ ll get a free bottle of Bio-
Cleansing Soap, and a Hair Stimulant Conditioner for FREE!
Or call us now for a FREE sample of Invigoren®!
What are you waiting for?
1. The product name is…

2. It provides a solution to…
3. It is aimed at…
4. It promises to…
5. You’ ll notice the difference after… weeks.
6. Age of the person who gives the testimonial…
7. Linguistic devices used…
133
CHAPTER 9
The Language of Tourism

English for Tourism is not yet acknowledged as an area of English for Specific
Purposes, but is currently labelled as language for vocational purposes. All the
same, we support its inclusion in the wide range of ESP categories as it shares
various communicative functions and structures with Business English as well as
the language of Advertising.
Referring to tourist brochures Gotti (2006) says that «their aim is to attract
the traveller in order to sell tourist products, such as flights, package holidays,
hotel accommodation, etc. Although these materials are also highly informative,
their main aim is persuasive». The persuasive force which drives a tourist towards
a tourist location is achieved through a set of discursive and linguistic strategies.
Verbal descriptions, along with their glossy displays of photographs represent that
very special form of communication typical of the tourism industry. Such de-
scriptions belong to the manipulation stage since they deal with wanting-to-do.
The purpose of manipulation is to cause “action”. The enticing verbal descriptions
imply the same transformation induced by advertising strategies.
So, while linguistic difference had always had important political and eco-
nomic implications for capitalist states and their citizens, these new political eco-
nomic shifts have brought about specific sociolinguistic transformations that have
recently drawn our interest, as they displace issues of language and identity onto
the logics of cultural production and lifestyle consumerism.
‘ Commodification’ is the expression we use to describe how a specific object
or process is rendered available for conventional exchange in the market.
A major element of concern is the way language and identity are mobilized
as specific themes to create a sense of place and attract tourists, build attractions
and make souvenirs.
Now language is also used to represent the community to tourists and to brand
commercial products. In short, language constitutes a work practice in tourism
worksites in its own right, and needs to be understood in those terms: language is
both a means of attributing authenticating value to the tourist product as well as
a means of selling it.
The tourist market is a highly competitive, constantly changing environment,
subject to variations in consumer trends and business models, which requires a
high degree of flexibility.
The first dimension typically applies to language when (re)presented as an au-
thentic product. In this dimension, representations draw upon established logics
of nationalism linking language, culture, identity, nation and nature or territory
so that language can be presented as a commodified artefact along with other
cultural artefacts.
The second dimension affects language as a mode of industry management,
that is, as the set of communicative materialities – the texts and interactions – that
constitute and link products, producers and consumers. It points to language use
as a process that can also be subjected to commodification.
A further dimension concerns the varied markets in which products, produc-
ers and consumers are situated, and across which both they and their commodi-
fied services and products must circulate and are exchanged.
These three dimensions are often in tension, not only with each other, but also
with older underlying logics of nationalism, which is not a clearly unified ideology
in itself. They are experienced as contradictions by actors in the field who seek to
reproduce nationalist ideologies and engage in the commodification of language
and identity at the same time.
The field of tourism is influenced by other disciplines and its language shows
peculiar lexical, syntactic and textual features. As other researchers have noted
(Calvi, 2005), the language of tourism may appear elusive because it does not have
a well-defined content indeed it encompasses different communicative functions.
Through pictures, brochures and other genres, the language of tourism at-
tempts to entice millions of people into becoming tourists and subsequently to
control their attitudes and behaviour. Tourists, in turn, contribute further to this
language through the communication of their experiences. This kind of discourse
indicates a process of domination according to the tourist context in which it is
used.
It is rhetorical, in the sense that it endows the speaker/writer of power over
the addressee, and narrative as the author is a sort of story-teller, narrating an ac-
count to an audience (Dann 1996).
136
Chapter 9
However, according to Dann, four major theoretical approaches are generally

used by scholars to understand the the language of tourism and tourism itself as
a social phenomenon:
a. the authenticity perspective;

b. the strangerhood perspective;
c. the play perspective;
d. the conflict perspective;
e. The authenticity perspective;
Tourism is a structurally ritualized breaks in routine that allow tourists to go

physically away from “home, everyday life, usual places”. This approach believes
that tourists looked for authentic experiences in other times and places. Actually
the authenticity of a place is artificial, used as a pull factor to attract tourists. Des-
tinations commercialize signs to present in the easier way the main attractions
for tourists especially in a pre-trip phase. They want to give the impression of au-
thenticity through the use of images and words: «this a typical house, the original
manuscript» (Dann, 1996).
Factors of attraction
Tourists are attracted from diversity, novelty and strangeness in their holiday ex-
perience. Not all tourists can cope with foreign cultures and their holidays can be
experienced as a shock. This is why some people prefer to choose package holidays
in order to feel more comfortable in the new environment. In some tourism pro-
moting materials there is the recurrence of terms such as: real, actual, primitive,
simple, unsophisticated, natural, different, exotic, spectacular, remote, unspoilt,
timeless, unchanging, traditional. The experience thus becomes an adventure and
a discovery (Dann,1996).
At the same time, a journey can be experienced as a game, a spectacle, a spe-
cial event out of ordinary and in this sense tourism shows its entertaining part.
In this context, the language of tourism is represented by the age of the image in
which representation and hyper-realty are more important than reality, or even
superior to it. In this perspective, the actual location of an attraction becomes
less and less important. Theme parks like Disneyland are example of transformed
realities into an imaginary worlds (Dann, 1996).
Tourism is a way of providing a representation of the world: the places in
glossy pictures in brochures do not exist as they are not real places and the people
in the picture are false. Normally this perspective avoids the contact of the visitors
with local culture that is only used as a show.
137
Dann listed four properties that are often present in tourist texts in order to
create a more effective destination advertisement listed as functions, structure,
tense and magic.
Functions
According to Jakobson (1960) the language of tourism has different functions:
1. the expressive function. The core of the expressive function is the mind of the
writer/speaker. Language is used by the writer/speaker to express his/her feel-
ings. They are usually expressed through the use of interjections and emphatic
speech. In tourist texts the author is generally anonymous but his/her presence
is implicit to the creation of the text. e.g.: autobiography, personal correspond-
ences, travelogues etc.;
2. the conative or directive function relates to the receiver of the message. Lan-
guage is used to call upon the readership to act, think or feel, to react in the
way intended by the text. The writer wants to convince readers, persuade them.
e.g. contracts, advertisement, propaganda;
3. the referential or informational function deals with the meaning of the mes-
sage. The core of the informative function of language is the external situation,
the facts of a topic, the reality outside language, included reported ideas or
theories. e.g. technical report, scientific paper, textbook;
4. the phatic or interactional function is used to establish or maintain contact
between the addresser and the addressee for example to check whether the
channel is working (‘ hello, do you hear me?’ , ‘ are you listening?’ ), small talk
about a topic (e.g. the weather) or peripheral to main theme, necessary to
maintain communication. In tourism field it involves reference to the tourist’ s;
5. emotions and to the creation of a sort of complicity between the creator of the
text and the receiver normally with the use of questions: “What are you wait-
ing for?”;
6. the poetic function refers to the value of words and uses linguistic devices
such as rhymes and metaphors: e.g. the landscape is timeless.
Structure
This property is particularly valid in the case of tourist ads and brochures. In
every kind of promotional materials is important to organize texts in a coherent
way. Advertisement is becoming more and more multimodal so verbal and visual
aspects should be arranged in a proper way. E.g. in brochures the page develops
along the horizontal axis of two pages spread and exploits more informative parts
of the right zone, where the most prominent element is positioned. Whereas in
138
Chapter 9
webpages, the homepage is structured along a vertical axis, with the upper sec-
tion visually configuring the values of glamour promised by the holiday experi-
ence and the lower section verbally offering practical information on packages
and tour operator (Francesconi, 2014). But every type of tourist text should fit the
AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action) requirements for advertis-
ing discourse (capture attention, maintain interest, create desire, get action).
Tense
The language of tourism usually represents travel through space. However,
it represents also travel through time, from the everyday present into the past
and – sometimes – even the future. The present seems to bore and the only solu-
tion is to escape from everyday life through a holiday. Tourist texts try to push on
these temporal aspect according to the type of holiday that tourists want to do.
Sometimes visitors need to rest and enjoy their stay without any time limit and
in this case the language of tourism uses a special strategy which is called denial
of time (Dann, 1996). In other cases a journey is presented with all the cultural
stereotypes of the tourists and the destination becomes a place where time seems
to stop. Far away from the chaotic everyday life, the visitor can have the illusion to
stay in a place where the time is eternal and this strategy is called time as standing
still or eternal time. If the origins of a destination are contested the strategy used
is that of tense switching (ibidem).
A fourth strategy is that of pointing to the future. The producer tries to con-
vince visitors to come to a destination appealing to his/her imagination. A series
of appealing benefits are presented to customers as the best choices compared
with other competing alternatives.
In this discourse, the tense used is the future perfect tense which helps to pro-
ject the self-identification action into the future and reflected as if it had already
occurred.
In Dann’ s analysis other four additional features add to the previous:
• lack of sender identification: often the tourist has no idea about the speaker’ s
identity;
• monologue: it is a one-side communication. The speaker persuades the visitor
with a proper language and the addressee cannot react. It is a unidirectional
discourse;
• euphoria: large use of hyperboles to present a destination as the best choice
ever. Use of qualitative adjectives in order to attract the tourist’ s attention;
• tautology: tourist texts present already known information. Tourist are more
self-confident if they find a place as they expect to find it and as it is effectively.
139
Tourists base their trip on stereotypes, ideas, certainties. Promotional texts

present the place full of clichés according to the expectation of the visitors.
Linguistic physyonomy of the language of tourism

Gotti (2008) identified the lexical features of the the language of tourism of a
tourist text as follows:
• in this context only one meaning is allowed in order to reduce ambiguity;

• lack of emotion only when the text is informative and provides information
about means of transport, opening hours, booking modality, etc.;
• precision/transparency is useful to identify a concept (use of affixes, for ex-
ample);
• conciseness that is maximal specificity of a term expressed in the shortest
possible form (acronyms, abbreviations, zero deviations…).
There are also some syntactic features typical of the language of tourism, de-
fined as:
• premodification is a left-dislocation of terms with an adjectival function

which modifies the qualities of the properties of the head-noun (e.g. timeta-
ble, travelcard);
• nominalization involves processes of transformation from one syntactical
category to another (e.g when you arrive: upon arrival);
• use of superlatives (the best, more, great).
The pragmatic function of verbs makes their choice essential in tourist texts:
• in the language of tourism the present simple is the most exploited because it
provides the idea of habit. (e.g. brochure, tourist guides);
• the imperative is used to give suggestion, to urge tourists to take advantage of
the offer (e.g. guides and brochures).
Whereas modal verbs are really essential in promotional texts which include
expression of necessity, possibility, probability or negation. For example, can and
will convey the idea of possibility and certainty, whereas must give advice and is
usually used as a noun (must-see attraction). It indicates a necessity, something
tourist cannot miss.
Then there are passive forms that help to achieve depersonalisation. It is used
only to diminish the importance of the role, opinions of the author.
140
Chapter 9
Text types
There are different genres within the discourse in the field of tourism. «Genre
refers to language use in a conventionalized communicative setting in order to
give expression to a specific set of communicative goals of a disciplinary or so-
cial institution, which give rise to stable structural form by imposing constraints
on the use of lexico-grammatical as well as discoursal resources» (Bathia, 2004).
Genre analyses pays special attention to the relationship between different texts
that are connected with each other and influence each other. Tourist text types are
hybrid genres because they are subject to the pressures of several linguistic and
contextual factors. Linguists tried during years to define genre style according to
many parameters: actors involved, stage of trip, medium used or communication
function. According to Bathia, the primary speech genres in tourism are:
• the narrative based on the telling of a story (travel books, diaries);

• the descriptive based on space representation and more promotional language
(travel guides, reports, brochures);
• the instructive aiming at the provision of instructions (guidebooks);
• the expositive aiming at explanation (weather conditions in guidebook);
• the argumentative aiming at evaluation (travel reports).
Systemic Functional Linguistics

The social semiotic linguist Halliday (2004) developed systemic functional lin-
guistics (SFL) which is both a theory of language as social process used in every-
day social interaction and an analytical methodology that permits the systematic
description of language patterns.
Based on this concept, language can be:
a. functional: these theories of language seek to explain what language is and

how it works by asking what functions it has fulfilled in society;
b. contextual: according to Halliday the social context is realised through the
three main dimensions of register variables: field, tenor and mode:
-- field indicates what the text deals with and covers the activity and the do-
main of experience;
-- tenor concerns the social role relationships between participants in the lin-
guistic act in a given context;
-- mode refers to the means of communication and regards the role played by
language in the situation in which it operates.
c. Semantic: the meaning potential in language is expressed through functional
components that called by Halliday metafunctions:
141
-- the ideational, aimed at representation of the environment;

-- the interpersonal, referring to the actions of participants;
-- the textual, related to the message.
d. Semiotic: all three metafunctions are found both at the level of semantics and
at the level of grammar in systemic theory. The system of language deploys the
units of sentence, clause, group, word, morpheme, which can offer ranks for
systemic functional grammar (Francesconi, 2014).
The properties of the language of tourism here examined are generally con-
nected and associated to various techniques. The three main categories of tech-
niques used in the language of tourism are: verbal, visual, and multimodal.
Verbal Techniques
According to Dann the verbal technique is composed by many linguistic strate-
gies such as comparison, key words & keying, testimony, humour, languaging,
egotargeting.
1) Comparison
The language of tourism achieves comparison through the use of similes
and metaphors which serve to moderate the effects of strangerhood connected
to a holiday experience. In the language of tourism similes and metaphors are
used in order to manage the unfamiliarity of a destination for the tourist. In
particular, metaphors are widely-exploited in order to derive new and special-
ized meaning from general language. Metaphors allow to say concept in a more
concisely way, whereas in similes two terms have similar semantic values linked
by an equivalence, usually by using the words “like”, “as”, or “than”; similes
compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their simi-
larities. The greater a cultural distance, the greater the use of similes and meta-
phors (Dann, 1996).
2) Key Words and keying

A promotional message should be clear, short, active that tries to focus on key
words instead of creating a long presentation. Some key visual and verbal elements
shared by the visitor and the advertiser can create the most effective promotion.
Key words can be away, adventure, escape, dream, imagination, lust, pleas-
ure, sensuality, discovery, escape, romance, romantic, excitement, exotic, thrilling,
happy.
A concept connected to the use of key words is keying which means to repre-
sent the attraction of a destination as something authentic, real, true through the
142
Chapter 9
use of a specific linguistic strategy. Promotional material in the tourism industry,

then, must place great emphasis on words such as genuine, historical, real, authen-
tic, genuineness.
3) Testimony
Anchoring the idea of a destination to a recognisable person helps the pro-
ducer to attract new visitors. The presence of a well-known person in a destination
push more tourists to go there and this strategy usually is used in written promo-
tional texts. The “voice” of the person appears through a quotation and invite the
visitors to come to the destination.
4) Humour
Humour is used in a careful way. Paradoxes and puns usually are used in slo-
gans in order to express various ideas. With puns the producer incites the reader
to solve a word game and if he can he feels clever.
In these cases, playing with words is justified because there is a shared dis-
course and language. Unfamiliarity can also be dealt with through humour, by
preparing the potential visitor for the strange customs of the destination people,
e.g. I left my heart in Acapulco - and my ring, my watch, my camera.
5) Languaging
Languaging is defined as the use of fictitious foreign words of which the read-
er is supposed to have little knowledge, thus inducing feelings of inferiority in the
reader and transforming the writer into a trustful authority. The foreign words
usually pertain to the field of gastronomy in order to confer more authenticity for
the local culture (Try cotoletta alla Milanese). Languaging makes also use of allit-
eration (Seduced by Seville), onomatopoeia which can enhance the use of humour
to make the promotional message more effective.
6) Ego-targeting
Tourists want to feel unique and special as the promotion is reserved to him/
her. This is possible through the use of personal pronouns such as you or we.
Fundamental to such an investigation is the belief that, despite the contem-

porary emphasis on the visual aspects of promotion, the written text performs
a key function in the decision-making process which draws people to a tourist
destination.
Very rarely does the language speak through pictures alone. As Dann puts it
«where photographs are featured, almost without exception they appear in tan-
dem with a verbal message» (Dann 1996). Even though in most tourist brochures
143
the emphasis is mainly iconographic, the verbal text plays an important part in
the promotion of a tourist product.
Tourist brochures promise the conjunction of the subject with the announced
destination, which becomes the virtual point where the tourist achieves his fulfil-
ment. The brochure creates the value of a destination through accurately chosen
images and through a vast array of linguistic devices.
Besides making a place worth visiting (wanting-to-do), the language provides
the customer with the information and means for overcoming his “deficiency”
(being-able-to-do). The way in which a writer uses adjectives is very important in
creating an appropriate mood and atmosphere.
The isotopy of reliability defuses some of the anxieties of tourists’ encounters
with an authentically different reality. Brochure descriptions are often character-
ised by the interlacement of other isotopies such as uniqueness, combined with
that of friendliness.
The aura of uniqueness is also created by the extensive use of emphasisers
and superlatives: “magnificent”, “genuine”, “excellent”, “brightest”, “the most
gracious”. But the whole description is also sprinkled with words like “greeted”,
“warm”, “genuine”, “gracious”, “hospitality” to create the isotopy of friendliness
that is allegedly missing at home.
According to Halliday and Hasan cohesion refers to unifying relations estab-
lished among elements of a text that are not structural, but that give texture to a
text, namely, the property to be a unified whole and not a total of unconnected
elements. The destination being presented acts as an isotopic connector by link-
ing different isotopies which are inscribed in brochure descriptions. Looking at
the above examples, it can be observed that isotopies not only function as impor-
tant cohesive ties within a description. Indeed, they are also important tools for
promotion since they create different “paths of sense”. In the act of reading, the
reader chooses his own path according to his needs and expectations. The tourist
destination has something for everyone.
The enunciator of the travel brochure engages many senses in the verbal de-
scriptions testifying to the multisensory nature of the tourist experience. Al-
though the tourists’ first contact with the destination is primarily through the
visual mode, the other senses play a decisive role in the shaping of a tourist’ s
highly emotive experience. The isotopy of aesthesia permeates most descriptions
and unleashes desire. The emotional response is induced through the frequent use
of synaesthesia. In the previous description, the visual setting is complemented by
the acoustic landscape: the delicate sound of “flowing rivers” as well as the silence
of “sleepy villages” and the peaceful atmosphere enveloping the “tranquil slopes”.
The tactile and the olfactory are emphasized through reference to the softness and
fragrance of “carpets of spring flowers”.
144
Chapter 9
Notice the use of a typical device likening the tourist destination to life back
home.
Tourist brochures offer a wide range of descriptions which lead tourists to
the discovery of a novel reality but, at the same time, they contain some reas-
suring markers which will prove to be decisive in the tourist’ s decision-making
process.
Most of the times the enunciator steps into the text. The use of the imperative
marks the presence of the enunciator who urges the enunciatee to join the desti-
nation. The enunciatee/reader is projected into the scenery, too.
Review questions
1. How is manipulation achieved in brochures? To what purpose?
2. What does the term ‘ commodification’ imply?
3. Who theorized about speech genres in tourism?
4. What qualities should a holiday have to allow travellers to escape from their
routine?
5. How can the notion of time be ‘ manipulated’ by specific language?
6. What are Dann’ s four theoretical approaches applied to the language of tour-
ism?
7. Which of Jacokbson’ s linguistic function is being referred to if the language of
a tourism text is centred on the reader?
8. According to Gotti, why is monoreferentiality recurring in tourism texts?
9. Which technique is being used when a tourism text includes special foreign
words that only the author is aware of?
10. Do brochures present typical linguistic devices? If so, discuss them.
11. What role do adjectives play in promotional tourism texts?
12. Why is synaesthesia functional to brochure texts?
Activities
1) People may have very different opinions on tourism. Consider the following as-
pects and say whether they fit into the pros or the cons column in the chart. Then,
discuss them with a partner.
• discover new places miss your friends
• help to become more educated person
• wait at airports
• improve knowledge of foreign languages
145
• depend on the weather

• broaden your scope must think about accommodation and food
• learn more about people, art and culture
• many places are polluted
• help to relax the beauty of many places has disappeared
• meet interesting people the beaches are always overcrowded
• see world famous wonders the most fantastic place is home
PROS CONS
2) Insert each word in the right column.

ferry | receptionist | package holiday | travel agent | plane | historic tour | B&B
| event co-ordinator | roadside motel | coach | tour guide | luxury hotel | train |
youth hostel | luxury hotel | railway journey | tour operator | self-catering apart-
ment | destinations programme manager | Antartica cruise | city break | farmstay
| tourist information officer
Accomodation Transport Job Holiday type
3) Match the words to the definitions.

1. tour
2. crossing
3. ride
4. excursion
5. expedition
6. flight
7. journey
8. outing
9. trip
10. voyage
146
Chapter 9
a. a short journey
b. a trip to a place with a lot of interesting things to see
c. a long trip from one place to another
d. a short trip made by a group of people who are visiting a place
e. a long and difficult trip to a place that is very far away
f. a short trip in a car or bus, on a bike or motorbike
g. a long sea journey
h. a trip across water from one piece of land to another
i. an organized trip for a group of people
j. a trip in a plane
4) Match each type of promotional text to its description.

1. Articles
2. Itineraries
3. Tourist guides
4. Brochures and leaflets
A. they contain descriptions of places from artistic or historical points of
view, as well as practical information about monuments/museums opening
times and location, means of transport, shopping suggestions, night-life
events, entertainment, food and restaurant, accomodation, maps, special
offers, post offices, internet points, tourist information centres etc.
B. their main purpose is selling tourist products (flights, package-holidays,
tours, accomodation) and can be considered as the most persuasive texts of
the tourism discourse (besides proper ads).
C. they are often contained in leaflets produced by travel agents and contain
descriptive information about the places to be visited and the activities
offered to the customers (mainly informative but containing also linguistic
elements aimet at persuasion)
D. found in specialized magazines, they are similar to tourist guides as they
convey information on locations, but they also provide details of various
offers for the same destinations, comparing prices, services and their quality.
5) Complete the text with the correct preposition. You may choose from by, of, for, in.
What is it all about?
Any attempt to define tourism and to describe its scope fully must consider the
various groups that participate . . . . . . . . . . . . . and are affected . . . . . . . . . . . . . this indus-
147
try. Their perspectives are vital to the development . . . . . . . . . . . . . a comprehensive

definition. Four different perspectives of tourism can be identified:
1. The tourist. The tourist seeks various psychic and physical experiences and
satisfactions. The nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . these will largely determine the destinations
chosen and the activities enjoyed.
2. The businesses providing tourist goods and services. Businesspeople see
tourism as an opportunity to make a profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . supplying the goods and
services that the tourist market demands.
3. The government of the host community or area. Politicians view tourism as
a wealth factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . the economy of their jurisdictions. Their perspective is
related to the incomes their citizens can earn . . . . . . . . . . . . . this business. Politicians
also consider the foreign exchange receipts from international tourism as well
as the tax receipts collected . . . . . . . . . . . . . tourist expenditures, either directly or
indirectly. The government can play an important role . . . . . . . . . . . . . tourism policy,
development, promotion, and implementation.
4. The host community. Local people usually see tourism as a cultural and em-
ployment factor. Of importance to this group, for example, is the effect . . . . . . . . . . . . .
the interaction between large numbers of international visitors and residents. This
effect may be beneficial or harmful, or both.
Tourism is a composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . activities, services, and industries that de-
liver a travel experience: transportation, accommodations, eating and drinking
establishments, shops, entertainment, activity facilities, and other hospitality ser-
vices available . . . . . . . . . . . . . individuals or groups that are traveling away . . . . . . . . . . . . .
home. It encompasses all providers of visitor and visitor-related services. Tourism
is the entire world industry of travel, hotels, transportation, and all other compo-
nents that, including promotion, serve the needs and wishes . . . . . . . . . . . . . travelers.
Finally, tourism is the sum total of tourist expenditures within the borders of a
nation or a political subdivision or a transportation-centered economic area of
contiguous states or nations. This economic concept also considers the income
multiplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . these tourist expenditures.
6) Read the text in the previous activity again and match the sentence halves.
1. Tourism not only aims at fulfilling tourists’ expectations but also
2. A destination is where the tourist experience occurs and
3. The travel and tourism industry comprises innumerable businesses and or-
ganisations that
4. There are three geographical regions in tourism to consider:
148
Chapter 9
a. the generating region, where tourists come from, the destination region, and
an intermediate transit region, which represents travel to the destination.
b. collectively cater for the needs of tourists.
c. where the benefits and costs of tourism development are felt.
d. has to take into account their motivation and behaviour.
7) Write the words in brackets in the correct form (e.g. noun, adjective, verb etc.).
Cultural Tourism
As the term implies, cultural heritage tourism involves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (VIS-
IT) places that are significant to the past or present cultural identity of a particu-
lar group of people. In the last several decades, along with its scale, the nature
of tourism has also changed. As social and technological changes made tourism
more affordable and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (ACCESS) for millions of people, the
once-traditional family summer vacation to the seaside became just one option
among many that are available all year round.
Some . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (ARGUMENT) that tourism isn’ t simply tourism
anymore. It has become: “a form of developmental, leisure, and family bonding
that occurs around the framework of visiting places that are not in your normal
neighborhood. … It is lifestyle, economic development, and family values. It is a .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (DISCOVER) of self, both physically and intellectually”.
This shift in tourism from relaxation to self-discovery is reflected in the ex-
plosion of niche market products within the tourism industry. The more widely
known include adventure tourism, culinary tourism, religious tourism, ecotour-
ism, sustainable tourism, and educational tourism. Cultural heritage tourism is
one of the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (FAST) growing specialty markets in the industry
today.
While music, films and other media help tell some of the stories about differ-
ent cultures and heritages, there is still much to be learned about the experiences
of many communities around the world. Cultural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (INHERIT)
tourism provides an opportunity for people to experience their culture in depth,
whether by visiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (ATTRACT), historical or culturally rel-
evant places, or by taking part in cultural activities.
Travellers who are interested in cultural heritage tourism would visit or take part
in any of the following:
• Historical attractions, monuments, or landmarks
• Museums, art galleries, or theaters
• Festivals, concerts, or performances
149
• Culturally significant neighborhoods or communities.

Tourists who are interested in cultural heritage generally want to learn
something about the beliefs and practices that shaped the shared identity of a
people.
Cultural heritage tourists travel to experience other cultures and learn about the
past, but they do so as tourists and not as specialists. While some of their inter-
ests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (DIFFERENCE) from those of more recreational tourists,
cultural heritage tourists have the same need for services such as restaurants and
hotels that the tourist economy as a whole depends upon.
Though this is good news for the communities that wish to reap the economic
benefits of tourism, what is even better news is that cultural heritage tourists are
known to have higher incomes and bring more resources to the communities they
visit than other types of tourists.
Adapted from: McNulty, R.; Koff R. Cultural Heritage Tourism, Washington,

2014.
8) Read the passage over again and try to guess the meaning of the following words
in context.
a. to imply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
b. available ....................
c. affordable ....................
d. shift ....................
e. landmark ....................
f. relevant ....................
g. income ....................
h. resource ....................
9) Read the above passage again and answer these questions.

1. What is cultural heritage tourism?
2. How has the nature of tourism changed in recent years?
3. How has tourism become a specialty market?
4. What do cultural heritage tourists look for when they travel?
5. Which aspect of cultural heritage tourism products would you be more inter-
ested in?
150
Chapter 9
10) Associate each category to the right description.

1. Outbound tourism
2. Inbound tourism
3. Domestic tourism
a) It relates to people who are travelling within their own country for tourism
purposes. People on day trips are not officially tourists as they are not staying
away from home. Statistics consider tourists to be people who stay away for at least
one night. However, as day trippers spend a lot of money in the tourism sector,
particularly on travel and in the visitor attractions sector, it is important to meas-
ure the value of their spending.
b) It measures those people coming in to visit a country which is not their
country of residence, for the purposes of tourism. If a tourist comes from the USA
to the UK, then they are travelling to the UK. This also means that they are an
outbound tourist from their own country.
c) Generally, when we use this term in Australia, we are referring to Austral-
ian residents travelling out of the country.
11) Insert the adjectives from the box in the right place.
regular | ever-changing | different | profitable | all-inclusive | enjoyable | signifi-
cant | inexpensive
Customizing the product

In order to ensure a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . level of sales, repeat business and competi-
tiveness, companies in travel and tourism have to develop their product to meet
the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . expectations of their customers.
One of the fastest changing sectors is the airline industry. One of the most
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . changes recently has been the introduction of low-cost air-
lines. These offered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . flights to many European cities. This in-
creased the competition on European routes not only in terms of prices but also
quality of services as schedule airlines responded by attempting to offer better
value for money.
But this was not the end of the developments as far as British Airways were
concerned.
The airline industry was not the only one implementing changes: a new fast
train called Eurostar, linking London with Paris and Brussels, was introduced in
1994, using the tunnel built between Britain and mainland Europe, providing a
fast transport route for both foot and car passengers.
151
Since the introduction of the first two-week holidays to Spain, tour operators
have also brought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . innovations onto the markets. Customers
can now book an . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . package that includes transportation, accom-
modation, all food and drink, water sports and entertainment.
As people started taking more holidays, but shorter in duration, more and
more operators started offering city breaks.
Destinations themselves started preparing better to receive their visitors,
tougher health and safety measures have been introduced, following the EU Trav-
el Directive, making operators responsible for their suppliers. Some destinations
also addressed the issue of crime, thus improving their chances of attracting . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . business. In many established destinations there have been im-
provements in infrastructure, facilities and attractions on offer, making holiday-
makers’ stay easier, more . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and providing more opportunities
for increased spending.
12) Write at least five questions to the above text.
13) Read the text and explain the meaning of the words in bold.
Promotion in travel and tourism
Using more than one type of promotional material increases the chances of reach-
ing the intended target market. For example, if an organisation uses only a tel-
evision advert they are relying on their particular target market to be watching
television at that time. If the organisation also placed an advert in a newspaper,
they would increase their chances of reaching their target audience.
On the whole, advertising and public relations with their use of press, tel-
evision and other mass media, are popularly perceived as the glamorous side of
marketing.
For some sectors, they are the most costly part of a total campaign budget and
planned integration of such expensive tools is essential to ensure maximum effective-
ness. Integration means achieving mutual support in the communications process,
for example using public relations to raise the profile of an advertising campaign,
using advertising and printed communications to create awareness of a website, or
using information from a direct response advertisement for sales promotions. The
communications mix itself must be integrated with the rest of the marketing mix.
It is the job of marketing to review the consistency of marketing mix decisions with
communications messages and to develop particular promotional themes through
time as well as across the different communications tools available.
Linked to promotion is media planning. It is concerned with programming
the ways in which advertisements will be seen and heard through media selection,
152
Chapter 9
scheduling and buying. The choice of media type is wide for travel and tourism
encompassing national newspapers and magazine supplements, banners on Inter-
net search engines and websites, consumer magazines and special interest maga-
zines, regional and local press and free sheets, Tourist board brochures, guides
and directories, radio. outdoor and transport poster sites, In-house magazines
(airline and hotel magazines selling advertising space), miscellaneous ‘ space’ for
sale or so-called ‘ ambient media’ (e.g. airport trolleys, towed aerial banners, bal-
loon displays, bus tickets, airline ticket wallets and visitor attraction tickets).
14) Now answer these questions.

1. What does target audience mean?
2. Why is integration in communication important?
3. How can integration in communication be achieved?
4. What does the term ‘ ambient media’ refer to?
15) Refer the promotional techniques given below to the corresponding materials in
the chart.
Direct marketing, Celebrity appearances, Paying to display your logo within an-
other organisation, Sponsorship, Advertising, Brochures, Displays, Public relations.
Promotional
Types of promotional materials
techniques
Television and radio adverts to give exposure
Adverts in magazines/newspapers and on websites/popups
Billboards, posters and leaflets
Direct mailshots or emails to targeted customers
Releasing press releases regarding new products or services and staging
events for these
to encourage positive press coverage
Updating and maintaining social media/networking sites
Shop window displays
Stands at trade events such as The World Travel Market
Supporting local and national sports teams, events, charities etc.
This can include merchandising activities
A holiday brochure produced by a tour operator
Used in television and radio adverts or at store openings or special
events to promote
brand loyalty and generate publicity
This could be on the leaflet or brochure of a local visitor attraction, this
can also be
Considered sponsorship
153
16) Associate each type of promotional text to its description.

1. Articles
2. Itineraries
3. Tourist guides
4. Brochures and leaflets
A. they contain descriptions of places from artistic or historical points of view,
as well as practical information about monuments/museums opening times and
location, means of transport, shopping suggestions, night-life events, entertain-
ment, food and restaurant, accomodation, maps, special offers, post offices, inter-
net points, tourist information centres etc.
B. their main purpose is selling tourist products (flights, package-holidays,
tours, accomodation) and can be considered as the most persuasive texts of the
tourism discourse (besides proper ads).
C. they are often contained in leaflets produced by travel agents and contain
descriptive information about the places to be visited and the activities offered to
the customers (mainly informative but containing also linguistic elements aimet
at persuasion)
D. found in specialized magazines, they are similar to tourist guides as they
convey information on locations, but they also provide details of various offers for
the same destinations, comparing prices, services and their quality.
17) Read the tour and answer the following questions.

a. What is a hop on/hop off tour?
b. What are Milan’ s main economic attractions?
c. What will you not miss if you are an art lover?
d. Where would kids want to go?
e. Where can you shop in famous designers’ stores?
Full Day Milan City Sightseeing Tour
This hop on/hop off tour will show you the main interesting Milan’s sites and take you
around the city with English or French speaking guides. These are our stops at Mi-
lan’s major attractions. There are plenty of more things to see and do in the area. Get
off and on as much as you like at any of the bus stops on the route and enjoy the city!
Milan is the biggest city of North Italy. The powerhouse of the country and
one of the most stylish cities of the planet where everyone seems to wear Gucci
and Prada with the greatest nonchalance. Together with Paris it is one of the fash-
ion capitals of the world: a paradise for shopping, Opera and night life.
154
Chapter 9
Milan is, financially, the most important city in Italy and the province of
Lombardy. But it is also a city with many important museums and wonderful
monuments. See the Castello Sforzesco the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie
(which displays Leonardo’ s Last Supper) the Brera Museum with works by Italian
great masters and many other museums monuments and churches.
Duomo
Piazza Duomo
This Duomo is the city’ s most famous artistic and religious monument. It is the
third largest Christian church in the entire world. The interior of this cathedral
has impressive pillars, vaults and beautiful arches enhanced by light for a breath-
taking sight. You must make every effort to see this during your visit.
Teatro alla Scala
Piazza della Scala
The Teatro alla Scala is a famous building where many a wonderful opera has been
seen. It is the home to the La Scala di Milano opera company and is one of the
most visited cultural buildings in the city of Milan. You must take in a show while
you are in the area.
Cimitero Monumentale
Piazza Cimitero Monumentale
The Cimitero Monumentale is one with chapels and funeral monuments that
makes this cemetery a sort of “open-air museum”. You will definitely want to visit
this and appreciate the architecture and the history that went into this sight. It is
truly an interesting attraction that you will want to make time to see.
Play Planet
Via Veglia, 59
The Play Planet is open from 3.30pm-7.30pm Mon-Fri; 10am-12.30pm, 7pm-11pm
Sat-Sun. It is wholly devoted to children’ s entertainment, which both kids and
adults enjoy just the same. You will want to spend hours in this fascinating place
so you can watch your kids climb through slides, rubber balls, little staircases,
tunnels and trap doors.
Museo Cenacolo Vinciano
Piazza Santa Maria Delle Grazie, 2
The Museo Cenacolo Vinciano is 8am-1.45pm Tue-Sun and it houses antique
rooms of the Rectory annexed to the Church of Santa Maria Delle Grazie. It also
houses a very beautiful painting the Leonardo da Vinci painted, from 1495 to
1497, the famous “Last Supper”. You will love visiting it.
155
The Sforza Castle

The Sforza Castle Art Galleries house precious collections of Lombard painting
and sculpture dating from the Middle Ages to the 18th century as well as the “Pi-
età Rondanini” by Michelangelo. Large collections of decorative arts, furniture,
tapestries, antique weapons and musical instruments can be admired.
Grattacielo Pirelli
Piazza Duca d’ Aosta, 5
The Grattacielo Pirelli and it was built between 1955 and 1960 on the old Pirelli
site. the skyscraper a unique example of architectural lightness and you will enjoy
taking a look around the inside and outside of this fine building. It is worth the
time to take a look at it.
Montenapoleone
Via Montenapoleone
Milan’ s fashionable shopping district is famed for its wealth of luxury boutiques
and they are inside the Montenapoleone. You will just love this place with all
the glitz and glamour and the elegant fashions. This is where shoppers will be in
heaven. Take a lot of time in this place you will be glad you did.
This tour is seasonal and operates from mid-April to mid-October only
Hours: from 9.00 to 20.00
18) Read through the following tour and find the following information for a client
interested in this tour:
• Length of the tour:
• Main attractions
• What type of accommodation will tourists have?
• The basic price of the tour for two people;
• How much will the tour cost for one person using the single room?
• Does the cost include:
-- all food and drinks;
-- admission fees to monuments.
• Will there be a guide in each place?
Itinerary 1 - Classical Campania
Campania Felix (fruitful Campania) was one of the wealthiest areas of the Roman
world, thanks to its rich volcanic soil. Walking the basalt-slabbed streets of the lost
cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, transports
us back to the Roman world in observing the well-preserved shops, winebars, cafés,
and baths seemingly awaiting the imminent return of their customers – an immedi-
156
Chapter 9
ate feel of Roman life is on offer. Step back in time to enjoy a view of the Mediter-
ranean life of the ancients and observe the development of this delightful region
through the ages, all surrounded by the scenic splendours of the Amalfi coastline.
Day 1 - London/Naples
Fly to Naples and transfer to hotel for 8-night stay.
Day 2 - Herculaneum, Oplontis
Visit to Herculaneum with its impressive remains giving a good appreciation of
life in a 1st-century AD town, buried as it was by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD
79. Original staircases, trelliswork and furniture carbonised by the boiling mud
can still be seen in situ. Continue to the magnificent wall paintings at the villa of
Oplontis, said to have belonged to Nero’ s long-suffering wife, Poppaea.
Day 3 - Pompeii
Full day in Pompeii. Stroll the basalt-slabbed streets and view shops, bars and
bakeries, frozen in time. The monumental buildings and huge sweep of the Forum
with its colonnades emphasize the wealth of the city. With Vesuvius looming in
the background, the visitor is assured of a profound and lasting impression.
Day 4 - Capua, Caserta
Visit to the Roman City of Capua, with its huge amphitheatre and its secret un-
derground Temple of Mithras, decorated with wall paintings. Afternoon visit to
the Royal Palace at Caserta to tour the sumptuous apartments and the gardens,
favoured haunt of Nelson and Lady Hamilton.
Day 5 - Cumae, Baiae, Pozzuoli
Travel to the Phlegraean fields and visit Cumae, famed in antiquity for its oracle.
Continue to the palaces and baths at Baiae, favoured spa residence of Roman Em-
perors and to Pozzuoli with one of the largest and best-preserved amphitheatres
in the Roman world and a famous macellum or market building. Pass by Lake Av-
ernus, in mythology the entrance to the Underworld and La Solfatara, a dormant
crater with evidence of volcanic activity.
Day 6 - Capri
Cross to the isle of Capri to see Villa Jovis, where Tiberius had his pleasure palace
and ascend Solara for stunning views over the Bay of Naples.
Day 7 - Paestum, Salerno
Today visit Paestum with its well-preserved Greek temples and Roman buildings.
The museum contains marvellous Greek Archaic sculptures and beautiful exam-
ples of painted tombs including the famous Tomb of the Diver. In the afternoon
visit historic Salerno with its fascinating cathedral.
157
Day 8 - Amalfi Coast, Naples

A drive along the beautiful Amalfi Coast with its charming towns and breath-
taking views. From there to Naples to explore the treasures of the Archaeologi-
cal Museum including the Alexander mosaic, Primavera, and the extraordinary
bronze statues from Herculaneum.
Day 9 - Naples/ London
Return flight to London.
Tour Notes
Inclusive of flights, Tour Lecturer/Manager, 4-star accommodation on a half
board basis.
Tour Length
9 days
Supplements
Single room: £ . . . . . . .
Inclusive Of:
Airport Taxes
Flights
Gratuities
Half Board
Tour Lecturer/Manager
Not Included
Insurance (18-65): £ . . . . . . .
Porterage: £…
UK departure tax: £. . . . . . .
19) Find the English equivalents of the following words from the itinerary:
tornare indietro (temp.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

pergolato ....................
distesa ....................
duraturo ....................
sontuoso ....................
stazione termale ....................
incantevole ....................
mozzafiato ....................
tragitto in auto ....................
158
Chapter 9
assicurazione ....................
facchino ....................
20) Referring to the above tour explain in no more that 150 words why, in your
opinion, foreign tourists should visit Campania.
21) Write a text for a brochure promoting your town. Follow the instructions sup-
plied by the following text.
Start by working from your creative brief and consider the information require-
ments you need. Think about the story that your business has to tell the consumer
and tell it in a creative way. Consumers find value in hearing stories.
Decide which of the items that you have written about is best provided in
point form, and which needs to be written out in paragraphs. Write in a clear,
simple and conversational style, the way a sincere person talks when providing
help or advice. Write the way you would talk to a single customer rather than to
a crowd. Avoid asking questions in your headline. You do not want to give the
reader the opportunity to say no. For example, instead of saying, “Wouldn’ t you
enjoy a relaxing, luxurious getaway?” you might say, “Imagine yourself enjoying a
relaxing, luxurious getaway”.
Once you have written a draft, ask for feedback from staff, family or friends to
help you refine the copy. You may want to consider using the services of a profes-
sional writer or editor. In addition to the convincing copy describing your prod-
uct, your brochure will need to include a “call to action”.
You have sold the reader on your business, now what do you want him or her
to do?
There are three steps in turning your brochure into a response-generating
marketing tool:
• First, decide what type of response you want. What action do you want the
reader to take?
• Second, tell the reader to do it. The last few paragraphs of your copy should
spell out the action you want the reader to take and give reasons to take it.
• Third, give the reader a simple mechanism for responding (by phone, email,
website, and/or mail) and emphasize this in the layout. Think of your bro-
chure as prompting action rather than answering questions.
(Source: Ads & Brochures That Sell, Vancouver, Destination BC Corp., 2013)
159
CHAPTER 10
Introduction to Academic English

Nowadays the term English for Academic Purposes or EAP refers to language re-
search and instruction that focuses on the communicative needs and practices of
individuals working in academic contexts. According to Ypsilandis and Kantari-
dou (2007), EAP «refers mainly to the academic needs of students and of future
professionals who would seek a career in the academic environment». It therefore
includes a range of activities from designing materials to seminar discussions,
writing journal articles, conference papers as well as student essays, examination
answers, and describing the discourse of doctoral dissertations. Thus, it goes be-
yond preparing learners for study in English to understanding the kinds of litera-
cy found in the academy. EAP is, then, a branch of applied linguistics, consisting
of a significant body of research into effective teaching and assessment, descrip-
tions of the linguistic and discoursal structures of academic texts, and analysis of
the textual practices of academics.
It is a field which has witnessed rapid expansion and development over the
past thirty years. The term EAP seems to have been coined by Tim Johns in 1974
and made its first published appearance in a collection of papers edited by Cowie
and Heaton in 1977 (Jordan, 2002).
Driven by the growth of English as the leading language for the acquisition, dis-
semination and demonstration of academic knowledge, EAP has emerged from the
English for specific purposes (ESP) movement in the 1980s to become an important
force in English language teaching and research. But what is Academic English?
Academic English requires sufficient background knowledge to apply general
knowledge of words differently across subject areas and also entails specialized
knowledge of concepts in particular subject areas.
Mastery of language and syntactic features includes learning the breadth of
language patterns to communicate relationships between ideas: to explain, de-
scribe, compare, and contrast, summarize, generalize, express, cause-and-effect

relationships, sequences, and so on.
Specifically, students should demonstrate their ability in developing ideas so
that expression is complete, summarizing text, referencing appropriately and, of
course, using the basic conventions of English grammar, syntax (word order), and
usage (choosing the correct word) to convey meaning.
As a rule, written texts have more permanency than their spoken counter-
parts, such as lectures or theses defenses, as part of the growing corpus of aca-
demic discourse around the world.
Academic writing
Academic writing appears complex because it often refers to abstract ideas and
academic subjects have their own specialised vocabulary too which students of
other subjects may not be familiar with. In academic writing the writer´s ap-
proach to the topic is objective (rather than subjective), intellectual (rather than
emotional), and rational (rather than polemical).
Effective English academic writing has three major characteristics. It has con-
vincing content, clear organization, and effective use of the English language. First-
ly, the writing task has convincing content. To begin with, the content is informative
and thought-provoking. The purpose of academic writing is to convey knowledge
and understanding of a topic in a persuasive, formal, and objective manner. Next,
academic writes need to support their thesis with relevant information. This relates
directly to the thesis, which clearly presents the writer’s topic, purpose, method,
and opinion in topic sentences within each paragraph. His/her tone is serious (not
conversational), impersonal (not personal), and formal (not informal).
In addition, although objective, academic writing can be creative in that the
writer is able to demonstrate effective critical-thinking skills showing the writer’ s
capacity to effectively analyze the given information, interpret the facts, make
judgments, draw conclusions, summarize, and defend opinions.
Focusing on information and argumentation, academic writers establish the
facts by reporting what they have learned from others and from their own re-
search, and how this has led to new conclusions.
The sentences in academic texts tend to be dense, in other words they contain
lots of highly grammatically complex sentences. A variety of grammatical struc-
tures are used to create complex sentences. This style of writing therefore avoids
personal pronouns and the passive voice is a common linguistic feature. Moreo-
ver, infinitive constructions (1), -ing and -ed forms replacing long phrases and
clauses, and hedging (the linguistic device that reduces the impact of an utter-
162
Chapter 10
ance), i.e. use of modal verbs (may, might, could, would…) and some other words
and phrases to avoid a definite statement are generally preferred:
Ex. The outcomes of our research do not agree with…

instead of:
the outcomes which were obtained/the results we obtained…
Ex. The spread of English lingua franca tends to/may be viewed as…..
Normally, the most common reasons for writing in an academic context include:
• to report on a piece of research the writer has conducted;

• to answer a question the writer has been given or chosen;
• to discuss a subject of common interest and give the writer’ s view;
• to synthesise research done by others on a topic.
The Writing Process

The process of writing may be divided into four steps:
• the first step concerns the choice of a topic and it is called ‘ pre-writing’ . There
are several techniques that can be used to get ideas, such as listing that con-
sists in writing the topic at the top of a page and quickly make a list of the
words or phrases that come to mind until the flow of thoughts stops;
• the second step involves the organization of ideas: its selection and the order
in which they will be dealt with;
• in the next a rough draft is written without stopping to think about grammar,
spelling, or punctuation;
• the final step is devoted to revising and editing: it is advisable to start by look-
ing for passages where more details needs to be added and checking for un-
necessary information. Sometimes, the whole structure of the text needs to be
changed in order to make it more logical. Then, both grammar and punctua-
tion should be accurately dealt with.
Simple and compound sentences

Academic writing requires certain skills. These skills include sentence structure
(how to arrange words in a sentence), organization (how to arrange ideas in a
paragraph), and, of course, grammar and punctuation.
A sentence is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb and expresses
a complete thought. A sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a period.
There are four kinds of sentences in English: simple, compound, complex,
and compound-complex.
163
A simple sentence is a sentence that has one subject-verb pair. The subject in a
simple sentence may be compound:
Ex. Harry and Laura have contrasting opinions on politics.
The verb in a simple sentence may also be compound:

Ex. We worked and earned a lot of money.
On the other hand, a compound sentence consists of two simple sentences con-
nected by a comma and a coordinating conjunction. It is useful to bear in mind that:
• a comma and a coordinating conjunction connect the two halves of a com-

pound sentence.
• there are seven coordinating conjunctions in English: for, and, nor, but, or,
yet, and so.
• don’ t confuse a compound sentence with a simple sentence that has a com-
pound verb and doesn’ t need a comma.
Ex. The staff always monitor the entrance, but someone forgot to lock it properly
at the end of the day. (compound sentence)
The staff monitor the entrance and lock it properly at the end of the day. (com-
pound verb)
Before moving to the topic of complex sentences, it is necessary to explain what

a clause is. A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb. There are
two kinds of clauses in English: independent clauses and dependent clauses:
Ex. Don’ t break the news until we are absolutely certain.
• an independent clause (Ex. Don’ t break the news) has one Subject-Verb pair
and expresses a complete thought. Independent clause is just another name for
a simple sentence.
• a dependent clause (Ex. Until we are absolutely certain) is an independent
clause with a subordinating word, such as because, after, and when, added to
the beginning of it. A dependent clause does not express a complete thought,
so it is not a sentence by itself. It is only half of a sentence. It must be joined to
an independent clause. Together, the two clauses express a complete thought.
There are many subordinating words that can make a dependent clause. For
instance, certain adverb subordinators introduce time clauses: after, as soon as,
before, since, until, when, whenever, while; others provide reasons: because,
since, as; or are place subordinators: where, wherever.
164
Chapter 10
Back to sentence structure, a complex sentence is composed by one independ-

ent clause and one (or more) dependent clauses. Remember:
• when the dependent clause begins with an adverb subordinator, the clauses
can usually be in any order;
• if the independent clause is first, a comma is not required;
• if the dependent clause is first, a comma is necessary.
Paragraph structure
A paragraph is a group of related statements that a writer develops about a subject.
The first sentence states the specific point, or idea, of the topic. The rest of the sen-
tences in the paragraph support that point.
The most important sentence in a paragraph is the topic sentence. It is called
the topic sentence because it tells the reader what the topic of the paragraph is.
In other words, it tells the reader what he or she is going to read about. The topic
sentence is usually the first sentence in a paragraph.
A topic sentence has two parts: a topic and a controlling idea. The topic part names
the topic. The controlling idea part tells what the paragraph will say about the topic.
This paragraph will discuss these things-and only these things-about this topic.
Usually, the topic comes first and the main idea comes second in the topic
sentence. However, the main idea may come first. The middle sentences of a para-
graph are the supporting sentences. Supporting sentences explain or prove the
idea in the topic sentence or add more information about it. The supporting sen-
tences are the longest component of a paragraph. Sometimes, they can list the
main points of the paragraph.
Ex. Some people skip breakfast because they think it will help them lose weight.
Third, they should have spent at least one year practice-teaching.
To introduce is a word or phrase that shows how one idea is related to another
idea a transition signal is used. In a listing-order paragraph, the most common
transition signals are: first, first of all, also, second, third, in addition, finally.
Paragraphs that are not part of a longer composition often have a concluding
sentence at the end. A concluding sentence closes the paragraph so that the reader
is not left expecting more.
Alternatively, a concluding sentence may remind the reader of the main point by
restating the topic sentence in different words, or it may summarize the main points.
A conclusion signal should be used to underline the end of a paragraph; for
example: to conclude, in conclusion, to sum up, to summarize, in summary, in brief,
in short, indeed.
Conclusion signals are always separated by a comma from the rest of the sentence.
165
Using the dictionary

There will be times when you need to use a dictionary for one of its many features;
becoming familiar with dictionary entries will make using a dictionary more enjoy-
able. The words in a dictionary are arranged alphabetically. The words on a given
page are signaled by guide words at the top of the page. If the word you are looking
for comes alphabetically between these two words, then your word is on that page.
Capitalization
In English there are several rules that regulate the use of capital letters. In par-
ticular, the personal pronoun I, the first word in a sentence, names of people and
their titles (if mentioned together), nationalities, languages, ethnic groups and
religions, geographical places, are always capitalized.
Main rules of Punctuation

Element Usage
Full stop . to mark the end of a sentence
to separate items in a list
to separate two sentences when there is a conjunction
Comma , such as and, but or so
where the main clause of the sentence is dependent on
the preceding clause i.e.
to set up a formal statement, quote, list, example or
Colon :
explanation
Semicolon ; can be used in place of the word “and”
to indicate a contraction or possession
with nouns (plural and singular) not ending in an s,
add ‘ s.
Apostrophe ' with plural nouns ending in an s, add only the
apostrophe.
with singular nouns ending in an s, you can add either
‘ s or an apostrophe alone.
Quotation Marks “ to show that we are repeating someone else’ s words
for quotes within other quotes
Single Quotation Marks ‘ ‘ for words or phrases, or things that have special
meaning
to enclose extra information or a comment that departs
Parentheses ( )
from the point of the sentence
to join words to form a unit and avoid ambiguity
in place of brackets or commas
Hyphen - to form compound words and compound modifiers
that precede a noun
with some prefixes or suffixes
166
Chapter 10
Word Bank
Here we provide a basic list of expressions common to different academic contexts
and purposes:
Summarizing texts:
On the whole…
Basically he/she is saying that…
In this text, the author argues that…
To support the main claim, the author provides evidence that suggests that…
Language of Informational texts:

The advantages of outweigh the disadvantages of insofar as…
The statistics are misleading because they do/not show…
These [facts/reasons/data] strongly suggest that… Yet some argue strongly that….
Reporting other people’ s ideas

indicated that….
pointed out to me that….
emphasized that…
concluded that….
Comparing & Contrasting texts:

One similarity/difference between [subject 1] and [subject 2] is….
[Subject 1] and [subject 2] are similar because they both….
[Subject 1] and [subject 2] are rather different because while [subject 1] has
, [subject 2] has .
Whereas [subject 1] is… , [subject 2] is…
[Subject 1] is…. Similarly / In contrast, [subject 2] is….
Agreeing with other people’ s ideas:

My idea/answer/explanation is similar to/related to…
I agree with (a person) that…
My idea builds upon (a person’ s) idea…
I don’ t agree with you because…
Analysing ideas and facts:

We can interpret as…
Given the evidence, we can deduce that…
can be differentiated from based on…
After a thorough analysis of the evidence, we conclude that…
167
This is significant because…

After careful examination of… it appears that…
related to insofar as….
and are connected by….. This is important because…
We can draw parallels between and the world/other texts/self because….
Making inference:
Based on… I infer that…
I infer that… based on…
My conjecture on is…
I anticipate that…
Language used to justify one’ s own ideas:

I believe this because…
My primary reason for thinking so is…
Perhaps the most convincing reason for this is…
Agreeing with other people’ s ideas

My idea is similar to/related to ’ s idea.
I agree/disagree with that …
My idea builds upon ’ s idea.
As already mentioned…
Synthesizing concepts:
The main point(s) is/ are…
The point that makes is related to in that…
The significance of is…
From my perspective, means…
The concept of can be expressed as…
Our conclusion is a synthesis of _____ and ________.
I feel that and ’ s viewpoints are related in that…
My visual represents a synthesis of and because…
While creating , I built upon . . . . . . . . . . . .
Explaining Causes
The most likely reason for… was…
I hypothesize that… made them…
That wasn’ t caused by… because
Several factors contributed to the outcome. Namely,…
168
Chapter 10
Describing an Effect
was a result of…
The…led to…, which led to…
The change resulted in…
Review questions
1. What is the main aim of academic writing?
2. What are the stages of academic writing?
3. What kind of skills should learners acquire?
4. What is a paragraph?
5. Which sentences is usually placed at the beginning of a paragraph?
6. What is the role of supporting sentences?
7. How would you identify a complex sentence?
8. How can you distinguish a dependent clause from an independent clause?
9. How would you be able to identify a topic sentence?
Activities
1) Circle the correct meaning of each vocabulary word.
1. cite: to exaggerate | to quote
2. diction: choice of words | choice of type size
3. plagiarize: to quote | to steal
4. paraphrase: to use an author’ s words | to express in other words
5. refute: to disprove a statement | to agree with a statement
6. annotate: to write a book | to make notes in a book
7. coherence: illogical organization | orderly relationship
8. vivid: brilliant | dull
9. intention: a plan | a clue
10. thesis: a proposal | a refusal
2) When encountering a new word, it could be helpful to consider whether there is

an affix (suffix, prefix) and understand how that affix functions in the word. Then
you can apply that meaning to other words that have the same affix. Use these words
to help you match the affix to its meaning.
1. ambi-: ambiguous, ambivalent, ambiance
2. mag-: magnificent, magnify, magnitude
3. -dom: martydom, freedom, wisdom
169
4. -due-: induce, conductor, seduce

5. -vi-, -viv-: viable, vivid, revive
6. -pon-, -pos-: proponent, juxtaposition, deposit
7. -lev-: levity, levitate, elevator
8. post-: posterity, postdoctoral, posthumously
9. -rog-: interrogate, derogatory, prerogative
10. -tude: magnitude, gratitude, multitude
a. life, to live
b. to lead
c. state, condition, or quality of
d. both, around
e. great, large
f. lift, light, rise
g. state or quality of
h. after, behind
i. to put, to place
j. to ask
3) Read the following extracts quickly and try to identify the type of source. Select
from:
1. a magazine for the general public
2. an advertisement
3. a scientific paper
4. a novel
5. a catalogue
6. a specialist magazine
7. a non-fiction book of witticisms
a. In they come. Cautiously dressed, all except Jacqueline, who has a deep
plunge to her Laura Ashley print. Marcia just behind her, all flushed and feathery.
Like she’ s just flown through a window and needs to bash at the walls. Not even a
glance at the mezuzah on the door. Thank heavens for that. No explanations. Ja-
net, with her head down. A touch from Gloria on the wrist and a deep wide smile.
They rush along the corridor with Marcia at the front now, a bakery box in her
hand. Past Joshua’ s door. Past her own bedroom. Past the painting of Solomon on
the wall, eighteen years younger and a good deal more hair. Into the living room.
b. Spring at Hitachi Seaside Park in Japan is quite literally a sea of blue as
more than four million nemophila flowers spread over the Miharashi Hills under
170
Chapter 10
a brilliant azure sky. Reach the top of the hill o’ blooms and you’ re rewarded with
stunning views of the Pacific Ocean. So what are these beautiful blooms and how
can you get the blues at your place? Nemophila, or Baby blue eyes as it is called, is
a lovely late winter and spring flowering annual. Growing up to 30cm high, it has
ferny green foliage and white-centred, cupshaped blue blooms
c. Our client, a leading global STM Publishing based in London, requires a
new Head of Campaign Marketing.
They are looking to hire a Head of Campaign Marketing to join our growing
team in London. This role will have the responsibility for the development and
execution of our author lifecycle marketing strategy to allow us to engage with
researchers in a rewarding and useful manner.
This a great opportunity for a creative senior marketer that is excited by de-
veloping creative campaign solutions to achieve commercial goals. They will also
have the responsibility to develop and shape their team as required.
d. Industrial heritage conservation has been a serious undertaking in Europe
for some years, with a number of successful examples. Here, I will only consider
three. The Ecomuseum approach, combining cultural and natural resources in
context, has been very popular in Sweden, and has articulated with industrial
heritage preservation efforts to excellent effect. In particular, in the Norberg area
of central Sweden, where metal mining and processing has been practiced for cen-
turies, serious attention has been paid to integrating environmental conservation
efforts with preservation and interpretation of industrial sites and landscapes.
e. You know how it is with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing right out
of you. I mean to say, there is something about their personality that paralyses the
vocal cords and reduces the contents of the brain to cauliflower. It was like that
with this Bassett and me; so much so that I have known occasions when for min-
utes at a stretch Bertram Wooster might have been observed fumbling with the
tie, shuffling the feet, and behaving in all other respects in her presence like the
complete dumb brick. When, therefore, she took her departure some two weeks
before we did, you may readily imagine that, in Bertram’ s opinion, it was not a
day too soon
f. This season, the athleisure trend is still there for anyone who wants it, and
its positive influences abound: more and more technical fabrics used in more
and more imaginative ways; chunky-soled lats; and heels no higher than four
inches. But thankfully the bar is rising for the coming season. We’ re talking A-
game. It’ s as if fashion’ s radiofrequency signals switched from analog to digital.
Tailoring, already humming along nicely for several seasons, has turned up the
171
volume, with skirt suits joining the pantsuit as a powerful day-and-evening al-
ternative to dresses. Things are taking a turn for the formal. Also, interestingly,
the modest.
g. Tapestry workshops evolved during these centuries to supply a growing
merchant and professional class who wanted to decorate their homes in style. The
scenes of many of these tapestries were from classical history (the histories of
Greece and Rome) and from biblical stories. A particular style of tapestry known
as ‘ Brussels Classicism’ developed, depicting stories from Metamorphoses by the
Roman poet, Ovid. This tapestry tells one of those stories, and shows the dramatic
moment in which three sisters open (although they have been warned not to) a
chest given to them by the goddess Athena. In the chest they find the child Erich-
thonius. Needless to say, there are consequences of the sisters’ actions.
4) Relate each piece of academic writing to its definition.

1. An annotated bibliography
2. A proposal
3. An article
4. An essay
5. A review
6. A report
… is usually written for a teacher and may be written as a follow-up to a class
activity. It should be well organized, with an introduction, clear development and
an appropriate conclusion. The main purpose of the task is the development of
an argument and/or discussion of issues surrounding a certain topic. Candidates
will usually be expected to give reasons for their opinions.
… is usually written for a superior (e.g. a college principal) or a peer group
(e.g. colleagues). Candidates will be expected to give some factual information
and make suggestions or recommendations. A report should be clearly organized
and may include headings. Students need to be taught a report format, with the
use of headings where appropriate. They should also work on specific vocabulary
areas such as transport, leisure and entertainment, and learn how to make sugges-
tions and recommendations.
… is written for a superior or a peer group. Candidates will be expected to
make one or more suggestions, supported by some factual information, in order
to persuade the reader of a course of action. It should be clearly organized and
may include headings. Proposals are often structured in a similar way to reports
and should be clearly organized under headings.
172
Chapter 10
… is usually written for an English-language magazine, newspaper or website.

The main purpose is to describe and express a personal opinion about something
which the writer has experienced (e.g. a film, a holiday, a product, a website, etc.)
and to give the reader a clear impression of what the item discussed is like. De-
scription and explanation are key functions for this task, and a review will nor-
mally include a recommendation to the reader.
… is usually written for an English-language magazine or newspaper, and the
reader is assumed to have similar interests to the writer. The main purpose is to
interest and engage the reader, so there should be some opinion or comment.
… is a short summary of several sources, usually books or articles. For each
source, the writer begins with full publication information. Then the writer sum-
marizes the source. The summary can be as long or as short as the prompt dictates.
5) In the following three paragraphs, underline and identify:

1. the topic sentence;
2. concrete supporting sentence/s:
3. concluding sentence
4. find stages 1, 2, and 3 if you think the paragraph is an introduction;
5. if a paragraph is not an introduction, then do not identify the 3 stages outlined
above.
Paragraph I
Survey sampling is a quantitative method of research which is a 20th phenom-
enon with most of its growth since the 1930s. Today, it is a widely accepted method
for providing statistical data on an extensive range of subjects. Disciplines such as
sociology, social psychology, demography, political science, economics, education
and public health all rely on sample surveys.
Paragraph 2
Guling, with its curious: English-style villas, has a number of beauty spots.
Perhaps the best known is the Cave of the Immortal, where the Daoist monk Lu
Dongbin is said to have mastered the secret of everlasting life. The Botanical Gar-
den is the only sub-alpine one of its kind in China. Visitors can also see the former
residence of General Chiang Kai-shek.
7) Read the following extract about “Science and social concerns” and underline all
the listing markers.
1. A basic understanding of science and technology has become indispensable for
2. anyone living in a city or town, because technology – a product of science – has
173
3. become an important part of peoples’ lives. Firstly, science education aims at

4. increasing common knowledge about science and widening social awareness. The
5. process of learning science begins early in life for many people; school students
6. start learning about science as soon as they acquire basic language skills, an
7. d science is always an essential part of curriculum. In the second place, science
8. education is also a very vibrant field of study and research. Foremost, learning
9. science requires learning its language, which often differs from colloquial
10. language. For example, the terminology of the physical sciences is rich in
11. mathematical jargon, and that of biological studies is rich in Latin names and,
12. last but not least, the language used to communicate science is rich in words
13. pertaining to concepts, phenomena, and processes, which are initially alien to
14. children.
8) We sometimes notice people who are different from everyone else because of their
appearance, jobs, behaviour or some special achievement. Write a biographical
sketch of a person who has aroused your interest for some reason. List his/her physi-
cal characteristcs or behaviour; state what renders this person unique or unusual;
make the reader aware of the person’ s effect on oyu an other people; try to engage
the reader from the beginning.
174
Phonemic Chart
Monophthongs Diphthongs
i: i ʊ u: iә ei
sheep ship good shoot here wait
Vowels
e ә ɜ: ɔ: ʊә ɔi әʊ
bed teacher bird door tourist boy show
æ ʌ ɑ: ɒ eә ɑi ɑʊ
cat up far on hair my cow
p b t d tʃ dʒ k ɡ
pea boat tea dog cheese June car go
Consonants
f v θ ð S Z ʃ ʒ
f ly video think this see zoo shall television
m n ŋ h l r w j
man now sing hat love red wet yes
References
Chapter 1
Aitchison, J. Language Change: Progress or Decay? 2nd ed., Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1991.
Aitchison, J. The Seeds of Speech, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Baugh, A.; Cable, T. A History of the English Language, 5th ed., Upper Saddle River,
NJ, Prentice Hall, 2001.
Bede Venerable Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, London, J.M. Dent;
New York, P. Dutton, 1910.
Bloomfield, L. Language, New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1933.
Bonvillain, N. Language, Culture, and Communication: The Meaning of Messages,
5th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall, 2008.
Brown, R. Stages of Syntactic and Morphological Development, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press,1973.
Brown, K. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., Amsterdam,
Elsevier, 2005.
Campbell, L. Historical Linguistics: An Introduction, 3rd ed., Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Carnie, A. Syntax: A Generative Introduction, 3rd ed., Chichester, Wiley Blackwell,
2013.
Chomsky, N. Syntactic structures, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter, 1957.
Chomsky, N. On Language, New York, The New Press, 1998.
Crystal, D. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, 6th ed., New York, Wiley
Blackwell, 2008.
References Key Concepts of English Language and Linguistics
Crystal, D. English as a Global Language, 2nd ed., Cambridge, Cambridge

Crystal, D. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language, 3nd ed., Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Crowley, T. An Introduction to Historical Linguistics, 4th ed., Auckland, Oxford
Dixon, R.M.W. Basic Linguistic Theory, 3 vols., Oxford, Oxford UP, 2010-12.
Elkholy, J.T.; Hallcom, F. A Teachers’ Guide to Linguistics, Dubuque, IA, Kendell
Hunt Publishing, 2005.
Hoff, E. Language Development, 5th ed., Belmont, CA, Wadsworth/Cengage
Learning, 2014.
Hulit, L.M.; Howard, M.R.; Fahey, K.R. Born to Talk: An Introduction to Speech and
Language Development, 5th ed., Boston, Pearson, 2011.
Krashen, S. Principles and practice in second language acquisition, Oxford,
Pergamon,1982.
Krashen, S.; Terrell, T.D. The natural approach: Language acquisition in the
classroom, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1983.
Jespersen, O. A modern English grammar on historical principles, vols. 1-7, London,
Allen & Unwin, 1909-49.
Jespersen, O. Essentials of English grammar, London, George Allen and Unwin,
1933.
Pinker, S. The stuff of thought: Language as a window into human nature, New York,
Penguin, 2007.
Pinker, S. How the Mind Creates Language, New York, Harper, 2007.
Pyles, T.; Algeo, J. The Origins and Development of the English Language, 5th edn.,
Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Publishing, 2004.
Sapir, E. Language: An introduction to the study of speech, New York, Harcourt,
Brace & World, 1921.
Saussure, F. Course in general linguistics, La Salle, Open Court, 1986.
Chapter 2
Boyer, S. Understanding English Pronunciation - an Integrated Practice Course,
Glenbrook, Boyer Educational Resources, 2001.
Carr, P. English phonetics and phonology: An introduction, Cambridge, MA,
Blackwell, 1999.
178
References
Carr, P.; Montreuil, J.-P. Phonology, 2nd edition, London, Palgrave Macmillan,
2012.
Catford, J.C. A Practical Course in Phonetics, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1988.
Collins, B.; Mees, I.M. Practical Phonetics and Phonology, 2nd edition, London,
Routledge. 2008.
Hayes, B. Introductory Phonology, Oxford, Blackwell, 2009.
Harris, J. English Sound Structure, Oxford, Blackwell, 1994.
Knight, R.A. Phonetics: A Coursebook, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2012.
Johnson, K. Acoustic and Auditory Phonetics, 2nd ed., Oxford, Blackwell, 2003.
Ladefoged, P. Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Language,
2nd ed., Oxford, Blackwell, 2005.
Ladefoged, P.; Johnson, K. A Course in Phonetics (with CD-ROM), 6th ed., Boston,
MA, Cengage, 2012.
Odden, D. Introducing Phonology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Pullum, G.K.; Ladusau, W.A. Phonetic Symbol Guide, 2nd ed., Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 1997.
Roca, I.; Johnson, W.; Roca, A. A Course in Phonology, Oxford, Blackwell, 2000.
Small, L.H. Fundamentals of Phonetics: A Practical Guide for Students, 3rd ed.,
Boston, Pearson, 2012.
Van Ripen, C.G. An Introduction to General American Phonetics, Prospect Heights,
IL, Waveland Press, 1992.
Chapter 3
Aronoff, M.; Fudeman, K. What Is Morphology?, 2nd edition, New Jersey, Wiley,
2010.
Barnhart, R.K.; Steinmetz, S. Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, Edinburgh,
Chambers, 1999.
Bauer, L. Introducing Linguistic Morphology, 2nd ed., Washington, Georgetown
Carstairs-McCarthy, A. An introduction to English morphology, Edinburgh,
Edinburgh University Press, 2002.
Coates, R. Word Structure, London, Routledge, 2000.
Crystal, D. Words, Words, Words, New York, Oxford University Press, 2006.
179
Haspelmath, M. Understanding Morphology, London, Arnold, 2002.

Lieber, R. Introducing Morphology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Matthews, P. Morphology, 2nd ed., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Yagoda, B. When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better and/
or Worse, New York, Broadway Books, 2007.
Chapter 4
Adger, D. Core Syntax: A Minimalist Approach (Core Linguistics), New York,
Oxford University Press, 2003.
Basso, K.H. Western Apache Language and Culture: Essays in Linguistic
Anthropology, Tucson, The University of Arizona Press, 1990.
Biber, D. et al. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, Harlow, Pearson
Education, 1999.
Bresnan, J. et al. Lexical-Functional Syntax, 2nd ed., Chichester, Wiley Blackwell,
2016.
Bryson, B. Bryson’ s Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writer’ s Guide to Getting
It Right, New ork, Broadway Books, 2001.
Carnie, A. Syntax: A Generative Introduction, 3rd ed., Boston, Wiley-Blackwell,
2013.
Chomsky, N. On the Nature of Language, New York, Cambridge University Press,
2002.
Chomsky, N. Syntactic structures, 2nd ed., Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter, 2002.
Cook, V.J.; Newson, M. Chomsky’ s Universal Grammar: An Introduction, 3rd ed.,
Oxford, MA, Blackwell, 2007.
Evans, V.; Green, M. Cognitive linguistics: An introduction, Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Fischer, K. (ed.) Approaches to Discourse Particles, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2006.
Fromkin, V.; Rodman, R.; Hyams, N. An introduction to language, 8th ed., Boston,
Thomson, 2006.
Gee, J.P. Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method, 2nd ed., London,
Routledge, 2005.
Giegerich, H.J. English phonology: An introduction, Cambridge, Cambridge
Hayakawa, S.I. Language in Thought and Action, New York, Harcourt, Brace
Jovanovich, 1972.
180
References
Huang, Y. Pragmatics, New York, Oxford University Press, 2007.

Kaplan, J.P. English grammar: Principles and facts, 2nd ed., Englewood Cliffs, NJ,
Prentice Hall, 1995.
Kovecses, Z. Metaphor: A Practical Introduction, New York, Oxford University
Press, 2002.
Nofsinger, R.E. Everyday Conversation, Prospect Heights, Illinois, Waveland Press,
1999.
Payne, T.E. Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists, Cambridge,
Payne, T.E. Exploring Language Structure, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2007.
Plag, I. Word-Formation in English, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Radford, A. English syntax: An introduction, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2004.
Saeed, J.I.; Saeed, J. Semantics, 2nd ed., Oxford, Blackwell, 2003.
Schiffrin, D. Discourse Markers, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Tannen, D. Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends, New York, Oxford
Chapter 5
Bachtin, M.M. “The Problem of Speech Genres” in Duff, D. Modern Genre Theory,
Harlow, Longman, 2000.
Bhatia, V.K. Worlds of Written Discourse - a Genre-based View, London and New
York, Continuum, 2004.
Beaugrande, R.; Dressler, W. Introduction to Text Linguistics, London, Longman,
1981.
Graddol, D.; Boyd-Barrett, O. Media Texts, Authors and Readers, Clavedon,
Multilingual Matters Ltd, 1994.
Harris, Z. “Discourse Analysis”, in Language, 28, 1, 1952, pp. 1-30.
Manning, A. English for language and linguistics, Berkshire, Garnet, 2008.
Quine, W.V. Theories and Things, Boston, Harvard University Press, 1986.
Searle, J.R. Speech acts. An essay in the philosophy of Language, Cambridge,
Swales, J.M. Genre Analysis. English in academic and research settings, Cambridge,
181
Togeby, O. “A model of text types and genres” in Engberg, J.; Maier, C.D.; Togeby,
O. (eds.) Reflections upon Genre: Encounters between Literature, Knowledge,
and Emerging Communicative Conventions, Tübingen, Narr Francke Attempto
Verlag, 2014.
Tolson, A. Mediations:Text and Discourse in Media Studies, Arnold, London, 1996.
Chapter 6
Altbach, P.G. “Globalization and the University: Realities in an Unequal World”
in Forest, J.F.; Altbach, P.G. (eds.) International Handbook of Higher Education,
Dordrecht, Springer, 2006.
Axtell, J. The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America,
New York, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Bailey, R.- H. Images of English: A Cultural History of the Language, Ann Arbor,
University of Michigan Press,1991.
Baugh, A.C.; Cable, T. A History of the English Language, 5th ed., Upper Saddle
River, Prentice Hall, 2002.
Berger, P.L.; Huntington, S. Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the
Contemporary World, New York, Oxford University Press, 2002.
Birch, D. (ed.) The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 7th ed., Oxford, Oxford
Birkenton, D. Dynamics of a Creole System, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1975.
Birkenton, D. Roots of Language, Ann Arbor, Karoma Publishers, 1981.
Blank, P. “Languages of Early Modern Literature in Britain” in Lowenstein, D.;
Mueller, J. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Bonyadi, A. “Genre analysis of media texts” in Procedia - Social and Behavioral
Sciences, Oxford, Elsevier, 2012, pp. 86-96.
Boswell, J. The Life of Johnson, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1799.
Brewer, C. “Johnson, Webster, and the Oxford English Dictionary”, in Carnes, M.C.;
Schlesinger, A. Jr. (eds.) A Companion to the History of the English Language,
New York, Scribner, 1996.
Carnevale, N.C. A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United
States, 1890-1945, Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Coulthard, M. (ed.) Advances in written text analysis, London, Routledge, 1994.
182
References
Crawford Camiciottoli, B. The Language of Business Studies Lectures. A corpus-

assisted analysis, Amsterdam, J. Benjamins, 2007.
Cressy, D. Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart
England, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Crystal, D. English as a Global Language, 2nd ed., Cambridge, Cambridge
Curtin, P.D. Cross-Cultural Trade in World History, Cambridge, Cambridge
Dillard, J.L. A History of American English, New York, Longman, 1992.
European Commission “Many Voices, One Family” ec.europa.eu/ publications/
booklets/move/45/en.doc.
European Commission “Key Data on Education by Country”, 2002. ec. europa.
eu.int.
European Commission “Europeans and Their Languages: Summary”, e-published
February 2006, ec.europa.eu/education/languages/pdf/doc629_en.pdf.
Fanon, F. “The Negro and Language”, in Black Skins, White Masks, New York,
Grove Press, 1968.
Friedman, T.L. The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, New
York, Anchor Books, 2000.
Graddol, D. English Next: Why Global English May Mean the End of English as a
Foreign Language, London, British Consul, 2006.
Graddol, D. The Future of English?, London, The British Council, 1997.
Head, D. (ed.) The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, 3rd ed., Cambridge,
Headrick, D.R. When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the
Age of Ibn Battuta, Travels, A.D. 1325-1354, transl. by H.A.R. Gibb, Cambridge,
Hakluyt Society, 1958.
Innes, C.L. The Cambridge Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures in English, New
York, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Johnson, S. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, London, A. Strahen, 1785.
Kachru, B.B.; Kachru, Y.; Nelson, C.L. The Handbook of World Englishes, Oxford,
Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
Kirkpatrick, A. “Learning English and other languages in multilingual settings:
principles of multilingual performance and proficiency” in Australian Review of
Applied Linguistics, 31(3), 2008, pp. 1-31, Amsterdam, J. Benjamin, 2008.
183
Knapp, P.; Meierkord, C. (ed.) Lingua franca Communication, Frankfurt, Peter

Lang, 2002.
Jenkins, J. “Current Perspectives on Teaching World Englishes and English as a
Lingua Franca” in Tesol Quarterly, vol. 40, n.1, March 2006.
Lewis, M.P. (ed.) Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 16th ed., Dallas, SIL
International, 2009 (http://www.ethnologue.com).
McArthur, T. The English Languages, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1998.
McCrum, R. Globish: How the English Language Became the World’ s Language,
London, Viking Penguin, 2010.
McCrum, R.; McNeil, R.; Cran, W. The Story of English,3rd ed., New York, Penguin
Books, 2003.
McFarlane, C. Hit the headlines, New York, Routledge, 2012.
Momma, H.; Matto, M. A Companion to the History of the English Language,
Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
Nerrière, J.-P. Don’ t Speak English… parlate globish!, Roma, Agra, 2006.
Neuner, G. Policy approaches to English, Language Policy Division, Council of Europe,
Strasbourg, 2005. Consultabile all’indirizzo http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/
Liste_EN.asp#TopOfPage.
Ostler, N. Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, New York,
HarperCollins, 2005.
Pennycook, A. The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language,
London, Longman, 1994.
Romaine, S. “Global English: From Island Tongue to World Language” in van
Kemenade, A.; Bettelou, L. (eds.) The Handbook of the History of English, Oxford,
Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
Rubdi, R.; Saraceni, M. English in the World: Global Rules, Global Roles, London,
Continuum, 2006.
Santipolo, M. Le varietà dell’ inglese contemporaneo, Roma, Carocci, 2006.
Seidlhofer, B. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 2011.
Chapters 7, 8, 9
Ads & Brochures That Sell, Destination BC Corp., Vancouver, 2013.
Anthony, L. Introducing English for Specific Purposes, London, Routledge, 2018.
184
References
Basturkmen, H. Ideas and options in English for specific purposes, Abingdon,

Routledge, 2006.
Belcher, D. (ed.) English for specific purposes in theory and practice, Ann Arbor,
University of Michigan Press, 2009.
Blue, G.M.; Harun, M. “Hospitality language as a professional skill” in English
for Specific Purpose, 22, 2003, pp. 73-91. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-
4906(01)00031-X.
Brinton, D.; Snow, M.A.; Wesche, M.B. Content-based second language instruction,
Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2003.
Chung, M.T.; Nation, I.S.P. “Technical vocabulary in specialized texts” in Reading
in a Foreign Language, 15 (2), 2003, pp. 105-116.
Calvi, M.T. Il linguaggio spagnolo del turismo, Viareggio, Baroni, 2005.
Collins, P.H.; Russell, J. Dictionary of Leisure, Travel and Tourism, London, A&C
Black, 2008.
Crystal, D. Langauge and the Internet, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2001.
Dann, G. The Language of Tourism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective, Wallingford, CAB
International, 1996.
Dale, C.; McCarthy, P. “I like your style: The learning approaches of leisure,
tourism and hospitality students studying generic modules” in Journal of
Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 5(2), 2005, pp. 48-58. Https://
doi.org/10.3794/johlste.52.116.
Denman, J. et al. “CLIL in junior vocational secondary education: challenges and
opportunities for teaching and learning” in International Journal of Bilingual
Education and Bilingualism, 16(3), 2013, pp. 285-300.
Douglas, D. Assessing languages for specific purposes, Cambridge, Cambridge
Dudley-Evans, T.; St. John, M.J. Developments in English for specific purposes: A
multi-disciplinary approach, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Evans, H. Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers, London, Pimlico,
2000.
Fairclough, N. Media Discourse, London, Arnold, 1995.
Fiorito, L. Teaching English for Specific Purposes, 2005. Available from http://www.
usingenglish.com/teachers/articles/teaching-english-forspecific-purposes-esp.html.
Fortanet-Gómez, I.; Räisänen, C. (eds.) ESP in European higher education: Integrating
language and content, vol. 4, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing, 2008.
185
Francesconi, S. English For Tourism Promotion, Milano, Hoepli, 2007.

Francesconi, S. Reading Tourism Texts: A Multimodal Analysis, Bristol, Channel
View Publications, 2014.
Francesconi, S.; Palusci, O. Translating Tourism: Linguistic/Cultural Representations,
Univ. Trento, 2006.
Gass, S.M.; Mackey, A. (eds.) The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition,
Abingdon, Routledge, 2012, pp. 228-247.
Gotti, M. Investigating Specialized Discourse, Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 2005.
Hall, C.M.; Gössling, S.; Scott, D. The Routledge Handbook of Tourism and
Sustainability, London, Routledge, 2015.
Harding, K. English for Specific Purposes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007.
Heller, M.; Pujolar, J.; Duchêne, A. “Linguistic commodification in tourism” in
Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18/4, 2014, pp. 539-566, Wiley.
Hicks, W. Writing for Journalists, London, Routledge, 1999.
Hicks, W. English for Journalists, New York, Routledge, 2013.
Hutchinson, T.; Waters, A. English For Specific Purposes, Cambridge, Cambridge
Kolb, B.M. Tourism Marketing for Cities and Towns, Oxford, Elsevier Butterworth
Heinemann, 2006.
Kotler, P.; Bowen, J.; Makens, J. Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism, 4th ed., New
Jersey, Prentice Hall, 2005.
Lightbown, P.M.; Spada, N. How languages are learned, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 2006.
Maci, S.M. Tourism Discourse: Professional, Promotional and Digital voices, Genova,
ECIG, 2013.
Manca, E. Context and langage, Università del Salento, 2012.
Manca, E. Persuasion in Tourism Discourse, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2016.
Morgan, N.; Pritchard, A. Tourism, Promotion and Power: Creating Images, Creating
Identities, London, Wiley, 1998.
Morgan, N.; Pritchard, A. Advertising in Tourism and Leisure, Oxford, Butterworth-
Heinemann, 2000.
Morgan, N.; Pritchard, A.; Pride, R. (eds.) Destination Branding: Creating the
Unique Destination Proposition, Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002.
Munday, J. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications, 3rd ed.,
London/New York, Routledge, 2012.
186
References
Nickerson, C.; Planken, B. Introducing Business English, Abingdon, Routledge,

2016.
Paltridge, B.; Starfield, S. The Handbook of English for Specific Purposes, Boston,
Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
Ritchie, I.; Brent, J.R. Tourism. Principles, Practices, Philosophies, Hoboken, Wiley,
2009.
Ritter, R.M. New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, Oxford, Oxford
Robinson, M. Expressions of Culture, Identity and Meaning in Tourism, Sunderland,
Business Education Publishers, 2000.
Sharpley, R. Travel and Tourism, London, Sage, 2006.
Starfield, S. “Historical development of language for specific purposes” in Chapelle,
C.A. (ed.) The encyclopedia of applied linguistics, 10 vol., Hoboken, Blackwell
Publishing, 2013, pp. 1-6.
Strevens, P. New Orientations in the Teaching of English, Oxford, OUP, 1978.
Strevens, P. “ESP after twenty years: A re-appraisal” in Tickoo, M. (ed.) ESP: State
of the Art, Singapore, SEAMEO Regional Centre, 1988, pp. 1-13.
Strutt, P. English for international tourism, Harlow, Pearson Education, 2015.
Woodrow, L. Introducing course design in English for specific purposes, Abingdon,
Routledge, 2018.
Wyatt, R. Check Your English Vocabulary for Leisure, Travel and Tourism, 2nd ed.
London, A & C Black, 2007.
Chapter 10
Allison, D. Approaching English language research, Singapore, Singapore University
Press, 2002.
Ammon, U.; McConnell, G. English as an Academic Language in Europe: A Survey
of Its Use in Teaching, Bern, Peter Lang, 2002.
Bates, M.; Dudley-Evans, T. Nucleus: general science, London, Longman, 1976.
Baynham, M. “Academic writing in new and emergent discipline areas” in Lea,
M.; Stierer, B. Student writing in higher education: new contexts, Buckingham,
Society for Research in Higher Education and Open University Press, 2002.
Benesch, S. Critical English for Academic Purposes, Mahwah, NJ, Erlbaum, 2001.
Benson, P.; Voller, P. (eds) Autonomy and independence in language learning,
London, Longman. 1997.
187
Bhatia, V. Analysing genre: language use in professional settings, London, Longman,

1993.
Bhatia, V. Worlds of written discourse: a genre-based view, London, Continuum,
2004.
Brinton, M.; Snow, M.; Wesche, M. Content-based second language instruction,
Boston, Heinle & Heinle, 1989.
Candlin, C.N.; Hyland, K. Writing: texts, processes and practices, Harlow, Pearson,
1997.
Clark, R.; Ivanic, R. The politics of writing, London, Routledge, 1997.
Coffin, C.; Curry, M.; Goodman, S.; Hewings, A.; Lillis, T.; Swann, J. Teaching
academic writing: a toolkit for higher education, London, Routledge, 2003.
Crème, P.; Lea, M.; Writing at university: a guide for students, 2nd ed. Maidenhead,
Open University Press, 2003.
Douglas, D. Assessing languages for specific purposes, Cambridge, Cambridge
Dudley-Evans, T. “English for Specific Purposes” in Carter, R.; Nunan, D. The
Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages, Cambridge,
Dudley-Evans, T.; St John, M.-J. Developments in English for Specific Purposes,
Ellis, R. Task-based language learning and teaching, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 2003.
Flowerdew, J. (ed.) Academic discourse, Harlow, Longman, 2002.
Flowerdew, J.; Peacock, M. Research perspectives on English for Academic Purposes,
Garbutt, M.; O’ Sullivan, K. IELTS strategies for study: reading, writing, listening and
speaking at university and college, Sydney, National Centre for English Language
Teaching and Research, Macquarie University, 1996.
Geertz, C. The Interpretation of Cultures, New York, Basic Books, 1973.
Grabe, W.; Kaplan, R. Theory and practice of writing, Harlow, Longman, 1996.
Halliday, M.A.K. An introduction to functional grammar, 2nd ed. London, Arnold,
1994.
Halliday, M.A.K.; Macintosh, A.; Strevens, P. The linguistic sciences and language
teaching, London, Longman,1 964.
Harrison, L. English for International Tourism (New Edition), Intermediate,
Harlow, Pearson Longman, 2013.
188
References
Holliday, A. Doing and writing qualitative research, London, Sage, 2002.

Hunston, S. Corpora in applied linguistics, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2002.
Hutchison, T.; Waters, A. English for Specific Purposes, Cambridge, Cambridge
Hyland, K. Second language writing, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Hyland, K. Genre and second language writing, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan
Press, 2004.
Johns, A.M. Text, role and context: developing academic literacies, Cambridge,
Jordan, R. English for Academic Purposes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1997.
Kress, G.R. Literacy in the new Media Age, London, Routledge Falmer, 2003.
Kress, G.; Van Leeuwen, T. Reading images: the grammar of visual design, London,
Routledge, 1996.
Kress, G.R.; Van Leeuwen, T. Multimodal discourse: the modes and media of
contemporary communication, London, Arnold, 2002.
Lea, M.; Stierer, B. Student writing in higher education: new contexts; Buckingham,
Society for Research in Higher Education and Open University Press, 2000.
Martin, J.R. English text: system and structure, Amsterdam, Benjamins, 1992.
Robinson, P. ESP today: a practitioner’ s guide, New York, Prentice Hall, 1991.
Swales, J.; Feak, C. Academic writing for graduate students, 2nd ed, Ann Arbor,
University of Michigan Press, 2004.
Widdowson, H. Learning purpose and language use, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1983.
Widdowson, H. Aspects of language teaching, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
1990.
Ypsilandis, G.; Kantaridou, Z. “English For Academic Purposes: Case Studies in
Europe” in Revista de Linguistica Y Lenguas Aplicadas, v. 2, Valencia, 2007, pp.
69-83.
189
KEY CONCEPTS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS
Key Concepts of English Language and Linguistics is specifically aimed
at Italian students of Foreign Languages degree courses. The book
intends to be an introductory text that covers the core topics featuring
in English Studies and Linguistics and, at the same time, provides the
information and concepts that will enable students to understand more
detailed and advanced treatments of both disciplines, should they
pursue the fields further.
Key Concepts of English Language and Linguistics includes 10 chapters,
each of which explores a different aspect peculiar to the English
language.
The first chapter offers a straightforward introduction to the history
of the English language as well as an outline of linguistics within the
framework of its main theoretical models. Then follow a series of
chapters dealing with the major aspects of linguistic study, starting
with English phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics.
The second part of the textbook is devoted to central aspects such as
language varieties, the global nature of English, English for Specific
Purposes and Academic English.
At the end of each chapter the students will find a set of review
questions and, with the exception of the more discursive topics, a
range of activities similar to those they are likely to be faced with while
taking their exams.
A useful bibliography of suggested readings is provided at the end of
the book for each chapter.
RAFFAELLA PICELLO is currently adjunct professor at the universities of

Urbino and Padua. She has received a Doctorate in Cultural Heritage
at the University of Verona defending a thesis on The reception of
Futurism in Ferrara from 1911 to 1942 and has a postgraduate
diploma in Contemporary Art History. She has collaborated with the
Civic Museums of Ancient Art and the Este Castle Museum in planning
exhibitions on medieval and modern art. She has also devoted
special attention to the English avant-garde, contemporary female
artists and to teaching aspects of the visual arts in English. Her book
include English for Cultural Tourism Management and Interpretation
(2017), Understanding Heritage (2016), Clil Art History (2016), Art In
View (2014), Il Vorticismo. Londra 1912-15. L’avanguardia inglese
antagonista del Futurismo (2010).

Key Concepts of English Language and Linguistics

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Key Concepts of English Language and Linguistics

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Biblioteca ﻿

for university students

The birth of the English language dates back to the arrival

I diritti di traduzione, di memorizzazione elettronica, di riproduzione e di adattamento

Il nostro indirizzo internet è:

Per segnalazioni di errori o suggerimenti relativi a questo volume potete contattare:

Phonemic Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Enter the Romans

Old English (450-1100 CE)

the north and the south, in Schleswig-Holstein, of the Danish peninsula, or

Under Norman rule towards the advent of Middle English (1100-1500)

Times are a-changing

1. to begin with, a general reduction of inflections is recorded. Endings of the

1. the final <e> was no longer pronounceable as [ә];

The Great Vowel Shift: examples.

Middle English Early Modern English Modern English

8. finally, a conspicuous number of conditioned vowel changes took place in the

Late Modern English (1700-Present)

Theories of modern linguistics

Second Language Acquisition

Main theories of modern linguistics

As a consequence, for most of the nineteenth century scholars and philolo-

Saussure and structural linguistics

According to Saussure, language functions as a system of signs as it must be

In his first publication An Introduction to the Study of Language he stressed

The Sapir - Whorf hypothesis

Chomsky’ s Theory of Generative Grammar

Chomsky’ s theory of grammar is called generative because it is designed to

Who’ s who in linguistics

Benjamin Whorf (1897-1941)

Otto Jespersen (1860-1943)

Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949)

Roman Jakobson (1896-1982)

Noam Chomsky (born 1928)

underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of socio-cultural difference. Chomsky,

David Crystal (born 1941)

3. During what period was Old English used?

Overview of English phonetics and phonology

How are sounds produced?

1. by forcing air out of the lungs and up through the throat;

Those organs of speech, which can

1. in the degree of noise (noise consonants – sonorants);

How are vowels pronunced?

front central back

These are the monophthongs in Standard British English:

• [i]: High front tense vowel, in eat, each, meet, see;

In addition to the vowels listed above, English has phonemic diphthongs,

Why syllables count

Phonology: connecting sounds

a. in unstressed syllables within words, eg. demonstrative;

light blue /laıp blu:/ /t/ → /p/

Examples of progressive assimilation:

washed /wɒʃt/ /ıd/ → /t/

sometimes by increased muscular tension in the articulators. The results of this

Therefore, a declarative sentence is generally pronounced with a falling into-

Reports at business meetings, classroom lessons and demonstrations, tours

4) Transcribe the following words phonemically, using syllabic consonants where

6) Write the word that matches the diphthong symbols:

7) In English, vowel quality depends somewhat on stress. Some orthographically

From morphology to syntax

As language is created and interpreted by the brain, it is the task of psycholin-

Rules of Word Formation

Noun to Adjective Verb to Noun Adjective to Adverb

Noun to Noun Verb to Verb Adjective to Adjective

Biblioteca