Language As a Function of Purpose the Conceptual Frame

chapter 1

Language as a Function of Purpose The Conceptual Frame

Language . . . is the most important sign system of human society. . . . [It] has its origins in the face-to-face situation, but can be readily detached from it. . . . [It also] possesses an inherent quality of reciprocity that distinguishes it from any other sign system. (Berger & Luckman, 1966: 36–37)

How do we interpret the following sentence? I recognize the house in the photograph. It’s grammatically correct, yet it provides only a limited interpretation of what is actually meant. We don’t know, for instance, to which house the speaker is referring—a critical piece of information. We also do not know to which particular photograph the speaker is referring. Traditional grammar, which focuses on “grammar” as “sentence-based,” provides an imperfect understanding of the way in which language actually works in live contexts. A functional-rhetorical frame for language teaching provides us with a way of considering language in terms of how it functions in a range of contexts and how it is used by speakers who have some purpose in using it. The contexts include immediate linguistic contexts such as phrases, clauses, and sentences and larger rhetorical contexts such as genres and modes within genres, as well as contexts related to the speaker/writer and listener/reader. The term “rhetorical” essentially refers to styles, again with reciprocity of the participants in mind. Traditional grammar and other sentence-focused grammars have typically not addressed the reality that all language always fits in and hints at larger structures of use such as genres, modes within genres, settings, participants, and purposes. No sentence is truly meaningful

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 1 5/9/12 9:46 AM 2 in isolation from a context. Words naturally embody references backwards and Chapter 1 forwards to other words in other sentences or utterances. To use even a relatively Language as a harmless-looking word such as a definite article implies that some other statement Function of Purpose has been or will be provided to enable us to determine the full meaning of the definite article as used in that sentence. ➙ Objectives This chapter establishes a frame of reference for teaching English to students in middle school (grades 6–8) and high school (grades 9-12) English Language Arts settings. Establishing such a frame of reference grounded in sound theories about how people actually acquire and learn language in informal and formal settings is critical because we do not use language in a vacuum, although traditional grammar-based exercises seem to imply that we do. Traditional grammar instruction ignores some essential components in the process of language learning, whatever the age or level undertaken. These components are the role of purpose and how it influences the functions of language as used; the role of participants in any language-based interaction; the content of communication; and the subsequent linguistic, rhetorical, and stylistic choices we make. This chapter presents the reader with a functional-rhetorical frame for language use within a common range of purposes, assuming a common range of participants, and offering related linguistic, stylistic, and rhetorical choices that can be meaningfully evaluated in terms of whether or not they fulfill the desired purposes. Diagrammatic representations of the frame and its applications are also provided.

The Central Concepts

The primary and initially obvious contexts for language are speech and writing. The theoretical grounding for this text is influenced by semiotics and sociolinguistics, in particular Halliday’s seminal books Language as a Social Semiotic (1978) and An Introduction to Functional Grammar (1994). From Halliday’s contributions to our understanding of language learning (and those of others in the field of sociolinguistics), we know of the significant role that social and cultural contexts play in that process. Influenced by Halliday’s work as well as that of Britton, Burgess, Martin, McLeod, and Rosen (1975) and Jakobson (1987), I have provided a model of major (macro) and minor (micro) functions of language that reflect specific rhetorical purposes and audiences (see Figures 1.1 and 1.2). Figure 1.1 provides a model for locating students on a continuum from home discourse (HD) to standard English academic discourse (SEAD). This depiction assumes that HD is not identical to SEAD for all students but may be so for some students. A teacher may have students located anywhere along the continuum when the teacher initially meets them. The continuum could be used in a portfolio as a means of indicating where students are at the beginning of a school year, at the middle of the year, and at the end of the year. A student who is at the SEAD end of the continuum at the beginning of the school year is assumed to have acquired SEAD at some point in his or her education or through exposure during early childhood. The continuum may represent where any of us are when we enter

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 2 5/9/12 9:46 AM 3 S1 S2 S3 S4 The Central Concepts

HD XX XXSEAD

S = Student H = Home Discourse SEAD = Standard English Academic Discourse

Figure 1.1 A Continuum: From Home Discourse to Standard English Academic Discourse

another discourse community. Initial proximity therefore depends on how much the individual’s “code” approximates the “code” of the discourse community he or she wishes to become part of. Note that although the continuum from HD to SEAD is given in a linear form, it is not intended to imply linear development. Figure 1.2 is a diagrammatic representation of the discourse communities to which a hypothetical student might belong. Discourse communities are not necessarily contiguous for all students; however, they may be contiguous for some students. In this model, the school and work discourse communities (assuming the student has a job) are shown as not contiguous. We may belong to multiple discourse communities at any point in our lives, whether these are recognized or not in our schooling, for we mark our place in this world through belonging to various groups and pursuing our lives through our activities and relationships within such groups. We could have a diagram that includes ten discourse communities, or fifteen, or fewer than five. I have adapted these macro-functions from the earlier work of Jakobson (1987) and Britton et al. (1975) as well as others to better reflect how we might use the concept of functions in the context of language and literacy instruction. Jakobson’s (1987, pp. 66–69) original conceptualization of how we use language included the following

Figure 1.2 A Representation of Discourse Communities to Which a Student May Belong

DC2 DC1: Home/family discourse community DC2: School discourse community DC3 DC3: Friendship discourse community DC1 DC4: Church discourse community DC5: Work discourse community DC4 DC5

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 3 5/9/12 9:46 AM 4 functions: the emotive or expressive (i.e., the direct expression of the speaker’s Chapter 1 attitude toward what she or he is speaking about), the conative (i.e., how we orient Language as a our language toward the speaker), and the poetic (i.e., the set toward the message as Function of Purpose such, the focus on the message for its own sake).1 Britton et al. (1975) adapted these to the actual writing that students do and reformulated them as the Expressive Func- tion (language of the self), the Transactional Function (language that is used to convey information), and the Poetic Function (language for aesthetic purposes). I further adapted these functions (Soter, 1993) by making explicit the relationships between purpose, readership, and audience. The Expressive Function in my reconceptualization is essentially language of the self for the self. It is therefore informal, often colloquial, idiomatic, and private and typically invites little if any revising or editing. Typical of written modes that reflect the Expressive Function are personal journals, diaries, personal memos and notes, personal greeting cards to intimate members of the family or close friends, notes taken in class, and personal poetry in which the focus is on expressing emotions and where there is no intention to publish the work or share it widely. Because the use of the Expressive Func- tion reflects private, intimate uses of language, we would typically not grade for correctness or the extent to which the work is polished. Rather, any grade would reflect process and effort rather than quality of the product. In contrast, the Transactional Function and the Aesthetic Function are seen as public rather than private uses of language. The primary function of language that has a Transactional Function is information-giving and -receiving. Criteria for eval- uating this function of language typically include clarity, accuracy, organization, use of logic and reasoning, and a revised, edited product. This function involves formal uses of language, suppressing of the personal in many cases (e.g., exclusion of the use of first person), and typically entails the use of rhetorical modes such as essays, formal speeches, research and technical reports, briefs, summaries, and abstracts. Often, an intended audience is pre-identified, and the writing (and speaking) is focused on that audience. The Aesthetic Function entails a specialized use of language for creative (i.e., artistic) purposes that essentially have a public rather than private audience in mind. As with the Transactional Function, there is a public dimension to this function; that is, the user intends others to listen to or read what has been produced. The focus with this function, however, is not primarily on providing accurate facts but on imaginative uses of language for inspirational, reflective, and entertainment purposes. Typically, when we use this function, we are concerned with whether the language engrosses, intrigues, delights, or amuses, although persuasive uses of language are also possible (e.g., through satire).

1Jakobson (1987) describes these functions in the context of a discussion of the primary functions of the language of literature. While I find them very useful, they are also limiting for my purposes in establishing broad functions that will serve as categories for the use and study of language by developing readers and writers. Therefore, I have adapted and conflated Jakobson’s functions with those utilized by Britton et al. (1975) for their study of writing abilities between the ages of 11 and 16. Britton et al. (1975) based their description of the functions of language on Jakobson’s work but redefined the expressive and poetic according to how these functions play out in actual use. Thus, their expressive function is “language of the self”; Jakobson’s conative function became their transactional function (language oriented toward informing others), and the poetic function essentially became the aesthetic function (language used expressly for imaginative, creative, artistic purposes). It is Britton et al.’s (1975) functions that I have renamed “macro-functions” in this book.

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 4 5/9/12 9:46 AM 5 These macro- and micro-functions, namely, the Expressive Function, the The Central Concepts Transactional Function, and the Aesthetic (or Poetic) Function, form a functional- rhetorical matrix that accounts for the choices we make of various linguistic elements depending on our intentions (or purposes) and on our intended participants or audiences. Figure 1.3 illustrates how we might make use of these functions for instructional purposes—for the teaching of writing and reading as well as language used to accomplish the various purposes.

Figure 1.3 Rhetorical Macro-Functions and Micro-Functions

Macro-Functions

Expressive Function Transactional Function Aesthetic/Artistic Function (Language for the (Language to inform, (Language to amuse, delight, self, of the self) reﬂect, or engage others) enlighten, uplift, inspire)

Example Micro-Functions Language to control Language to persuade Language to inform Language to emote Language to entertain or amuse Language to reﬂect Language to learn Language to ritualize

Application of Functions to Listening/Speaking and Reading/Writing

Macro-Function Transactional (Language to exchange information) Selected Micro-Function Persuasion (Information to affect behavior or action) Activities Listening Presidential address to nation Speaking Debate on school rules Reading Selected newspaper editorials Writing Letter to editor on why kids should not drive before age 18

Focused Language Study Tools of Persuasion Generalization, equivocation, Connotation false analogies, appeal to crowd mentality

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 5 5/9/12 9:46 AM 6 Chapter 1 Language as a NARRATIVE DESCRIPTIVE EXPOSITORY Function of Purpose Range of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, Range of expository samples for reading dramatic writing, in a variety of styles and writing, and to serve as models for for reading and modeling. writing. ------Language Components Language Components to Focus on to Focus on

Indentify linking verbs Complex sentences

Identify prepositional phrases Complete sentences

Paragraph changes with dialogue use Unity and Coherence

Unity and Coherence in expository writing

(applicable for focus in Narrative/Descriptive/Expository writing)

Adjectival modifiers

Adverbial/participle modifier

Simple/compound sentences

Varying sentence length and type

Figure 1.4 An Integrated 8th Grade Course of Study

As we select activities or instructional foci, we might want to balance students’ oral and written work with language across the macro-functions (i.e., the Expressive, Transactional, and Aesthetic Functions). In Chapter Nine, I discuss and illustrate how a sequence of language study based on the macro- and micro- functions might be configured as a core for a variety of oral and written language experiences (involving reading as well as writing), that is, what kinds of reading and writing activities would embody both micro- and macro-functions. While reconfiguring a traditional composition and literature curriculum might seem daunting, it is possible to do so and, in the process, to contextualize what is typically a disconnected array of lists of skills and products in many courses of study for middle and high school students. An example of how this works is provided in an adaptation of a fictionalized representative 8th grade course of study in language arts in a Midwestern suburban school district (see Figure 1.4). This reconfiguration may be helpful to teachers who want to adapt a seemingly rigid course of study in language arts to a functional-rhetorical frame. The process is relatively simply achieved by addressing the following questions:

■ Is the discourse to be private or public?

■ If public or private, is it intended to be personal or impersonal?

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 6 5/9/12 9:46 AM 7 ■ If public or private, is the reader/audience close or distant? Key Assumptions ■ If public or private, is the discourse intended to be formal or informal?

■ What is the specific purpose of communication?

■ What linguistic and rhetorical choices are typically associated with various purposes?

Once these basic questions have been answered, reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities and skills related to these questions are no longer as disconnected and relatively meaningless as they might originally appear. New materials can be used to consolidate patterns of language use that often take repeated practice (e.g., multiple subordination) and can present challenges to students who are more adept at oral language use than written language use.

Key Assumptions

The key assumptions in this book relate to language learning over the course of schooling and life in general. Broadly, these assumptions entail a view of language and language learning in the following ways:

■ that language is a form of human behavior and a response to our desire to communicate with others;

■ that all language learners are members of multiple discourse communities;

■ that language learning begins before schooling and continues beyond it;

■ that language learning in school contexts represents highly specific uses of language that may or may not serve the individual outside of the school context;

■ that it is important to make explicit what learners know about language;

■ that to read and write effectively, learners need to be immersed in the world of print media to acquire the patterns of written language across a range of genres; and,

■ that although labels and terminology related to language are not in themselves worth a great deal, such terminology has its place in developing the learner’s metalinguistic and metadis- course skills.

More detailed discussions of these assumptions follow.

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 7 5/9/12 9:46 AM 8 Chapter 1 Assumption 1: Language in Response to Language as a Communicative Needs and Desires: How Function of Purpose Language Serves Us Language acquisition scholars (e.g., Brown and Bellugi, 1964; Bruner, 1978; Chomsky, 1969; Halliday, 1974) have taught that we learn language in social contexts, through a process of immersion in our mother tongue and usually gentle correction and modeling by our parents, other adults, and older siblings as well as various social networks outside the home, and through our desire to communicate in language. In formal schooling, this kind of natural oral language acquisition continues despite the little attention that educators pay to it. Children continue to adjust their speech in play; in response to adults around them; through vocabulary acquired in reading and writing as well as through information from teachers, the Internet, movies, and television; and as a natural consequence of experiences that expand their linguistic and rhetorical repertoires. The extent to which these informal avenues and processes are honored by educators depends greatly on the individual teacher. Curricula, test-driven by state and national norms, typically disregard what children have acquired in the contexts described above. A child’s fluency on the playground, in a multiplayer Inter- net game, or as a bargainer with siblings is not usually tapped, nor are these uses of language considered valid in school contexts. Formal language learning in school contexts focuses instead on reading and writing texts, which might not have a place in the life of many students outside the classroom. The manner in which children are expected to learn reading and writing in classrooms departs from natural language acquisition processes and the experiences children have in expanding their language in informal contexts—to the significant detriment of many learners. Literature-based curricula, such as Literature Circles (Daniels, 1994; Short & Pierce, 1998) and Book Clubs (Raphael, 1994), have done much to bring natural reading processes and behaviors into the Language Arts classroom, but such curricula are currently being threatened by national test- driven agendas that undercut the contextualized nature of these programs. Much of the reading and writing students do in school requires the use of motivational mechanisms and threat of punishment (through grades) that, though somewhat successful for some students, alienate many and limit their abilities to bring into school use what they know of language and its application in a variety of contexts. An underlying assumption of this book is that tapping this reservoir of knowledge is a natural consequence of a functional-rhetorical approach to language instruction across all modes of expression—reading, writing, speaking, listening.

Assumption 2: Learners as Members of Multiple Discourse Communities Because of the work of Gumperz (1982), Vygotsky (1962, 1978), Heath (1983), Wells (1985), and others, we no longer have to argue that language learning does not happen in isolation. Without effort and with very few exceptions, we are all members of multiple discourse communities (see Figure 1.2). Most obviously, we belong to a home discourse community that is situated within a larger local discourse community (a street, a precinct, a municipality, etc.). Once a child enters a daycare

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 8 5/9/12 9:46 AM 9 facility located in another precinct and subsequently enters school, the child’s Key Assumptions membership in discourse communities expands; the degree to which it expands depends on whether these new settings include speakers from other multiple discourse communities. As individuals continue to the workplace and college, further expansion of discourse community membership is likely to occur. That said, people typically (though not always) retain something of the style and flavor of their home and local discourse community and come to differentiate their linguistic and rhetorical choices depending on the discourse community in which they are functioning at any given time. For much of our lives, we acquire and learn through absorption and imitation the forms of discourse that these various discourse communities prefer. At times, depending on the distance between common usage in our home discourse community and usage in a target discourse community to which we have decided to gain entry, we might need more explicit instruction and modeling. This is often the case with school discourse. Though largely forgotten now, Bernstein’s (1961) extensive and significant work in the 1960s presaged the current acceptance that home language will either advantage or disadvantage a child’s ability to conform to school language (i.e., discourse) practices depending on the approximation of home language (discourse) to school language (discourse). Nevertheless, the work of scholars such as Heath (1983) and Wells (1985) indicates that children’s linguistic and rhetorical facility in their natural settings is rarely tapped by schools, which tend to stress linguistic and rhetorical confor- mity and adherence to a normative standard. This in itself would not be an issue if educators utilized what students already know about language use in multiple settings and for multiple purposes and built on the strengths students bring as adept oral communicators. Properly channeled, the students’ existing knowledge and strengths could serve as foundations for the more abstracted, often test-driven language uses in school contexts.

Assumption 3: Establishing Learner Knowledge About Language: Making the Implicit Explicit In my discussion of the previous assumption, I alluded to the need to make knowledge about language and discourse explicit. As children progress into middle and upper elementary schooling, they correspondingly need to understand that the labels we apply to different parts of speech or the labels we use to describe different aspects of discourse are descriptive of the ways in which language is actually functioning. This knowledge reflects not only linguistic or rhetorical knowledge, but also metalinguistic and metarhetorical language. That is, although we might not recognize and label them as such, we will naturally use nouns, verbs, pronouns, and other parts of speech as well as transitional terms between sentences or utterances in our oral and written language. Our obsession with labels suggests that we have confused knowledge of the label with knowledge of use. Many of us also suffer from the delusion that not knowing how to label the bits and pieces of languages and the larger units into which it is organized (discourse) will prevent students from being effective writers. Nevertheless, knowing the labels for language elements we use enables us to

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 9 5/9/12 9:46 AM 10 understand why a particular usage is either erroneous or at best infelicitous. Labels, Chapter 1 after all, allow us to describe language and discourse reasonably efficiently. Label- Language as a ing also enables us to develop an appreciation for the ways in which language and Function of Purpose discourse work and, some argue (Dasenbrook, 1992), enables us to take delight in the skillful ways in which various writers cast their spells on us. Yet even advanced college students are unsure about these labels. In a pre- service teacher education course on language and language methods, we discuss the effective use of words, phrases, and clauses used appositively,2 enabling the writer to set off information from the flow of the rest of the sentence in order to foreground a piece of information. We play with the same sentence, restructuring it to remove the appositive word, phrase, or clause, and discuss what happens to the effect that was achieved in the original. In the process of doing this, we make explicit the relationship between language use and its effects on the reader or listener. It is in this context that light bulbs go on, and statements such as “Oh my, I’ve never understood why it mattered to know appositives!” are heard around the room. Knowing how to label something does not constitute knowing its value or knowing how to effectively use the item so labeled. Explicit discussion with students about why certain language elements and discourse are labeled as they are does help students to understand the ways in which those elements function. With- out explicit discussion of language, students will, at best, retain half-learned bits of information and will not understand what lies behind the labeling.

Assumption 4: Language Learners Need to Be Immersed in the Kinds of Language They Are Expected to Use as Effective Readers and Writers Experience of that which is to be learned is a commonsense foundation for any learning. For example, we frequently ask students to write a descriptive paragraph, but their exposure to such a form is limited if it exists at all. In desperation, since such models were lacking for me when I taught English in secondary schools, I would create model paragraphs and use them to discuss what goes into the creation of an effective descriptive paragraph. Without this model, the process was always haphazard and often a sheer waste of time in which little genuine writing happened. The exercise remained just that—an exercise. Furthermore, the work done in these exercises did not automatically transfer into the essays or stories students wrote. Literature-based composition instruction in college English courses has always assumed an implicit relationship between input and output in that students are provided with models of literature that form the basis for discussions about style, diction, and effectiveness relative to assumed purpose and audience. Literary read- ings can serve (and have in the past) as the foundation for subsequent writing. Imitation, similarly, has a long tradition of use in teaching effective rhetoric (e.g., Murphy, 1990) but has lapsed into disfavor with the current high level of anxiety over plagiarism. In discussions with pre-service teachers, who are concerned that that if they use imitation exercises, their students will be accused of plagiarism,

2An appositive is a noun, noun phrase or noun clause immediately following another noun. An appositive essentially renames the thing or concept expressed in the preceding noun.

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 10 5/9/12 9:46 AM 11 we discuss what is being imitated. These teachers typically do not differentiate Key Assumptions between imitation of form and imitation of content. We discuss how many writers have imitated the style of others whose work they admire. Although this is considered acceptable, the idea of their students doing likewise is not. This anxiety is a result of the uncertainty many of us, experienced as well as pre-service teachers, have about our own skills as language users and a lack of awareness about how we developed our own styles. A solution is to build into language courses for teachers some opportunities to practice imitation of various sentence patterns in which they use their own content but mold it to fit the structures of the patterns being imitated. What they will discover is how habitual language use becomes and how fixed and inhibiting such habitual uses can become. My students also learn that shifting into unhabitual language uses requires the modeling process and practice. In the process, they discover how exhilarating it can be to acquire new forms of language use and how exciting it is to consciously expand their linguistic and rhetorical repertoires.

Assumption 5: The Place for Labels Having stated in my discussion of Assumption 3 that schools have over-emphasized labeling of elements of language, excluding labeling altogether is not the answer. If we were to attempt to describe a bicycle or some other piece of equipment without the specialized vocabulary that describes its components, we would be engaged in a remarkably inefficient exercise. We would likely have to present a diagram and point to its various parts to ensure that the listener or reader can identify the bicycle’s components appropriately. Similarly inefficient would be an attempt to describe the bits and pieces of language without labels that have been assigned to them. Labels are never meaningful out of context. For example, to label an utterance as a sentence means little outside the context of written language or, if speaking, doing so in a style that resembles written language. A sentence is a meaningful construct only in the context of other sentences that cohere into something larger than a sentence, that is, in the context of a sequence of other sentences, usually found in a paragraph. Alternatively, a sentence may be meaningful in the context of a response to a sentence or other expression uttered by someone else. In informal spoken language contexts, we frequently do not utter sentences in the strict sense of the word. Although sentences may be argued to be present in deep structure, at surface level we often use what are termed “fragments.” The concept of surface structure and deep structure3 is a useful one to help students see that even when something is not expressed on the surface, it is nevertheless present. Ellipsis is common in oral language, but in deep structure, the speaker can retrieve what has been ellipted if pressed. I work with this concept in my classes and workshops by having students examine transcripts of

3“Deep structure” and “surface structure” are terms that are derived from generative grammar (Chomsky, 1956; Williams, 1999). They aptly describe the way in which language use is essentially an iceberg phenomenon. That is, we express or articulate what is necessary, what is effective, what is apt, for any act of communication, but we retain the sense of what has been omitted, which results in our being able to make sense in any string of expressed language. Briefly and simply, deep structure can be defined as the underlying logic beneath an expressed utterance, that is, what is actually heard or read (Williams, 1999, pp. 144–145). While there is not necessarily a syntactic equivalence between deep structure and surface structure, there must be semantic equivalence, tested as this would be through applying transformational rules (Williams, 1999, p. 145).

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 11 5/9/12 9:46 AM 12 conversations, individually retrieve what appears to have been ellipted from the Chapter 1 surface expression in the dialogue, then compare with others in small groups and Language as a ultimately with the whole class to determine the level of agreement over what has Function of Purpose been ellipted. It is not surprising that we achieve a high level of agreement about what has been ellipted, although that level of agreement astonishes my students. Similarly, with developing writers, much is ellipted on paper that can be re- trieved orally through questioning. In my experience, many students have difficulty deciding what to put on paper, what to retain, and what to ellipt. To some extent, this is attributable to the constant struggle many students have with knowing what is appropriate or not, what is obvious or not, and so on. Furthermore, writing can be cognitively and physically arduous, and sometimes students confess that they “leave things out” because they “just can’t be bothered putting them down,” “they seem obvious,” or “they get in the way of what I wanted to say.” Having students develop a consciousness of the simultaneity of surface and deep structure aspects of language use enables them to become more conscious of the selective nature of any oral or written communication. The concept is crucial in understanding the notion of choice in how we use language.

Applications

Teachers might consider revising the part of their Language Arts course that deals with writing and language in terms of the functional-rhetorical frame I have offered in this chapter. An example of how this works is provided in Figure 1.4. The course of study provided here is a hypothetical but representative 8th grade language/composition section in a Language Arts Curriculum that is typical of those in many schools. “Literature” is sectioned off from other parts of the Language Arts middle school curriculum, as are “Reading,” “Composition” or “Writing,” and “Grammar” or “Language Skills.” The example presented here is one I shared with a large Midwestern suburban school district in the interests of integrating reading, writing, literature, and language study. The language components can be pursued in the contexts of narrative and descriptive reading and writing as well as in the context of expository writing. I have not provided a complete overhaul of the typical 8th grade course of study, since I intend this only to be an example of how to contextualize language study in meaningful ways. The original hypothetical but typical course of study was focused on narrative, descriptive, and expository writing. The language components were listed separately. Figure 1.4 depicts a reorganization of that course of study in an integrated way. The elements shown in Figure 1.4 are common in many Language Arts Curricula and are typically represented as discrete elements. In my reconfiguration, I moved language components to focus on the ones that seem particularly relevant to narrative writing (either fiction or nonfiction), poetry, and dramatic writing in the macro-genre “Narrative Writing.” Language elements that existed in the discrete syllabus drawn on that seem more directly relevant to expository writing have been moved in Figure 1.4 from a separate, unrelated list to the macro-genre “Expository Writing.” Language elements that seem more directly relevant to descriptive writing have been moved to appear in the macro-genre “Descriptive Writing.” Of course, narrative writing and expository writing also draw on adjectival and adverbial modifiers as well as simple and compound sentences and would also entail variation

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 12 5/9/12 9:46 AM 13 in sentence length and type. But the initial review or introduction of any language Conclusion element makes more sense when it takes place in a directly meaningful context in which it is naturally foregrounded (e.g., narrative foregrounds chronological development of events; exposition foregrounds reasoning, caveats, and explanation; and complex sentence structures that entail subordination are generally more prevalent in this macro-genre than in the narrative macro-genre). Further reconfiguration of this course of study would entail identifying macro- and micro-functions of language use and using these as a guide to selecting textual material for reading and writing purposes under the genre headings (Nar- rative, Descriptive, Expository). Within that reframing, teachers would also want to identify, or have students identify, specific purposes and audiences. In the above contextualization of what was a course of study initially constructed in discrete, separate units of study, we would thereby create a communicative frame that will enable students to see how the different components actually fit together and make sense of their writing and language study.

Conclusion Summary and Questions for Reflection and Discussion

Teachers can utilize the following questions to help consolidate their understanding of the theoretical frame presented in this chapter as a way of grounding their own work in the classroom. In responding to the questions, they may discover the extent to which their assumptions about language, learning language, and teaching language are based on sound knowledge about each of these domains. They may also uncover how much their practices as teachers are based on what they learned about language ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty years previously, primarily in school, and how little of that knowledge was ever made explicit in their own education, that is, how much of that knowledge was acquired osmotically, through frustrating trial and error. As important as this is, teachers are also encouraged to enjoy language play, something that many teachers have told me they did not experience in their own education. While many feel quite confident about themselves as readers and writers, they are much less confident about how to explain language and discourse to their students. Through activities in which they can experiment with their own styles, provide stylistic feedback to others, and stretch into language play, they can reclaim some of the risk-taking they exhibited a very long time ago—a kind of risk- taking that is critical if they are to help their students become effective users of language whatever the mode (oral or written). Furthermore, language play of the kind described above enables both teachers and students to see that richness in language use lies not only in their ability to use complex sentence structures and elevated vocabulary, but also in manipulating even simple language in ways that enable them to engage deeply with the ideas and experiences represented in that language. Excellent examples can be drawn from a wide variety of literary sources, whether fiction or nonfiction or poetry.

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 13 5/9/12 9:46 AM 14 Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese,”4 for example, has captured countless readers Chapter 1 with the first line of the poem: “You do not have to be good.” Language as a Function of Purpose Questions for Reflection and Discussion

The following questions will enable teachers to explore and make explicit their beliefs and practices:

■ What are my theories about how we learn language?

■ What is my theoretical frame for the grammar exercises I teach?

■ What linguistic theory does my teaching reflect?

■ How do I explain grammar rules to my students?

■ What do I do about anomalies?

■ What do I know about the historical development of the rules of English?

■ What informs my reading of student written language and how I respond to it?

■ What informs my own editing and correcting of students’ written language?

■ Where and when did I accumulate that information?

■ Who are the primary audiences of student writing in school?

■ Why does the answer to the preceding question present problems in how I read my students’ papers?

■ What is my role when I read students’ papers? Am I a real reader? A default examiner reader (Britton et al., 1975)? A friendly, supportive reader? The teacher who taught them something and wants to see it reflected back in what is written?

4“Wild Geese” in Oliver, M. (1985). Dream Work, New York: Grove/Atlantic, p. 14.

M01_SOTE6575_04_SE_C01.indd 14 5/9/12 9:46 AM chapter2

Discourse Communities and Kinds of Language Use

Discourses are not mastered by overt instruction (even less so than languages, and hardly anyone ever fluently acquired a second language sitting in a classroom), but by enculturation (“apprenticeship”) into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse. (Gee, 2001, p. 527)

We are surrounded by language; in other words, we are surrounded by discourse. 1 “Discourse” means any connected unit of utterance in which there are at least three participants: one or more speakers (or writers), the unit of utterance itself as parti cipant, and one or more receivers (listeners or readers). Discourse is, in essence a

1Cuddon (1991) provides the original meaning of the term “discourse” as that which represents a “learned discussion, spoken or written, on a philosophical, political, literary, or religious topic. It is closely related to a treatise and a dissertation.” However, he adds, that in “linguistics, ‘discourse’ denotes a ‘stretch of language’ larger than a sentence” (p. 249) and that in more recent times, the “term has acquired much wider meanings and much wider implications” (p. 249). Cuddon defines discourse in terms of the latter as “language which is understood as utterance (whether written or spoken), and thus involves subjects who speak and write—which presupposes listeners and readers who, in a sense, are ‘objects’” (p. 249). Discourse, then, can be perceived as “social practice,” and the different genres and modes of discourse are “differentiated by their intention” (p. 249). This general definition will serve our purposes in this chapter and book, although there is a vast body of literature and related fields of inquiry in which discourse is extensively discussed, analyzed, interpreted, and theorized.

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 15 5/15/12 6:11 PM 16 social and cultural construct. Take, for example, a joke. A joke cannot be a joke unless Chapter 2 it is uttered in some social and cultural context in which a speaker uses it with the in Discourse tention of amusing a listener. Such a speaker may have additional intentions, such as Communities using the joke to draw attention to something serious, to indirectly critique, to break and Kinds of the ice in an unfamiliar situation, to captivate an audience, or any of a number of other Language Use purposes. We recognize a joke within social and cultural contexts, and the joke may succeed or fail for a number of reasons, most of them socially and culturally situated. The more general meaning of “discourse” as socially and culturally contextual ized utterance (Cuddon, 1991) reflects the growth of discourse studies within the fields of communications, education, sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, cognitive psychology, social psychology, artificial intelligence, literacy, and cultural studies, among others (Schiffrin, Tannen, & Hamilton, 2001). Indeed, the academic arrival of discourse studies as a worthy field of inquiry in its own right is clearly in dicated in the emergence of the first Handbook of Discourse Analysis, in which the editors note that discourse analysis “is a rapidly and evolving field,” with current research “now flow[ing] from numerous academic disciplines that are very differ ent from one another” (Schiffrin, Tannen, & Hamilton, 2001, p. 1). Given these wide variations in the origins of discourse studies, the early defi nition by linguistics of discourse as “anything [i.e., use of language] beyond the sentence” (Schiffrin, Tannen, & Hamilton, 2001, p. 1) is now seen as inadequate to describe applications of the concept by, for example, critical theorists who go beyond the utterance itself to speak of “discourses of power” and “discourses of racism” (Schiffrin, Tannen, & Hamilton, 2001, p. 1). Discourse, as defined by criti cal theorists, is seen as a social and cultural practice, much as we could describe rules for acceptable eating, death rites, or greetings across different social and cultural settings. Given such a broader view of discourse, language is moved from the central position that early linguists accorded it and becomes one of the many variables attended to by one or more participants in any social or cultural setting.

➙ Objectives My primary goal in this chapter is to familiarize teachers and students with the contexts in which we use language both in and out of school and the interplay between language and discourse that results from language use in an endless variety of discourses. Related to this overarching goal are several objectives:

■ To identify and describe discourses prominent in school and nonschool settings

■ To identify and describe how we use language to both create and receive discourses

■ To provide opportunities for practicing language analysis in the contexts of various discourses, including those generated by students, and in this way, to bring into focus the metalinguistic awareness and skills all students have but would benefit from developing further

In Chapter One, I established a relationship between reading and writing that is inherent in what we call “literacy.” It is a given that when we write for public

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 16 5/15/12 6:11 PM 17 purposes, the writer must develop reader consciousness to ensure that other The Central Concept people are able to read what is written. If they intend to publish, writers write for a readership—there is always an assumed audience. Readers select something to read, whether an article, a note, a book, or a greeting card, assuming that the text contains some intended communication, regardless of the ongoing and interesting debates about intentionality or absence of it in literary theory discussions and regardless of debates on the essential indeterminacy of meaning in written texts (Derrida, 1978). My intent in this chapter and book is to have instruction resemble the natural language and discourse acquisition and learning processes so that students will be provided with information and experiences that will enable them to:

■ Acquire and learn a variety of discourses and their utilization of different linguistic patterns and structures through exposure and analysis, thus learning which linguistic patterns work most effectively for different genres and purposes.

■ Acquire and learn to develop competence in the use of a range of discourses through modeling and imitation.

■ Acquire and learn such discourses through trial and error and experimentation.

■ Gain mastery through using a range of discourses by practicing them in authentic contexts and in authentic ways through working both collaboratively and independently to identify meaningful purposes and authentic audiences.

■ Develop proficiency through a blend of formal instruction (in the absence of wide and deep reading) and writing and reading for authentic purposes for authentic audiences.

■ Expand their repertoires so that they learn to speak, listen to, read, and write in a variety of genres and modes within genres.

Because of space constraints, I will illustrate these objectives with one kind of discourse (genre) and suggest other discourses, sometimes with examples, to which similar patterns of practice can apply. The Central Concept

As I noted in the introduction to this chapter, discourse assumes two essential components: First, discourse assumes both single-word structures and longer structures that constitute meaningful utterances. Independent clauses are one such example in oral utterances; in written language, single words, phrases, indepen dent clauses, or sentences that contain either single or multiple clauses are another. Second, discourse is always contextualized, meaning that discourse always assumes some kind of dialogic interaction, whether this is intrapersonal (self-to-self) or in terpersonal (self to other and other to self). Some further characteristics include the following:

■ Discourse may be formal or informal, highly structured, loose, or even inchoate. The extent to which structure matters depends on, among other

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 17 5/15/12 6:11 PM 18 things, the level of formality or informality, the degree of intimacy among Chapter 2 participants, the goals of the interaction, the subject matter of the inter Discourse action, and the roles that participants have that influence the interaction Communities (e.g., parent, child, sibling, partner, external authority figure, superior, or and Kinds of subordinate). Language Use ■ Discourse may be defined according to genres and modes within genres. It is essentially a neutral, descriptive category; that is, we could argue that in using the term “discourse,” we don’t necessarily judge the quality of the interaction, but judgment may occur in terms of the perceived effectiveness of the talk or text. To describe something as “discourse” includes identify ing a genre of communication that entails a purpose, an audience and/ or readers, and a setting or context. To determine whether the user of the genre is an effective communicator in a particular setting, we draw on eval uative tools that address rhetorical issues such as effective introductions, coherence in structure, voice, and appropriate usage. In writing, we may also evaluate spelling and mechanics insofar as they affect communication and the circumstances that prompted the communication in the first place (a need to leave a note on a refrigerator for a partner about coming home late for a meal, a report summarizing a meeting attended by several partici pants, etc.).

■ Discourse also includes several dimensions or parameters which can be further described according to degree, absence or presence of a feature, number of participants, nature of participants, and so on (see Table 2.1). The benefit of delineating discourse in this way is that it provides us with a relatively simple and visual way of identifying contexts in which language is used and what considerations come into play when we communicate. Language analysis, then, becomes contextualized, and through this con textualization, we move away from simplistic and absolute conceptions of error. For instance, fragments are quite common in brief notes left for others in informal, intimate contexts, and punctuation is often ignored in email communications between known correspondents who are equivalent in status.

Organizing language study around discourse parameters provides a way of thinking about language in a contextualized way and describing language in a systematic way that is sensitive to discourse issues such as those noted earlier, that is, participants, genre, purpose of the communication, and so on (see Hymes’s description of communicative events in Saville-Troike (1989) and that addresses the central concept of considering language use according to function and purpose. It is important not to see the categories provided in Table 2.1 as absolute or definitive. Always, in adopting a functional perspective on language use, the underlying prin ciple for language analysis and evaluation is the purpose to which language is put and by whom language is used in any particular context. Within contexts, of course, conventions may indeed govern language use to a greater or lesser extent, and the penalty for misuse of language may be more or less punitive depending on many variables. In Table 2.1, I have drawn on several of Hymes’s (1972) categories that identify features of what he terms a “communicative event” (perceived status of participants,

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 18 5/15/12 6:11 PM Table 2.1 An Illustrative Range of Selective Micro-Functions

Possible To Express To Amuse and/ To Perform a Parameters To Persuade Emotion To Inform or Entertain Ritual

Situation A television A wedding College Club Church program classroom Genre/mode Advertisement Best man’s Lecture Comedy Sermon speech Intended Retirement-age Wedding party Senior students Regulars at a Regulars at audience adults and guests majoring in particular club a particular English church literature Role of Watch and be Shared desire Receive, store, Respond Listen for participants in influenced to to participate learn informa- to the comfort, the event buy in celebrations tion being comedian inspiration, conveyed in admonition the lecture Perceived Equals who Equals who Prospective Equals who Slightly less status of have purchas- know the experts in the have to be con- than equal, as participants ing power wedding pair field of knowl- vinced to laugh the minister edge but still may be per- recipients of ceived as God’s information intermediary and the church- goers as suppli- cants for divine intervention Content/subject Vacation pack- Memories and Features of the Political gaffes Atonement matter age for retirees praise to toast Romantic Period of the week happiness of in 19th century the couple British literature Level of usage Semiformal but Informal, Formal, author- Informal, satiric Formal, (formal/ intimate intimate itative exhortative informal, etc.) Mode (written, Text would have Spoken, though Written Spoken, Most likely spoken, been scripted may have impromptu written initially or both) but delivered initially been but delivered though spoken written in spoken mode mode

intended audience, role of the participants, etc.) along the vertical axis. On the hori zontal axis, a range of micro-functions defines the purpose for which a particular form of discourse might be used (e.g., persuasion, expressing emotion, performing a ritual). Table 2.1 makes explicit all the major components of any communicative 19

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 19 5/15/12 6:11 PM 20 event (participants, purpose of communication, form (genre and mode) communica Chapter 2 tion, and the level of usage reflected in the language (formal, intimate, etc.). I have Discourse omitted norms of interpretation and norms of interaction (Hymes, 1972) because Communities although these are appropriate concepts for scholars pursuing intensive analysis of and Kinds of discourse in various communicative contexts, they imply a familiarity with how lan Language Use guage is shaped by those contexts that is beyond most students in the K–12 setting. However, these norms are implied in the identification of audience and purpose. The isolated study of grammatical forms ignores all the elements that go into any act of communication (a communicative event). However, as Table 2.1 illus trates, each event determines what forms are finally used. Granted, we may still use similar words, and each language will retain its essential structural patterns (e.g., in English, word order is typically subject, finite verb, complement orobject in all clauses whether dependent or independent), but there is much more of which one needs to be aware to communicate effectively beyond basic grammati cal structures. This awareness is usually acquired through engaging in more and more diverse settings over time, and those settings, in turn, will serve as models for how to make language work for particular purposes and particular listeners/ audiences. We put language to an enormous range of uses for a wide range of purposes in our everyday lives. In contrast, the uses to which language is put in school are relatively narrow. Table 2.2 illustrates uses of language that might be required by a typical middle or high school student. According to a major study of school writing (Applebee, 1982), the range shrinks even more as students progress through high school; only 3% of all writing done in the senior year is creative (fictional narrative, poetry, creative nonfiction, dramatic writing and scripting, etc.). Summary and the critical essay dominate all writing by 12th grade. These data were supported by the ETS study Learning to Write in Our Nation’s Schools (Applebee et al., 1990), which examined, among other things, the kinds of writing commonly practiced in grades 4, 8, and 12, finding that among the total of 19,273 students from whom data were collected, 44.8% wrote reports or summaries at least monthly (across all grades identified), 38.6% wrote analytic or interpretive essays or themes at least once a month, 61.9% wrote imaginative or literary pieces (though this number dropped to 29.6% by 12th grade), and 45.3% wrote in learning logs or journals at least once a month (p. 41). Only 36.3% of all students experienced assignments with several drafts and revisions, suggesting that the bulk of writing was for purposes other than developing greater fluency with written language. Much of school language use that is assessable, is necessarily in written form. Few relatively simple rubrics (other than those for debates and formal speeches that may appear in journalism classes) are available, and teachers cannot, with larger class sizes, assess the spoken language of individual students. The typi cal range of genres and modes that students in the secondary setting read and write are therefore quite narrow (see Table 2.3). They are predominantly academic modes and, in the case of the five-paragraph theme, a pseudo-academic form of writing created primarily to teach students a basic informational essay structure. However, while it is initially a fairly useful exemplar format for teaching writ ing expository prose, the five-paragraph theme mode does not exist in the actual writing we do in the wider community. Applebee and Langer’s (1984) analysis of the kinds of writing done in the secondary school supports the view that students are essentially writing for

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 20 5/15/12 6:11 PM Table 2.2 An Illustrative Range of Discourse Parameters Across Micro-Functions in Middle and High School Writing

To Express To Amuse or To Perform To Persuade Emotion To Argue Entertain a Ritual

Situation Primarily not Primarily not Primarily not Primarily not Primarily not authentic, but authentic, but authentic, but authentic , but authentic, but on occasions on occasions on occasions on occasions on occasions could be so could be so could be so could be so could be so

Genre/mode Essay, advertise- Journals, poetry Research paper Unlikely, but Rare if at all ment “story” may have this function

Intended Most often, the Most often, the Most often, the Most often, the Most often, the audience(s) teacher as de- teacher as de- teacher as de- teacher as de- teacher as default audience fault audience fault audience fault audience fault audience

Role of Demonstrate Demonstrate Demonstrate Demonstrate Demonstrate participants skill in writing skill in writing skill in writing skill in writing skill in writing in this mode in this mode in this mode in this mode in this mode and for this and for this and for this and for this and for this function function function function function

Perceived status Novice Novice Novice Novice Novice of participants

Content/subject Variable, but Variable, but Variable, but Variable, but Variable, but matter often assigned often assigned often assigned often assigned often assigned

Level of usage Formal/standard Formal/standard Formal/standard If assigned, Formal/standard (formal/infor- American American American formal/standard American mal, etc.) English English English American English English

Mode (written, Written Written Written Written Written spoken, or both)

school purposes rather than for college or work and life purposes. This prac tice also reduces students’ opportunities to experiment with and experience language uses that are more common outside the school setting and for which students are under prepared in terms of reading as well as writing. Britton et al.’s landmark study (1975) of audiences and purposes in school writing for 11- to 17-year-olds revealed that students in school settings write for a pseudo- audience: the teacher. Within that audience context, the teacher’s primary default 21

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 21 5/15/12 6:11 PM 22 Chapter 2 Table 2.3 Types of Writing in School and the Community at Large Discourse Communities Types of Writing Common A Range of Types of Writing (and Reading) and Kinds of in School Between Optional but Available in General Social and Language Use Grades 6 and 12 in Non-School Contexts English/Language Arts

One-page essays or Private themes Business letters (occasionally) Two to three paragraphs Complaint or correction letters (occasionally) Five-paragraph theme Creative essay Emails (for informative purposes) Analytic, interpretive Fridge notes essay Greeting cards Notes Memos Report writing (including book reports) Personal letters (most often in email since the 1990s) Research essay Text messaging Short paragraphs Public Short narratives (“stories”), fictional Advertisements or nonfictional Application letters and forms Single-phrase responses Analytic, interpretive essays (college) Single-sentence Bio statements and CVs responses Creative fiction writing (largely college) Some personal poetry Creative nonfiction writing (largely college) in younger grades How-to manuals Summaries Lecture notes (college) Letters to the editor Advice letters Minutes for meetings, agendas Notices (birth, death, congratulations, etc.) Poetry (largely college but also noncollege) Note that modeling Purchase orders (i.e., exposure to the Proposals (e.g., funding) kinds of language used Report writing (business and college) using varied in these modes) has not templates been common, although Statements of intent (with applications for college) templates exist and models are increasingly avail- Summaries, annotations (college) able on the Internet. Web pages, blogs, Facebook posts

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 22 5/15/12 6:11 PM 23 role is “teacher as examiner,” because in the context of required school writing, Key Assumptions students almost always play the role of novice, and the teacher always plays the roles of expert and judge. The list in the nonschool world and post-K–12 educational settings is not exhaustive. Common writing that would be accessible to a person educated to the end of 12th grade and that is most likely to happen, even if infrequently, is the point of the comparison, as is the intent to demonstrate how little prepared (through experience as well as instruction) students are to use language in a vari ety of common modes and genres. Applebee and Langer’s (1984) findings have serious implications in terms of what we expect students to be able to produce, and they affect our assessment of students’ language use in both spoken and written modes. Increas ingly, however, various Language Arts scholars (e.g., Ehrenworth & Vinton, 2005; Noden, 2011; Weaver, 2008) who have focused on what students need to know about language to become effective communicators in a wide variety of settings agree that teaching grammar in isola tion is not the way to accomplish this. Rather, the teaching of language should really be about the teaching of discourse, that is, language in context. A discourse-centered language curriculum would have students become competent users of a range of discourses in ways outlined in the “Objectives” sec tion of this chapter.

Key Assumptions

Both writing and reading are social acts that assume interaction, whether with oneself or with others. For example, when we read a novel (a macro-genre), we expect to engage with it imaginatively, to find in it a protagonist and other charac ters, to find some large theme that will carry the action, to be presented with some issue or problem that the protagonist must resolve or be defeated by, and to have some resolution, whether satisfactory or not. We can delineate these larger cat egories even further, depending on whether the novel is realistic fiction, a mystery, science fiction, a romance, and so on. The genre sets up certain expectations in the reader, and the degree to which the reader is satisfied with the reading,accepts it, and is engaged by it depends, among other things, on the degree to which the writer has met those expectations. Genres are bound by social conventions as much as they are by literary ones. We could even argue that literary conventions are specific kinds of social conventions. If genres are social constructions, the primary ways in which we learn to adopt these constructions is through exposure to them, analysis, and use. The imitation exercises in classical rhetoric instruction have successfully relied on ex posure and imitation in teaching young scholars how to generate the same struc tures themselves. Similarly, in oral language acquisition, young children acquire their language variety (in both words and structures) through exposure, trial and error (in which internal analysis appears to occur as well as analysis through

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 23 5/15/12 6:11 PM 24 correction), and a process of imitation that is stimulated by a close adult or is gen Chapter 2 erated unconsciously by the child’s simply repeating what has been heard. The Discourse process of learning unfamiliar discourses and their structures (manifested through Communities a vast variety of genres) is no different. It takes exposure (through reading if the and Kinds of genres are written), trial and error in which analysis of the patterns occurs, and Language Use imitation, which is the mechanism by which practice is experienced, until a level of mastery has been achieved that the teacher or some other authority figure deems at least satisfactory.

Applications

Experienced users of language, whether in written or spoken modes, utilize lan guage patterns that reflect particular functions (e.g., expressing emotion, convey ing truth, conveying exactness) in a largely unconscious manner. Experienced communicators have internalized models for different kinds of language use through wide reading and wide listening. We accumulate these models over our lifetimes, and as adults, we tend to forget that students in the K–12 setting have relatively limited exposure to, and experience in, using language in various modes for various audiences and purposes. How does one come to know, for example, that guiding readers is accomplished through the use of anticipatory devices such as using explicit topic sentences, page layout, titles, and the use of explanatory phrases such as “I wish now to turn attention to . . .”? How does one learn to con vey reasoning through restricting an area of discussion (e.g., “Because of space constraints, I will limit my discussion to . . .”)? How does one internalize other linguistic strategies such as using shorter sentences to convey stress, anger, or shock? Similarly, we use adverbs to indicate time (e.g., during, before, after); nouns to identify or name a phenomenon, object, or entity; and comparative adjectives and the comparative suffixes (“er” and “est”) to signal comparison and contrast (e.g., good, better, best; poorer, poorest). Learning these discourse tricks of the language trade takes exposure, time, and practice.

Application 1: Identifying Language Patterns in Genres and Modes Within Genres The excerpts in Table 2.4 are drawn from a range of genres. (All excerpts have been created by the author.) To ensure some bases for comparison, each excerpt is an opening paragraph of approximately the same length. When the exercise is being done with students, the sources of the excerpts are masked, but I have provided them in the figure for ease of reference. Students should be given the sources after they have attempted to identify the general source (i.e., genre and mode). In reading instruction, one of the common strategies for developing com prehension skills (Johnston, 1992), is asking students to predict what is going to happen next in the text after they read part of it. Predictions can be made because we understand linguistic and textual cues on which writers rely, knowing that their readers will respond in quite specific ways (we can think of this as “the reciprocity principle” (Grice, 1975), an imaginary contract between speakers and listeners and between writers and readers that we rely on in any act of communication to estab lish meaning. If a writer unwittingly breaks the contract (e.g., by failing to signal

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 24 5/15/12 6:11 PM Table 2.4 Excerpts Representing Genres

Genre/Mode Identification Excerpts and Notes on Language

Excerpt 1 A recent court decision to ban smoking in all public spaces has met an Factual language; reported obstacle. language (no direct speech); Joseph Smiling, a 46-year-old man from Iowa, is petitioning the U.S. dispassionate style, matter government declaring his constitutional right to smoke wherever no of fact; declarative pattern; one else is in close proximity. formal style; longer than average sentences. Typical Smiling argues that the air is not a space per se and that therefore he reporting style—one cannot be prohibited from smoking in it. sentence per paragraph— Smiling expects to have significant support for his petition. appears to make facts Smithson News, Local News Section, 7/25/2011, p. C9. stand out. [Example of a featured news report style] Excerpt 2 During the time we grew up in the Australian outback, in the far Practice identifying northwest of Australia, we became aware of what we children named patterns. “The China Myth.” Our parents and the country in general were obsessed about China and the possibility of a Chinese invasion, a fear that emerged immediately after World War II and the onset of the Cold War. Our town was nestled among the foothills of the Hamersley Ranges. Our version of the myth was that China lay right behind that range, and so we were determined to climb Mount Watkins, the tallest of the mountains. We managed it one summer and found that China was not behind Mount Watkins or any of the other taller hills. Something else was. [Example of a personal narrative/biography style] Excerpt 3 On Learners as Plants: Thoughts from an Educator. Practice identifying As many teachers will attest, giving individual attention, helping patterns. students by modeling what we request of them, respecting students’ innate intelligence and the greatness of each individual student is for many students who have not experienced this like giving water to a parched plant. The plant perks up, begins to regain color, grows new leaves, loses its droop. In all my years of teaching all kinds of students, whatever their age and educational level, I have never seen a different outcome. Like plants, students respond when we provide what matches their inherent natures. I’ve always believed that we can reach every student because in every student is a desire to grow, to stretch, to use their mind, to thrive. [Example of a discursive expository essay excerpt] (Continued)

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 25 5/15/12 6:11 PM Table 2.4 (Continued)

Genre/Mode Identification Excerpts and Notes on Language

Excerpt 4 I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch—things have just been so busy. Hope Practice identifying you’re doing better, though. Sis told me when we talked last week patterns. that your arthritis was playing up. Have you seen a doctor about it? Remember what happened last time when you didn’t . . .I’d just feel better if you went, ok? Anyway, not much’s going on with me. We went to Mohican for Xmas with a bunch of friends—there was a bit of snow on the ground, just enough to make it pretty. [Example of a personal letter style] Excerpt 5 The shells are falling around us. I cannot tell if we will survive this Practice identifying night. I think of my dearest Dorothy, and hope that if I do not write patterns. again, she will somehow know that she is always in my thoughts, always in my heart. I wear her scarf to battle tonight. Soon, the bugle will call—who knows which of us will return from the front? It has been six months since I last saw my beloved Dorothy and our little ones. I am heart heavy this night—cannot shake dread, though I believe I am in God’s hands, as all of us poor devils are. [Example of a journal entry style such as a soldier in the World War I trenches in France might have written] Excerpt 6 BASIC INSTRUCTIONS FOR MOWING LAWNS WITH HANDMOWERS Practice identifying CLEAR DEBRIS FROM LAWN — Don’t use mower until you have cleared patterns. away sticks, stones, and other objects that can stop the mower blades from rotating. HANDMOWERS DO NOT WORK WELL ON LONG GRASS. AVOID USING WHEN GRASS IS WET. ENSURE THAT PETS SUCH AS CATS AND DOGS ARE IN THE HOUSE WHEN MOWER IS IN OPERATION. MAKE SURE BLADES ARE SHARPENED ANNUALLY OR WHEN THEY BECOME DULL. Cut as close as possible to areas to be trimmed with trimmers. Cut grass in the same direction. Remove cut grass with a rake following mowing. It is advisable to wear gloves to avoid blistering. Protective headwear is not required, but safety glasses are recommended. (Manual for Handmowers. Catalog Nos 10MTF, 10NTF, 10PTF). [Example of instructional material style]

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 26 5/15/12 6:11 PM 27 the direction of the communication, using punctuation incorrectly, or omitting Applications information that is critical to determine meaning), the reader loses his or her con nection with the text and may lose interest, find it frustrating to proceed, or be utterly confused. In this exercise, the instructor’s tasks are as follows:

■ Inform students that they will examine the language patterns of each ex cerpt, identify the patterns, and subsequently incorporate them into their own writing, basing their initial attempts on the models provided in the ex cerpts. In the course of modeling, we want to highlight linguistic patterns to show how using language in particular ways results in patterns that we also read in particular ways.

■ Ask students to try to identify the genre and mode of each excerpt. The column on the right can be used for their notes about the language in each excerpt. An example of how to proceed is given for the first excerpt.

■ Invite students to enjoy the guesswork that is initially involved in identify ing the source of the excerpt. They can discuss their reasons for deciding on a particular source by referring to aspects of the language: What does the language “promise”? What clues can the students detect in the way in which the language is patterned? Is the usage formal, informal, technical? Are the sentences typically short? What does that tell students? What signals sug gest fact or fiction?

Analysis of Imitation of Pattern in Excerpt 1

Excerpt 1

A recent court decision to ban smoking in all public spaces has met an obstacle. Joseph Smiling, a 46-year-old man from Iowa, is petitioning the U.S. government declaring his constitutional right to smoke wherever no one else is in close proximity. Smiling argues that the air is not a space per se and that therefore he cannot be prohibited from smoking in it. Smiling expects to have significant support for his petition. Smithson News, Local News Section, 7/25/2011, p. C9.

Excerpt 1 contains four sentences, each of which is represented as a paragraph. A paragraph typically performs the function of providing one major idea, which is then embellished with subordinate but explanatory detail. Having paragraphs that contain only the main idea focuses all attention on the information contained in that single-sentence paragraph. This creates the effect of specificity and matter-of-fact ness. It’s not the way people usually write paragraphs. However, a single-sentence paragraph can be a useful device if one wants to draw attention to a particular piece of information. It’s not surprising that this style is common in journalism. All four sentences are declarative, consisting of at least one independent clause (underlined). In two sentences, these independent clauses are supported by one or more subordinate clauses or extended phrases. In Sentence 2, the layering includes an appositive phrase and a participle phrase followed by an infinitive phrase in

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 27 5/15/12 6:11 PM 28 Chapter 2 Excerpt 1 – Sentence 2 Discourse Communities Joseph Smiling, and Kinds of a 46-year-old man from Iowa, Language Use is petitioning the U.S. government declaring his constitutional right to smoke wherever no one else is in close proximity. Smithson News, Local News Section, 7/25/2011, p. C9.

Example of Imitation of Pattern: Arthur Andrews (name/noun phrase—subject) a 38-year-old farmer from Illinois (appositive phrase), is suing his local government office (predicate of independent clause) asserting his rights as a landowner (participial phrase) to grow trees wherever he wishes within the boundary of his property (infinitive phrase with embedded adverbial phrase).

which is embedded an adverbial phrase. Complexity is also found in Sentence 3, which contains two noun clauses, the first as the object of the verb “argues” and the second an expansion of the first. Unpacking these rather complex sentences can be daunting for less mature readers and writers because of the multiple layer ing effect the writer achieves by embedding elements within other elements. A simple way to approach a modeling exercise is to have the students imitate the pattern in isolation, maintaining the sequence, verb tense (past, present, or future), and number (singular or plural) of the original but changing the content. Changing the content eliminates the concern that students might think they are being encour aged to plagiarize. Sentence 2 of the excerpt serves as an example. These patterns can be posted on the classroom bulletin board and pasted into student notebooks so that students can return to them in their own writing. An immediate follow-up to doing any imitation exercise in isolation should include an application of the pattern to students’ own writing. It is a useful revision exercise for something that has already been written. If students have a practice portfolio, they can be directed to revise one of their own opening sentences (as was done for this excerpt) using the same pattern as in the original and handing that in the fol lowing day or at the end of the same class during which the imitation exercise was initially practiced. To consolidate an understanding of the pattern, students can label their revised sentence in the way provided in the model. Some English Language Arts teachers with whom I have worked have been concerned that “forcing” students to apply particular patterns in model exercises will restrict their creativity. In response to that concern, I have asked them to con sider what professional writers, famous novelists, short story writers, and poets have always done to hone their technique and their craft: They have, at one time

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 28 5/15/12 6:11 PM 29 or another, imitated the style of one or more authors in their genre to help them Applications find and refine their own style. Avid and exhaustive readers will inevitably ingest features of styles that have affected them for one reason or other. This is how writ ers learn to expand their own style so that it doesn’t become fossilized. Learning to imitate structural patterns used by others who have perfected them provides oppor tunities to expand our own repertoire. I do emphasize, however, that students must change the content. The goal is to create a desired effect, and the pattern that results in that effect is of interest in this application, not the content within that pattern.

Application 2: Same Subject, Different Genres, Different Audiences, and Different Purposes A very effective exercise that helps students to develop what I term “genre sense” is one that keeps content constant but requires students to convert the form from one genre to another. This kind of conversion inevitably generates different linguistic patterns. A good way to begin this experiment is with a dramatic yet simple con version of prose to poetry. The initial conversion in this instance requires that the wording remain absolutely identical. Only when that step has been completed does the task of shaping the form to suit the topic in the new genre begin. This shaping might include deletion of “unnecessary” words, lines, or phrases; a change in per son (third to first or second); different, or reversing word order. Once we have expressed an idea and anchored it in some written form, ex perimenting with form by changing genres raises our consciousness about how language is used in different contexts and for different purposes and alerts our senses to the associative quality of words in a language. When we are focused on literal meaning, we lose sight of this associative quality. It is only when we place the same words, or at least the same ideas, in different contexts that we realize how significant this quality is. To highlight this quality, I have created an example that includes some experimentation with placement of words in converting the same content to a different genre. In this instance, every word will remain the same. My original short paragraph is based on a pattern used in William Strong’s (1994) “The Water Skier,” an exercise in sentence combining. For the purposes of this activity, I have reorganized the pattern, using my combined original sentences in a descrip tive piece that would come from a nonfictional narrative.

First Example Poised, arms flexed, the rider steadies on the hill. His horse lunges forward, straining the slack on the reins, pulling the rider high in the saddle. Suddenly, he is hunched, body low and forward. He rises and subsides, and the horse’s tail, golden in the sunlight, streams behind them. Elbows tightened against his ribcage, his body melds with that of the stallion. They are muscle in unison, streaming, leaping, muscular harmony.

Conversion into Poetic Form with Zero Word Change Poised, arms flexed, the rider steadies on the hill. His horse lunges forward, straining

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 29 5/15/12 6:11 PM 30 the slack on the reins, Chapter 2 Discourse pulling Communities and Kinds of the rider high in the saddle. Language Use

Suddenly, he is hunched,

body low and forward.

He rises and subsides, and the horse’s tail,

golden in the sunlight, streams behind them.

Elbows tightened against his ribcage, his body melds with that of the stallion. They are muscle in unison, streaming, leaping, muscular harmony.

By experimenting further with this conversion, students will discover that when words are isolated on single lines, the meaning is shaded somewhat differ ently. They might notice that line breaks affect how much notice readers pay to words that have less semantic weight when embedded in prose. When we play with form in this way, some students discover that although they experience writer’s block in one genre, working in another genre provides a way through that block. Sometimes students discover their “natural” genre this way. Few writers are equally at home in all genres; we all have our preferred genres and modes within genres.

A Second Example: Same Subject, Minimal Word Changes, Narrative Fiction Version Converted to Factual Report In the following example, note the switch in tense to convey that the event had happened previously and the removal of most descriptive information so that the focus is on the facts of the event and ap peals to the emotion and the imagination are minimized. The shift in focus from an image that attempts to recapture what the rider was actually experiencing in riding the horse to a factual account of what was observed is achieved through reporting the event in the past tense and eliminating evocative description where possible.

The rider had been poised, his arms flexed as he waited on the hill. His horse lunged forward [a witness reports], pulling the rider high in the saddle. Suddenly, he was hunched low, body forward. His body moved in unison with that of the horse. It seemed as if they were one.

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 30 5/15/12 6:11 PM 31 The matter-of-fact attention to what can be described factually results in a focus on Applications what happened rather than on how the rider (and the describer through the rider) felt about the experience. There is minimal emphasis on creating the sensation of actually riding the horse.

Follow-up Following the modeled examples, have students convert a paragraph in a piece of writing that they might have in a workshopping folder. Because the piece has already been written, the writer will usually have enough distance from it to enable a level of detachment that allows for experimental play. I’ve found that when writing first drafts, students are inevitably focused on getting the ideas down on paper. Even when we ask them to revise (rather than edit), they are reluctant to do more than tinker, and they usually edit rather than revise. Deeper revision requires help, direction, and encouragement to experiment. This might better be accomplished by using an older piece.

Application 3: Comparative Analysis of Spoken and Written Language When we ask students to compare language use in the two primary channels of human communication (spoken and written language), we heighten their aware ness of the primary features of both. Having students either convert a transcribed piece of text to standard written English or convert a piece of text written in stan dard English to resemble the students’ natural spoken language highlights some key differences between the two modes of communication. Many of the errors stu dents make in their writing can be traced back to an inadvertent transfer of spoken phrasing into the written medium. When I have read such pieces back to students, they almost always hear the problem and know what they have to do to rectify it. What these slips suggest is that students can benefit from exercises that focus on the nature of naturally occurring conversational language in contrast to more de liberate, consciously revised and edited standardized written language. Below is a transcription of an imagined conversation that I created followed by a standardized narrative of that conversation also created by me to illustrate differ ences between the language use in the transcript and a reported narrative version. Students’ attention should be drawn to the need for the writer to fill in information that has been assumed to be shared, to complete fragmented utterances, to provide commentary on what was said in some instances, to omit filler utterances (e.g., “you know”), to delete repetition, and to add connecting information in order to make the written piece coherent, even if the piece retains a semi-formal style in general.

Transcript of a Conversation Mattie: Yeah, I was havin’ lunch today ’n I heard about a story on the radio . . . on the 12 o’clock news, y’know. About a guy who mows the lawn for the elderly ’roun near where he lives. . . . Yeah, ’n he don’t ask any money fer it, y’know. . . . He don’t have much hisself, from what I heard . . . it was really int’restin’. . . . Ned: Sorta like me . . . In me better days . . . Art: No kiddin’!

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 31 5/15/12 6:11 PM 32 Mattie: You, Ned, helpin’ someone else in need? Gee, I didn’ know ya had Chapter 2 it in ya, but . . . hmm . . . guess there’s a soft side to ya. . . . not that I Discourse see it much . . . but guess it’s there. Well, anyways, the news guy says Communities the guy fell over when he was mowin’ an’ the old couple on the corner and Kinds of block near his place, they had to get ’n ambulance . . . felt bad for ‘im, Language Use I did. . . . Ned: Yeah, when I was in my helpin’ days, happened to me once, too . . .like what happened to ’im. . . . I was doin’ some weed wackin’ with . . . you know . . . one of them weed wackers . . . got me toe nipped by it . . . got too close to the toe . . . geez, near took the top off the toe . . . ’ad to get to the hospital with that one . . . for sure . . . cured me of my helpin’. Art: No kiddin’!

A Standardized Written Account of the Conversation When Mattie, Ned, and Art met for a bite to eat that Wednesday afternoon, Mattie just had to tell the other two what she had heard while listening to her favorite radio station, 2MB, during the 12 o’clock news that day. When they had settled down, she launched into her story about the man who helped the elderly around where he lived by mowing their lawns and not charging them a single cent for it. The other two weren’t all that impressed. Ned turned it all back to himself (“Like me,” he said) as always. Art, the sarcastic one, couldn’t resist responding with a gasp, “You’re joking!” He was surprised that Ned would help anyone. Mattie turned the conversation back to her story about the man and what happened to him while he was mowing one of his neighbors’ lawns. You’d think that would get their attention, she thought, but Ned turned their talk back to his own episode of helping others. They had to sit through his tale about how he almost lost his toe and how the ordeal ended his Good Sa- maritan days.

Activity A discussion of the chief differences between spoken and written lan guage should not precede working through these examples. Students have a ten dency to look for “fit” and to become dependent on labels rather than examining the language itself. I show them the spoken piece first (it is not as dense as the prose version and is easier to break down visually). We read it aloud twice. The first time, the teacher does the reading so that students develop a sense of the rhythm of the piece; the second time, student volunteers are assigned roles (i.e., Mattie, Ned, Art) to read. We discuss what they notice about the language patterns. Students are easily able to identify obvious features, such as “no sentences,” “frag ments,” “repetition,” “slang” (colloquialisms are sometimes mislabeled as slang), “jerky,” and “abrupt stops.” We list these observations on a board. Then I distribute a set of categories, have the students form groups, and ask them to analyze the two texts more systematically, recording the counts where it makes sense and entering an example in an example column (see Table 2.5). Students identify these features in the conversational extract, working in small groups and recording their analyses on overheads. They then report to the whole class, talking the class through their overheads. Typically, students are inclined to argue over where the piece might be taking place and the significance of the infor mation to the conversants. I collect the analyses for collation, subsequently giving copies to students for their records.

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 32 5/15/12 6:11 PM Table 2.5 Analyzing Language: A Transcript of a Conversation

Discourse/Language Feature Count Example Where do you think the conversation might take place? (setting) Why? What clues did you use to guess that? How many words in the whole piece? (Include all but names.) Identify patterns of usage: Informal Colloquialisms Slang Repetitions (how many times) Fillers (uh, er, um, or a pause, indicated by ellipsis dots) Fragments (How many can you count?) Vagueness, lack of precision (how many and where?) Generic words—“things” (how many and where?) Where do you think there are gaps between pieces of information? (Give an example, and count the number of times there are gaps.) How does the piece cohere (i.e., hang together)? (Where is the piece abruptly stopped or jerky, where does it lead into something that doesn’t follow from what went before?) What was the effect on you as a reader (e.g., assumes shared space, assumes background information, creates a sense of exclusion from the conversation)? Was there possible inaccuracy of information? If so, where did you locate that? Anything else? The phrase “discourse feature” entails not only language but also the setting, participants, relationships and status among participants, patterns of usage, and purposes of communication. Therefore, a discourse feature is essentially any element involved in the communicative event.

We then apply the same kind of analysis to the standardized written version, again in small groups, modifying the categories slightly to reflect the language of the written piece. From this, we move to a discussion of the major features of standard ized written language versus colloquial, conversational language (Hagemann, 2003).

Summary Students typically notice how much longer the written piece is. This is a consequence of the need to provide contextual information and elaboration of information that is ellipted in the conversation and of the fact that standard written

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 33 5/15/12 6:11 PM 34 language, whether narrative or not, generally requires fully formed sentences. Chapter 2 Fragments are occasionally permitted in standard written English narratives de Discourse pending on the purpose and audience for which the piece is intended. However, Communities even in this context, fragments should be used judiciously. Since the speech is and Kinds of largely reported in the above conversion, additional framing language is needed Language Use to contextualize the direct utterances. Even seasoned and competent writers, such as graduate students in a Master of Education program, who are all gradu ates with degrees in English, are astonished by the amount of information that is omitted in ordinary conversational English. However, once they become aware of this through analysis, they quickly realize how students who have less experience writing as readers (i.e., writing with what I term “reader consciousness”) are likely to be less conscious of the need to provide contextual information as well as addi tional detail in a standardized written piece.

Follow-up After this activity, students are asked to take another piece of writing they may have in a folder and examine it for indications of what I term “spoken lan guage transfer.” Run-on sentences may be an indication of spoken language transfer (Kress, 1982; Weaver, 1998), as may the use of pronouns without clear nominal refer ents. Rhetorically, spoken language transfer may manifest in the random structuring of a piece, which may be written as if informally spoken, without a central organizing principle. Rhetorical transfer may also manifest in mixed tenses, lack of agreement between subject and verb, or improper use of conjunctions (or lack of conjunctions) needed to connect ideas. In spoken situations, a listener can ask for clarification if ex plicit connection is absent from a speaker’s discourse. Less experienced writers have difficulty remembering that the reader is unable to signal these infelicities. Students could develop a chart of major differences between ordinary con versational discourse and standard written discourse to be hung on a classroom wall (see Table 2.6). Teachers and students might also develop charts of major dif ferences between conversational discourse and fictional writing, report writing, or formal spoken English. Such activities help students over time to become conscious of these differences and to increase their ability to internally monitor (or to write with a reader’s consciousness) their discourse with practice.

Application 4: Analyzing One’s Own Language Students, who are often considered novice writers by default,2 are typically asked to analyze the writing of others though rarely, if ever, their own. Some texts on teaching writing and language in the context of writing (e.g., Atwell, 1998, Hagemann, 2003), suggest ways in which teachers can have students document their strengths and weaknesses (or “what I need to work on”) in their writing. This is a positive step in the direction of having students behave as expert writers do,

2Although many students may indeed be novice writers for a variety of reasons, including having less experience in extended writing (included self-initiated writing), not all students are novices. For example, S. E. Hinton wrote and published the now classic and highly successful young adult novel The Outsiders while she was in her mid-teens. I have taught high school juniors who produced erudite and complex analyses of Shakespearean tragedies such as Othello that have far surpassed the level of sophistication one might expect in the writing of many college students.

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 34 5/15/12 6:11 PM Table 2.6 Common Major Linguistic and Rhetorical Features of Ordinary Conversational Discourse and Standard Informational Written Discourse

Ordinary Conversational Discourse Standard Informational Written Discourse Register (style) is informal, and colloquialisms and Register is typically formal or at least semifor- slang may be common. mal, and slang and colloquialisms are absent. Vocabulary is often very general (rather than Vocabulary should be subject or field specific subject or field specific), and common words and precise to avoid ambiguity. rather than technical terms often occur.

Utterances may be truncated; that is, they may Utterances (in written language, these are consist of single words or phrases (fragments) termed “sentences”) must be fully fleshed out rather than fully formed clauses. with basic syntactic structure present (subject, finite verb, complement/object). Partial clauses build on each other (e.g., “Because Fragments are not permitted; subjects must I said so”). always be explicit when opening a sentence. Speakers may switch topics without warning. The topic must be sustained throughout and be clearly identifiable. Interjections may be common. Interjections are absent, though a writer may insert occasional parenthetical information if it is absolutely needed. Fillers (e.g., “um,” “ahhhh”) and fade-outs can Fillers are not permitted; the writing must flow be quite common. without gaps, hesitations, or intrusions. Tone of voice replaces punctuation. Punctuation is required to indicate sentence, clause, phrase, and word boundary marking. Pronunciation rather than spelling is the focus. Conventional spelling is required. The speaker may determine the direction of the The writer, while aware of an intended audi- conversation; that is, there may be multiple foci ence, determines the direction of the discourse and multiple topics depending on the nature of and single topics are required to ensure readers the conversation. can clearly see the focus of the piece.

that is, developing in students the self-monitoring behaviors of accomplished and committed writers. This practice also develops a consciousness of writing as an evolutionary process—a consciousness that all practicing writers have as they con tinue to work on and refine their craft. Nevertheless, the practice can be made more specific. Many teachers with whom I have worked, whether prospective teachers or seasoned professionals, have had exposure to the “strengths” and “what I need to work on” approach to self-analysis, but they do not have a sense of their own style, and they do not realize that this style developed over time and can be played with and even radically changed. Initially, I found it useful to have students count lin guistic features. However, a long list of features to identify and count can be frus trating even for graduate students, so I have come to prefer a staggered sequence, each with a specific focus. Obviously, patterns are not identical across different genres or purposes or in writing for different audiences. However, writers do in deed have a typical style and do use language in typical ways, just as speakers do.

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 35 5/15/12 6:11 PM 36 My students have found that after initial resistance to counting discrete fea Chapter 2 tures such as nouns, adverbs, compound sentences, appositive words, phrases Discourse and clauses, and so forth, they develop increasing interest in discovering what Communities such counts tell them about their styles, and they find that these features are not and Kinds of as abstract as they had believed. This is another instance in which metalinguistic Language Use awareness proceeds best when learners can apply concepts to their own language use, subsequently extending that awareness to the language produced by others (including the abstracted examples that are all too frequently evident in grammar and composition exercises).

Identifying Your Own Linguistic/Rhetorical Patterns: Your Style Revealed I have used the following staged and scaffolded version of the original exercise with a group of pre-service English teachers. I requested that they bring to class a sample of their fairly typical writing. Most write for college purposes, and many chose an essay written for literary interpretation. A few chose creative pieces, and a smaller group chose personal letters written either on paper or in email. The assignment was begun in class to enable me to guide the students through the analysis and was completed within a week. Students could email any questions they had about any aspect of the assignment or request a meeting. They were also given the opportunity to revise the assignment after receiving feedback. A few ex ercised that option.

Stage 1: Broadly Identifying Basic Stylistic Features Students were asked first to read their piece as a reader—inquisitive, open-minded, pens held at bay— and then jot down general spontaneous impressions as they would if they had read someone else’s piece for authentic purposes. They were then requested to read their sample a second time, writing notes in response to the following requests:

■ Describe the style in which the piece is written.

■ Explain why they wrote the piece.

■ Describe the genre and mode of the piece.

■ Identify the intended audience.

■ Explain how the piece was typical of their writing.

■ Explain how the piece deviated from their more typical writing (if it deviated).

They were asked to put aside this information during the analysis of specific features and return to it when they were reflecting on the analysis.

Stage 2: Specific Word and Grammatical Features Students were asked to record, on a chart like Table 2.7, a total word count and then a count for each of the structural features, including any notes they wished to make about these features. Counts can be converted to percentages where it appears that there is some point in pursuing the analysis to that level. Students were then asked to identify what they perceived to be patterns of interest, that is, patterns that were common throughout the piece. In small groups (no more than four students), they compared and contrasted this piece with those of others. At this stage, they saw the exercise as one of counting with, as yet, little

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 36 5/15/12 6:11 PM Table 2.7 Chart of Basic Structural Features

Feature Count Notes if Desired Total # words Total # paragraphs Total # sentences Total # independent clauses Total # dependent clauses Average # words per sentence Total # questions Total # nouns/NPs Total # verbs/verbals/VPs Total # adjectives Total # adverbs Nouns that appear throughout Verbs that appear throughout Conjunctions that appear throughout Any other structural feature of interest (please name)

Table 2.8 Chart of Specific Stylistic Features

Feature Count Notes if Desired Most frequent sentence opener # of appositively used words, phrases, or clauses # of present participles # of prepositional phrases # of concrete nouns # of abstract nouns Tense used most consistently # of nouns used literally # of nouns used figuratively # of commas # of less common forms of punctuation # of instances of direct speech Dominant point of view (voice) Any other stylistic feature of interest?

rhetorical significance, but their interest was piqued. None of the students had ever subjected their own writing to a fine-grained analysis.

Stage 3: Specific Stylistic Features Students were then asked to continue feature identification, using the list of features in Table 2.8 for analysis. 37

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 37 5/15/12 6:11 PM 38 Students were again asked to compare and contrast their findings in the same Chapter 2 small group, then return to their initial general impressions recorded before the Discourse analyses. Following discussion, students were given a week to write their reflec Communities tions on the assignment using the following guidelines: and Kinds of Language Use Review your general impressions and analyses. Discuss how the analyses confirmed or disconfirmed your general impressions. Then discuss the following with reference to your writing for illustrative purposes:

■ What you learned about your writing and language use that you did not know before doing this exercise

■ How and what this exercise taught you about language

■ How useful this exercise was in comparison to analyzing textbook-perfect examples

■ Whether/how the exercise sharpened your metalinguistic awareness

■ To what extent (if any) and how the exercise affected your writing of the reflection

■ What you would like to see as a follow-up to this exercise

Students’ feedback about the original assignment indicated that they were excited about doing this kind of analysis of their own work but found the focus on detail somewhat frustrating. Since one of the primary goals of the assignment was to engage students’ interest in their own writing as seen through the lens of “expert” rather than “novice dependent on another to describe and critique their writing,” it proved more productive to do the assignment in three phases. Regard less of the frustration some students experienced with fine-grained analysis, all were intrigued, even fascinated, to discover concrete evidence for their general impressions and to discover what they had never known about their own writing: that they had a distinctive style! Conclusion Summary and Questions for Reflection and Discussion At the beginning of this chapter, I identified several major goals for focusing on language through a discourse-centered approach, all of which emphasized the inclusion of a variety of genres, a variety of purposes, the notions of process and practice, the inclusion of modeling and imitation of forms, and the role of trial and error and experimentation. It’s obviously not possible to include activities in this chapter that would cover every genre. I hope that the exercises that were provided will serve as examples of how to put the above goals into practice. What becomes increasingly evident when students are given the mantle of budding expert is that they find analysis interesting and valuable. Analysis is a mind-set that is central to the development of the kind of metalinguistic awareness that accompanies writers in their task, much like a silent but aware companion who takes the role of “reader” and therefore functions as an internal monitor for how writers use language in the service of their purposes.

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 38 5/15/12 6:11 PM 39 Questions for Reflection and Discussion Conclusion While I have used the term “language” to mean more than its parts (i.e., more than simply the linguistic elements that constitute language, such as vocabulary, syntax, sentence, clause, phrase, nouns, and verbs), I do so always with the awareness and intent of contextualizing language. Many resources are available to teachers that describe and define discourses, the practices that are used to analyze them, and the language that is used in their service. Few books, however, provide bridges between language and the structures that house it, nor do many grammar texts address the interplay between language and discourse. Two main questions will help students address relationships between language elements and discourse in this chapter:

■ What is the interplay between language and discourse as two identifiable entities?

■ How can we as teachers engage students in both understanding this inter play and using the linguistic knowledge they have acquired through gram mar exercises and through lifelong use to use language more effectively for their own writing and reading? This question might be useful for a group of teachers to pursue when considering ways in which they can nest grammar lessons within discourse contexts. Additional questions that can foster further discussion for teachers and students alike (with some adaptation) include the following:

■ What are the implications of the narrow range of writing (and reading) done in the context of schooling and of the highly restricted range of audi ence and purposes for which students generate written language?

■ What uses of language (written and oral) are typically generated in school writing?

■ How relevant are these uses of language, and where are they relevant?

■ What uses of language would you like to see included in school writing?

■ With what syntactic patterns are you familiar (or not)? How often do you use these?

■ With what kinds of sentences are you familiar (or not)? How often do you use these?

■ What vocabulary are you typically called on to use?

■ How have you expanded your vocabulary in the past year? In the past two years?

■ What figurative uses of language do you use? When and where do you use them? Are you able to recognize that in some contexts, you use more meta phors and similes than in others? What are those contexts? Are you aware of the role of metaphor in your own linguistic expressions?

■ In what ways have you developed your own language in the past year or two and in what contexts?

M02_SOTE6575_04_SE_C02.indd 39 5/15/12 6:11 PM