English Language and Composition ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION Ravi Kumar Sinha ANMOL PUBLICATIONS PVT. LTD. NEW DELHI-110 002 (INDIA) ANMOL PUBLICATIONS PVT. LTD. Regd. Office: 4360/4, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002 (India) Tel.: 23278000, 23261597, 23286875, 23255577 Fax: 91-11-23280289 Email: [email protected] Visit us at: www.anmolpublications.com Branch Office: No. 1015, Ist Main Road, BSK IIIrd Stage IIIrd Phase, IIIrd Block, Bengaluru-560 085 (India) Tel.: 080-41723429 • Fax: 080-26723604 Email: [email protected] English Language and Composition © Reserved First Edition, 2013 ISBN 978-81-261-4939-1 PRINTED IN INDIA Printed at Balaji Offset, Delhi. Contents Preface vii 1. English and English Language: An Introductory Overview 1 2. Word Formation, Word Substitution and Words Often Confused: An Overview 28 3. Focus on Verbs and Verbal 98 4. Focus on the Article, the Voice and the Narration 108 5. Clauses, Analysis, Phrases and Idiomatic Expressions 137 6. Focus on Writing English Essays, Letters and Paragraphs 185 7. Story-Writing: An Overview 239 8. Precis-Writing: Tools and Techniques 247 9. English as a Foreign or Second Language and ELS Language Centers 258 10. Focus on Style, Diagramming Sentences, Comma Splices, Articles, Determiners and Quantifiers 281 Bibliography 292 Index 294 Focus on Style, Diagramming Sentences, Comma Splices... 303 Preface English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, via the British Empire, and of the United States since the mid-20th century, it has been widely dispersed around the world, become the leading language of international discourse, and has acquired use as lingua franca in many regions. English Grammar is the study of the rules governing the use of English language. The set of those rules is also called the grammar of the language, and each language has its own distinct grammar. Grammar is part of the general study of language called linguistics”. Composition means: “writing: the act of creating written works”. Grammar deals with parts of speech, word usage, and syntax. Composition in writing is the art of organizing ideas in a clear, effective way to make an argument, describe something, explain something, tell a story, or give a report. The basic units of composition are sentences and paragraphs. A good way to learn grammar and analyze sentences is to use diagramming. Composition is the art of building sentences and putting them together, so we need to learn about sentences. A sentence contains one or more clauses. A clause is a group of words that has a subject and predicate. The predicate tells something about someone, somebody, or something, (viii) which is the subject. If the clause expresses a complete thought, it is an independent clause. A sentence fragment is punctuated as if it were a sentence, but it isn’t a complete thought. Generally avoid sentence fragments. We can make a sentence more interesting and informative by adding descriptive words. We can add still more information to a sentence with prepositional phrases. A sentence may have two subjects or two predicates. A sentence may have two subjects and two predicates. Beginning writers often run sentences together. This publication titled, “English Language and Composition” provides readers with an introductory understanding of English and English language. An overview of word formation, word substitution and words often confused. Focus lies on verbs and verbals. Focus lies on the article, the voice and the narration. The elements of clauses, analysis, phrases and idiomatic expressions are dealt in detail. Special focus lies on writing English essays, letters and paragraphs. An overview of story-writing is given. The tools and techniques of précis-writing are analyzed. English as a foreign or second language is dealt in detail and the ELS language centers have been listed. Focus also lies on style, diagramming sentences, comma splices, articles, determiners and quantifiers. The book is reader friendly as it is supported with glossary, annolated bibliography and index. —Editor 1 English and English Language: An Introductory Overview The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself. —Derek Walcott ENGRISH: A FORM OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE Engrish refers to unusual forms of English language usage originating in some East Asian countries. The term itself satirizes Japanese speakers’ tendency to inadvertently substitute the English phonemes “R” and “L” for one another, related to the fact that the Japanese language has one alveolar consonant in place for both. The word is used in Japan, in English letters or katakana. “Wasei-eigo” is a related term specific to Japanese language. While the term may refer to spoken English, it is more often used to describe written English. Engrish can be found in many places, including signs, menus, and advertisements. Terms such as Japanglish, Japlish or Janglish for Japan, Konglish for Korea, Singlish for Singapore, and Chinglish for China are more specific terms for Engrish. Roots of the Phenomenon In Japanese Engrish, there are two contributing factors: • First is the great difference between Japanese and 2 English Language and Composition English. Japanese word order, the frequent omission of subjects in Japanese, the absence of articles, as well as difficulties in distinguishing l and r all contribute to substantial problems using English effectively. Indeed, Japanese have tended to score comparatively poorly on international tests of English. • The second factor has been the use of English for “decorative” or “design” rather than functional purposes; i.e., for Japanese consumption, not for English speakers per se, and as a way of appearing “smart, sophisticated and modern”. Indeed, it is claimed that in such decorative English “there is often no attempt to try to get it right, nor do the vast majority of the Japanese population ever attempt to read the English design element in question. There is therefore less emphasis on spell checking and grammatical accuracy.” In Popular Culture Engrish features prominently in Japanese pop culture. Many popular Japanese songs and television-show themes feature disjointed phrases in English amongst the otherwise Japanese lyrics. Japanese marketing firms helped create this popularity, resulting in an enormous array of advertisements, products, and clothing marked with English phrases that seem amusing or bizarre to those proficient in English. These new Engrish terms are generally short- lived, as they are used more for fashion than meaning. Instances of Engrish due to poor translation were frequently found in many early video games produced in Japan. One well-known and popular example of Engrish in pop culture is the video game translation phenomenon “All your base are belong to us”, which also became an Internet meme. Engrish is considered distinct from improper translation, where a phrase is translated into a completely different phrase between English and Japanese in order to account for editorial mandate or cultural phraseology. Fictitious English and English Language: An Introductory Overview 3 uses of Engrish include the NewsRadio episode “Super Karate Monkey Death Car”, where Jimmy James reads his autobiography publicly after it has been published in Japanese and translated into English, and the song “Let’s Fighting Love”, used in the South Park episode “Good Times With Weapons,” which satirizes the poorly-translated opening theme sequences sometimes shown in anime. ENGLISH LANGUAGE English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, via the British Empire, and of the United States since the mid-20th century, it has been widely dispersed around the world, become the leading language of international discourse, and has acquired use as lingua franca in many regions. It is widely learned as a second language and used as an official language of the European Union and many Commonwealth countries, as well as in many world organizations. It is the third most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Historically, English originated from the fusion of languages and dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the eastern coast of Great Britain by Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) settlers by the 5th century – with the word English being derived from the name of the Angles. A significant number of English words are constructed based on roots from Latin, because Latin in some form was the lingua franca of the Christian Church and of European intellectual life. The language was further influenced by the Old Norse language due to Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century 4 English Language and Composition gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman-French, and vocabulary and spelling conventions began to give the superficial