Introducing English Linguistics

4 The structure of English texts
1. Although email exists in written form, it exhibits many characteristics of spoken language. It
contains frequent instances of first and second person pronouns, which are absent from
many kinds of writing. Like speech, it is often not heavily edited. It attempts to express emo-
tive features of speech through the use of abbreviations, such as lol (‘laughing out loud’), and
emoticons that express happiness or sadness. Some email writers even dispense with capital-
ization and do not capitalize proper nouns and even the first person pronoun I.
2. Even though an oral contract is legally binding, a written contract is better because it pro-
vides a permanent record of what was agreed on, and can be consulted if the parties to the
contract have any disputes. In other cases, speech may be preferred over writing if some kind
of direct contact is desired between communicants. This is why spontaneous dialogues are
the most common type of human communication that exists: humans need personal contact
to be able to exploit the full potential of human communication, which includes not just
what is said but intonation and gestures as well.
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ANSWERS TO SELF-STUDY ACTIVITIES

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3. Within the register of medical discourse, a conversation between patient and doctor would be
a closed rather than an open register: the organization and structure of such a conversation
would be fixed and conventionalized. For instance, as a doctor enters the examination room,
she would greet her patient, asking how he is feeling. Then, she would look over the patient’s
file to see if she needed to follow up on any medical issues discussed during previous visits.
During the medical examination itself, the doctor would issue a set of directives asking the
patient to do specific things to facilitate the examination: “Breathe in and out,” “Roll up your
sleeve so I can take your blood pressure,” and so forth. The patient would also be given the
opportunity to ask questions if he had any.
4. Instances of old information:
(1) These and They (refer back to storms in first sentence)
(2) storms in second sentence (repeats first mention of storms in first sentence)
5. Because passive sentences move constituents around, they are very useful for placing old infor-
mation at the start of a clause, and new information at the end. In the two sentences below, the
passive (b) would be preferred by some over the active (a) because in (b), the old information is
placed at the start of the clause, whereas in (a), new information appears in this position.
Yesterday, John Smith was appointed Executive Director of Accounts.
(a) CEO Juliet Jones promoted him during the company’s annual meeting.
(b) He was promoted by CEO Juliet Jones during the company’s annual meeting.
6. Types of cohesion:
(1) Lexical cohesion: natural plows, the wrigglers (synonyms for earthworms); forest (in forest floor,
which repeats earlier mention in forest ecosystem)
(2) Reference: they (both instances refer back to earthworms)
(3) Conjunction: But