Transcript Unit 5 The Structures of English (2)

Unit 5
The Structures of
English (2)
Unit5
The Structures of English (2)
Review:
What is meant by IC analysis?
 What are ‘surface structure’ and ‘deep
structure’?
 Analyze how the following sentence is
ambiguous:
Flying planes can be dangerous.

IC analysis
Flying planes can be dangerous
flying planes
flying
can be dangerous
planes
can be
can
be
dangerous
Labeled tree diagram
S
VP
NP
AdjPc ??
VP
N
Adj
AUX V
flying
planes
can
be dangerous
Deep Structure 1
Flying planes can be dangerous
NP
AdjP
VP
N
flying planes
can be dangerous
Deep Structure 2
S
NP
VP
S’
NP
N
VP
Aux
V
planes (are) flying
can be dangerous
Contents
6.1 English paragraphs
6.2 English texts
6.3 Cohesion in English texts
6.4 Turn taking in English conversations
6.1 English paragraphs

PP. 87-88
6.2 English texts

P. 88

Discuss
PP. 90-91 No. 2
6.3 Cohesion in English texts
Sentence connection
a. Conjoining (coordination)
b. Embedding (subordination)

Means of cohesion(衔接）:
a. Lexically ( repetition, synonymy,
antonymy, hyponymy--reiteration)
b. Grammatically (ellipsis, substitution,
reference)
c. Logically (connectives)

Identify the cohesive devices in the following passage:

A latest survey has been held among
some citizens from Beijing, Shanghai
and Guangzhou about the Internet’s
influence on people’s habit of reading.
The research shows that 40% of them
have strong belief that it will replace the
book as the sole source of information,
but the remaining 60% argue that the
Internet will coexist with the traditional
means of information transmission. I
agree with the latter.
Discuss

P. 93
No. 6

Reference deserves further elaboration
here. The first distinction can be drawn
between endophoric reference and
exophoric reference. While the former
points to a relation between an entity in
the situational context and a linguistic item
in the text (as in “He is the man you want
to see!” said when the mentioned person
comes over to the speaker), the latter
refers to the relation between two linguistic
items in the same text.

For endophoric reference, further distinction
is attempted between anaphoric reference
and cataphoric reference. The former
involves a relation between a preceding
referential expression or an antecedent
and the current pronominal item (as in
“John loves Jane. He takes great care of
her. This is known to all.”) , whereas the
latter denotes a relation between the
current pronominal item and the later
occurring expression (as in “This is what
John does for Jane: he sends a bunch of
roses to her every day.”) .
Discuss

P. 90 No. 1
6.4 Turn taking in English
conversations

In conversation, dialogue rather than monologue
dominates. Conversationalists take turns
speaking. The chance to speak is technically
termed as floor. The current speaker may try to
maintain the floor, or give up the floor. While the
next speaker may opt to interrupt in order to seize
the floor, he or she can wait to be nominated by
the current speaker, or take the hints from him
such as a long pause, a gesture, a gaze, etc.

An initiation, say a question or a request,
by the first speaker and the response by
the second speaker, like an answer to the
question and a compliance with the
request, form an adjacency pair. If the
second part of the adjacency pair is
positive, it is preferred; if the second part
of the adjacency pair is negative, it is
dispreferred. The latter is characterized by
the use of such signals as “well”,
hesitation markers like “erm”, pauses,
explanations or accounts, etc.
Discuss

PP. 91-92 No. 3, 4
Presentation session
Phatic communion in English and
Chinese
Assignments:
P. 95 No. 9
 P. 98 No. 5
