Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Texttypes (Content Area)
Texttypes (Content Area)
TEXT TYPES
The phrase ‘text type’ is a way of classifying and defining different types of language interaction, both spoken and
written.
• Instructions
• Explanations
• Recounts
- personal
- factual
• Information reports
• Expositions
• Narratives
The purpose of instructions is to tell/ inform in sequential order the steps which need to be taken to do or make
something.
• imperative form
1
Explanations
In other words, the purpose of an explanation is to explain how and why something is made.
Floods
General Statement
After flash floods, desert streams from upland areas carry
heavy loads of silt, sand and rock fragments. As they reach
Stage 1 the flatter area of the desert basins they slow down and
their waters soak quickly into the basin floor. Then the
streams drop their loads; first they drop the heaviest material
Stage 2 – the stones, then they drop the sand and finally they drop
the silt. Soon these short-lived streams become choked
by their own deposits and they spread their load in all
Stage 3 directions. After some time, fan or cone-shaped deposits of
gravel, sand, silt and clay are formed around each valley or
canyon outlet. These are called alluvial fans.
Stage 4
Information Reports
-Reports are factual texts which describe and classify the way things are.
-The things described and classified can be a range of phenomena in our natural or cultural environment
General classification where the phenomenon is identified and assigned to a general classification, e.g. Dolphins are
mammals. This opening statement may be expanded in some following sentences
Snakes
(General Classification) Snakes are reptiles (cold blooded creatures). They belong to the same group as
lizards but form a sub-group of their own.
(Description) Snakes have a scaly skin and no legs. They can wriggle and slide out of their old skin and grow
a bright new one.
Female snakes lay eggs. When the baby snakes hatch out of the eggs they are small, sticky and have a bright
scaly skin. They look just like a tiny version of the mother. Baby snakes have to look after themselves and find their
own food.
Some snakes kill animals such as frogs, fish, rabbits, rats and mice. They can kill these animals in two ways.
Firstly, by squeezing them to death and secondly, by injecting them with poison.
Language Features
• some action verbs especially when describing behaviour, e.g. Some snakes kill animals
• The verb “to be” is used often in order to link bits of information, e.g. Snakes are reptiles.
• The verb “to have” is also used often to describe attributes of the phenomenon, e.g. Snakes have a scaly skin
and no legs.
Expository texts
Expository texts are concerned with the analysis, interpretation and evaluation of the world around us.
2
You and I may analyze, interpret and evaluate the world differently. Our differences depend on our point of view.
Because of this, we may try to justify our point of view, in order to:
1. Persuade others that our point of view is right.
2. Persuade others to take certain action.
Purpose
So the purpose of an expository text is:
• to get a point across
• to develop an argument
• to persuade
Structure of exposition
• thesis: an introduction where the writer/speaker states his/her position
• arguments: where the position taken is justified
• summary of the position
OR
• two points of view, with pros and cons of each (as in a debate)
Grammatical features of exposition
• Generalized nouns (unless the issue is about a particular event).
• Timeless present tense when presenting position and points in the argument;
• Expressions of obligation/determination, e.g. modal auxiliaries; imperative clauses.
• Conjunctions to do with reason.
Narratives
Language features
• Characters are specific with defined identities.
• may be written in the first person or the third person
• mainly action verbs
• usually past tense;
• many linking words to do with time;
• dialogue often included;
• descriptive language to create images in the reader’s mind;
Buttons
Orientation
-In a small village called Columpton there was a boy called Harry. Harry was always fighting and during fights
his buttons were ripped off. His mother always nagged him about sewing on his buttons but Harry never did.
Complication
- One day all his buttons had been ripped off so he had to hold his trousers up. The bell rang and
everybody hurriedly went out to go home from school and Harry raced out of the classroom and his pants fell down. All
the other children laughed.
Moral
- Now Harry sews his buttons on all the time, without even being asked.