Discourse and Text in English.

EMC

TASK 6
Texts extracted from Celce-Murcia, M. & Olshtain, E. (2000) Discourse and context in language
teaching. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press; Downing (2015) English grammar:
a university course. 3rd. ed. Routledge; Hannay & Mackenzie (2012/2017)

A. Identify connecting strategies linking the different parts in the following extract:

I am a working mother with two pre-teens. After dropping them off at school, I have to
get right to work. But my children are disorganized and always late. A few times, I
have had to turn around and go back home because one or the other forgot something.

(Children_LA’s Best Calendar of Family Events, July 1998: 12,

from C-M & O: p. 7)

B. The following extract of ‘The lost Van Gogh’ is part of a news item in The Week. Analyse the
text in terms of cohesion, paying attention to reference, lexical choice, connectors and ellipsis.

When Vincent Van Gogh left his home in the Dutch village of Nuenen in 1895, having
had a blazing row with the parish priest over his use of female models, he left
hundreds of his early pictures behind in his mother’s keeping. Soon after, his mother,
too, left the village for the nearby town of Breda. She packed all her belongings,
including a chest containing her son’s works, onto a cart, and then left the chest in
storage with a family friend. The friend, a local merchant, threw many of the pictures
away and sold others off the back of his cart for about five cents a piece.
From Downing (2015) English Grammar:
a University Course. 3rd. ed. Routledge.

C. Rewrite the following five text fragments, replacing the italicized cohesion markers
with one of the following five adjectives and making any necessary adjustments:

additional, opposite, resultant, reverse, supplementary

(1) It is generally seen as a major difficulty that the talks are being held before
hostilities have ceased. It is also a problem that both sides have stated that
they will not regard the outcome of the talks as binding.

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(2) Many scientists have drawn the conclusion from recent meteorological data
that the average surface temperature is rising. However, the view that it is in
fact not rising has found favour in certain climatological circles.

(3) The riots spread rapidly across the city. The fear, therefore, was that the police
would lose control of the situation.

(4) The accused was unable to provide a plausible alibi. There was also evidence
that he had a strong motive to commit the crime.

(5) The demise of the symphony orchestra has been predicted at various points
throughout the twentieth century. As we enter the twenty-first, however, the
prediction seems justified that it will become healthier than ever.

D. Complete the following text, which could appear in the conclusion of a text reporting
on research, by replacing the 10 capitalized verbs with either the present perfect or
past tense form of each verb. Explain how the alternation in the text between present
perfect and past brings out breaks in cohesion.

The results of our investigation SHOW that there is a significant correlation between

school attendance and school performance. Our conclusions are thus at variance with

Brown (1993), who CLAIM to demonstrate that other factors, but not school

attendance, BE relevant. By holding those other factors constant, we ASSEMBLE strong

evidence to suggest what many people always BELIEVE , namely that truancy negatively

influences attainment. Whereas Brown BASE his results on the findings at one school,

we EXAMINE five different school environments. Arguing that Brown’s data REFLECT a

particular educational system in which schoolchildren BE given great freedom of

choice, we ESTABLISH an across-the-board correlation between attendance and

performance.