ENG3702: ENGLISH LANGUAGE: CONTEXT AND PURPOSE

May/June 2020

First Examiners: Prof C Chaka; Dr SC Ndlangamandla; Dr T Shange

Internal Examiners: Dr D Mkhize; Mrs N Zindela
External Examiner: Dr CJ Thurman

THE FOLLOWING EXAMINATION QUESTION PAPER IS DIVIDED INTO TWO SECTIONS: SECTION A (20 marks)
AND SECTION B (80 marks). ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS IN BOTH SECTIONS.

SECTION A (Compulsory)
Your response to this section should be two paragraphs, each consisting of approximately 750 words.

In your own words, discuss the similarities and differences between the terms, genre and discourse
community, based on the definitions of these two terms as provided by Swales (1990), and according to how
these two terms have been discussed in the module.
Provide specific and relevant examples support your answer. NB: Unique, insightful, and thoughtful
responses that do not merely regurgitate the definitions of these two terms will be rewarded accordingly.
[30 Marks]

SECTION B (Compulsory)
Refer back to your discussion of the similarities and differences between genre and discourse community
provided in Section A of this examination question paper.
Now read the text below adapted from ScienceNews for Students, 17 April 2019,
(https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/long-handshake-spreads-your-dna-things-never-touched), and in a
well-structured essay of between 2-3 pages (2000-2500 words), comment on the genre and discourse
community of this text.

Your essay should demonstrate:

 how language is used to define the context, purpose and audience of the text;
 how the structure and discourse of the text are indicative of the genre;
 how the lexico-grammatical features in the text and the manner in which they are used create meaning.

TURN OVER
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Your essay must have an Introduction, a Body and a Conclusion. Before your concluding paragraph, provide a
short paragraph on your critical reading of this extract. Marks will be deducted for ungrammatical and poorly
structured essays. As this is an examination, you will not be required to provide a Bibliography.
Important Points to Note:
Remember that every piece of writing emerges from a context. Before mounting your analysis, consider the
context of the piece provided.

TEXT FOR ANALYSIS

Shaking Hands Could Transfer Your DNA — Leaving It on Things You Never Touched

By Tina Hesman Saey

Published: 17 April, 2019

People can transfer DNA from others after they touch them, potentially complicating a crime scene, new data
show.

Handshakes can really leave an impression. You might leave enough of your DNA behind to end up on the next
object your handshaking partner touches — without ever touching it yourself.

BALTIMORE, Md. — A handshake is just the beginning. This formal palm-to-palm greeting technique leaves a
little DNA behind. That DNA — the code that carries instructions for who you are and how you function —
doesn’t stop there. It could end up transferred to an object that you never touched, two new studies show. If
even brief contact with another person or object could spread DNA far and wide, crime scene investigators
may need to think carefully when they swab a surface.

Scientists Say: Forensics

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Cynthia Cale is a forensic scientist — someone who uses science to solve crimes. She works at the Houston
Forensic Science Center in Texas. Previously, she had found that shaking hands for two minutes could transfer
one person’s DNA to an object by way of the other person’s hand. But many critics said that two minutes is a
very long, awkward handshake.

For her new experiments, she shortened the handshakes to as little as 10 seconds. (That’s still two to five
times longer than a typical handshake.) And even that brief contact transfers DNA, her data show. After
people shook hands, one person from each pair picked up a knife. Cale’s team then swabbed the knife handle
and tested for DNA. Even after a 10 second handshake, people who never touched the knife were a major
source of DNA on the handle some one in every 14 times. Their DNA had been transferred to the knife when
the person’s handshaking partner had grasped the handle.

When many people touch something

In her experiment, four university students sat around a table and pretended to pour drinks from an empty
pitcher into empty glasses. “We did not want to risk spilling,” Rizor explained. Another 12 students watched
this without sitting at the table. The bystanders could leave the room, talk and move around. The goal was to
mimic conditions in a restaurant. As each student at the table handled the pitcher and a plastic cup,
researchers swabbed the pitcher’s handle, the cups and the students’ hands for DNA.

Students at the table handled only their own cups and the pitcher. Still, their DNA ended up on the pitcher
handle and on each other’s cups — cups other students had never touched. What’s more, DNA from other
students in the room showed up on the swabbed objects, too. Yet none of those observers had touched the
students at the table, the pitcher or those cups. Watchers’ DNA may have spread to the cups and pitcher
when those people coughed, sneezed or talked, Rizzo now suspects.

The researchers couldn’t determine who handled the pitcher last simply by measuring how much DNA was on
the objects. They also could not tell how long someone had touched a pitcher or cup. The data show that DNA
can transfer easily in social settings, Rizor notes — and in unpredictable ways. She, too, presented her findings
at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. It’s likely rare that someone’s DNA will land on an object
they’ve never handled, says Mechthild Prinz. She’s a forensic geneticist, someone who studies DNA to solve
crimes. While no one can say it never happens, she says “we shouldn’t use [the new findings] to throw the
evidence out in every single case.”

Rizor and Cale agree that their new data don’t mean DNA evidence is unreliable. But people investigating
crimes must be careful to account for such accidental transfers. When someone’s DNA shows up at crime
scenes, he or she could be accused of committing a crime. That can happen even if that person was never
there.

[70 Marks]

TOTAL: 100 MARKS