Lecture Note GST 111

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 LECTURE NOTE ON GST 111

COMMUNICATION IN ENGLISH

SECTION A

INTRODUCTION: This course introduces the students to general knowledge in Communication

in English with specific attention on the English grammar and usage. It exploresthe basic language
skills as well as features of English grammatical structure. This prepares the students to be
effective in their daily use of the English language.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: At the end of this lecture, you should be able to:
a. Define the language skills in English;
b. Define with examples the parts of Speech in English;
c. Define the concept of morpheme and state its types and features;
d. Discuss the word formation processes;
e. Discuss the other grammatical units in English; and
f. Define the English concord and state the types and rules.

What is communication?

Communication is a process of exchanging information, ideas, thoughts, feelings and emotions

through speech, signals, writing, or behaviour.

Elements in communication
In the communication process, a sender(encoder) encodes a message and then using a
medium/channel sends it to the receiver (decoder) who decodes the message and after processing
information, sends back appropriate feedback/reply using a medium/channel.
o Sender/source
o Message
o Encoding
o Channel/medium
o Decoding
o Receiver
o Feedback

Types of communication
VERBAL: written or spoken; formal or informal

NON-VERBAL: body language (gestures, posture, facial expression), sign, symbols, etc.

VISUAL: images, colour, etc.

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 Week 2

Introduction to language skills

Listening is not just about being quiet while someone else is speaking, it is the process of
receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or non-verbal messages.

Therefore, listening is an active process.

It is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying.

Types of listening

a. Cosmetic listening
b. Conversational listening
c. Active listening: observe, focus, acknowledge, and respect
d. Deep listening

Listen, understand and act: most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen
with the intent to reply.

listening skills

A learner with limited English or weak listening skills adopts a strategy of scanning continuous
speech for matches between sequences of sounds and items of known vocabulary. This is called
the ‘matches’ strategy.
E.g. “Hello, do you hear me?” This is used to check whether the channel works.

“Are you listening?” This is used to confirm his continued attention.

“Lend me your ears” This is used to attract the attention of the interlocutors.

Activity 1
Listen to the following conversation and write out a complete stretch of a sentence from the
entire stretches.

Speaking
Clearly, we acquire speech before writing

Reading and writing skills

Reading

You must be skilled at “reading between the lines,”

reading and writing or speaking and listening

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 Reading strategy

The SQ3R is a mnemonic derived from the first letters of stages involved in reading.

Survey: This involves looking through the text before actually reading it.

Question: This helps the reader to raise anticipatory questions about the text. It prepares the
reader to read critically.

Read: It involves movement through the text. (skimming - surveying, scanning)

Recall: This is an attempt to find out how much of what has been read and can be remembered.

Review: This involves a continuous and planned reading process.

Units of Grammar/Grammatical Units

❑ Grammar studies the way in which words/morphemes join to form meaningful

sentences.
It is a set of constraints on the possible sequences of symbols expressed as rules or principle.

❑ Syntax is the basic ingredient of grammar. Grammar tells us the difference between sets of
sentences.

Rank-Scale

❑ The hierarchy of units is called a rank scale and each step in the hierarchy is one rank
(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004:9).

❑ ÊIt is the hierarchical arrangement of the structural units of grammar in which each unit
consists of one or more units of the rank below it. Ê

❑ This implies that the elements of the structure of each unit are realised by units of therank
below and vice versa (that is, the unit below fulfills the function of the unitabove/the
combinations of the unit below make up for the unit above).

❑ Hence, a clause consists of one or more groups, a group consists of one or more words
and a word consists of one or more morphemes.

Rank Shifting

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 ➢ This occurs when the higher unit of grammar shift its position to function in the lower unit
and not vice versa.

➢ Units may be ‘embedded’ within other units

E.g.

i. people who live in the West- (R. clause within NP).

ii. The effects of the accident-pp within NP).

iii. The man who fought in the garden (R. clause within NP) is nowhere to be found.

iv. Th man who lives beside us (R. clause within NP) is ill.

Rank-scale could be arranged in either top down or bottom up order

Morpheme Sentence

Word Clause

Phrase Phrase

Clause Word

Sentence Morpheme

Morpheme

A morpheme is defined as the smallest indivisible meaningful unit of grammar.

Types:

i. Free morpheme (Lexical & Functional)

ii. Bound morpheme (Inflectional & Derivation)

Word

❖ A word is a lexical item. It is a lexeme with features or properties

Word level

N = Noun

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 A = Adjective

V = Verb

P = Preposition

D = Determiner

C = Conjunction, etc.

1. Grammatical words

2. Functional/content words

a. Collocative

b. Denotative/figurative
c. Connotative/ordinary/literal meaning
d. Figurative
e. Idiomatic
f. Ambiguous
g. Vague,etc.

Group/Phrase

❖ A phrase is a group of words without a FINITE verb (a finite verb is a verb that does not
agree with the verb in terms of person, number and tense.

a. NP = Noun Phrase (mhq)

b. AP = Adjective Phrase (q)
c. VP = Verb Phrase (anl)
d. PP = Prepositional Phrase (pc)
e. Adv = Adverb (tal)

Clause

❑ A clause is a group of words with a finite verb.

❑ It is the grammatical unit which expresses a single predicate and its arguments.

Types:
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 i. Main/Independent

ii. Subordinate/dependent clauses

E.g.

a. Noun clause

b. Adjectival clause

c. Adverbial clause

d. Sentence

Sentence classification according to type

i. Simple – The man has arrived

ii. Compound – The driver took the car key and went home with it.

iii. Complex – The receptionist saw her when she was leaving/ When she was leaving, the
receptionist saw her.

iv. Compound-complex – I wrote down the questions, did the assignment before I sent it.

Sentence classification according to function

a. Declarative sentence– I am here.

b. Imperative sentence– Get out!

c. Interrogative sentence– who is there?

d. Exclamatory sentence– Oh, it’s back.

Activity 1

Describe the 5 ranks hierarchy for identifying the units being studied in English grammar?

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