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Information Structure and English Article Pedagogy

Article  in  System · September 2002

DOI: 10.1016/S0346-251X(02)00018-0

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8 Information structure and English article

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pedagogy

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12 Peter Master*

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13 Department of Linguistics and Language Development, San Jose State University, One Washington Square,
14 San Jose, CA 95192-0093, USA
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16 Received 20 August 2001; received in revised form 27 August 2001; accepted 9 April 2002
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20 Abstract
21 This paper describes several reasons for the difficulty non-native speakers of English have in
22 acquiring the English article system and reviews five pedagogical methods for teaching the
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23 article system. The notion of information structure, specifically givenness, is then applied to a
24 sample text to examine the extent to which canonical information structure (i.e. given infor-
25 mation first, new information last) is obeyed. Given information was found to adhere to
26 canonical structure most of the time, whereas new information adhered to it only half of the
time, though within a narrow range of exceptions. The results of a pilot study in which one
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group of non-native English speakers is taught the article system using information structure as
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an overarching framework, another is taught using a traditional explanation of article use, and
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a third receives no instruction show that the group taught with the information structure
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framework made small but significant improvement compared to the other two groups. The
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suggested pedagogical application is for language teachers to present canonical information
32 structure as a preliminary guess in determining the appropriate article for any noun, providing
33 a further potential aid in learning the article system. # 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
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Keywords: Second language instruction; Grammar instruction; English articles; English article pedagogy;
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Information structure
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37
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39 The English article system is a notoriously complex aspect of English grammar

40 that may cause the most advanced non-native speaker of English as a second or
41 other language (henceforth, NNS) to make errors even when all other elements of
42 the language have been mastered. The difficulty stems from three principle facts
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44 * Tel.: +1-408-924-4484; fax: +1-408-924-4703.
45 E-mail address: pmaster@sjsu.edu (P. Master).

0346-251X/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

PII: S0346-251X(02)00018-0
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1 about the article system: (1) the articles, which include the words a, an, the, and Ø,
2 the invisible zero/null article, are among the most frequently occurring function
3 words in the language (Master, 1997), making continuous conscious rule application
4 difficult over an extended stretch of discourse; (2) function words are normally
5 unstressed and consequently very difficult if not impossible for a NNS to discern,
thus affecting the availability of input in the spoken mode; and (3) the article system

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7 stacks multiple functions onto a single morpheme, a considerable burden for the
8 learner, who generally looks for a one-form-one-function correspondence in navi-
9 gating the labyrinth of any human language until the advanced stages of acquisition.
10 The five most frequently-occurring words in the English language (Sinclair, 1991)

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11 include the in first position and a in fifth (see Table 1). Master (1997) found that the
12 articles in a 200,000 word corpus from five written genres occurred in surprisingly

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13 similar proportions for the and a to those found by Sinclair for the top five words
14 (see Table 2). Table 2 shows that, since the zero/null article exceeds the frequency of
15 the, it actually belongs in first place, with the in second and a in sixth. These analyses
16 indicate that the articles are the most frequently occurring words in the English
17 language. From the learner’s perspective, any conscious application of article rules
18 requires that they be applied many times over, often within a single sentence. This
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19 may account for the common neglect of subsequent-mention the after the first few
20 occurrences of a noun phrase (NP) in a piece of NNS discourse, even when the
21 learner knows the rule that all subsequent mentions of a given NP must be marked
22 with the, the process may, according to anecdotal evidence from an advanced NNS,
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23 simply seem unnecessary.

24 The only article that may be phonologically stressed in English is the (pronounced
25 Di) to indicate ‘‘the famous’’ (e.g. ‘‘Are you THE Hugh Grant?’’) or ‘‘the most
26 important’’ (e.g. ‘‘It was THE game of the season’’), but this usage is rare. Most of
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27 the time, like most function words, the articles are unstressed. Unstressed the sounds
28 like a brief theta (Q) or eth (D) whereas unstressed a sounds like the ubiquitous
29 schwa ( ´ ) or the place holder ‘‘uh’’. In other words, it is extremely difficult to hear,
30 and for many NNS learners may sound like nothing at all.
The linkage of one form to one function is a common strategy in second language
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32 acquisition. Indeed, Bolinger (1977) noted that ‘‘the natural condition of a lan-
33 guage is to preserve one form for one meaning, and one meaning for one form’’
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34 [p. X]. In terms of vocabulary, the learner may first learn the adjective big, for
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37 Table 1
COBUILD list of the five most frequent words in English (Sinclair, 1991)
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1. the (309,497) 35.0%
40 2. of (155,044) 17.5%
41 3. and (153,801) 17.4%
42 4. to (137,056) 15.5%
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5. a (129,928) 14.7%
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Total (885,326) 100.1%
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1 Table 2
2 Percent occurrence of the three articles in five genres (Master, 1997)
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Ø 48.0%
4 the 36.3%
5 a 15.7%

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Total 100.0%
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11 example, and only later become aware of the range of words with a similar mean-
12 ing, e.g. large, great, enormous, tremendous, gigantic. In terms of interlanguage (IL)

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13 syntax, the learner often produces the ing-form of verbs initially, presumably
14 because it is phonologically salient, and thus makes sentences such as ‘‘He living
15 Paris,’’ and only later comes to acquire the past -ed, the perfect -en, and the pre-
16 sent -s morphemes. Similarly, the auxiliary be, when it begins to be used (its
17 appearance is usually delayed in IL development), is uttered initially as be or per-
18 haps is in all contexts (see, for example, Zobl and Liceras, 1994). Part of the reason
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19 for the delay is that the auxiliaries require the stacking of multiple functions onto a
20 single morpheme, which requires going beyond the one-form-one-function strategy.
21 For example, the form of be in ‘‘John is a student’’ indicates the functions of time
22 (present), aspect (simple), and number (singular). This is the principle reason that
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23 auxiliary negation functions as a rough indicator of IL level (Stauble, 1981): the

24 learner’s ability to manipulate multiple functions increases as proficiency develops.
25 The article system also stacks multiple functions (definiteness, countability, and
26 number) onto a single morpheme, which is why it may also function as an indi-
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27 cator of IL level (Master, 1987).

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30 1. Other factors
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32 The decisions affecting the choice of article within these multiple functions are
33 themselves based on a complex mix of factors, including whether a ‘‘packet or
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34 wave’’ form of a noun is meant (discrete item vs. mass); what sense the speaker/
35 writer has of the hearer/listener’s knowledge about the topic (definite vs. indefinite);
36 and whether or not the context is localized (specific vs. generic).
37 The ‘‘packet or wave’’ notion, i.e. the physical quality of electrons that behave
sometimes like a discrete entity or packet and sometimes like a mass or wave,
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39 applies in some ways to the notion of countability in English, a semantic feature

40 that a speaker applies to nouns in discourse. A count noun is one that has a dis-
41 tinct border or boundary, a ‘‘packet’’ that allows the distinction of one such entity
42 from another and thus may be counted and pluralized, e.g. pencil, star, idea. A
43 noncount noun is one that has no distinct border or boundary, a mass or ‘‘wave’’
44 that does not allow the distinction of entities and therefore may not be counted or
45 pluralized, e.g. plastic, flour, energy. The examples provided suggest that a noun is
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1 permanently count or noncount; however, though there is a greater likelihood that

2 certain nouns will be count and others noncount, countability is determined by the
3 speaker (this is why count/noncount status is not indicated in a dictionary). For
4 example, the word pencil in ‘‘The vet found bits of chewed-up pencil in the dog’s
5 stomach’’ is a noncount use of the word as it no longer represents a discrete entity
but a formless mass. Similarly, the word plastic in ‘‘The factory produced a plastic

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7 of uncommon strength’’ is a count use of the word as it now represents a discrete

8 entity that we interpret to mean ‘‘a kind or type of plastic’’ (likewise, ‘‘a coffee’’
9 usually means ‘‘a cup of coffee’’; ‘‘two sugars’’ usually means ‘‘two teaspoons of
10 sugar’’).

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11 The sense the speaker/writer has of the hearer/listener’s knowledge about the topic
12 is a refined aspect of the distinction between definite, i.e. something that the listener

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13 and speaker share knowledge of (e.g. ‘‘Could you let the dog out’’), and indefinite,
14 i.e. something that is new to the listener (e.g. ‘‘There was a dog on the runway?’’).
15 Hawkins (1978) has described several levels of shared understanding (what he labels
16 ‘‘associative anaphora’’) that definite nouns imply; for example, the car presumes
17 ‘‘the radiator,’’ ‘‘the brakes,’’ and ‘‘the steering wheel.’’ In assessing a new listener’s
18 knowledge, however, the decision of whether to use the definite or indefinite article
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19 may depend on a subtle, perhaps intuitive ‘‘reading’’ of what the listener knows. For
20 example, the word symphony in ‘‘Beethoven then wrote a symphony for which he
21 was to become very famous’’ is preceded by the indefinite article (a ), suggesting that
22 the speaker feels that the listener’s knowledge of Beethoven’s music may be limited
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23 and that therefore this will be new information. The same word in ‘‘Beethoven
24 then wrote the symphony for which he was to become very famous’’ is preceded
25 by the definite article, suggesting that the speaker feels that the listener’s knowl-
26 edge of Beethoven’s music is such that s/he will know which symphony is being
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27 referred to.
28 A third factor is whether the context is localized or not, in other words, whether
29 the speaker is referring to an entity in a specific place and time, or generically to all
30 such entities at any place or time. This factor applies to both indefinite noun phrases
(e.g. ‘‘There was a raccoon in the basement last night’’ vs. ‘‘A raccoon is a fastidious
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32 eater’’) and definite ones (e.g. ‘‘The neutron bomb was on display at the Smithso-
33 nian’’ vs. ‘‘The neutron bomb is a devastating weapon’’). In both cases, the specific
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34 vs. generic interpretation can only be deduced from the context (particularly from
35 the verb tense) and not from the article itself.
36 These factors are overlaid in some cases by specific syntactic rules, such as the
37 article used with ranking adjectives (e.g. the largest X, the final Y, the only Z), proper
names (e.g. the Suez Canal, Ø Vancouver Island), or certain lexical phrases (e.g. a
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39 [*the] year ago, during the [*a] day), which may override the functional choices. In
40 sum, all the various aspects that contribute to selecting the correct article, not to
41 mention their hierarchical interactions, make learning and teaching the system a
42 daunting proposition, and indeed there are some who maintain that the system is
43 not learnable in any conscious way and is therefore not teachable (e.g. Dulay et al.,
44 1982). This pessimistic viewpoint is, in my opinion, a dereliction of our pedagogical
45 duty to NNS students, for as long as we remain critical of any misuse of the article
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1 system, we are obliged to provide some means for them to understand and utilize
2 the system, especially when it comes to academic writing that is to be graded in part
3 for grammatical accuracy.
4 The purpose of this paper is to review some of the attempts that have been
5 made to provide a system for teaching the articles to NNS and to discuss the
potential role of information structure in helping to manage the complexities of

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7 the article system.

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10 2. Pedagogical systems for teaching the articles

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12 Master (1990) summarizes four systems that have been presented in the last

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13 quarter century to teach the English article system to NNS. Whitman (1974)
14 described English article structure as ‘‘a sequence of quantification and determina-
15 tion rather than a choice between specified and unspecified’’ (p. 253) and delineated
16 six steps for teaching the system: (1) quantity (count nouns and one vs. a), (2) generic
17 plural, (3) noncount nouns (vs. count and a lot of vs. much and many), (4) determi-
18 ners (which-NP questions and first/subsequent mention), (5) quantity and deter-
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19 miner (e.g. one of the books), and (6) generic articles. McEldowney (1977)
20 approached the teaching of the articles in terms of form and content and proposed
21 four ‘‘stages of learning,’’ (1) classification, (2) plurality, (3) mass or substance, and
22 (4) numbered specific (e.g. six pens), linked to three concepts: any (a) to mark choice,
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23 special (the) to mark specification, and general (-s and later a and the) to mark
24 generalization. Pica (1983) did not present a system as such but rather recom-
25 mended the inclusion of discourse-related rules in the presentation of the English
26 article system; she argued that ‘‘article use may have more to do with communi-
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27 cation and communicative competence than with grammar and linguistic compe-
28 tence’’ (p. 231) and made five recommendations for instruction, including teaching
29 students to use the with a qualifying description rather than just a bare noun (e.g.
30 the nearest post office vs. the post office) and discussing the effect of using an
incorrect article to increase awareness of native usage. Master (1986, 1988) pre-
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32 sented a hierarchical sequence of six questions to be asked about each noun in a

33 piece of discourse: Is the noun (1) countable or uncountable, (2) definite or indefi-
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34 nite, (3) postmodified or not, (4) specific or generic, (5) common or proper, and (6)
35 in an idiomatic phrase or not?
36 Master (1990) proposed a simple binary distinction between classification (a, Ø)
37 and identification (the) as an overarching principle in helping NNS choose the
appropriate article. This system collapses the linguistic distinction between generic
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39 and specific (see the earlier examples ‘‘A raccoon is a fastidious eater’’ vs. ‘‘There
40 was a raccoon in the basement last night’’), arguing that ‘‘the spending of class time
41 on a distinction that requires the same article. . .seems unnecessary in all but the
42 most advanced levels of ESL/EFL instruction’’ (p. 467). The divisions of the binary
43 system are presented (slightly revised from the original) in Table 3.
44 The defining vs. limiting relative clauses need some explanation as they will be
45 referred to later. Defining relative clauses, e.g. that gets 50 mpg in Table 3, apply to
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1 Table 3
2 Categories within the Binary System (modified from Master, 1990, p. 471)
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Classification [a, Ø1] Identification [the, Ø2]
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Count/Noncount Count/Noncount
a book; Ø1 books/Ø1 wine the book; the books/the wine

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First mention Subsequent mention
7 a photograph the photograph
8 Descriptive adjectives Ranking adjectives
9 a first step the first step
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a best man the best film

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an only child the only chance
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Defining relative clause Limiting relative clause
12 a car that gets 50 mpg the car that won the race

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13 Partitive of-phrase Descriptive of-phrase
14 a cup of coffee the diameter of a circle
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a temperature of 212 degrees the temperature of the sun
General characteristics Generic the
16
A squirrel (has a tail.) The squirrel is becoming a pest.
17 (Ø1) Squirrels (have a tail.)
18 New knowledge Shared (given) knowledge
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19 a moon the moon
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a catastrophe the catastrophe
Classified proper nouns Identified proper nouns
21
a Mr. Jones to see you the Mr. Jones you met last night
22 Idiomatic phrases Idiomatic phrases
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23 have a cow; eat (Ø1) crow rise to the occasion

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26 all members of a set (e.g. a car), resulting in a classified noun phrase. Limiting rela-
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27 tive clauses, e.g. that won the race in Table 3, apply only to a specific situation (e.g.
28 the car ) and is therefore limited in its application, resulting in an identified noun
29 phrase. (It was once believed, e.g. Karttunen (1968), that relative clauses served only
30 to identify a noun.)
The binary framework omitted the distinction between the zero and null articles
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32 (Master, 1997). The zero article (Ø1) can be understood in terms of four overlapping
33 contrasts between Ø1 and a:
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35 1. mass (Ø1 cake) vs. count (a cake)

36 2. general (Ø1 stone) vs. particular (a stone)
37 3. abstract (Ø1 prison) vs. concrete (a prison)
4. ‘‘adjective’’ (Ø1Fool that he was [=He was foolish]) vs. noun (He was a fool)
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40 The null article (Ø2) can be understood in terms of two types of contrast between
41 Ø2 and the:
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43 1. name (Ø2 director of the program, Ø2 Dr. Smith) vs. description (the director
44 of the program, the doctor)
45 2. familiar (Ø2 next week) vs. unfamiliar (the next week)
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1 3. Information structure
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3 Information structure describes the manner in which information is provided to

4 the listener in discourse. The necessity for such a structure is underscored in Banks
5 (1999), who notes, ‘‘The reader must presume an information structure, otherwise
he would not be able to understand the text at all’’ (p. 6). The aspect of informa-

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7 tion structure that is particularly relevant to the article system (others include topic
8 and contrast) is givenness, the distinction between given (or old) information and
9 new information. The basic pattern, particularly in the written mode where into-
10 nation is not available, is the presentation of given information early in the sen-

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11 tence and new information at the end. The presentation of new information at the
12 end of a sentence is also known as end-focus. According to Leech and Svartvik

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13 (1975), the principle of end-focus delays the most important information ‘‘so that
14 the sentence finishes with a sort of climax. . . This is because a sentence is generally
15 more effective. . .if the main point is saved up to the end’’ (pp. 174–175). They note,
16 however, that such patterns are ‘‘useful, guiding principles, not invariable rules’’ (p.
17 175). In defining the distinction between old and new, Lambrecht (1994, cited in
18 Banks, 1999) states that old information expresses knowledge which is ‘‘already
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19 available in the hearer’s mind at the time of the utterance. . .while ‘new informa-
20 tion’ is the information added to that knowledge by the utterance itself’’ (p. 50).
21 Halliday (1994) refines this definition by adding that new may be ‘‘something
22 unexpected, whether previously mentioned or not. The meaning is: attend to this;
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23 this is news’’ (p. 298).

24 Information structure in terms of old and new information is manipulated in
25 several ways in English. It occurs in the use of existential there, e.g. ‘‘A fly is in my
26 soup’’ vs. ‘‘There is a fly in my soup’’ (as an initial utterance). It occurs in pseudo-
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27 cleft sentences, e.g. ‘‘We need more money’’ vs. ‘‘What we need is more money.’’
28 It occurs in the choice of internal vs. external indirect objects (Master, 1996, pp.
29 185–186), e.g. ‘‘I gave Sally the flowers’’ vs. ‘‘I gave the flowers to Sally.’’ It
30 occurs in the positioning of adverbial clauses and prepositional phrases, e.g.
‘‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’’ vs. ‘‘Do as the Romans do when you’re
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32 in Rome’’; ‘‘In the back seat, he found the wallet’’ vs. ‘‘He found the wallet in the
33 back seat.’’ It occurs in the structure of lexical phrases containing particles, e.g.
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34 ‘‘She threw it out’’ vs. ‘‘She threw out a lot of junk.’’ It occurs in the choice of
35 premodification vs. postmodification with a relative clause, e.g. ‘‘The university
36 will expel the cheating student’’ vs. ‘‘The university will expel the student who
37 cheated.’’ Information structure also affects the reduction of relative clauses
(Master, 2002), e.g. ‘‘The book I bought was a bargain’’ vs. ‘‘You’ll love the book
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39 that I bought.’’
40 In relation to the article system, information structure marks given information
41 with the and new information with a or Ø (e.g. Yule, 1998). Laury (1999), summar-
42 izing Chafe (1976, 1979, 1987, 1994), refines this notion, noting that ‘‘given infor-
43 mation is ordinarily expressed with attenuated forms such as pronouns, while new
44 and accessible information is expressed with full noun phrases’’ (p. 8). These gen-
45 eralizations are evident in the following example:
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1 I just bought a car. The car is an old Buick. It runs like a top.
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3 The example reflects canonical information structure, with given information in the
4 subject position and new information in the predicate. The canonical structure is
5 often violated in extended discourse, however, as shown in the following example
from Yule (1998, p. 39), in which the articles of the head nouns are boldfaced, the

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7 given pronouns are capitalized, the modifying phrases and clauses are italicized,
8 and the main clause noun phrases that do not fit the canonical structure are
9 underscored:
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12 (1) THIS is a story of a picture that went for a spin. (2) Ø2 Last week a tornado
ripped through a small town in Ø2 Texas. (3) The tornado damaged Ø1 many

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14 houses in the quiet little town. (4) IT tore off the roof and blew out the windows
15 of Ø2 George Bober’s house. (5) Among the things that disappeared was a photo
16 of Ø2 George’s dog Ø2 Pooper. (6) The next day, more than Ø1 twenty miles
17 away, Ø2 Mary Sahrama was working in the gardenof her small cottagewhen she
18 noticed a piece of paper in the bushes. (7) SHE picked up the paper and realized
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19 IT was a photograph of a dog [102 words].
20

21 The canonical structure is violated in four (Nos. 2, 4, 6, and 7) of the seven

22 sentences (57%). Out of 15 head nouns, however, only five violate the structure
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23 (33%). What are the reasons for these violations? In Sentence 2, the new NP a
24 tornado is a first-mention occurrence that would normally have been mentioned in
25 the opening sentence (i.e. This is a story about a tornado. The tornado ripped
26 through a small town. . .). However, in this case, the writer chose to foreground
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27 the story rather than the tornado, which then required that the new referent
28 appear in subject position. In Sentence 4, the roof and the windows are made
29 definite by the descriptive of- phrase of Ø2 George Bober’s house (descriptive of-
30 phrases, e.g. the city of Paris, make a head noun definite, whereas partitive
of-phrases, e.g. a cup of coffee, make them indefinite; see Master, 1986, pp. 89–91).
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32 In Sentence 6, the garden is made definite by the descriptive of- phrase of her small
33 cottage. In Sentence 7, the paper is made definite by prior mention in Sentence 6.
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34 The violations that occur are of two types, first/subsequent mention and limiting
35 postmodification, which overrule the canonical structure. It is interesting to note
36 that Sentence 5, which would normally have been written as ‘‘A photo of Ø2
37 George’s dog Ø2 Pooper was among the things that disappeared’’ was inverted in
order to adhere to the structure. The subordinate clauses in Sentences 1 and, 6,
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39 and 7 all adhere to the canonical structure, and if these nouns involved were
40 added to the total head noun count, it would reduce the total number of viola-
41 tions to 24%. Of the 5 violations, only one concerns given information; the rest
42 concern new information.
43 Does this pattern hold in longer stretches of text? To test this out, the following
44 sample (the complete report is in the Appendix) was randomly selected from a
45 newspaper and analyzed for canonical information structure.
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4

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10 In the following chart produced as a result of the analysis of the discourse sample

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11 above (the complete chart is in the appendix), the underlined articles indicate viola-
12 tions of the canonical information structure, while the material in brackets indicates

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13 the result of breaking down subordinated clauses into their constituent elements.
14

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16

17

18
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20

21

22
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24 The chart above shows the canonical structure with new information occurring to
25 the right of the main verb and given information to the left.
26
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27
28 4. New information
29

30 New information is canonically marked with the articles Ø1 and a or another

central determiner, which includes possessive (e.g. my, her, their), demonstrative
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32 (e.g. this, that), universal (each, every), dual (either, neither), and WH (what, which,
33 whose) determiners. Violations of the canonical structure occurred in 48.0% (12/25)
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34 of the main clause noun phrases (46.0% with the inclusion of subordinate clauses).
35 These violations occurred in three categories:
36

37 1. Limiting relative clauses and descriptive of -phrases (6, or 50%)

descriptive of-phrase=3
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39 limiting relative clause=3 (two of which are implied)

40 2. Shared knowledge (4, or 33%)
41 shared knowledge of antecedent=2 (one of which is ‘‘focused’’)
42 shared knowledge: subsequent mention=2
43 3. Other (2, or 17%)
44 ranking adjective=1 (the latest)
45 idiom=1 (rise to the occasion)
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1 Half of the exceptions are the result of the grammatical limitation of a noun
2 produced by a postmodifying clause or phrase (e.g. ‘‘I found a book’’ vs. ‘‘I
3 found the book that you gave me’’). One third are the result of nouns being
4 identified in the course of the narrative. The two remaining exceptions require the
5 definite article under all circumstances: superlatives and idiomatic expressions with
the.

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9 5. Given information
10

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11 Given information is canonically replaced with a pronoun or else marked with the
12 articles Ø2 or the or another central determiner, which includes the assertive/non-

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13 assertive (some, any), unspecified colloquial (this), and negative (no) determiners.
14 Violations of the canonical structure occurred in 8.0% (2/25) of the main clause
15 noun phrases (21.1% with subordinate clauses included) and in only one category:
16 topic focus, the deliberate shifting of new information into topic position, which
17 constitutes another aspect of information structure.
18 The analysis of the larger article supports the findings in the shorter paragraph.
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19 In total, violations accounted for 33% (5/15) of the main clause NPs in the shorter
20 passage, 28% (14/50) in the longer passage. Violations of the canonical structure
21 occur much more frequently in new than in given noun phrases. The most common
22 violations in both analyses concern the effect of limiting postmodification on
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23 nouns, which serves to make them definite, and the effect of shared knowledge
24 (either as a result of subsequent mention or some other basis for sharedness). The
25 longer article evinced other categories: ranking adjectives (e.g. the largest), idio-
26 matic expressions, and topic focus. Topic focus in the first passage led to obeying
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27 the canonical structure, but in the second it led to disobeying the structure. These
28 violations can be generally characterized as rules that override the canonical
29 structure.
30
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31

32 6. Pedagogical applications
33
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34 Since the canonical structure is obeyed in roughly two thirds of the total noun
35 phrases in the two passages, it would seem a potentially useful pedagogical tactic
36 to encourage NNS students to use canonical information structure as a preliminary
37 guess in choosing the correct article, much as Pica (1983) suggested teaching stu-
dents that the could only be used with a qualifying noun, knowing full well that
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38

39 this was by no means always the case. In other words, students can be shown
40 initially that noun phrases occurring to the left of the verb are marked with the
41 definite article (usually the, but occasionally the null article, Ø2), whereas noun
42 phrases occurring to the right of the verb are marked with the indefinite article (a
43 or the zero article, Ø1). This generalization can be practiced with exercises in which
44 every blank can be correctly filled by using the canonical structure, as in the fol-
45 lowing sample:
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3
4

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6

10 Later, more complex exercises made from longer stretches of discourse can be

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11 practiced (see below). At first, the blanks made in such a passage should only con-
12 cern those items that can be correctly worked out using the canonical structure. The

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13 remaining articles/determiners
14

15

16

17

18
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19
20

21

22
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23

24

25

26
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27
28 (underlined in the exercise) can then be discussed in terms of the primary reasons for
29 violating the canonical structure: postmodifying phrases that make the noun definite
30 (the day of the election, the post of Rodentia Prima), unshared (an entrepreneurial
mouse, a small western town) vs. shared knowledge (the town, the cheese shop, the
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31

32 election, the ballot box), or idiomatic/lexical phrases (once upon a time, not a single
33 cheese ballot, as a result). The remaining cases concern noun phrases within sub-
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34 ordinate clauses ([this was] due to his success, since the town was fundamentally
35 democratic, [the ballots were] printed on Ø1 thin slices of Ø1 cheese, when the ballot
36 box was opened) that internally obey the canonical structure, and NPs with other
37 central determiners (each candidate, his or her own ballots, his chances, his ballots )
that did not obey the canonical structure in the underlined cases.
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39 The results from a pilot study on the effect of article pedagogy on learning the
40 article system suggest that article accuracy may be improved by using canonical
41 information structure as a pedagogical tool. The 48 subjects, three intact inter-
42 mediate ESOL classes in an intensive language institute in a large metropolitan
43 university in the western USA, consisting of native Chinese (33%), Korean (29%),
44 Japanese (13%), Spanish (8%), Arabic, Thai, and Vietnamese (two students, or 4%,
45 for each group), and French and German (one student each, or 2%) speakers, had a
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1 mean age of 25.0, had studied English a mean of 7.8 years, and had been in the USA
2 a mean of 0.4 years. The gender of the group was 54% female and 46% male. Every
3 subject took a 60-item article pretest (rKR21=0.70) on the same date.
4 The three classes were exposed to three different treatments: information struc-
5 ture, traditional article instruction, and no instruction. The information structure
and the traditional groups each received 3 h of instruction over a 3-week period

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6

7 focusing on (1) the count/noncount distinction, (2) the definite/indefinite distinction,

8 (3) the effect of postmodification on article choice, and (4) the generic/specific dis-
9 tinction. The first group was taught information structure as an overarching guiding
10 principle in applying the various aspects of the article system, the second was taught,

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11 using the same materials, a traditional explanation of the article system, while the
12 third, the control group, had no instruction in the article system whatsoever. A

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13 month later, all the subjects took the article test again. The results are shown in
14 Table 4. Table 4 shows that the subjects who received article instruction based on
15 the information structure framework did better than both the traditional group and
16 the control group. The mean score difference of 1.933 would be statistically sig-
17 nificant (P=0.049) in a single paired one-tailed t-test, the one-tailed test justified by
18 prior research (e.g. Master, 1987, 1994), which found overall article improvement
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19 even when no instruction was received, presumably as a result of exposure to the
20 system in everyday discourse. Such relatively small mean score differences were also
21 found during the article-test-development phase at a large community college ESL
22 program (De Anza) in which the mean score of the intermediate group (n=30) was
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23 44.10 (SD.=5.601), of the low-advanced group (n=24) was 48.54 (S.D.=6.199),

24 and of the advanced group (n=28) was 49.50; these reflect mean score differences of
25 4.34 and 1.04, respectively. When queried as to whether the relative scores reflected
26 actual differences among the ESL class levels, one of the three instructors, echoing
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27 the statements of the other two, said ‘‘I would say that the scores do indeed reflect
28 the various levels of the De Anza test group’’ (Ann Thistlethwaite, personal
29 communication, 13 November 2001). Thus, a mean score increase of 1.9 could con-
30 ceivably have raised a class from low-advanced to advanced level and almost half
way from an intermediate to a low-advanced level. These pilot data suggest that
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31

32 the teaching of the basic pattern of canonical information structure may provide a
33 useful principle to help NNS, especially if their first language does not have an
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34 article system, in selecting the appropriate article, though further research with
35 a larger group will need to be undertaken to confirm the tendencies seen in the
36 pilot study.
37
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39 Table 4
40 Results of pilot study
41 Group n Mean pretest score Mean posttest score Mean difference
42

43
Info Structure 15 46.867 48.800 1.933
Traditional 17 47.000 48.235 1.235
44
Control 16 49.375 50.063 0.688
45
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1 7. Conclusion
2

3 This study suggests that the simplified architecture of canonical information

4 structure for givenness, in which definite NPs occur to the left of the main verb and
5 indefinite to the right, is prevalent in written discourse (roughly 70% of the time in
the texts analyzed). Violations of the structure occur more frequently in new than

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6

7 in given NPs and in a limited number of contexts, particularly postmodification and

8 shared knowledge. This feature may be exploited pedagogically in an article metho-
9 dology that encourages NNS students to consider what the article would be in terms
10 of canonical information structure, i.e. the (or occasionally Ø2) for NPs to the left of

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11 the main verb, a(n) or Ø1 for NPs to the right, and then apply other criteria, such
12 as the generalizations provided in the five methods reviewed, to refine the selection.

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13 A small pilot study showed that students who received article instruction with this
14 methodology did better in selecting the correct article than students who received the
15 same amount of traditional article instruction, suggesting that an understanding of
16 canonical information structure may help NNS to gain control of the article system.
17

18
ED
19 Acknowledgements
20

21 I would like to thank Cristin Boyd, Ann Campsey, Elaine Kim, John O’Neill, and
22 Marianne Wheeler of the Studies in American Language Program at San Jose State
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23 University for allowing me to conduct the study with their students, and Gretchen
24 Himes, Julie Madigan, and Ann Thistlethwaite at DeAnza College for allowing me
25 to use their ESL classes to pilot the article test used in this study. I am also grateful
26 for the suggestions of Norman Davies and the anonymous reviewers.
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27
28

29 Appendix
30

Underdog Orchestra Emerges Unscathed

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31

32 by Georgia Rowe (1999)

33
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34 (1) It’s not easy being a San Francisco Symphony musician. (2) In each concert
35 during its season, the orchestra endures coughing patrons, the sounds of beepers and
36 cell phones, the rattle of candy wrappers, and a thousand other slings and arrows.
37 (3) That’s nothing compared to the test they faced Wednesday at the Berkeley
Community Theater, when the symphony played a night as Metallica’s backup
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39 band.
40 (4) Once again, they emerged triumphant. (5) It can now be said without reserva-
41 tion that this is an orchestra with nerves of steel.
42 (6) Playing behind the East Bay’s own heavy metal quartet is no easy assignment.
43 (7) Metallica is a massive steamroller of a band, and subtlety isn’t its strong suit. (8)
44 But the orchestra’s musicians faced the challenge fearlessly, never flinching in the
45 face of the onslaught.
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1 (9) In fact, they rocked.

2 (10) This came as little surprise to those of us who think of the orchestra as a very
3 cool bunch of musicians. (11) But for many in the crowd Wednesday, who had
4 doubtless never been to a symphony concert, it must have come as something of a
5 revelation.
(12) But rock they did, even though they were playing in an environment that

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6

7 lacked all of the things that make them one of the world’s great orchestras: namely,
8 the subtle sonorities, textures and musical nuances that one can hear in their sound
9 at every regular subscription concert at Davies Symphony Hall.
10 (13) The San Francisco Symphony is just the latest in a long line of orchestras to

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11 augment rock acts. (14) Deep Purple, the Nice (anyone remember ‘‘Five Bridges’’?)
12 and the Moody Blues are among the many bands who have employed classically

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13 trained musicians to sweeten their sound.
14 (15) Sometimes it’s just a marketing ploy; other times there are genuine musical
15 motives. (16) Sometimes it’s more about the visuals than the sound. (17) Sometimes
16 it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
17 (18) In this case, the orchestra played well, but not always effectively. (19) Metal-
18 lica’s music is driven more by rhythm than melody, so the orchestra was often
ED
19 reduced to providing the kind of string wash that could have just as easily have been
20 produced by a single synthesizer.
21 (20) Also, Metallica likes to play loud. VERY loud. (21) But you knew that, of
22 course.
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23 (22) Wednesday, the band was at its blistering best. (23) And although the
24 orchestra was playing what sounded like interesting arrangements by Michael
25 Kamen, who also conducted, they were often simply inaudible.
26 (24) When they could be heard, what came across was a wall of sound, so that
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27 nothing in particular stood out.

28 (25) This was both good and bad. (26) At times, Kamen used the power of the
29 orchestra to thicken Metallica’s already dense lines in ways that worked. (27) At
30 other times—particularly in the first half—listening felt like one long pitiless slog
through the mud.
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32 (28) The orchestra was often completely buried. (29) Despite being heavily miked,
33 it just couldn’t compete with the overamped sound of the band. (30) You could see
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34 the symphony musicians playing, but it was like trying to hear a pin drop in a hur-
35 ricane.
36 (31) In the second half, the mix was better balanced, and more orchestral sounds
37 emerged. (32) But throughout the evening, the symphony sounded best when the
band fell away, in introductions to songs and solo passages. (33) There were only a
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39 few songs—‘‘Nothing Else Matters,’’ ‘‘Wherever I May Roam’’ and ‘‘One’’—when

40 the orchestra really sounded full.
41 (34) So the orchestra rose to the occasion, even though it was probably stressful
42 for them—I’ll bet they found their flashing neon music stands distracting, and, even
43 with headphones, they’ve probably never been immersed in decibel levels this high.
44 (35) And they’ve never had a soloist like James Hetfield brandish a guitar at
45 them. (36) On the other hand, they’ve probably never gotten a screaming, cheering
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1 standing ovation like the one they received Wednesday. (37) And the orchestra
2 deserved every cheer. (38) In the end, they’d played with Metallica, and come
3 through unscathed. [642 words]
4

5 Clause-by-Clause Analysis of ‘‘Underdog Orchestra Emerges Unscathed’’

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6

7
S.# Status Subject Verb Object/Predicate NP
8

9 1. MC It is not easy (PAdj)

10
SC [X] [is] a musician

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2. MC the orchestra endures Ø1 coughing patrons
11
the sound of Ø1 beepers and cell phones
12 the rattle of Ø1 candy wrappers

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13 a thousand other slings and slings
14 3. MC That Is Ø1 nothing
15
SC [it] [is] compared to the test they faced Wednesday. . .
SC the symphony Played a night as Ø2 Metallica’s backup band
16
4. MC They emerged triumphant (PAdj)
17 5. MC It can be said that. . .
18 SC This Is an orchestra with Ø nerves of Ø steel
ED
19 6. MC playing behind Is no easy assignment
20
the. . .quartet
7. MC Ø2 Metallica Is a massive steamroller of a band
21
MC Ø1 subtlety isn’t its strong suit
22 8. MC the orchestra’s Faced the challenge
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23 musicians
24 SC [they] never [flinched] –
25
9. MC They Rocked –
10. MC This came as Ø1 little surprise
26
SC [those of us] think of the orchestra a very cool bunch of musicians
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27 as
28 11. SC [many in the crowd] had never been to a symphony concert
29 MC It must have come as Ø1 something of a revelation
30
12. MC They did rock –
SC They were playing in an environment that. . .
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31
SC [an environment] Lacked all of the things that. . .
32 SC [the things] Make them
33 SC [they] [are] Ø1 one of the world’s great orchestras
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34 SC [the things] [are] the subtle sonorities, textures and musical

35
nuances that. . .
SC one can hear in their sound at every concert at Ø Davies
36
Symphony Hall
37 13. MC the SF Symphony Is the latest in a long line of orchestras to. . .
SC [they] Augment Ø1 rock acts
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38

39 14. MC Ø2 Deep Purple, the Are among the many bands who. . .
40
Nice, the Moody Blues
SC [the many bands] have employed Ø1 classically trained musicians
41
SC [trained musicians] Sweeten their sound
42 15. MC it Is a marketing ploy
43 MC there Are Ø1 genuine musical motives
44

45 (Table continued on next page)

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1 Table (continued)
2
S.# Status Subject Verb Object/Predicate NP
3
4
16. MC it Is more about the visuals than the sound
17. MC it Works –
5
MC it doesn’t –

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6 18. MC the orchestra played well. . . –
7 19. MC Ø2 Metallica’s music is driven more by Ø1 rhythm than Ø1 melody
8 MC the orchestra was often reduced to providing. . .
9
SC [the orchestra] [provided] the kind of Ø1 string wash that. . .
SC [the strong wash] could have been a single synthesizer
10

O
produced by
11 20. MC Ø2 Metallica Likes to play loud
12 21. MC you Knew that

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13 22. MC the band Was at its best
14
23. SC the orchestra was playing What. . .
SC [it] sounded like Ø1 interesting arrangements
15
SC Ø2 Michael Kamen Conducted –
16 MC they Were Inaudible (PAdj)
17 24. SC they could be heard –
18 MC Ø1 what came across Was a wall of Ø1 sound
ED
19
SC Ø1 nothing stood out –
25. MC this Was good and bad (PAdj)
20
26. Ø2 Kamen Used the power of the orchestra to. . .
21 SC [the power of the Thickened Ø2 Metallica’s dense lines in Ø1
22 orchestra]
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23 SC [Ø1 ways] Worked –

24
27. MC Ø1 listening felt like Ø1 one long pitiless slog through the mud
28. MC the orchestra was often buried (Padj)
25
29. SC [the orchestra] [was] heavily miked (PAdj)
26 MC it couldn’t complete the overamped sound of the band
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27 30. MC you could see the symphony musicians

28 SC [the symphony [played] –
29
musicians]
MC it was like Ø1 trying. . .
30
SC [somebody] [tries] to hear. . .
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31 SC [somebody] [hears] a pin

32 SC a pin [drops] –
33 31. MC the mix Was better balanced (Psjj)
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34
MC Ø1 more orchestral Emerged –
sounds
35
32. MC the symphony Sounded best (Padj) when. . .
36 SC the band fell away [in Ø1 introductions to Ø1 songs and
37 solo passages]
33. MC there Were a few songs when. . .
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38

39
SC the orchestra Sounded full (Padj)
34. MC the orchestra rose to the occasion
40
SC it was probably stressful (Padj)
41 MC I will bet [that. . .]
42 SC they Found their flashing neon stands
43 SC [their flashing neon [were] distracting (Padj)
44
stands]
45
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1 Table (continued)
2
S.# Status Subject Verb Object/Predicate NP
3
4
MC they have never been Ø1 decibel levels. . .
immersed in
5
MC Ø1 decibel levels [were] high (Padj)

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6 35. MC they have never had a
7 soloist
8 SC James Hetfield [brandished] a guitar
9
36. MC they have never gotten a screaming, cheering ovation like the on
ethey received
10

O
37. MC the orchestra Deserved every cheer
11 38. MC they had played with Ø2 Metallica
12 MC [they] had come through unscathed (PAdj)

PR
13

14 If no direct or indirect object is present, the oblique object is analyzed instead.

15

16

17 References
18
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Banks, D., 1999. Decoding the information structure of journalistic clefts. Interface Journal of Applied
19
Linguistics 14 (1), 3–24.
20
Bolinger, D., 1977. Meaning and Form. Longman, London.
21 Chafe, W., 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In: Li, C.N. (Ed.), Sub-
22 ject and Topic. Academic Press, New York, pp. 23–55.
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23 Chafe, W., 1979. The flow of thought and the flow of language. In: Givón, T. (Ed.), Discourse and Syn-
24
tax. Academic Press, New York, pp. 159–181.
Chafe, W., 1987. Cognitive constraints on information flow. In: Tomlin, R. (Ed.), Coherence and
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Grounding in Discourse. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 21–51.
26 Chafe, W., 1994. Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious
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27 Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago University Press, Chicago.

28 Dulay, H., Burt, M., Krashen, S., 1982. Language Two. Oxford University Press, New York.
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Halliday, M.A.K., 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar, second ed. Arnold, London.
Hawkins, J., 1978. Definiteness and Indefiniteness: a Study in Reference and Grammaticality Prediction.
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31 Karttunen, L., 1968. What Maks Noun Phrases Definite? (paper p-3871). The Rand Corporation, Santa
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33 Lambrecht, K., 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Repre-
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sentations of Discourse Referents. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

34
Laury, R., 1999. Definiteness. In: Verschueren, X., Östman, J., Blommaert, J., Bulcaen, C. (Eds.), Hand-
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book of Pragmatics. John Benjamins, Philadelphia.
36 Leech, G., Svartvik, J., 1975. A Communicative Grammar of English. Longman, Harlow, UK.
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Hall Inc, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
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39
Master, P. (1987). A Cross-linguistic Interlanguage Analysis of the Acquisition of the English Article
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40
Master, P., 1988. Teaching the English article system. English Teaching Forum 26 (3), 18–25.
41 Master, P., 1990. Teaching the English articles as a binary system. TESOL Quarterly 24 (2), 461–478.
42 Master, P., 1994. The effect of systematic instruction on learning the English article system. In: Odlin,
43 T.Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 229–252.
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Master, P., 1996. Systems in English Grammar: an Introduction for Language Teachers. Prentice Hall
Regents, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
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1 Master, P., 1997. The English article system: acquisition, function, and pedagogy. System 25 (2), 215–232.
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English Grammar in Practice. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 201–231.
3
McEldowney, P.L., 1977. A teaching grammar of the English article system. IRAL 15 (2), 95–112.
4
Pica, T., 1983. The article in American English: what the textbooks don’t tell us. In: Wolfson, N., Judd,
5 E. (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition. Newbury House Publishers, Rowley, MA, pp.

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6 222–223.
7 Rowe, G. (1999). Underdog orchestra emerges unscathed. The Times, Saturday, 24 April 1999, pp. D1
8
and D2.
Sinclair, J.M. (Ed.), 1991. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
9
Stauble, M. (1981). A comparison of the Spanish-English and Japanese-English interlanguage continuum.
10 Paper presented at the European–North American Workshop on Cross-Linguistic SLA Research, Lake

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11 Arrowhead, California, USA.
12 Whitman, R.L., 1974. Teaching the article in English. TESOL Quarterly 8 (3), 253–262.
Yule, G., 1998. Explaining English Grammar. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

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13
Zobl, H., Liceras, J.M., 1994. Functional categories and the acquisition orders. Language Learning 44,
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