M1 W7 Discourse Analysis (these notes ran over two slots in the F2F version)

This set of notes works on a kind of test teach test basis.

Examples of text types – H/O1

Look at the four text types in handout one.

For each one, write down what it is (where it is from) and then say why / how you know that. What
specific features does it have that are characteristic of the text type ? Think about lexis / structure
and discourse features. Write down five things for each text.
Then go and compare your ideas with the ones in the key at the end of the document.

What is discourse analysis ? H/O 2 & H/O 3

What is discourse ? Look at H/O 2.

It demonstrates the fact that discourse is the study of text in context
Discourse analysis says you can’t fully understand text, written or spoken, unless you see the
context it is/was in.

H/O3 has a fuller definition (with other terms and bibliography on it)
The work you will do in here is largely concerned with coherence and cohesion (halfway down the
handout on the right).

Coherence and cohesion H/O 4

H/O 4 asks you about coherence and cohesion – answer the question and then look at the key at
the end of this document.

Coherence H/O 5

Look at H/O 5 and choose which one is more coherent and say why.
Which one would your students choose ?
Mine used to choose the ‘wrong’ one (when I was teaching from this book), probably because they
found it easier to understand and a lot of their writing is quite like that too.

Cohesion – an overview H/O 6

If you have worked your way steadily through About Language you will recognize this next handout
as it is Scott Thornbury’s take on how a text is held together by cohesion. If you look through the
top and the text about cotton, he lists all the cohesive devices that hold it together.
Then he gives you two more texts and asks you to identify the same devices in those.
Try it – there is a key at the end of the document.

Reference – H/O 7

First skim through the short text and say where it comes from (and if you don’t know what an
obituary is, look it up).
Now underline 7 instances of reference in that text and each time say whether they are anaphoric
or cataphoric. Nothing is exophoric.
Substitution H/O 8

Look at the examples of substitution and divide them into four groups.
The best way to do this is to work out what words would be there (and look at those).

Parallelism

The most famous example of this is

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible,
who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of
our democracy, tonight is your answer.
Now go and read David Crystal’s break down of it here on the Moodle.

Now try some of this in a real exam task.

First the GrimsbyTelepgraph in H/O 9

Finally go to question June 99 Q2 – the two texts

 W7discourse analysis H/O1

These are four examples of things your learners might want / need to read.
Where is each one from ? How do you know ? What features of lexis, structure and
discourse does it have that are characteristic of that type of writing ?

Martine ‘killer’ fled in £10m jet

A student wanted by police over the murder of socialite Martine Vik Magnussen fled the UK on his billionaire dad’s
£10 million private jet, it was claimed yesterday.
Farouk Abdulhak, 21, reportedly boarded the 553mph Dassoult Falcon 2000 at Luton.
The luxury ten seater plane later landed in Yemen – where his Arab father Shaher is a businessman.
Martine, 23, and Abdulhak attended the private Regent’s business school in London.
And they partied together at the members-only Maddox Club in Mayfair last Friday night.
Her semi-naked body was found on Sunday in a rubbish chute at a luxury West End apartment block where he lived.
She had horrific neck injuries.
Martine was a member of a wealthy Norwegian family. And last night a friend in her homeland said: ’On Saturday this
jet landed at Luton airport. It was prepared and flew to Athens. Farouk was aboard.’
The plane is believed to have flown on to Yemen – which has no extradition treaty with the UK.

The role of noticing in second language acquisition has been the subject of some attention recently (see for example Batstone 1996,
Schmidt 1990). It has been suggested (Schmidt and Frota 1986) that two kinds of
noticing are necessary conditions for acquisition:
1 Learners must attend to linguistic features of the input that they are exposed to, without which input cannot become ‘intake’.
2 Learners must ‘notice the gap’, i.e. make comparisons between the current state of their developing linguistic system, as realized in
their output, and the target language system, available as input.
‘Matching’ is the term used by Klein (1986) for this second type of noticing: ‘the learner must continuously compare his current
language variety with the target variety’ (1986: 62). Ellis (1995) prefers the term ‘cognitive comparison’, since this ‘better captures
the fact that learners need to notice when their own output is the same as the input as well as when it is different’ (ibid.: 90). Noticing
operations occupy a key role in Ellis’s model of second language acquisition, facilitating the process whereby explicit knowledge
becomes implicit knowledge. In short: ‘No noticing, no acquisition’ (ibid.: 89).

Right above the language selection list, you’ll find a hyperlink that says “Login.” Click the link and Moodle will
present you with the login screen, as shown in Figure 2-3. Your username and password will depend on how
your system administrator set up the system. Moodle has a number of options for user authentication,
including email authentication, or an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) server, or users can
register their own accounts. Self-registration is the default method, and many sites use this.
If you need to create your own account:
1. Click the “Start now by creating a new account” button.
2. Fill in the new account form by creating a username and password for yourself (see Figure 2-4).
3. Enter a valid email address because the system will send you an email to confirm your account. You
won’t be able to log in again until you confirm your account.
4. Click “Create my new account.”
5. Within a few minutes, you should receive an email at the account you specified on the form.
6. Click the link in the email (or copy and paste it into the address window in your browser) to confirm
your account.

11.3 If necessary, correct these sentences.

1. Ken was wanted to be the leader of the party.
2. I had been taught to be played chess by the time I was four.
3. Monica is considered to be the best student in the class.
4. The painting has been reported being missing.
5. Derek is hated to be away from home so often.
 Discourse Analysis H/O 2
Consider :
A : What time is it ?
B : Five past six.
A : ...

The third line in the dialogue could be

A : Thanks.
A : Good ! Clever girl !
A : No it isn't, and you know it isn't ; it's half past and you're late again !

What do you need to know to decide on the correct answer ?

(from McCarthy Discourse Analysis for Teachers P. 19)

discourse analysis H/O3

Definition

Discourse Analysis examines how stretches of language, considered in their full textual, social and
psychological context, become meaningful and unified for their users. Traditionally, language
teaching has concentrated on pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, and while these remain the
basis of foreign language knowledge, discourse analysis can draw attention to the skills needed to
put this knowledge into action and to achieve successful communication.

Why discourse analysis is important to language teachers.

(from Carter and Nunan)

If teaching is to be 'communicative', how does communication actually take place ? Knowledge of

sentences may not be enough to cover the wide range of resources speakers and writers make
use of in creating and receiving real messages.

If teaching is to be 'skills-based', how does knowledge based on sentence-grammar square with

skills such as holding conversations, reading texts for key information, being an active listener,
adjusting one's writing for audience and purpose etc ?

If skills separate written and spoken aspects of language, how reliable are our conventional
resources, which are mainly based on written evidence (e.g. grammar books, dictionaries etc ) ?

How much of what counts as 'discourse' will be automatically transferred from the first language
and how much needs to be specifically taught or focused on in the syllabus, materials or classroom
activities ?

Some of the areas it includes

Speech events (Hymes) Coherence Cohesion - reference

Register (Halliday) substitution / ellipsis
Genre (Swales) conjunction
lexical cohesion
Bibliography
Brown, G. & Yule, G. 1983 Discourse Analysis CUP

Carter,R. & Nunan, D. 2001 The Cambridge Guide to TESOLChapter 7 CUP

Brief overview of field and where it is going
Cook, G. 1989 Discourse OUP
Good introduction
Hatch, E. 1992 Discourse and Language Education CUP

Halliday, M. & Hasan, R. 1976 Cohesion in English Longman

On list for historical significance, not an easy read
McCarthy, M. 1991 Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers CUP

McCarthy,M & Carter,R. 1994 Language as Discourse Longman

Thornbury, S. 2005 Beyond the Sentence Macmillan

discourse analysis H/O4

One of these texts lacks coherence, one of them has some cohesion, but not enough.
Which do you think is which and what are cohesion and coherence ?

A. The Austrian composer Mozart was a musical genius. He has got a swimming pool. It
actually tingles on your skin to tell you it is working. Water would then come out of
fountains such as the one shown here. And that is why dogs still chase rabbits.

B. The Austrian composer Mozart was a musical genius. Mozart began writing music at
the age of five. Mozart’s father took him to play at concerts in the great cities of Europe.
Mozart wrote church music. Mozart wrote opera. Mozart wrote nearly 50 symphonies.
Mozart worked hard. Mozart earned very little money. Mozart died poor.

From Thornbury: Beyond the Sentence

Which of the two paragraphs is more coherent and why ? H/O 5

From Ready to Write More Blanchard and Root 1997 Longman

Discourse Analysis H/O 6 Cohesion
Think about what holds the following text together.
Cotton is a very useful plant. Inside its round fruits, called bolls, are masses of white fibres. When the fruits
ripen, they split and the fibres are blown away. But, in the cotton fields, the bolls are picked before this can
happen. Cotton grows best in warm, wet lands, including Asia, the southern United States, India, China,
Egypt and Brazil.
From Thornbury About Language
Lexical Cohesion
- Repetition of words : cotton ... cotton, fruits ... fruits
- Chains of words belonging to the same lexical set : ...grows ...ripens ... are picked; plant ... fruit ... bolls
Grammatical Cohesion
- Tense agreement : ... is ... are ... ripen ... split ... are blown
- Pronoun reference : ... cotton ... its
- Article reference : ... white fibres ... the fibres ...
- Substitution : The fruits ripen. When they do, the fibres are blown away
- Ellipsis : The fibres are blown away. Before they are (blown away) they are picked ...
- Conjuncts or linkers : But...

Read the following texts and analyse them for the same features.

Fotedar visits Using it is a piece of cake

hospital
By a Staff Reporter
New Delhi, Sept 25: It
was Safdarjang
Hospital's turn for
'spring cleaning'. The
minister for health and
family welfare, Mr. M.L.
Fotedar, kept his
appointment with the
hospital today. With a
team of officials he went
about inspecting the
place, this morning.
'The casualty has never
looked so clean before,'
said a doctor.
The MT-20 offers you the most effortless way to
operate a GSM mobile phone.
The revolutionary four way rocker switch makes
scrolling and controlling it as easy as pie. And it's
helped the MT-20 win universal approval. Apart from
the easy controls, it has all the functions you'd
expect from the most advanced digital phone. And
several you wouldn't. like taking memos, receiving
text messages, keeping your diary and recognising
callers.
They make the MT-20 seem more like a complete
communications centre than a mobile phone.
No wonder reviewers have singled it out for special
acclaim. Pick one up at your nearest Mitsubishi
dealer right away.
You'd have to be half baked not to.

Lexical repetition
-Text 1
-Text 2
Indirect repetition
-Text 1
-Text 2
Lexical sets
-Text 1
-Text 2
Tense agreement
-Text 1
-Text 2
Pronoun reference
-Text 1
-Text 2
Article reference
Text 1
Substitution
Text 2
Ellipsis
Text 2
Conjuncts
Text 2
Discourse Analysis H/O 7 Reference

Underline the references in this text. Are they anaphoric (backward reference) or cataphoric (forward
reference) ?
What do they refer to ?

Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him ... That, as it

happens, is the opening of Brighton Rock, but turn up the opening lines of the rest of his books and they

won't disappoint you. Graham Greene, who died yesterday, rich in years and rich in honour, was first of all a

story teller ...

Substitution

Can you divide the following examples of substitution into 4 groups and say what the difference between
them is ?

1. Your cooker is not working properly.

I know, I need a new one.

2. Does anyone want to go to the pub ?

Yes, I do.

3. Has the London train gone ?

I think so.

4. My mother nags me all the time.

Mine does too.

5. I'll have a pint of beer.

I'll have the same.

6. Will the game be postponed ?

I hope not.

7. Don't bother washing the cups. We can use the old ones.

8. I didn't get a paper today. Can I look at yours ?

9. Can you give me a lift in your car ? Mine doesn't work.

 Handout 9

December 2000

The authentic text for this question is an article from the on-line Grimsby Telegraph, 21st October 1998,
and is titled “Schoolgirl saves a life – a week after first aid course”.

It is reproduced in Appendix B
5.1 Task A (15 minutes)

Identify four features of the text that are characteristic of its genre (i.e. news story).
5.2 Task B (15 minutes)

Comment on the form and use of the following examples of modality in the text:

I didn’t have to think about it. (line 8)

I couldn’t have done it…(line 9)

I might have done something…(line 9)

….the teenage boy could have suffocated…(line 11)

….a basic course can make the difference…(line 14)

 Exam practice task two

(The piece about the internet is now rather quaintly historical, but the discourse analysis is all still
valid)

DELTA Written Examination June 1999

Question Two

There are two authentic texts for this question:

Text A: The Beginner's Guide to the Internet published by Which On-line (p.27)
Text B; Global Economy - an article from the Eastern Daily Press (Monday March 1, 1999)

Task One ( 20 minutes)

Look at Paragraph 1, Text A

Identify and comment on each type of cohesive device used in this paragraph. Include examples
from the text in your answer.

Task Two ( 15 minutes)

Read both Text A and Text B.

Say which of the two texts is likely to be more difficult for use as a reading text with a group of
intermediate learners and why.
 Sample text relating to Question2
Text A The Beginner’s Guide to the Internet published by Which Online (p.27)
The World Wide Web is one of the
most attractive and easy to use parts
to the Internet. Part notice board, part
magazine and part shop front, it
combines the best of traditional
publishing with completely new
possibilities of its own. One of the
strengths of the web is that it is very
easy to publish information. Because
of this the web has plenty of
contributions from ordinary people
who want to share their interests and
enthusiasms with you. You will also
find businesses, small and large, who
have something to sell you, as well as
a selection of information created by
more traditional publishing sources
such as newspapers and magazines.
On the web, information is arranged into
sites and pages. Each site is a collection
of information maintained by one
particular individual or organisation. To
make the information manageable sites
are divided into pages, which are rather
like the pages of a book or magazine.
However, pages don’t have to be read in
order – in fact they are usually designed
to be browsed (or surfed) in whatever
order you want.
This is possible because pages on the
web contain links – these usually appear
as underlined words which lead to other
1 pages on the same site, or even to pages
on a completely different site. It’s this web
of links that gives the World Wide Web its
name.
5
Browsing the web is like following a train
of thought. A site created by someone
interested in dangerous sports might
include links to sites which concentrate
10 on one particular sport, to traders who
sell relevant equipment, and so on. It’s as
if all the books in a library are somehow
tied together, so that when you pick out
one about a particular subject, you get all
15 the others related to that subject as well.
The web of links continues indefinitely.
It’s possible to start at the dangerous
sports site, but end up at a site devoted to
children’s cartoons, having passed
through pages about news, weather, the
stock market, fish breeding and children’s
programmes of the 1970s - among others
along the way.
To use the web you need a web browser
– a kind of virtual assistant that finds
pages for you and brings the information
on them to your computer screen. Which
? Online supplies Netscape Navigator
Version 3, which is one of the most
popular browsers. Netscape is very easy
to use. Even complete beginners can find
their way around it very quickly.
 W7Discourse Analysis key for H/O 1

1 Newspaper article - sentence length paragraphs / headline with some omission / complex noun
phrases (billionaire dad’s 10m jet) pre and post modified / lots of reporting – reportedly, claimed, is
believed / direct speech to make things immediate

2. Academic article - references, definitions / dense packaging of information – can’t skim it,
nothing is repeated, all builds on what has gone before / passive constructions / formal choice of
lexis.

3. Instructions - imperatives, ifs, simple present / terms defined for clarity / broken down into steps,
some lexis is very field specific.

4. grammar book exercise – grammar defined by exercise / separate unconnected sentences,

simple lexis ( perhaps in order not to distract from the main goal), simple sentences, all non
complex constructions.

W7DiscourseAnalysis H/O 4 key

Coherence is how clear the message is. Cohesion is the nuts and bolts that
hold the message together.
A appears to be cohesive, but is not coherent. B is coherent but lacks
cohesion.

Cohesion Worksheet (H/0 6) Answer key

Lexical repetition
-Text 1 HOSPITAL ...Hospital ... hospital; cleaning ... clean
-Text 2 mobile phone ... mobile phone
Indirect repetition
-Text 1 VISITS ... inspecting, hospital ... the place;
-Text 2 using ... operate; approval ... acclaim
Lexical sets
-Text 1 hospital ... health ... casualty ... doctor ; minister ... officials
-Text 2 phone ... messages ... callers ... communications; piece of cake ... easy as pie ... half baked
Tense agreement
-Text 1 the first paragraph is narrated in the past simple
-Text 2 all the verbs are in the present
Pronoun reference
-Text 1 The minister ...his appointment ... he went about
-Text 2 using it ... The MT-20 ... controlling it ... the MT-20 ... it has all the functions; all the functions ... They
make
Article reference
Text 1 Safdarjang Hospital ... the hospital ... the place
Substitution
Text 2 Pick one up ... i.e. pick an MT-20 up
Ellipsis
Text 2 And several (functions) you wouldn't (expect); you'd have to be half baked not to (pick one up)
Conjuncts
Text 2 And ...; No wonder
Answer key to reference exercise

he - backward, refers to Hale using a personal pronoun

they - forward, presumably to be explained later in the text
him - backward, refers to Hale
that - backward, refers to all the preceding sentence using a demonstrative
his - forward, refers to Graham Greene
they - backward, refers to his books
who - backward, refers to Graham Greene

Substitution key

Nominal substitution
1. Your cooker is not working properly.
I know, I need a new one. (cooker)
5. I'll have a pint of beer.
I'll have the same (a pint of beer)
7. Don't bother washing the cups. We can use the old ones. (cups)

Verbal substitution
2. Does anyone want to go to the pub ?
Yes, I do. (want to go to the pub)
4. My mother nags me all the time.
Mine does too. (nags me all the time)

Nominal possessive substitution

8.I didn't get a paper today. Can I look at yours ? (your paper)

9. Can you give me a lift in your car ? Mine doesn't work. (my car)

Clausal substitution
3. Has the London train gone ?
I think so. (it has gone)

10. Will the game be postponed ?

I hope not. (it won’t be postponed).

Key for Handout 9

Grimsby Telegraph

Identify four features of the text that are characteristic of its genre (i.e. on-line news story).
5.1.2 Guideline Answer
1. Layout: Headline (with elliptic articles) followed by body of text. Sentence length paragraphs.

2. Organisation: First sentence expands headline and summarises gist of passage. Successive sentences add more detail,
including circumstantial information (age, job, where from etc). Story told from perspective of the
crisis/main event and its consequences; background information, .e.g. previous events leading up to
crisis, sketched in later. Direct speech to provide immediacy, as well as reported speech to provide
comment. Closes with a “moral” e.g. informed opinion on the event.

3. Grammatical: Long, complex/compound sentences, carrying a high load of information. Frequent use of complex noun
phrases, pre-modified with noun modifiers (“teenager Jennifer…”) and participles “cool-headed”,
“impressed”. Post modification in the form of relative clauses, prepositional phrases and noun phrases
in apposition (“Humberside Ambulance’s community resuscitation officer Steve Johnson”). Use of past
 tenses, including past perfect for referring to events prior to “story time” and past continuous for a
situation in progress in “story time” (“was not breathing”). Use of reporting structures, both direct and
indirect. Non-modalised forms to describe events (facts) but a lot of modality when giving opinions and
speculating (i.e. in latter half of text).

4. Lexical: neutral style, neither very formal nor very colloquial. Compound forms: life-saver, cool headed, 15-
year-old.

5.2.2 Guideline Answer

a) have to: a semi-modal (or marginal modal) verb, because while it is modal in meaning, it is not modal in form, i.e. unlike
must, will, etc. it inflects for person (has to), takes the auxiliary do in questions and negatives, and is followed
by the infinitive with to. Basic meaning is obligation, necessity; in the negative (as in this example) it means
absence of obligation or necessity, i.e. it wasn’t necessary to think about it

b) couldn’t: modal auxiliary, followed by perfect infinitive (have + past participle), in negative, meaning hypothetical past
(in)ability: I would not have been able to do it..

c) might: modal auxiliary, followed by perfect infinitive (have + past participle), meaning past possibility

d) could: as (b), forming the verb phrase of the main clause of a “third conditional” construction; meaning past
possibility (therefore could be substituted with might)

e) can: modal auxiliary followed by present infinitive, meaning theoretical possibility.

DELTA Written Examination June 1999

Task One : UCLES Guideline Answer

Specific assessment criteria

5.1.1 Guideline answer

There are two categories of cohesive devices used in the paragraph:
Category 1 – Grammatical cohesion
Category 2 – Lexical Cohesion
Category 1: - Grammatical Cohesion
There are 4 types of grammatical cohesion found in the text.
1.1 Nominal Reference / Substitution
Line 7/8 - Cataphoric reference one of the strengths of the web refers
cataphorically to that it is very easy to publish.
Line 10 - Anaphoric reference ‘this’ refers anaphorically to the fact that it is
very easy to publish.
1.2 Pronominal reference
Line 4: - it refers anaphorically to the www (line 1).
Line 7: - its refers anaphorically to the www (line 1).
Line 8: - it refers exophorically to our understanding of a dummy subject.
Line 12:- their refers anaphorically to ordinary people (line 11).
Line 13:- You refers exophorically to the reader / addressee
Line 14:- who refers anaphorically to businesses small and large.
Line 15:- you refers exophorically to the reader / addressee of the passage.
1.3 Conjunctions
1.3.1 conjunctions of addition
Line 2,4,12,14,18: and
Line 13: also
Line 15: as well as

1.3.2 conjunctions of consequence

Line 9: because (of)
1.4 Ellipsis
Line 3: (being) part, notice board

Category 2: - Lexical Cohesion

2.1 Parallelism / consistent feature of register
There are two features of parallelism / consistent feature of register found in the text.
Feature 1:
Line 3 / 4: - part + noun x 3
Feature 2:
Line 2: - attractive and easy
Line 12/13: - interests and enthusiasms
Line 14: - small and large
Line 18: - newspapers & magazines
2.2 Lexical collocation
Line 2: - easy to use
Line 5/6 & 17: - traditional publishing
Line 6/7: - with completely new possibilities
Line 10/11: - plenty of contributions
Line 12: - share their interests and enthusiasms
Line 16: - a selection of information
2.3 Lexical sets
Lexical set related to the ‘web’
Line 3: - Internet
Line 8 - web
Line 9: - publish information
Line 16: - a selection of information
Lexical set related to publishing
2.4 lexical repetition
Line 6, 9, 17: - publish / (traditional) publishing

Task One : Sample 1

The following sample answer was awarded a PASS grade.
Types of cohesive device in the text include the following:
Reference: pronouns used emphatically – ‘it’ (line 4 & 8)
Demonstratives ‘this’ – (line 10)
Relative pronouns ‘who’ (line 14)
Possessive adjectives ‘their’ (line 12)
These are used to refer back to something mentioned in the previous sentence, or previous part of the sentence,
thus linking them.
We also have a cataphoric use of ‘the’ (line 7) referring us to the definition later in the phrase of ‘use of the
strengths’.
Conjunction: Mostly additive: ‘and’ is frequently used: but also ‘also’ as well as’ ‘such as’ – all of which
serve to lead us on to something to come.

The phrase ‘because of this’ is ‘casual’.

Comparative: ‘more traditional’ – than what? Links the 2 points being compared
Lexical: as always in coherent & cohesive texts there is a lot of lexical cohesion:
- repetitions: web/part/publish(ing)/magazine/traditional
- synonymy and antonymy:
traditional and new
interests and enthusiams
- a general word: e.g. contributions – used to introduce the more
specific interests/enthusiasms – also ‘sources’ the specific magazine/newspaper.
- Collocation: many words related to the area of a) publishing
e.g. magazine, newspapers, publishing, information, b) business:
together with ‘buy’ and ‘sell and c) the internet: web. Internet.
Another area is ‘combine’ – which has the idea of ‘selection’ plus, perhaps, ‘contributions’ and ‘sharing’.
Collocation is such a huge area which develops links in text, it is hard to know where to stop talking about it.
Another cohesive device found in the text is:
- ellipsis: 1. 3-4 ‘Forming part notice-board etc
or this could be seen as ‘clausal’ ‘Because it is part etc. …..’ This is used ‘cataphorically’ to lead us into the main
clause.
The text-paragraph – hangs together as a whole in 4 sentences. 3 of these are complex – 1 is simple. With the constant
reforming backwards and forwards, together with the degree of lexical cohesion – this is very dense text but easy to
read – especially with the repetition etc. – and typical of written factual text.

Task Two : Guideline Answer

Guideline answer
1. The class outline
 is intermediate
 could be mono or multilingual, in an English speaking country or not
 could be EFL, ESL, EAP or ESP but is likely to have an interest or need for using the web
 could need well-written texts as models for written work
 could be serious and/or exam motivated students
2. Candidates must say which text is more difficult with reference to the outlined class and through
comparison of the texts provide the reason for the difficulties.
3. The areas of difficulty are:
 Context / background knowledge
 Lexis
 Structure
 Text organisation / paragraphs

Features of Text A Features of Text B

Content / Background Not much knowledge required as Requires specialist knowledge

written for beginners of the subject, at least an
understanding

Lexis High frequency and Low frequency e.g. sluggish,

exemplification buoyed up

Explains technical terms/relates Makes much use of technical

them to everyday experience and subject lexis
 Much idiomatic lexis and use of
idioms

A mix of register: with topic

specific and colloquial lexis

Structure Clearly/tightly structured in Some difficult exophoric

terms of cohesion references e.g. The Talk (line 2
col. 2)

Lots of explicit markers Use of temporal ‘markers’

Written in Present tenses Uses a wide range of tenses

‘Fronting’ effectively used to ‘Fronting’ used with time

focus on purpose adverbials and comment clauses
are more complex

Functionally the text ‘describes’ Functionally the text not only

describes but also recounts,
predicts and
hypothesises/speculates

Uses some complex NPs and Uses some complex NPs and
complex sentences with complex sentences with
subordinate clauses subordinate clauses

Organisation Paragraphing mostly clear Strange use of paragraphs,

designed to confuse

Use of topic sentences Really only temporal markers

Title is self-explanatory Title is complex to understand

The following sample answer was awarded a PASS grade.

B would be much more difficult for my class for the following reasons. The class I have chosen are an intermediate
group of Hong Kong Chinese learners. They are all in the 20s and 30s, mostly working in clerical jobs and are studying
English because they need it in their jobs and personal lives in HK. They are all regular internet users and need help
with their reading skills. They come twice a week for 1 hour and 40 minutes. They tend to be quite
“passive/traditional” learners, have acquired some bad learning habits from the school system here. Their L1 is
Cantonese.
Density of text
They seem to be of fairly equal length. A is more spread out which, although makes it look longer, seems easier to read
with clear paragraphs and larger spaces between the lines.
Grammar
Text B is by far more difficult grammatically. The sentence structure is much more complex. Noun phrases like..
“A too-high pound allied to the collapses in Asian markets, was playing the bear…”. This would throw my students, I
believe, who find reading frightening at the best of times!
Lexical complexity.
Again, Text B is much more difficult. Idiomatic expressions;
“playing the bear” “make waves”
specific vocabulary to the area…..
“equity market”
“ A sharp slow down” “corporate bonds”
“the euro”
“to converge”
Other difficult vocabulary…
“allied to..”
“buoyed up by”
The frequency of these words, and the uselessness for my students, would make it not worthwhile for them to read and
very difficult.
While Text A has difficult vocabulary too….
“virtual assistant”
“to browse”
“links”
“browsers”
The frequency is not so high, and there is a good chance y students will know some already as they all have access to
the internet in some form or another.
Cultural considerations
There is a strong emphasis on computer knowledge here in Hong Kong and they would have no difficulty
understanding the concepts expressed in Text A. Text B would be much more difficult. They knew about the recession
in Hong Kong, but have very little idea about the European economy.

Interest:
Many of my students chat on the internet regularly, and here the The British Council we have a CALL lab which is
always very popular. My students are not interested in issues about the European economy.