ENGLISH LANGUAGE: CONTEXT AND PURPOSE

ENG3702

UNIT 1 (Study Guide)

THE ORGANISATION OF TEXT, GENRE AND CONCEPTUAL MEANING

When you have worked through this study unit you should be able to:

 understand how to organise information in texts;

 discuss how language, visuals and the structure of different genres help to
organise information;
 argue that how we think about the world is largely determined by the
languages we are exposed to; and
 analyse how vocabulary and grammar relate to ideologies.

Please refer to Part A, Sections: 1.0 – 2.5 in Critical Reading and Writing in the
Digital Age for this unit.

1.1 Organising information with language and structure

Why should we organise information? Is there a need to be so rigid when we write and
speak?

To answer these questions we should first consider that as human beings we are
constantly being bombarded with information. Whether a text is spoken or written, our
brains are continuously interpreting, analysing and mapping out information that we
then use to act on.
Activity 1.1

Briefly write down how you would give directions to a friend if they didn’t know where
you lived?

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Did you notice a problem here? We have no point of reference for our friend. Are they at
their house? A shopping centre? The airport? Without a starting point, it becomes
significantly harder to convey information. What we first need is given information or a
theme.

In our scenario above, a friend might say: ‘I am at the petrol station where we had ice-
cream two weeks ago, and I need directions to your house.’ This is our starting point.
Now you may reply, ‘From the petrol station, walk to the big red building, turn left there
and when you get to the stop sign turn right. I live in the third house with the yellow
gate.’ The new information is given to your friend after the theme. This is known as a
rheme.

Normally, English sentences contain a subject-verb-object structure. Following this, we

can assume that the subject of the sentence is usually the theme, while the rest of the
sentence is the rheme. For example:

Mike likes swimming.

Vaping is still harmful to your health.
The underlined words are the subjects and thus the themes, while the rest of the
sentences are considered our rhemes. A theme is the topic and a rheme is what is
being said about the topic.

Themes and rhemes exist to help structure how we organise information. When we
convey information it is usually a good idea to construct thematic strings. Think of these
thematic strings as bread crumbs that you leave for people to follow. These bread
crumbs – the themes and rhemes – help us organise our thoughts and create
cohesion. For example:

Mike likes swimming. He has always enjoyed being in water, and particularly
loves backstroke.
vs.
Mike likes swimming. Some houses have pools, but pools can be dangerous for
young children.

Do you see which sentence has cohesion? In the first sentence we constructed
thematic links, but in the second sentence the thematic links are too stretched. In the
second example, we moved too quickly from the theme being Mike to pools and, finally,
to how pools are dangerous for children. Meaning has become disorganised in this
instance and we have lost what we were trying to say.

How do we achieve cohesion when we read or write much longer texts, such as
paragraphs? Walter Nash (1980) proposes four ways of organising paragraphs, namely:

 The step: here information is given based on events of time. An example of this
would be an instruction manual. The organisation of paragraphs is carried out
step by step in the right order. For example, an instruction manual for
assembling a tent may tell you:
1) Find flat ground.
2) Unfold the tarp.
 3) Position the tent on the tarp.
4) Connect your tent poles.
5) Insert the tent poles in your flaps.
6) Raise the tent.
7) Secure the pegs into the ground.
 The stack: suggests a list of points, facts or opinions used to support an
argument. A good example of this would be argumentative essay. Here you
would take a stance on an essay topic and compile additional text to support that
stance, thus stacking information.
 The chain: links a sentence to the sentence preceding it. The cohesion of the
text is achieved through a chain-like structure, hence the name. Here the
organisation is not as rigid as the step or the stack. Cohesion is achieved by
repeating vocabulary or using pronouns to refer back to the former sentence. For
example:
The man stands by the side of the road after work. He uses two fingers to
signal to the oncoming taxi. The taxi driver notices but does not stop. The
man watches the taxi drive away, knowing it is not going his way. The man
still waits by the side of the road, as the daylight begins to fade.
 The balance: as the name suggests, is merely a way to construct a text that
balances various points in a text. Certain words or phrases are used to counter
positions. For example, words such as ‘however’, ‘on the other hand’, ‘while’, and
‘although’ are used to counter arguments. Sometimes, writers may appear to
balance a text at first to seem reasonable before proceeding to stack up their
biased argument. Thus, not all balances are equal.

For a more detailed understanding of these paragraph structures please consult

Part A, Section 1.2 in your prescribed textbook.

Activity 1.2
Newspaper articles typically want to convey the main idea of the text as quickly as
possible. Write a niche blog on myUnisa explaining how (if at all) this differs from a
suspenseful novel. Keep your blog post brief (300 words).

If you were a journalist writing for your local newspaper, which one of the four ways
discussed would you use to organise your paragraphs? Briefly explain why.

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Different genres conform to different generic structures. Let us use this study guide as
an example. When writing this study guide, headings, sub-headings, paragraphs and
activities were used to organise and structure the content. This structure is not set in
stone, as it were, but we can easily get a sense of the structure based on what the text
is trying to convey. However, what if this structure were to change? What would happen
if I were to remove the headings and place activities where the headings might go? You
would immediately become disorientated, thinking that perhaps your particular guide
was misprinted. Information would be so poorly organised that the activities themselves
would be of little use to you.

What we see here is that generic structure helps words and sentences fit together in
the organisation of information. There are also various structures for each genre.

Please consult Part A, 1.3 of your textbooks now to see how the generic structure
of a narrative is different to the generic structure of a news report.
 1.2 Visual Information

The organisation of a text does not solely rely on language. Often, features such as
white space, fonts and indentation also contribute to how information is structured.
Visual information is juxtaposed to the type of text a reader is looking at. For example,
at one end of the scale pamphlets or adverts rely on grabbing the reader’s attention
through pictures or graphs and therefore depend on visual information to ensure that
the reader continues reading. On the other end of the scale we find that novels do not
blatantly do this. This is because there is little need for a person to be encouraged to
continue reading a book with visuals, especially if it is one they want to read!

We can now start to see that visuals are dependent on the readership. For instance,
because children have shorter attention spans than adults, a child may become bored
with just reading words, which is why children’s books mostly contain pictures.
Children’s books rely heavily on visuals to encourage their target readers to continue
reading. Children are thus an example of non-assured readers because they need
constant motivation. An assured reader does not need visuals as motivation. In fact,
visuals could have the opposite effect on assured readers and serve to distract rather
than attract.

Activity 1.3

How do online articles make use of visuals?

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The use of visual information has exploded on social media. Sites such as Twitter,
Facebook and Instagram all employ a massive amount of visual information. How do
they organise this information so efficiently?

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It is important to remember that visual information is still information and therefore also
conforms to a certain structure.

Refer to Part A, Section 1.4, Image 1.1 in your textbook before going any further.

Image 1.1 shows us a Routledge email but, more importantly, it displays how visual
information is stored in clusters. Each cluster has its own unique visual representation
of information. Consider how CLUSTER 2 makes use of white space between the text
and how CLUSTER 5 is comprised of images only. We can deduce that each cluster
serves a specific purpose and organises information in such a way that specific
meaning is created and conveyed.

In the remaining clusters on the email, namely CLUSTERS 1, 3 and 4, you will notice
how the visual information ties in with the language to fit with the overall message of the
email. From this we can deduce that texts that exclude visual information tend to be
more linear. Novels are a good example of this. The author wants you to start at the
beginning of the book and read up until the last page. The information is thus presented
to the reader in a progressive manner.
If we consider Image 1.1 once more, you should now realise that the information is not
presented in a progressive manner in this image. Rather, the visual information is
presented to us in modular way. Components of the Routledge email can be read in
isolation and there is a degree of flexibility to how we perceive the information. The
reading process of a visually informative text does not require the reader to be so
stringent when it comes to reading the text. Is this to say that there is no pattern? No, of
course not. Just like language, our clusters need to contribute to the overall meaning of
the text.

Activity 1.4

Would you describe a comic book as being progressive or modular? Why?

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1.3 Language as a tool for thinking

Critical linguistics dictates that language affects the way we think. This is an obvious
conclusion once we put a little thought behind this statement. Consider, for a moment,
your beliefs, your cultural values, your moral senses and even your emotions. They are,
in one form or another, shaped by what you have been told. Consider the story of Buzile
and the lemon tree:

Buzile, frustrated with his lemon tree for having still not produced any fruit,
decided to strike a nail deep within its bark. His grandmother had told him that by
doing this, the nail would nourish the tree with much needed nutrients. When the
 next season came, Buzile saw his lemon tree flowering, and the flowers opened
up and ripened, eventually becoming thick, round lemons. From that day, Buzile
always trusted his grandmother’s sage advice. It has never let him down.

Now consider this response by a botanist:

A nail will almost certainly damage the tissues responsible for moving water
throughout the tree’s system. By hammering a nail into the tree, you are
essentially wounding it. Wounds tend to stress out plants, which make them
more vulnerable to pests and disease. After all, there are many trees producing
many fruits that contain no nails.

This is a good example of how people’s reality is shaped by language. The only
question is whether your reality is distorted or not.

Consider Figure 2.1 in Part A, Section 2.0 of your textbook.

In this figure, we are shown that language and our perception of language distort ‘true’
reality. What we perceive as reality may not necessarily be the case for another person.
In truth, what we are really doing is categorising information according to our respective
value systems.

Activity 1.5

How would you categorise a crocodile? Briefly give a reason.

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Some of you may have said that a crocodile is a reptile; others may have suggested
that crocodiles are living proof of dinosaurs, while others still may have suggested that a
crocodile is a carnivorous animal. However, how would you react if someone were to
write that crocodiles represent ancient gods or are reincarnations of their ancestors?
We naturally tend to place value on categories we associate with. Of course, most of us
can concede that a crocodile eats meat, is a reptile and is ancient. Will most of us
believe that crocodiles are gods or ancestors? Probably not.

Activity 1.6

Let us try the same exercise once more. This time, catergorise an average 10 year old
boy.

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One issue with categorising information is that it often leads to stereotypes. How many
of you thought that a 10 year old boy was naughty? Played sport? Made fun of girls?
Liked cars and trucks? On closer inspection, would you accept that at least some of
what you wrote down could be considered stereotypical?

Your categorisation would be particularly stereotypical if you had never met a 10 year
old boy. All of your impressions and beliefs would be based on what you have you been
told or what you have read. If, for instance, you were a parent to a 10 year old boy, then
perhaps your answers would reflect something more personal and your categories
would be a little more detailed and complex. In this instance you may have noted that
10 year old boys are often shy, like to read, enjoy eating everything with tomato sauce,
etc. Our perception of reality thus becomes entrenched with what we observe, read and
hear.

Please refer to Part A, Section 2.1 and complete Activities 16, 17 and 18 before
going any further. You will also find it useful to read about the three genres where
stereotyping women is evident in newspapers and magazines. This section can
be found after Activity 17.

1.4 Ideology, grammar and transitivity

What we hold to be true is not just reflected in language. We can look deeper than just
the vocabulary of language. Ideologies are found in grammar too. Broadly speaking,
this is known as transitivity.

To begin, let us consider lexical verbs as an example. Lexical verbs are the main verbs
found in a sentence. These verbs can be broken down into five categories based on the
processes they represent, namely:

 existential: describes the existence of something;

 relational: describes a state of affairs by relating two things;
 material: describes an action;
 mental: describes perception, cognition and emotion; and
 verbal: describes what we say or write.

Part A, Section 2.2 in your textbook deals with these processes in more depth.
Please refer to this section now.

Activity 1.7
To test how well you understand these processes write a simple sentence using the
correct lexical verb.

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Why is this so important? Well, this basic exercise shows us that the grammar we use is
categorised in specific ways. These categories, in turn, highlight underlying ideological
positions. For example, a verbal process analysis on a text might reveal who is
speaking, why they are talking and what effect they are having on an audience. A closer
study of reading or writing processes often uncovers hidden meanings, which may
otherwise go unnoticed.

Just because these hidden meanings sometimes go unnoticed does not mean we are
not affected by them without being consciously aware of it. We can still be influenced by
two grammatical systems: passivisation and nominalisation.

Passivisation transforms an active sentence into a passive one, but it also does more
than this: it allows us to remove the actor in material processes, the experiencer in
mental processes and the speaker in verbal process clauses.
Let us investigate passivisation a little more. Consider this sentence: Adam and Eve ate
the forbidden fruit. If passivisation allows us to leave out the actor or subject in the
material processes then our sentence could read: The forbidden fruit was eaten. The
omission of the actor in this instance helps us to avoid allocating blame. Furthermore, if
the actor disappears then we have created suspense. Would you agree? Look what
happens if we changed the sentence slightly to look like this:

THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT WAS EATEN!

We could take it one step further:

FORBIDDEN FRUIT EATEN!

Voilà! We now have a newspaper headline.

Activity 1.8

Can you think of three examples showing how passivisation is used in the news? Jot
them down.

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Nominalisation turns a verb or adjective into a noun, usually by adding a suffix. Thus,
stable (verb) = stability (noun), or develop (verb) =development (noun). Nominalisation
is considered even more elusive than passivisation as it omits both actors and victims. It
also omits context and agency.
Priority is always given to actions rather than people when we nominalise. This is
extremely manipulative as it conceals relationships and reduces what is actually
happening. We are only made aware of the result and never of how that result came to
be (the process). Hewings and Hewings (2005:61) give the following example of
nominalisation:

If women consume alcohol in pregnancy, this can lead to birth defects.

The consumption of alcohol in pregnancy can lead to birth defects.

In this example, our first sentence uses consume; it is a verb and thus a process. After
we nominalise the verb changes to a noun and consumption is now the result.

Activity 1.9

A process is always open to questions and doubt; a result implies the truth. Do you
agree with this? Explain.

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Please consult Part A, Section 2.3 in your textbook now and complete Activities
21 and 22. Directly below Activity 22 there is a sample analysis of a news report
highlighting the effect of nominalisation and passivisation which you may find
interesting.

1.5 Visual texts and conceptual meaning

Visual texts are texts that rely on images. These types of texts also conform to the same
semantics found in language. As such, there are two main processes at play here:

 conceptual: these types of processes represent a static concept; and

 narrative: these processes depict physical actions, events, or changes in state.

This is all very well, but what exactly do these processes actually mean? Please
consult Part A, Section 2.4, Image 2.2 in your textbook now.

Image 2.2 represents one of three sub-divisions that can be found in conceptual
processes. These sub-divisions are classificational, analytical and symbolic
processes.

 Classificational processes assign class. For example, a square is classed as a

shape. In image 2.2 we have four different book catalogues, but they are all
catalogues and classed as such. The images, viewed in isolation, are an
example of covert classification because it is not openly known that we are
looking at catalogues. The heading of the image tells us we are looking at
catalogues and is thus overt.
 Analytical processes rely on a relationship between parts and whole. Here non-
verbal texts are divided into carriers (whole) and possessive attributes (parts).
Think of these images as puzzles. Each piece of the puzzle is a possessive
attribute, while the entire completed puzzle is the carrier. For example, image 2.3
shows a model (carrier) wearing a shirt, tie, watch, belt, and pants (possessive
attributes).
 Symbolic processes do not need to convey a special relationship between
images like analytical or classificational processes. Instead, symbolic processes
take two forms: symbolic attributive and symbolic suggestive. When parts of
images are made noticeable they are known as symbolic attributive, when we
 need to decipher a hidden message in an image, such as mood or atmosphere,
this is known as symbolic suggestive. Consider images 2.4 and 2.5 here.

Narrative processes have two sub-divisions: actional or reactional.

 Actional processes involve any kind of physical action. When the action
involves one participant, it is known as non-transactional. When the action
involves two (or more) participants, it is known as transactional.
 Reactional processes are images that react to another process. Just like
actional processes, these too can be non-transactional and transactional.

Please refer to Part A, Section 2.4, Images 2.6 and 2.7 for examples of actional
and reactional processes.

Conclusion

In this unit, we looked at how information is perceived, how language affects ideologies,
how it manipulates what we think and read, and how this in turn affects how we
perceive reality. We also explored how vocabulary is categorised and how stereotypes
can be portrayed and manipulated by such catergories. Finally, we saw that these
categories extend to visual texts and influence how meaning is created through various
processes.
 Self-assessment exercise

Explore the capacity for language to maintain and influence social power and control.
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Glossary

Clusters: a group of similar things positioned close together.

Cohesion: the grammatical and lexical linking within a text or sentence

that holds a text together and gives it meaning.

Generic structure: the way in which elements of a text are arranged to match its
purpose.

Ideologies: a set of beliefs values or opinions that a group or an

individual holds.

Modular: when separate parts are combined to form a complete

picture.
 References

Goatly, A & Hiradhar, P. 2000. Critical Reading and Writing: An Introductory

Coursebook. London: Routledge.

Hewings, A & Hewings, M. 2005. Grammar and Context; an Advanced Resource Book.
London: Routledge.

Nash, W.1980. Designs in Prose. Harlow: Longman.

Written and Compiled by Panayotis Scordis