Summary: English text & communication
SUMMARY ENGLISH TEKST &
COMMUNICATION
TEXTUAL STRUCTURE
Different levels
Written text: Spoken text:
1. Sentence 1. Utterance
2. Paragraph 2. Stretch of speech (short-medium)
3. Text 3. Longer stretch of speech
WHY ORGANIZE INFORMATION?
- Efficient communication
- Courtesy to the writer
- ‘sell’ the product
o Reader = consumer, writer = producer, message = product
o Producer needs to do the work, not the consumer
HOW DO WE ORGANIZE INFORMATION?
Known new
Elements given in the order in which they take place
The content of paragraphs need to follow up on each other
A WORD’S WORTH
LOADED LANGUAGE
Loaded words = words who carry a strong negative/positive connotation
Denotation Connotation
The dictionary definition Additional associations, often personal/emotional
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, Summary: English text & communication
NOT LOADED LANGUAGE
- Grammatical words e.g. articles, auxiliary verbs, etc.
- Terminology e.g. highly specialized words
- General words
Hypernym (general) Hyponym (specified)
Words that have a classification function More specified words
e.g. fruit, animals, flower, etc. e.g. apple, berry, dog, cat, roses, sunflowers, etc.
More likely to carry a strong connotation
TERMINOLOGY
Synonyms Range of words that focus around the same area of meaning
Allows the speaker to express an opinion by using a
synonym, that is loaded
Taboo Words with a negative connotation
Pejoration ↔ amelioration Process where neutral words develop negative connotations
↔ loaded words become neutral
Euphemism Words to avoid a direct reference to sth considered impolite
Not always better
e.g. passing away instead of dying (passing away isn’t necessarily
positive but it avoids the negative)
Grotesque euphemism (= ugly, unpleasant, offensive euphemism)
Mismatch between the word and its referent
e.g. ‘mowing the lawn’ used for the massacre of people
Poverty-of-vocabulary Not having enough vocabulary (and, for example, start using swear
words to fill in the gaps)
EMOTIONAL MEANING IN LEXIS
Main ways (3) of encoding emotion in our choice of words
There are not always alternative neutral terms available for some loaded emotional words (+ it would
remove the tone and message)
1. EMOTIVE ‘SPIN’
= same conceptual meaning, different emotive meaning (e.g. slim – thin – skinny)
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, Summary: English text & communication
2. AFFECTIVE WORDS
= no conceptual meaning, only emotive meaning
Positive affective words Negative affective words
Nice, good, cool, great, fabulous, etc. Awful, terrible, swear words, ‘bloody hell’, etc.
Intensifiers = affective words used as an adverb/adjective that adds emotional intensity to the
modified word
e.g. terribly hot, awfully exciting
3. CONCEPTUALIZATION
= describe feelings objectively from the outside (not expressing)
e.g. despair, depression, nervous, amazement, etc.
Conceptualization of emotional attitude, using modals/adverbials of (dis)inclination
e.g. need, want to, keen to, would like, would rather, unfortunately, hopefully, etc.
FORMALITY
THREE STRATA
1. Basic old English words INFORMAL, most frequent
2. Borrowed French words MEDIUM FORMAL
3. Borrowed Greek and Latin words CULTIVATED, VERY FORMAL
The three strata-system applies to all parts of speech
DEGREES OF FORMALITY
Archaic formal neutral informal (colloquial) slang
Hybridizing = mixing different styles (ridiculous effect)
Conversationalisation of public discourse = make it read or sound like private discourse, it adopts
features from informal, conversational, colloquial language.
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