Chapter 3 – Texts and interpersonal meaning

*Activity 26.*

Rewrite the following text from a teachers’ handbook, replacing the imperatives with modals of obligation. To help you, the imperatives are underlined. What effect does the rewriting have on the interpersonal relationship between the writer and teacher? And what does the frequency of imperatives in the original suggest about the role or autonomy of the teacher in this particular education system and classroom?

GETTING STARTED

Discuss the concept of the four dimensions with your pupils. This will prepare them for the reading as well. According to Collier’s Encyclopaedia the four dimensions are length, width, height and time. The fourth dimension, which is time, also refers to any additional quality beyond what is ordinarily expected. Ask pupils to think about the fourth dimension in this less specific sense, and discuss the possibility of life on other planets.

The poem is provided as a stimulus. Check pupils’ comprehension of it.

Assign pupils to read on the topic ahead of the lesson, so that they can contribute to the discussion of aliens. You may choose to focus the topic as an oral book review session.

Alternatively, use the kit to introduce pupils to science fiction, in particular the work of H.G. Wells.

(Clue 2 Teachers’ Guide, p. 12)

*Activity 27.*

The following is a rather dogmatic and assertive text, as is often the case with D.H. Lawrence. What kind of interpersonal relationship does it convey between writer and reader? Rewrite it, making it less dogmatic by adding or changing modal features, frequency expressions and quantifiers.

As a matter of fact, till 1800 the English people were strictly a rural people – very rural. England has had towns for centuries, but they have never been real towns, only clusters of village streets. The English character has failed to develop the real urban side of man, the civic side. Siena is a bit of a place, but it is a real city, with citizens intimately concerned with the city. Nottingham is a vast place sprawling towards a million, and it is nothing more than an amorphous agglomeration. There is no Nottingham in the sense that there is a Siena.

Activity 28

Compare and contrast these two letters and replies which are rewrites of letters that appeared in Woman’s World (4 January 1997), with the essential interpersonal linguistic features preserved.

• What different relationships do the replies set up between the questioner and the expert who replies? How do these replies differ, if at all, in levels of assertiveness, i.e. in which are generalisations made or modal devices used? Which comes across as more dominant, for example in use of imperative commands or modals of obligation, the doctor in ‘Doc’s Corner’ or the psychotherapist in ‘Helping the Kids’?
• Can you suggest an explanation for any differences here, perhaps to do with the relative social status of doctors and psychotherapists?
• What modal devices and moods do the questioners use? What does this convey about their predicament?

Activity 29

Look at the post ‘#IceBucketChallenge: why you’re not really helping’, given below, and analyse the use of first and second person pronouns.

• How do the pronouns change in the course of the blog post?
• Do they always refer to the same groups? For example, the ‘we’ and ‘you’ of all the paragraphs?
• When ‘you’ is used, who does it refer to? Is it used oddly, i.e. does it, as we would expect, always refer to the intended readers of the column? If not, what is the purpose of its unusual use?
• Is ‘we’/‘our’ used inclusively or exclusively? If it includes the reader, what kind of reader would that be? We would expect it to include the writer, but is there some doubt about this?

#IceBucketChallenge: Why you’re not really helping

(1) If you’ve been on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram in the last week, you’ve probably seen it: countless videos of people dumping ice on themselves to help raise awareness of ALS. It’s done a tremendous job at getting people to talk about a truly debilitating disease – but that’s mostly all it’s done – get people to talk. Let me explain.

(2) Slacktivism is a relatively new term with only negative connotations being associated with it as of recently. The whole thinking is that instead of actually donating money, you’re attributing your time and a social post in place of that donation. Basically, instead of donating $10 to Charity XYZ, slacktivism would have you create a Facebook post about how much you care about Charity XYZ – generating immediate and heightened awareness but lacking any actual donations and long-term impact. Previous examples of slacktivism are not hard to find – remember in 2012 when everyone, and I mean everyone, shared the Kony video? Very few people knew who Kony was, how they could donate or where they could get involved – but all of a sudden, these viewers (myself, included) could contribute! We could share the Kony video on our Facebook and Twitter – and while doing so, eliminating any chance we may have had at donating our time or money towards an actual prevention or cause directly related to the capture of Kony. You see, we valued our social posts at an incrementally higher cost than a donation – and by placing a subconscious value on our Facebook post or Tweet, we told ourselves that we had done our part in trying to find Kony and then were able to pleasantly shift our thinking back to what we were going to eat for lunch. We had helped. We had participated. We patted ourselves on the back. We had tweeted. We could now go back to tweeting about our lives.

(3) When the #IceBucketChallenge started, the person who was challenged to participate had 24 hours or else they had to donate $100. However, due to the viral nature of the videos, this major component has mostly evaded the majority of the videos. Instead, people buy the bags, set up a camera, grab a bucket and think of which friends they’re going to tag. You probably didn’t get the right angle the first go around and maybe the second time you fumbled your words – oops, more ice. By the end of it, you might have bought six bags and spent 30 minutes on creating this video. Boom, posted – and all of a sudden you’re a philanthropist, spreading your charitable touch across your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Due to all of this, you’ve internally placed a monetary value on the cost of goods, the time spent and for posting on your social channels. This monetary value has little long-term effect and next time you’re thinking of donating to a charity or for a cause, you might think back to that time you created a video. You’ve done your part, remember?

(4) And although the ALS Association has seen as much as four times as many donations during this time period than last year, just imagine with me for one second: What if the thousands of people who spent money on buying one or two bags of ice actually gave that money to ALS? It would be out of control. But that’s not how we think.

(5) Our online profiles have become a direct reflection of who we are online; our life experiences are no longer an experience if isn’t shared. We aren’t having a great time unless we stop, take a picture of it and share it with everyone. We have an internal value associated with each Facebook post, Tweet and Instagram. If you use that social action to help further a cause, that social action is taking the place of an actual donation. Instead of donating, we are posting. By creating such awareness, this awareness has a cap; a ceiling of sorts, that if reached can then become cannibalistic in nature. The viral nature of this almost hurts ALS due to the substitution of potential donations with a social post; internally, people think they have donated when in turn they’ve only posted.

(6) We’re social creatures. We’re using the #IceBucketChallenge to show off our summer bodies. We’re using it to tag old friends. We’re using it to show people we care. We’re using it to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. We’re using it to promote ourselves, in one way or another.

(7) The #IceBucketChallenge has done a tremendous job at generating awareness for a terrible disease. But next time somebody challenges you to participate, try to show your friends how crazy you really are and just donate to the cause.

Activity 30

TACOMA
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To OUTPERFORM the field. To be the BEST there is.
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With three totally NEW engines that deliver MORE power up and down the line than ever before. A 4-cylinder 2.4. litre POWERPLANT that outperforms the leading competition’s standard V6’s, even carrying a half-ton payload.
And a 3.4 liter V6 that OUTMUSCLES their biggest V6’s. RESPONSIVE handling. Braking power that stops shorter FASTER and more CONFIDENTLY. Even class-
leading 4×4 ground CLEARANCE.
Plus the added safety of a driver-side airbag.
Altogether it’s the heart and soul of a WINNER.
The new TACOMA has arrived. And it’s every inch a CHAMPION. Call 1800 GO-
TOYOTA for a BROCHURE and the location of your NEAREST DEALER.
TOYOTA TACOMA I love what you do for me

Which of the sentences in the above advert are complete sentences?

*Activity 31*

Find an advertisement in a magazine or newspaper. Bring it to class and discuss its use of commands (imperatives) pronouns and minor sentences. What interpersonal effects do their uses have? What other purposes might these features serve?

Activity 32

The following letter was printed in Newsweek of 1 June 1998. Comment on the use of emotional vocabulary. Are there any words that would appear emotionally neutral out of context but in this letter take on a negative spin? Are there any terms here that are used euphemistically?

Pol Pot was a genocidal monster but your article ‘Pol Pot’s Last Days’ (ASIA April 27) failed to say that the United States helped to create and support him. From 1969 to 1975 the United States repeatedly bombed Cambodia, continuing even in the face of a congressional ban. CIA figures show that 1.5 million people were displaced and 600,000 were killed. Pol Pot’s holocaust followed, lasting until Vietnam’s 1978 invasion, when China and the United States directly helped his Khmer Rouge reconstruct and continue terrorist killing.

Activity 33.

Use the beginning of the feature article on coffee from the teenage magazine Jump, below, to try to apply what you have learnt from the last three sections (3.5–3.7) on the imitation of speech, formality and emotional lexis.

1. How is speech imitated in the article? Are there minor sentences? How is a sense of (mock) dialogue created? Can you detect any rhythmical patterns, for example in Section 2?
2. This passage seems to almost exaggerate and celebrate the wide stylistic range of vocabulary from the formal to the informal. Can you illustrate this, using the labels from the COBUILD English Dictionary about different stylistic classes of words (see page 106).
3. Do you find any words which have positive or negative emotional spin, for example in Sections 1–3 and Section 6? Can you provide words which convey the same idea but with neutral or opposite spin? Is there any use of euphemism, for instance in Section 4? Do you find any contested words, perhaps in Sections 5 or 6? Is the author conscious of their potential contestation? What evidence do you have?

You might also like to use this passage to revise work done on degrees of assertiveness: how are probability, universality and subjectivity expressed?

The Dish

(1) What’s all the buzz about?

(2) Whether you’re a quivering caffeine junkie or just a casual sipper, there’s more to that hair-raising jolt than meets the eye.

By Cindy Walker

(3) What would you say if someone offered you a steaming hot cup of 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine? ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Well, guess what. You just refused a cup of coffee. 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine is the fancy-schmancy name for caffeine, that go-go ingredient in everything from sodas to snickers. Yet, despite its overwhelming presence, there are many myths brewing about caffeine. So, before you declare yourself a mocha maven, test your caffeine chutzpah to see if you’re really full of (coffee) beans.

True or False?

(4) A cup of coffee will keep the love handles away. True or False?

False. Sure, we’ve all felt that first blast of energy after drinking a fat mug of coffee, but that doesn’t mean you’re blasting the pounds away. While a moderate dose of caffeine might temporarily jump start your metabolism, it’s not an appetite suppressant. In fact, in 1991 the FDA banned the use of caffeine in over-the-counter diet pills because, unlike proper nutrition and exercise, it has no proven long term affect [sic] on weight.

(5) Chemically, caffeine is in the same family as poisonous compounds such as strychnine, nicotine and morphine. True or False?

True. Caffeine is found in the leaves, seeds and fruits of more than 60 plants, including coffee, cacao beans, kola nuts and tea leaves. But, despite caffeine’s au naturel origins, its chemical make-up belongs to the same family of potentially lethal compounds as emetine. But fear not the hot black brew. A recent study suggests that women who drink two or more cups of coffee a day are less likely to commit suicide than those who don’t drink coffee at all.

(6) The road to an Olympic gold medal is paved with coffee beans. True or False?

Both. By revving up the central nervous system caffeine can temporarily enhance athletic performance. But while your Gym teacher might applaud you for your effortless sprint, the International Olympic committee could hand you your walking papers. Classified as a ‘doping agent’, caffeine intake is restricted by the committee. Some cardiologists also warn that caffeine before a workout can raise blood pressure.

(Jump August 1998, pp. 46, 48)

*Activity 34*

Imagine that you are working as an administrative assistant in the Road Safety Department of the Ministry of Communications. The fitting of baby seats in the rear of cars has become compulsory recently, and you receive two letters enquiring about how good the brand XXX car baby seats are. One of these letters is from an unknown member of the public. The other one happens to be from an old schoolfriend, who didn’t know you worked in this department. The letter you write to the member of the public goes as follows:

Write a letter to your old schoolfriend, conveying the same information as the letter above. Your letter should be in a more personal and informal style. To achieve this:

• change passive constructions to active;
• change nominalisations back into verbs and adjectives;
• use the appropriate first- and second-person pronouns where necessary (sometimes you may have to change the modal structures to do this);
• substitute informal for formal lexis where you can: you may wish to consult a dictionary, as well as a thesaurus to achieve a more or less consistent level of informality;
• use contractions, and minor sentences in places;
• introduce emotive vocabulary and intensifiers where appropriate;
• think about whether or not to use fully blocked layout (everything set against the right hand margin) as in the formal version, and experiment with the salutation and valediction.

Activity 35.

Take a look at the image Unit 2 of the book showing a reactional process of a football player in (Image 2.7, p. 79). What kind of interpersonal meaning is realised with regard to perspective of the image?

Project 1

Take a passage of about two paragraphs from an academic textbook, which explains an important concept. Re-write it for schoolchildren.

Try to

• make the text less formal – get rid of nominalisations, and passives, choose less formal vocabulary where possible, use contractions;
• make your text more personal – introduce first- and/or second-person pronouns;
• be more explicit, by stating clearly some of the assumptions that the original text makes, but which your pupil readers may not know;
• make your text more visually informative than the original: this will also give you the opportunity to introduce minor sentences, e.g. in bulleted lists or diagrams, and to consider whether to enhance involvement or show power by viewing angles;
• when you have finished the first draft, use one or more of the Microsoft Word readability indices to see whether it is suitable for the grade level you have in mind;
• refer to Chapter 4 to see how you might use explanatory metaphor to get your ideas across more effectively.

It’s useful to add footnotes or marginal notes to the text you create, indicating exactly what changes you have made and why you have made them. Include the original, unsimplified text.

Try the rewritten text out on some real pupils, and get some feedback through interviews or questionnaires to test their level of comprehension. How successful was your rewrite? Which parts still need improving?