Week 6

 

Language Skill: Using Appropriate Adverbials to Fit Rhetorical Context

Adverbials:

• Words or phrases that function as adverbs

• Create textual cohesion

• Have many semantic roles expressing a variety of meanings such as location, reason, concession, time, agency, and attitude

• Have a wide range of syntactic forms, from single words to prepositional phrases and clauses

• Occur in various positions (initial, medial, and final)

• More than one can occur in a single clause

• Most often optional

• Serve different functions including linking and stance

o Linking

 Used to show the relationship between units of discourse

 Connect rather than adding information

 Most often in initial position

 Relationships include:

• Contrast/concession (however and but)

• Enumeration and addition (in addition and for another thing)

• Summation (further and overall)

• Apposition (namely and for example)

• Inference/result (consequently and so)

o Stance

 Used to comment on content or style

 Overtly mark author’s attitude

 Single-word are most common form

 All positions, but medial is most common

 Always optional

 Can also be conveyed with noun phrases, modals, and other verbs

 Categories include:

• Epistemic – judges the truth of the situation

o Certainty or doubt (perhaps versus absolutely)

o Actuality or reality (in fact and really)

o Source of knowledge (according to x and reportedly)

o Limitation (generally and in some cases)

o Viewpoint or perspective (from my perspective and in our view)

o Imprecision hedges (so to speak and sort of)

• Attitude – tells writer’s evaluation (surprisingly or predictably)

• Style – shows manner of writing/voice (in short and frankly)

Language Skill: Using Grammar to Vary Description

Vivid language engages your reader and will enhance and support your rhetorical purpose. The ways we can use grammar include:

·        Adjectives

o   Painting a picture – using specific sensory details to create an image for your reader

§  Vision – color, shape, etc.

§  Audition – sounds, loud/quiet, quality

§  Taction – touch, soft/hard, smooth/rough

§  Gustation – taste, sweet/sour/bitter/salty/umami

§  Olfaction – smell, odor, fresh/musty, etc.

o   Adjectives out of order – changing the standard order to make your reader pay attention

§  Conventional/standard order:

·        quantity/number - one

·        quality/opinion - lovely

·        size - little

·        age - old

·        shape - rectangular

·        color - green

·        proper adjective - French

·        material - silver

·        purpose/qualifier - whittling

·        e.g., “one lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife”

§  Out of order:

·        One or more adjectives might follow rather than precede the noun

o   One lovely whittling knife, old and green

o   Large bull moose, red-eyed and angry, charged

·        One or more adjectives might be set off from the sentence by commas in a clause

o   Careful movements, controlled and precise

o   Participial adjectives

§  Present participle: verb + ing

·        Stomping feet

·        Clapping hands

§  Past participle: verb + ed

·        Framed with traditions and beliefs

·        Mashed potatoes

·        Powerful nouns and verbs

o   Nouns:

§  Absolutes: two-word combinations of noun + present participle

·        Hands shaking

·        Feet stomping

·        Claws digging

§  Appositives: noun, noun phrase, verb – creates the illusion of reality in fiction, but implies a foundation of research in non-fiction

·        The dancer, a whirling swirl of color, flew by

·        The raptor, a white shadow, soared overhead

·        The results, well-founded data, proved convincing

o   Verbs:

§  Concrete, specific verbs replace the feeling of still images or bland language

·        The dancer went by < The dancer flew by

·        The river was calm < The river stretched out in front of us as smooth as the surface of a mirror

·        She walked casually past her ex-boyfriend’s house without a care < She strolled past her ex-boyfriend’s house without a care.

·        They talked < They shouted or They whispered

·        They walked < They stomped. They crept. They skipped.

§  Replacing the verb “be/am/is” etc., makes a sentence more powerful

·        She was happy < She overflowed with joy. < She beamed radiant smiles at everyone.

·        Sentence order

o   Adjective clauses and phrases – create smooth flow in description

§  Combine sentences; use dependent clauses inside commas

§  The dancer spun around the room. She was wearing bright colorful clothing.

§  The dancer, wearing bright colorful clothing, spun around the room.

o   Embedded elements – use any of the above to break monotony

§  The sun sank behind the tress. It was a fiery glowing globe.

§  The sun, a fiery glowing globe, sank behind the trees.

o   Combined sentences – avoid overuse of subject/verb/object structure

§  The hall was empty. She ran toward the classroom. She entered right after the bell rang.

§  She ran toward the classroom down an empty hall and entered right after the bell rang.

§  Racing down an empty hall, she skidded into the classroom, breathless, just as the bell clanged above her.

o   Parallel structures – create a musical quality, develops a rhythm, adds balance, and threads images together to create a more complete picture

§  …there was never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip…

Language Skill: Relating Form to Function

·        Using appropriate forms based the correct function makes your ideas clearer

o   Function: the use of grammar to create discourse for different purposes in different situations

o   Form: the specific grammatical structures

o   Academic writing requires specific forms for distinct functions:

§  Simple present: report current trends and general aspects

§  Simple past: report methods completed in the past

§  Passive voice: report methods and procedures

·        When writing bulleted text:

o   Do not mix sentences and phrases.

o   It is best to have only complete sentences OR only short phrases equal in length.

o   Use a period after every sentence.

o   Do not use periods after phrases.

o   Either capitalize the first letter (sentences) OR capitalize no letters (phrases).

o   Doing research to make a bulleted list:

§  underline keywords/phrases

§  begin with/without stem

§  create stylistic consistency

§  punctuate carefully