Aspects of textuality in written English in an African context : a study of communication style and information management, with implications for the status and use of English as a second language
In contexts where English as a second language is used for intranational communication it is a particular kind of learned language adapted to express the communicative norms of its users, and its use has an interesting affect on the textuality of writing. The thesis examines communication style and information management in written material from Malawi: traditional narratives written by school students, and reports, letters to the editor, and editorials from national newspapers in English. The study takes a broad view of textuality to examine the relations between writer, text and audience: what the writer's text purpose is, what he considers an appropriate register to his situation, and the type, sequence, and quantity of information he sees as necessary to achieve his communicative goals. The analysis looks at the linguistic elements selected for topical theme and ~new~, and other discourse functions which support the presentation of the message. A description of how these elements combine at sentence and text level to affect textuality is presented by looking at 1) the text structure, 2) lexical patterns, 3) grammatical features, 4) sentence themes, 5) patterns in the presentation of ~new~ within and across
Daborn, Esther
Aspects of textuality in written English in an African context : a study of communication style and information management, with implications for the status and use of English as a second language. In contexts where English as a second language is used for intranational communication it is a particular kind of learned language adapted to express the communicative norms of its users, and its use has an interesting affect on the textuality of writing. The thesis examines communication style and information management in written material from Malawi: traditional narratives written by school students, and reports, letters to the editor, and editorials from national newspapers in English. The study takes a broad view of textuality to examine the relations between writer, text and audience: what the writer's text purpose is, what he considers an appropriate register to his situation, and the type, sequence, and quantity of information he sees as necessary to achieve his communicative goals. The analysis looks at the linguistic elements selected for topical theme and ~new~, and other discourse functions which support the presentation of the message. A description of how these elements combine at sentence and text level to affect textuality is presented by looking at 1) the text structure, 2) lexical patterns, 3) grammatical features, 4) sentence themes, 5) patterns in the presentation of ~new~ within and across
aspects textuality write english african context study communication style information management implication status use english second_language contexts english second_language use communication particular_kind learn_language adapt express communicative norm user use interesting affect textuality writing examines communication style information management write material malawi traditional_narrative write school student report letter editor editorial national newspaper english study take_broad view textuality examine_relation writer text audience writer text purpose considers appropriate register situation_type sequence quantity information see necessary achieve communicative goal analysis look linguistic_element select topical theme new discourse function support presentation message description element combine sentence text level affect textuality present look text_structure lexical pattern grammatical_feature sentence theme pattern presentation new within across