Transcript Markers of orality in lexical verb choice in a corpus of

Development of
specificity in first
year writing through
elaboration of the
nominal group
CCCC
Tampa, FL. March 21, 2015
Sandra Gollin-Kies, PhD
Benedictine University, Lisle, Illinois. USA.
The FYC Project

No evidence of a shift to orality over
the past 15 years
BUT…
 Novice writing does exhibit features
more characteristic of spontaneous
speech than sophisticated published
academic text.
Hypothesis
Compared with experienced academic
writers, first year students will underutilize the grammatical resources
available for elaboration of the noun
phrase.
 Successful upper-level students will
show greater use of elaboration in the
noun phrase than first-year students.

Research Questions


Do FYC students’ nominal groups indicate lesser or
greater orality than the reference corpora*?
Does FYC students’ writing indicate lesser or greater
orality than the writing of final year undergraduates and
professional writers?
*Reference corpora
 Corpora referred to by Biber (1988) and Biber et. al.
(2004, 2006, 2011). (Academic spoken and written
texts, but no student writing).
 MICUSP (Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student
Papers).
Corpus Materials and
Methods
The corpora:
 200 student research essays on
George Orwell’s “1984.” from a midwestern community college.
 50 essays from final year students at
the University of Michigan.
All essays are on topics in literature
 All essays are either argumentative
essays or “reports.”

Method
1. Review of previous research on differences between
conversation and academic written text.
2. Selection of comparable written student texts
3. Conversion of word files to machine readable txt. files
4. Parsing of essay texts using UAM 3.17 (O’Donnell).
5. Analysis of general linguistic features using UAM and generation
of descriptive stats.
6. General comparison with Biber’s (1988) Mean frequencies for
academic prose and face to face conversation. (Not all
categories are easily comparable).
7. Finer analysis of wordlists using Wordsmith Tools 6 (Smith)
8. Concordancing of specific features using WST 6.
Future research: More fine-grained analyses. Factor analysis
(Biber 1988, 2006).
Characteristics of spoken vs
written
text in academic contexts.

In the university context:
“a fundamental oral/literate opposition” …
holds between spoken and written modes
“regardless of purpose, interactiveness, or
other pre-planning considerations.”
(Biber 2006, p. 186).
University registers
(Biber, Conrad, Reppen, Byrd, and Helt, 2002)
Written (e.g. textbooks,
syllabi, administrative info.)
Spoken (e.g. lectures,
labs. study groups, office
hrs)
Information-dense
Involvement and
interaction
(D1)
Non-narrative focus (D2)
Non-narrative focus (D2)
Elaborated reference (D3)
Situated reference
Little overt persuasion (D4)
More overt persuasion
Impersonal style
Less impersonal in style
(D5)
Oral and literate discourse
compared on Dimension 1:
Positive features for orality:
“interactiveness and personal involvement (1st and 2nd person
pronouns, WH questions), personal stance (e.g., mental verbs,
that-clauses with likelihood verbs and factual verbs, factual
adverbials, hedges), and structural reduction and formulaic
language (e.g., contractions, that- omission, common
vocabulary, lexical bundles)” (p. 186.)
These features contrast with literate discourse:
“informational density and complex noun phrase
structures (frequent nouns and nominalizations,
prepositional phrases, adjectives, and relative causes) as
well as passive constructions” (p. 186.)
Why focus on nominal
groups?




Nominal groups have been overlooked in
corpus research.
In academic writing, nouns are more
frequent than verbs.
In academic writing, nouns carry more
informational burden than verbs.
Expansion of the nominal group is a major
resource for elaborating information in
academic writing.
Halliday (1979, 1985)
 Conversation has more subordination
than formal writing.

Grammatical metaphor as a major
resource for abstraction.
The Nominal Group
Det. + (premod.) +
headnoun +
(postmod. & complement)
(Biber et al., 1999)
Developmental stages in
premodification of head noun :




attributive adjectives (2)
• big earthquake
• potential disaster
participial premodifiers (2)
• contaminated world;
• devastating tsunami
nouns as premodifiers (3)
• power stations;
• bomb blast
possessive nouns as premodifiers (3)
• people’s views
(Parkinson and Musgrave (2014) following Biber et al., (2011))
Developmental stages in
postmodification of head noun



full relative clause (3)
• earthquake which happened…;
• warming that results…
prepositional phrase as postmodifier – concrete
meanings (3)
• risk of this technology;
• war on the Korean peninsula
non-finite relative clause (4)
 -ed clause
risk involved with terrorism
 -ing clause
people living around the
place
(Parkinson and Musgrave (2014) following Biber et al., (2011))
Developmental stages
contd.

prepositional phrase as postmodifier – abstr. meanings (4)
• the production of fossil fuels;
• an influence on speaking and listening

preposition + nonfinite complement clause (5)
• price of keeping the acceptable security standard

complement clause controlled by noun (5)
• viewpoint that using nuclear energy is equal to
suicide

appositive noun phrase (5)
• uranium the source of nuclear energy

to clause as postmodifier (5)
• technology to prevent radioactive contamination
(Parkinson and Musgrave (2014) following Biber et al., (2011))
Comparison of FYC, MICUSP with
Biber’s data: Mean frequency/1,000 words
Feature
Biber 1998
Biber 1998
Face-to-face
conversation
Academic prose
MICUSP
Final yr
undergrad
FYC
First yr
undergrad
nouns
137.4
188
270
285
Adjective
(all)
40.8
76.9
61
63.3
Preposition
85.0
139.5
123
119
Conjunction
0.3
3.0
34.3
33.6
Verb (past)
37.4
21.9
11.8
27.3
Verb (pres)
128.4
63.7
60.9
(13.3+47.6)
49
(20 + 29)
Pron. (pers)
39.3
5.8
37.5
33
Adverb
86.0
51.8
47.2
41.3
Pre-modifiers of nouns
Adjective (attrib)+noun
FYC: 46 per 1,000 words

economic factors, next day
-ing or -ed participle (rare)

distressing situation, televised enemy
MICUSP: 42 per 1,000 words
 Christian values, poor communities
-ing or -ed participle (rare)

a tiered system
Difficulties in assigning –ing
words
pre-modifier of a noun
 subject of a verb
 complement of a verb
 head of progressive verb phrase
 complement of a preposition

Possessive ’s or s’ + noun
FYC: 2.4 per 1,000 words
 The nation’s capital
 citizens’ rights
MICUSP: 0.4 per 1,000
Anse’s heart
Post-modifiers of nouns





Prepositional phrases with “of”
Post-modifying non finite clause with “to”
Post-modifying non-finite clause with “ing”
participle
Post-modifying non finite clause with “ed”
participle
Relative clauses with “that”, “which”, or
“who”
Prepositional phrase with “of”
FYC: 0.4 per 1,000 words
 The Bay of Pigs,
 the abuse of power,
 the effects of brainwashing
MICUSP: 29.3 per 1,000
Post-modifying non finite
clause with “to”
FYC: 5.0 per 1,000
 tactics to sell its products
 up to the media to serve the public
 the ability to choose
MICUSP: 9.6 per 1,000
Post-modifying non-finite
clause with “ing” participle
FYC: 0.4 per 1,000 words
 the country doing the colonizing
 the audience watching late night
television
(non-finite pre-determiners - e.g.,
decision making processes are quite
rare)
MICUSP: 0.9 per 1,000 words
Post-modifying non finite
clause with “ed” participle
FYC: 0.6 per 1,000 words
 the dangers involved with sex
 a small elite group of the population
known as the inner party
 the tactics used to persuade
consumers.
MICUSP: 1.5 per 1,000 words
All clauses with “that”
fact, things, way that...
FYC: 3.1 per 1,000 words

MICUSP: 6.1 per 1,000 words
 the idea that God made the world
 the options that Theseus presents
Also: Demetrius requests that Lysander give
up; Laertes reminds his sister that..
Relative clauses
With “that”
 FYC:
1.4
With “which”
 FYC:
0.3
With “who”
 FYC:
0.7
MICUSP: 2.5
MICUSP: 0.6
MICUSP: 1.2
FYC had slightly more with what or whoever, but not significant
Findings



MICUSP and FYC students have
mastered pre-modification of the noun
phrase to almost the same extent.
FYC students are more dependent on
attributive adjectives.
MICUSP students have mastered postmodification of the noun phrase to a
greater extent than FYC students
Conclusion


Students have more exposure to instructional spoken
classroom genres like the lecture and written genres
such as the textbook than professional academic
writing.
First year students are still in the process of mastering
certain grammatical resources that are out side their
everyday experience.
Implications



Students need to engage analytically
with samples of typical academic
writing.
Pedagogical strategies to draw
attention to the variety of resources for
specificity.
Practice writing more specific texts.
References




Biber, D. (1988) Variation across speech and writing.
Cambridge NY: Cambridge University Pres.
Biber, D., Johannsen, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., &
Finegan, E. (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and
Written English. Harlow, England: Pearson Education.
Biber, D. (2006 ) University Language: A corpus-based
study of spoken and written registers. John Benjamins.
Biber, D., Conrad, S.M., Reppen, R., Byrd, R.P. , Helt, P.,
Clark, V., Cortes, V. , Csomay, E., Urzua, A. (2004).
Representing Language Use in the University: Analysis of
the TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic
Language Corpus. TOEFL Monograph Series. Princeton,
NJ: Educational Testing Service.




Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An
introduction to functional grammar (3 ed.). London:
Arnold.
O’Donnell, M. UAM Corpus Tool
Parkinson, J., & Musgrave, J. (2014). Development of
noun phrase complexity in the writing of English for
Academic purposes students. Journal of English for
Academic Purposes. (14), 48-59.
Scott, M. (2012). Wordsmith Tools version 6. Liverpool:
Lexical Analysis Software.