E303A: English Grammar in Context I

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE STUDIES



E303A: English Grammar in Context I


2016/2017 TMA (First Semester)


[Prepared by Course Chair: Dr. Ismail Safieh]





Copyright ©2016-2017 Arab Open University
TMA
Please return your completed assignment to your tutor to arrive by the end of week 11.
This assignment, which is made up of three tasks, relates to your study of E303A Book 1 (Getting Started: Describing the grammar of speech and writing) and the associated readings and activities. It represents 20% of the overall continuous assessment score (or OCAS).
This TMA assesses your skills of grammatical analysis in greater depth and at a fine level of sophistication, and in addition assesses your skills of description and interpretation of texts in the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL).
You are not required to write more than 1,000 words, but you will also need to present some of your findings in the form of tables or diagrams. Please indicate at the end of your essay the number of words you have used.
Before you start this assignment, refer to the general guidance on completing and submitting your assignments section on page 41in the course guide booklet that you have with the E303 package.
In this TMA you will demonstratee that you can analyze, describe and interpret written and spoken texts from different registers in relation to their context using the aspects of SFL. You should complete all three tasks.

• Task 1 (here you don’t have to write anything)
Choose two texts by native writers/speakers of English: one written text taken from academic prose register or news/newspaper register about any subject/event. The second text spoken (TVdialogue, Radio dialogue, interview, etc. from any source. The two texts must be published recently over the last 2-4 weeks. Each text should be about 150-200 words in length.
You should expect to spend a reasonable amount of time selecting your texts, as your choice of text will potentially affect the quality of your answer. Do not be afraid to reject your initial choice if you come across something better, since you will inevitably have gained insights from the process of selection. However, you need to remember to leave yourself enough time to spend on the analysis of your chosen texts.
• Task 2 (Noun Phrase structure)
In this task you have to analyze the structure of all Noun Phrases (NPs) in each sentence including all the NPs in the embedded clauses/phrases in the 150-200 words in each text. You should identify all NPs in each clause and underline the head noun (HN). Type the 150-200 words here in this task for each text. Then, underline all NPs in each sentence in each text. You can number each clause in the text to make it easy for you.
Then, draw a table for each text in which you write for each NP you underlined in the text the detailed pre-modifying elements showing clearly: determiner, numerative, describer, classifier, and Head Noun, and the post-modifying elements(qualifiers): prepositional phrases and clauses.
Note 1:
Refer to Unit 4 in Book 1(and all the related activities) to do this task properly.
Note 2:
You should type the texts (150-200 words of each text) on the page you are doing this task.

• Task 3 (write about 750-1000 words for the discussion, comments and comparison )
In this task you are required to write an essay about 750-1000 words in which you discuss and compare the structures of the NPs that you wrote in the tables for the two texts in terms of the number of NPs in each text, their complexity of structure (simple NPs or complex NPs), how simple or complex and why, taking into consideration the relevant features of the use of NPs in the written and spoken tetxs: their numbers and complexity of structure in terms of the pre-modifying and post-modifying elements.
Note 3:
Make sure you use a good number of references for your TMA from any source from which you should use relevant in-text well referenced citations/quotations to support your discussions, explanations and arguments to make your TMA well researched, well argued, and more convincing. This will help you get a better mark.

Important notes:
1. Your chosen texts MUST be approved and signed by your tutor to make sure they are the proper texts for the TMA, otherwise your TMA will not be accepted and will not be marked; your mark will be zero.
2. You should write an introduction to the TMA. You should also write a conclusion to the whole TMA at the end in which you sum up what you have done in the TMA and state your own evaluation and opinion of the TMA.
3. In an appendix attach a photocopy or a printout of the two texts you have used for analysis.


End of TMA Questions