E303B: English Grammar in Context (Part II)

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE STUDIES

E303B: English Grammar in Context (Part II)


2016/2017 TMA (Second Semester)
[Prepared by Course Chair: Dr. Ismail Safieh]

Please return your completed assignment to your tutor to arrive by the end of week 11.
This assignment, which is made up of five tasks relates to your study of E303B Book 3 (Getting Practical: Evaluating everyday texts) and the readings and activities associated with it. It represents 20% of the overall continuous assessment score (or OCAS).
The overall objective of this TMA is to assess your skills of critical evaluation and argument on the basis of grammatical evidence.
You are required to write no more than 1,000 words, but you will also need to present some of your findings in graphical or tabular form. 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 on page 41 in the course guide booklet that you have received with the package.

• Task 1 (selection of text)
Choose two poorly written English compositions/essays written by Arab students who are not native speakers of English at the AOU preferably in the El112 course (because it deals with essay writing). Each one should be 100-150 words. Your tutor may also provide you with the texts which are well chosen and suitable for analysis in this TMA.
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 text.
• Task 2 (initial evaluation of text’s weaknesses)
Read the poorly written texts several times and decide whether their weaknesses lie primarily in the way they have constructed interpersonal, textual or experiential meanings. You need to consider here the grammatical choices in relation to the context of use of the texts; in other words, to their:

• Field (for example, is the choice of lexis sufficiently technical and specialised or suitably commonplace and accessible?)
• Tenor (for example, does the lexicogrammar construct appropriate social roles and status for both writer and speaker?)
• Mode (for example, do the lexical and grammatical choices construe a well organised and structured text consistent with the mode and goal of the piece of writing or do they, for example, make the text too formal?)
• Audience, i.e. the readers the texts address: general or specialist readers.
At this stage of the assignment you will only be developing an impression of the text’s overall patterns and weaknesses rather than carrying out a systematic analysis. You do not need to submit the notes that you make at this stage.

• Task 3 (detailed analysis of text)
(You may write up to 500 words on this part of the assignment, but you will also need to present some of your findings in graphical or tabular form.)
You now need to decide on one or two specific areas of grammar to focus on in order to carry out a comprehensive and systematic analysis. You should select those areas which you think will provide most insight into the text’s problems and which account for its lack of high level of communicative effectiveness. For example, you may think the grammar is construing an inappropriate tenor, with the writer sounding too chatty and friendly. You would then need to carry out a comprehensive analysis of key language features associated with tenor (e.g. pronoun use, ellipsis, speech function, colloquial lexis, contraction, forms of address, stance etc.). (On the issue of colloquial lexis, consult a good dictionary which shows judgements on formal and informal usage. Do not pass this kind of judgement without the help of a specialist or dictionary.)
You may, on other hand, decide that the main problem with each text is its lack of overall structure and therefore decide to analyse patterns of theme choice, including hyper- and macro- theme.
You will need to display the findings of your analysis in a way that is meaningful to your tutor. You should present each text as a list of clauses with clause numbers, e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc., and use [[ ]] for embedded clauses. You shouls also present your analysis in table format.

• Task 4 (re-writing of text)
Based on the findings of your analysis, rewrite each text to make it more effective in the specific areas of grammar and lexis that you focused on.

• Task 5 (evaluation of re-writing)
(You should write at least 500 words on this part of the assignment, excluding your re-written text.)
Describe the nature of the changes you made, why you made them and how effective you think they are in improving the communicative effect of the texts. You must explain both the inappropriateness of the original texts and the replacements/revisions which you introduced to each.


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.
4. 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.


















Using the e-library on campus:
Students are requested to visit the e-library on campus and use it to do their TMAs properly. They are also requested to show their tutor that they used the e-library in doing the TMA.

The following are guidelines on plagiarism:
If you submit an assignment that contains work other than yours without acknowledging your sources, you are committing plagiarism. This might occur when:
• Using a sentence or phrase that you have come across
• Copying word-for-word directly from a text
• Paraphrasing the words from the text very closely
• Using text downloaded from the internet
• Borrowing statistics or assembled fact from another person or source
• Copying or downloading figures, photographs, pictures or diagrams without acknowledging your sources
• Copying from the notes or essays of a fellow student
(Slightly adapted from OU document on quoting versus plagiarism)


It is important to remember that plagiarism is strictly barred and would be subject to punitive action by the Arab Open University.

Learning Outcomes of the TMA:
To be successful in doing your TMA, you are expected to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
1. the three aspects of functional grammar framework: field, tenor, and mode and their relations in written English prose texts;
2. how patterns of theme may vary within a particular register;
3. how the organizing resources of theme are of particular significance in written English and can work at the level of paragraph and whole text as well as at clause level;
4. the difference between coherent and cohesive text;
5. how cohesive devices are deployed to build experiential and interpersonal meaning;
6. the major characteristics of English grammar, and how the language may be described and analysed, using appropriate linguistic terminology (based broadly on a functional grammatical model);
7. the relevance of grammar to a range of real-life contexts;

and to have descriptive, analytical, cognitive, interpretation and communication skills to:
1. analyse and describe major grammatical structures in English, using appropriate terminology;
2. describe how a text draws on theme, hyper-theme and macro-theme to organize and structure information;
3. describe how a text draws on the resources og grammatical cohesion to contribute to the texture and coherence of a text;
4. interpret cohesive patterns and patterns of theme, hyper-theme and macro-theme in relation to the contextual variable of mode and in terms of their role in building experiential and interpersonal meaning;
5. argue why certain uses of lexical and grammatical cohesion and choices of theme, hyper-theme and macro-theme make a text more or less effective;
6. apply your understanding of lexical and grammatical cohesion and of theme, hyper-theme and macro-theme to make a text more effective;
7. interpret the meanings made by writers who package and stage their texts in different ways;
8. interpret written linguistic data, showing an understanding of how grammatical forms relate to meaning;
9. construct a coherent argument, clearly focussed on the topic under discussion;
10. develop good academic practice in the acknowledgement of source material and presentation of bibliographies;
11. present written work to a high standard;
12. respond to tutor feedback about improving the effectiveness of written communication.
13. work independently, scheduling tasks and managing time effectively;
14. make independent judgements;
15. assess the value of evidence critically (including simple statistical data).
16. construct coherent written arguments, supported by relevant evidence, appropriately referenced.