Written Communication. Different Types of written texts. Structures and Formal Elements. Rules Governing Written Texts. Routines and Formulae.
. !n !ntr trod oduc ucti tion on It has often been assumed that whatever is spoken can also be written, that writing is simply an alternative form of expression to speech. That is to say, a writing system is capable of representing all the possible wordings in the language by providing ready-made (codified) expressions, for the maority of elements, and by providing the means of creating (coding) expressions for elements that are not already codified, for example new borrowings and coinings. !ccording to this it has been important the creation of some rules for governing these written texts, to make them fully understandable and to create in the emitter and the receiver a sharing background towards texts, no matter the information contained on them, so communication is achieved with no longer efforts. "e will further study them but as a starting point we will say that they have been created according to two tenets# conformity, as languages do change according to different social environments where they are developed (emergencies of literary, religious, pure standard languages and the like) their written form is presumed to fulfil these resolutions and uniformity, providing codified expressions for all the established wordings of the language whether whe ther in characters, in syllabic or alphabetic spellings. !lthough it is important to state that there are various aspects of spoken language that have no counterpart in writing# rhythm, intonation, degrees of loudness, variation in voice $uality, pausing, and phrasing- as well as indexical features by which we recogni%e for example that it is &ary talking and not 'ane. The existence of this gap has led to some other methods of compensation that we will see during the current topic. irstly, lets pay attention to the characteristics of written communication in contrast with speech.
". Written Communication. C#aracteristics Written Communication in Contrast wit# Speec#$
*peakers have a much greater range of possibilities at their command than writers. !part from the actual words they use, they can vary their intonation and stress. +y varying the pitch and intonation in their voice, they can clearly convey their attitude to what they are saying. The most important difference between writing and speaking concerns the need for accuracy. ative speakers constantly make mistakes when they are speaking,
hesitating and saying the same in different manners. /xcept in formal situations, this is considered normal and acceptable behaviour. ! piece of writing, however, with mistakes and half-finished sentences would be considered illiterate since it is expected that writing should be correct. The writer also suffers from the disadvantage of not getting immediate feed%ac& from the reader, and sometimes not getting feedback at all. "riters cannot use intonation or stress and facial expression, gesture and body movement are either denied to them. These disadvantages have to be compensated for by greater $uality and the use of grammatical and stylistic techni$ues. To sum up, writing needs a more accurate logical organi%ation. 0roblems of spelling and handwriting can also be found. /nglish spelling is notoriously difficult for speakers of other languages e specially if we take into account the differences between its signs and its oral transformation, and handwriting is particularly problematic for speakers of languages such as !rabic or 1hinese, which do not have the 2oman script. !s we mentioned in the introduction some considerations need to be taken into account, particularly when teaching writing such as the o rgani%ing of sentences into paragraphs, how paragraphs are oined together, and the general organisation of ideas into a coherent piece of discourse. !nother of the differences consists of the lexical density of the written message in comparison to the spoken message. 3ets see it through an example,
3ets consider the following sentence# “The Trust has offered advice to local government authorities on cemetery conservation”
It consists of twelve words. 4f these, eight are lexical items (content words, main carriers of meaning) and four are grammatical items (function words, whose more important feature is to provide linking between words). Grammatical items are those that function in closed systems in the language5 in /nglish determiners, pronouns, prepositions, conunctions and the like. In other words, there are twice as many lexical words as there are grammatical words. If we do a translation of the above sentence into a form that would be more likely to occur in speech, it would be something like# “In order to a proper conservation of the cemetery the Trust has contacted the local government for offering them some advice”
The number of lexical words remains invariable but the number of grammatical words is dramatically increased from 6 to 78. !nd we have to regard the last sentence analysed is not especially collo$uial. This is a characteristic difference between spoken and written language. "ritten language displays a much higher ratio of lexical items to total running words. Thus we can say that one of the most important differences between written and spoken language is one of the density with which the information is presented. 2elative to each other, written language is dense and spoken language is sparse. "e have already made a distinction between 3exical items, often called content words and 9rammatical items. Technically, they are IT/&* rather than words in the usual sense and they are 3/:I1!3 because they function in lexical sets, not in grammatical systems, they enter into open systems. That means that they belong to a set of items that couldn;t be closed and, moreover, is extendable. "e may understand it better if we are ac$uainted with the definition of a closed system first. ! grammatical item, for example, the personal pronoun him enters into a closed system when it contrasts on one dimension with he, his and on another dimension
with me, you, her, it, us, them, one 5 but that is all. There are no more items in these classes and we cannot add any. "ith a lexical item, however, we cannot close off its class membership. Then an open system will be contrasted in a different set of dimensions that reach no end, and for example a word such as cemetery that we find in the example above is in contrast with graveyard , also with park , stadium, arena also with morgue5 and we reali%e that there is no way of closing off the sets
of items and even more if we take into account that each item belonging to an open system can create different connotations on the reader according to the particular context that he < she shares with that item. or example, considering a school and a building both close to a coffee factory, the smell of coffee wont hold the same connotation for the child whom the smell of coffee means go to school than for the child whom the smell of coffee means going back home after school, so they will have different reaction towards the item coffee. The lexical density of a treated language can be measured by considered words as the simplest items of a system. !fter considering these differences lets go ahead with the different types of written texts.
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Different Types of Written Texts The development of writing in contrast with the universal usage of language
is a difficult issue to be dated. =owever, it has been linked to the complex of events whereby certain human groups changed over from a mobile way of life to permanent settlement# from a predominantly hunting and gathering economy to a predominantly agricultural one. This enabled language to satisfy a new range of functional demands. "riting was used for invoicing goods being traded, for
collecting taxes, for recording tribute received and for keeping accurate measurements of land. +ut once it had come into existence, it also took over some functions that had previously been fulfilled by spoken language. *acred texts, lyric and epic poetry began to be written down. !nd then writing took over the main burden of the transmission of cultural knowledge# education came into being.
! possible list of types of texts under a functional point of view would be the following one# 7. For Action: that would include public signs on roads and stations5 product labels and instructions5 telephone directories5 manual5 ballot papers etc. >. For social contact: such as personal correspondence# letters, postcards, e-mails. 8. Primarily for Information# ewspapers and current affairs maga%ines, non fiction books, textbooks etc. 6. Primarily for entertainment: 1omic strips5 film subtitles5 poetry5 fiction books etc. These categories are not clear cut5 what is for information now may be for action later, what is instructional may also has entertainment value, and so on. Texts can also be classified according to the contexts$ in which texts do occur, which can make them to hold such labels as ournal article 5 science textbook etc. !nd according to a less institutionali%ed classification based on the purpose of t#e text5 then we can consider the following classes# narrative (to inform about
actions and events), descriptive (to give details about what things are like), epressive (to demonstrate authors feeling through subective views of reality), argumentative (to defend an opinion) and prescriptive (to indicate the steps or
necessary action). The following point that we are going to consider is the structure of a written text.
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Structure and Formal Elements To consider the structure of written text is very important to deal with the
formal characteristics of written /nglish which, at the same time, differentiate it from spoken /nglish. "ritten /nglish shows several characteristics as follows# )ominali*ation and Generic Reference (!he will buy the bread)5 +%,ectivity is
essential except for texts with the expressive function. Formality especially in technical texts, these also shown a preference of the -assive oice instead the active case. "ritten texts do not admit hedges or discourse fillers. The use of verbs also vary ver%s of t#in&ing (provide or convey instead of give) are widely used5
the expressions wont be ambiguous and all the references will be explicit. 1ontractions and false starts will not be used either. !lthough texts depend in large measure to the writer purpose and even in some stylistic features, we can define the above mentioned characteristics as $uite common in written texts. ow lets pay attention to the norms which govern written texts.
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)orms w#ic# govern written texts !ny text exhibits certain linguistic features which allow us to identify it as a
text. "e identify a stretch of language as a text partly because it is presented to us as a text, and partly because we perceive connections within and among its sentences. These connections are of several kinds# irst, there are connections which are established through the arrangement of information within each clause and the way this relates to the arrangement of
information in preceding and following clauses and sentences 5(given " ne# information$ su%&ect " predicate '.
*econd, there are surface connections 0co#esive devices1 which establish interrelations between persons and events, that is, the social context, or the social distance5 these allow us to trace participants in a text and to interpret the way in which different parts of the text relate to each other. inally, there are underlying semantic connections, co#erence, which allow us to make sense of a text as a unit of meaning. or example, in describing a landscape, novelists are faced with a series of problems# 7. (evel: at what level should they describe it? *hould they merely say I saw a beautiful landscape, or should they mention every last leaf or pebble? >. )ontent: given the level, which parts should they include and which should they omit? ormally, the landscape will be too complicated to include everything, so they must pick and choose. 8. *rder: 9iven the parts they have decided to include, what order should they put them in? *hould they describe them from left to right, from the nearest to farthest, from most to least important, from largest to smallest, or how?
6. +elations: for the given level, content, and order, how should they relate the parts to each other? Is it enough for the parts to be listed as present, or should each be given a precise location with respect to the rest? The writer purpose as well as when concerned with the structure of texts has a lot to do with the solution to the problem. ! linguist such as De 2eaugrande defines a text as a communicative occurrence which meets 7@ standards, seven of them are constitutives3 7. 1ohesion (grammatical or lexical relationships between the elements of a text) >. 1oherence (relationship which links the meanings) 8. Intentionality (the writer;s attitude to produce a cohesive and coherent text) 6. !cceptability (the receiver accepts the relevance of the message) A. Informativity (extent to which the occurrences of the text are expected or not) B. *ituationality (factors that make a text relevant to a situation) C. Intertextuality (factors that make the utili%ation of one text dependent upon knowledge of one or more previously encountered texts) !nd three of them are regulative3 7. /fficiency# the less expenditure of effort used for communication, the more efficient a text is. >. /ffectiveness# the stronger the impression the more effective. 8. !ppropriateness# the agreement between the setting and the ways in which the C standards are upheld. /ven though the emission of texts is $uite personal to the extent that the writer will use different features according to the purposes and the aims he wants to achieve through them. There are some routines and formulae that allow us to be provided with some patterns of organisation of texts according to their classification.
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Routines and Formulae. !s noted above some routines and formulae can be established for the
creation of texts. It has to be considered that these formulae re$uires that the text has been classified according to a category, because they are going to depict
special features depending on the type of text it is, so very institutionali%ed categories are the ones which has been considered for this account. It is very difficult to fix a pattern for each type of text because they are relatively personal relying very much on the writer purpose or knowledge and bias towards use them. +ut at the same time their existence can be very useful for /nglish language learners especially regarding communicative purposes. 3ets consider some of these set phrases depending on the type of text# 7. 3etters# 7.7. Informal letters# 4penings# ear (0roper name) 1losings# -est ishes /ours (ove from
7.>. 3ess formal letters# 4penings# ear 0r. " 0rs. " 0iss " 0s. (surname) 1losings# /ours sincerely ith -est ishes
7.8. &ore formal letters# 4penings# ear !ir " 0adam, 1losings# /ours faithfully >. !n opinion essay# >.7. To introduce an opinion# In my v iewD In my opinion1 From my point of vie#1
>.>. To add information# In addition to this1 Furthermore,1
>.8. To end the essay# To sum up,1 In short In conclusion
! very important aspect of academic prose is presenting and supporting arguments.
The higher fre$uency of linking adverbials in academic prose not only reflects this communicative need but also the characteristic choice of this register to mark links between ideas overtly. In some texts, especially as arguments are concluded, each of a series of sentences will begin with a linking adverbial, such as# To summari2e, Thus, As a result and the like.
8. In order to list a series of points a writer may take use of# First3ly', !econd3ly', net etc.
6. To explain a point already made and introduce examples# that is, namely, eg. etc.
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Conclusion *ince texts are a primarily source for teaching /nglish as a foreign language,
we as teachers have a direct relationship with them. +eing aware that the four basic skills can be developed through them, they constitute a fundamental piece for education. In addition to provide students with a means to get ac$uainted with some notions of the foreign language. They can also convey some authentic materials that will enhance the interest of students towards the subect. +esides, the correct reali%ation of texts considered as the representation of speech towards sign constitutes one of the main basic skills as it is writing. If students are provided with some notions about texts such as their structure, patterns of use according to types of texts as well as the realisation of these mentioned types, it will be a useful tool to let students to improve their usage of /nglish. In order to exert such an influence on students the teacher should be properly trained on different classification of texts and their usage. To sum up, since we consider communication competence as the main goal achieved through the ac$uisition of a second language the proper creation of texts of different types as well as accuracy when writing will be crucial points to be considered by 1*/ /nglish teachers.
