English Language and Translation Studies: Noun Phrases, Clauses, and Tourism Genres, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

Scarica English Language and Translation Studies: Noun Phrases, Clauses, and Tourism Genres e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! GRAMMAR Referencing: Pronoun replacement, repetition, variation and ellipsis are all cohesive devices which work by repeated reference to something within the text. The key is that we can recover the referent of the cohesive marker from within the text itself. Reference, particularly involving certain of the personal pronouns, can also involve moving outside the text to find the appropriate locus of information. For example, the use of ‘you’ in a text as a direct address to the reader tells that reader to use himself/herself as the referent point. The use of ‘I’ in a text tells the reader that the writer is being self-referential. In both these cases, the pronouns are functioning as signposts leading out of the text and making us focus on the human agents who are producing and receiving the text. Where a reference item moves outside a text, so that we can only make full sense of the text by referring to its context, this is called all exophoric reference; where we stay within the text, not needing any support from outside, this is called endophoric reference. Typically, speech tends to use more pronoun replacement and ellipsis than writing. This is because speech takes place within a context, we can check with the speaker what they mean. Writing, unless it is being deliberately obscure, has to be more explicit and clear. Ellipsis is a cohesive device involving the absence of an item which the reader or the listener has to supply. Another type of reference which act as a cohesive he is carried by demonstratives. As with personal pronouns, demonstrative reference can work backwards (anaphoric) or forwards (cataphoric). Structure: Within clauses, given information tends to come first, with new information held over for as long as possible. This arrangement aids understanding, as it means that readers move from things they know about, to things they don’t know about. With new information, we want as much information as possible – so noun phases in new slots tend to be expanded with modification. Five types of phrase are recognized in English: noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase and prepositional phrase. The first four of these take their name from the word that is the chief word or head of the phrase. The prepositional phrase is different in that there is no head world and is always composed of two elements, a preposition and a noun. Traditionally, a noun phrase is often described as a phrase that contains a noun as its head or any group of words that can substitute for a noun. It is composed potentially of 3 parts: the central part of the noun phrase, the head, is obligatory; the other 2 parts are optionally occurring. The head may be preceded by some pre-modification and it may be followed by some post-modification. The head may be a pronoun of some kind, very commonly a personal pronoun; other kinds of pronoun functioning as head of a noun phrase include: indefinite pronoun, possessive pronoun, demonstrative pronoun. When a pronoun functions as head of a noun phrase, it usually occurs without any kind of modification. The pre-modification consists of a number of word classes in a specific order: epithet – size – shape – age – colour – origin – substance\made – present participle\functions. Adjectives may be used attributively or predicatively and they may be classified according to inherent and non-inherent qualities (objective and subjective qualities of a noun). Adjectives may be modified by intensifiers, amplifiers or downtowners (reduce the force of another word or phrase). Adjective post- modification is found usually with the indefinite pronouns as head. The post-modification position in a noun phrase is most commonly filled by phrases or clauses. Phrase is a single word or a group of words that act together as a unit but that do not usually contain a finite verb; a clause is the main structure used to compose sentences; a sentence will be made up of at least one main clause and it may also contain one or more subordinate clauses. Clause may be finite, non-finite or verbless. 3 kinds or phrasal\clausal post-modification occur: relative clauses, non-finite clauses and prepositional phrases. A relative clause is a full clause, one of whose members consists of a relative pronoun as head, which refers back to the head noun of the noun phrase in which it occurs as a post-modifier. Non-finite clauses ae clauses usually without subject, introduced by a non-finite form of the verb. There are 3 kinds of non-finite clause, according to the form of the verb that introduces them: infinitive clause, present participle clause, past participle clause. They may function in the post-modification of a noun phrase. Manipulation of the language: Language can be manipulated, and writers and speakers can draw our attention to key features of their discourse by using slightly different language patterns. There are 2 important areas you need to consider: sentence organization and rhetorical devices. Thematic structure theme and rheme can be defined in a dual perspective: theme is what is being talking about, rheme is what is then said about theme. A linguist identifies 3 main types of thematic progression: constant theme progression (the same theme appears in a series of propositions), linear progression (the rheme of one sentence becomes the theme of the next), derived theme progression (the themes are derived from a hyper-theme or a hyper rheme). He has called thematic progression the ‘skeleton of the plot’. By using stylistic devices, a writer or speaker can control the order in which we receive information, alter the importance given to different parts of a sentence, change the pace and voice. Sentence organization: Cleft sentences: In cleft sentences, information which could be given in one clause is divided into two parts, each with its own verb. They are used to help us focus on a particular part of the sentence and to emphasize what we want to say by introducing it or building up to it with a kind of relative clause. Cleft sentences are particularly useful in writing. Inversion and fronting: When part of a sentence is moved from its normal position to the beginning of the sentence, we call this fronting, and it is used by writers for dramatic effect. Fronting is common with adverbial (place and movement), there is\are, participles. The subject and verb change position when the main verb is ‘be’ or a verb of place; the subject and verb do not normally change position when the verb is transitive, the subject is a pronoun, a transitive verb is followed by an adverb of manner, with verbs other than those of place and movement or with continuous tenses. End focus: Sometimes it is stylistically more fluent to place the longest clause element at the end of a sentence; existential ‘there’ creates an end focus. Passive: the thing receiving the action is the subject of the sentence and the thing doing the action is optionally included near the end of the sentence. You can use the passive form if you think that the thing receiving the action is more important or should be emphasized. You can also use the passive form if you do not know who is doing the action or if you do not want to mention who is doing the action. There are verbs that are not used in the passive: intransitive verbs, certain verbs followed by to+infinite verb, certain verbs describing states, have+noun to describe an action. The passive with get instead of be is used in informal English and describe accidental, negative, unusual or unexpected actions. THE LANGUAGE OF ADVERTISING (Aims: to draw attention to particular products or services and to persuade people to ‘buy’ products or services, involving the 5 senses.) AIDA model: (A: capture a customer’s attention, I: stimulate their interest in a product, D: create a desire for the product, A: encourage action, which occurs when they purchase the product) is an approach used by advertisers to describe the different phases of consumer engagement with an advertisement. The mission of an advertisement is to attract reader, so that he will look at the advertisement and start to read it; then to interest him, so that he will continue to read it; then to convince him, so that he has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these 3 qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement. Selling techniques : a product-based approach (travel agency catalogues), an audience-based approach (travel magazines, blogs), an impact-based approach (videos of destination). Language of advertising: language of everyday conversation, informal and chatty tone, use of verbal contractions and slogan. Modifiers are used to emphasize the positive attributes of a product. Omission of verb make the phrase more concise. Adverbials are placed at the beginning of sentences to emphasize key information. Verb tenses: present tense emphasizes features of a product, past tense and perfect aspect allow advertisers to draw comparisons and future time makes assumptions about what is possible if the consumer uses the advertised product. Metaphorical language: is the most widely-exploited strategy used to derive new and specialized meaning from general language. Metaphors say concisely what in other words would need long elaborated descriptions or difficult paraphrases. Advertisers create different layers of meaning: metaphors link emotive associations to a product to influence potential consumers; symbolism encourages audience to make certain connections that will colour their view; personification or animation inanimate objects can create a mysterious and emotional atmosphere; puns can be clever and produce irony and ambiguity as well; repetition highlights key points, rhythmic beat make copy more memorable. World Tourism Organization has labelled Tourism as “a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmental sustainability”; Tourism is seen as a socio-economic phenomenon whose expansion and deep diversification have contributed towards developing it into one of the fastest increasing economic sectors of the world. Tourism is a well-established social practice which involves various fields such as the financial, marketing, anthropological, geographical, artistic and historical sectors and is expressed through language. Multi- dimensionality in tourism discourse can be seen in the different forms it takes: genres characterizing specialized communication can be written documents, professional meetings, video-phone conversations, generic forms typical of non-specialized communication can be tourist guides, brochures, emails, advertising texts, e-tickets, letters, articles in the Press. Linguistically, tourism can be seen as macro-specialized discourse which groups together (micro)specialized languages of the different disciplinary domains and sub-domains it deals with and which makes tourism language so difficult to interpret. The language of tourism as LSP is a form of ‘specialized discourse’ because it shares with general discourse most phonetic, lexical, morpho-syntactic and textual resources by means of which the communicative functions typical of specialized texts are realized. Lexic features: Monoreferentiality: in a given context only one meaning is allowed to reduce ambiguity to the minimum. Lack of emotion: text is mainly informative, but when the pragmatic purpose is mainly persuasive: the emphasis on emotion surfaces also in specialized texts. Precision requires transparency because the surface form immediately identifies a concept. Conciseness: is a verbal strategy by means of which concepts are expressed in the shortest possible form which reduces textual surface and increases lexical density. It is based on the principle of minimax, i.e. the minimal efforts of the addressee to reach maximal specificity. Syntactic features: Relative and subordinate clauses are avoided to make the sentence structure lighter. The relative clause is substituted by lexemes with an adjectival role and usually