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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

COHESION AND INTERACTIVITY IN SCIENTIFIC
AND NON—$CIENTIFIC DISCOURSE

presented by

Mahmoud Qudah

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph. D. degree in English

.‘ll, 111,1” {.3 [gimp/Z4 L4“ 14,
{j Major professor

[Mm December 29, 1986

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COHESION AND INTERACTIVITY IN SCIENTIFIC
AND NON—SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE

BY

Mahmoud Qudah

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1986

ABSTRACT

COHESION AND INTERACTIVITY IN SCIENTIFIC
AND NON-SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE

BY

Mahmoud Qudah

This study focuses on the difference between
scientific and non-scientific written discourse. The
distinction between the two modalities of discourse is
studied quantitively and qualitatively by examining two
major features, cohesion and interactivity, in
discourse. Cohesion is investigated with reference to
anaphora while interactivity is examined against
features related to the reader: features related to the
writer: features of coordination and subordination: and
counter-interactive features.

Six different texts representative of the two
modalities of discourse are analyzed. Civil
Engineering, Physiology, and Zoology texts are used for
the scientific group, and History, Philosophy, and
Politics texts are used for the non-scientific group.
The excerpts, selected from textbooks used at Michigan

State University in the related fields, are analyzed

Mahmoud Qudah

against the same criteria, and examples are used to
support the discussion.

The results of the analysis of this study indicate
that non-scientific written texts are more cohesive,
interactive, and consequently more readable and

intelligible than scientific written texts.

DEDICATION

To my parents, brothers and sisters

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to express my gratitude to my advisor,
Professor Ainsworth-Vaughn, for her invaluable sug—
gestions and her patience while reading the manuscripts
of my dissertation. Without her advice and guidance,
this study would never have appeared.

I also want to extend my thanks to Professor
Geissler, Professor Williams, and Professor Wilson for

their comments that helped tremendously in improving

this dissertation.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

'LIST OF TABLES . .... . . . . .

ILIST OF FIGURES . . . . . . . .
Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . .

II. AN OVERVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC ENGLISH . . . .
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 Difficulties in scientific discourse
III. ORAL AND WRITTEN DISCOURSE . . . . . . .
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2 Previous Research . . . . . . . . .
summary 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0
IV. COHESION AND INTERACTIVITY . . . . . . . .
D 4.1 Cohesion of Texts . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Interactivity . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3 Features of Interactivity . . . . .
4.4 Features of Doleiel's Model
4.4.1 Person 0 O O O C O O O O O 0
4.4.2 Tense . . . . . . . . . . . .
V. ANALYSIS OF COHESION AND INTERACTIVITY .
5.1 Cohesion . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.1.1 Non—Scientific Texts
5.1.1.1 History Text . . . .
5.1.1.2 Philosophy Text . .
5.1.1.3 Politics Text . . .
5.1.2 Scientific Texts . . . . . .

5.1.2.1
Text . . .

iv

Civil Engineering

Page

vii

11

11
18

28

28
29
40

42

44
49
50
54
54
55

58

58
59
59
62
63
63

63

5.1.2.2 Physiology Text
5.1.2.3 Zoology Text . .
5.1.3 Summary of Anaphora . . .
5.2 Interactivity . . . . . . . . .
5.2.1 Presence of the Reader .
5.2.2 Presence of the Writer .
5.3 Coordination and Subordination .
5.3.1 Incidence of Coordinating
Conjunctions . . . . .
5.3.2 Incidence of Subordinate
Conjunctions . . . .
5.3.2.1 Nominals . . .
5.3.2.2 Adjectivals .
5.3.2.3 Adverbials . .
5.4 Counter— Interactivity Syntactic
Features . . . . . . . . . .
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

VI. DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . .

6.1 Discussion of Results . . . . .
6.1.1 Cohesion . . . . . . . .
6.1.2 Interactivity . . . . . .
6.1.3 Coordination and

Subordination . . . . .
6.1.3.1 Coordination . .
6.1.3.2 Subordination .
6.1.4 Counter-Interactive

Syntactic Features . .

6.1.5 Speculations about the
Philosophy Text . . . .
6.2 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . .

APPENDIX C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

REFERENCES 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

Page

64
65
66
67
68
71
78

83
84
85
89
93

93
97

99
102
103
104
108
108
109
112

113
119

122

148

Table

5.1

/5.2

5.5

5.9

LIST OF TABLES

Incidence of Anaphora in Sentences from
Scientific and Non-Scientific Texts . .

Incidence of the Presence of the Reader
and the Presence of the Writer in
Sentences from All Texts . . . . . . .

Incidence of Tense in Sentences from
Scientific and Non-Scientific Texts . .

Incidence of Sentence Structure Type in
Sentences from Scientific and
Non-SCientifiC TEXLS o o o o o o o o 0

Incidence of Coordinating Conjunctions in
Sentences from Scientific and
Non-SCientifiC TEXtS o o o o o o o o 0

Incidence of Nominal Subordination in
Sentences from Scientific and
NOH'SCientifiC TGXLS o o a o o o o o 0

Incidence of Adjectival Subordination in
Sentences from Scientific and
Non-SCientifiC Teth 0 o o o o o o o 0

Incidence of Adverbial Subordination in
Sentences from Scientific and
Non-SCientifiC TGXtS o o o o o o o o o

Counter-Interactive Syntactic Features
of Finite Verbs in Sentences from
Scientific and Non-Scientific Texts . .

Summary of Anaphora for Sentences from
Scientific and Non-Scientific Texts . .

vi

Page

66

69

74

81

84

87

91

94

96

103

Summary of Totals of the Presence of the
Reader and the Presence of the Writer .

Summary of Totals of Tense Distribution .

Summary of Totals of Coordinating
conjunctions O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Summary of Totals of Nominal Subordinates
Summary of Totals of Adjectivals . . . .
Summary of Totals of Adverbials . . . . .

Summary of Totals of Counter-Interactive
Syntactic Features . . . . . . . . . .

Inconsistent Occurrence of Features in
the Philosophy Text . . . . . . . . . .

vii

Page

104

107

109

111

112

113

114

115

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1”. Some Linguistic Features of Interactivity . . 55

viii

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Brown and Yule (1983) suggest that discourse
analysis covers a wide range of activities and purposes
of language analysis. They state that it is used to
describe activities at the intersection of various
disciplines such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
philosophical linguistics, and computational linguis-
tics. The aim behind the process of discourse analysis,
whether spoken or written, is primarily the analysis of
language in use. In other words, discourse analysis
should involve the investigation of the question of what
the language is used for.

Nowadays, it is known that English is needed by
different kinds of students because it is established as
the principal international language of the physical and
technological sciences. UNESCO once reported that
almost two-thirds of the engineering literature is
written in English, but more than two-thirds of the
world's engineers do not speak it. This implies that if

professional engineers want to succeed in their work and

l

to participate in the international conventions where
the greater part of the contracts take place, they have
to be familiar with engineering texts written in
English.

Such reasons have helped recently to promote the
analysis of discourse as a subfield of English known as
"English for Science and Technology“ (EST). It has been
felt that the language used in texts of physical
sciences in general and engineering in particular is
quite different from ordinary conversational English.

As a result, language specialists have been involved in
designing course materials especially for foreign
learners in the fields of science and technology by
taking into consideration their needs, education, and
the curriculum setting into which teaching English would
fit.

Trimble (1985) viewed EST as that area of written
English that extends from the "peer” writing of scien-
tists and technically oriented professionals to writing
aimed at skilled technicians. He further elaborated
that peer writing is usually found in books or journals
written by specialized people in one field for others
involved in the same field. Technicians differ from
engineers in the same field because they lack sufficient
theoretical training. "Instructional texts“ and "basic

instruction“ consist, for the most part, of teaching

texts, although they may contain supplementary reading
on various levels of complexity, including journals for
specialized scientists and 'do—it-yourself‘ publications
for laymen.

As we have seen, EST has been considered a major
division of specialized English, and it seems to be both
an occupational and educational use of English: occupa-
tional when we consider the needs of oil-field workers,
engineers, and others: educational when we consider
school and university students around the world studying
physics, zoology, medicine, engineering, and other sub-
jects through the use of English.

EST appears to be the most prestigious development
in teaching specialized English. It focuses on teaching
the English language for specific purposes, i.e., a
learner's purpose could be to learn English in order to
work in an oil-field in Texas or to study science at
Harvard.

This introductory perspective on EST suggests some
sort of clear-cut distinction between EST and general
English. However, we should realize that although
"General English” is set off separately from the other
kinds of English, it is the mainstay of all fields,
whatever the goal for which the language is used.

The distinction between EST and General English has

led us to hypothesize that there are quantitative and

qualitative differences between scientific and non-
scientific written discourse. This discrepancy between
the two modalities of discourse will be examined for
features of cohesion and interactivity in certain
selected texts that represent the two types of
discourse. In our analysis, we will consider cohesion
via anaphora (Halliday and Hasan, 1976): look at inter-
activity in terms of person and tense (Doleiel, 1973,
and Smith, 1982): and coordination and subordination
(Beaman, 1984).

Linguists such as Stubbs (1983) and Brown and Yule
(1983) recognize that a major way of using discourse
analysis is to refer to linguistic analysis of naturally
occurring connected written or oral discourse. This
means that discourse analysis refers to attempts to
study the organization of language above the sentence or
clause levels, and therefore to study larger linguistic
units, such as conversational exchanges or written
discourse. It follows that discourse analysis is also
concerned with language used in social contexts,
particularly with interaction between speakers.

Discourse should be realized as a sequence of
individual sentences that are strung together. In a
wider sense, it is concerned with relations among

linguistic entities which are larger than those which

fall within the limits of a sentence. This categoriza-
tion sets off discourse analysis from traditional
(sentence) grammar, due to its longest extension to
larger texts such as paragraphs and topics.

We can say, then, that the subject of discourse
analysis is discourse. What sets discourse analysis
apart from other disciplines' treatment of discourse is
the topical question it addresses. The fundamental
problem, as Labov (1970) defines it, is to show how one
utterance follows another in a rational, rule-governed
manner--in other words, how we understand coherent
discourse. All in all, we should go beyond sentence-
level syntax if we want to understand how meaning is
attached to utterances. This implies that we should
look at language in context rather than at citation
forms of sentences.

As we mentioned, a useful way of looking at dis-
course is by investigating its cohesion and interactiv-
ity to help understand its characteristics. Cohesion
refers to the range of possibilities which are available
in the text for linking something with something that
has been mentioned before. As this linking is realized
through relations in meaning, what is in question, then,
is the set of meaning relations which function in this

way: the semantic resources that are drawn upon to

create a text. Since the sentence is the essential
entity in a text--whatever is put together within
sentence is part of that text--cohesion, then, could be
interpreted, in practice, as the set of semantic
resources for linking a sentence with something that has
preceded it.

A closely related element to understanding
discourse is interactivity. Since communication is a
main function of language, it requires negotiation of
meaning by the means of interactivity.

Interactivity in written discourse is different
from that in oral discourse. In oral discourse, the
participants alternate in open negotiation of meaning,
each making a contribution to the interactiveness. In
contrast, in written discourse the writer is solitary
because the addressee is not present. The author of the
written discourse has to anticipate how the discourse
will be interpreted and anticipate any misunderstanding
or miscommunication that may arise from the lack of
common knowledge.

We see, then, that in many ways written discourse
does not record interactivity itself but rather its
results. When we read the text, we have to create
interactivity from the text (record) provided: in other

words, we have to convert the given text into discourse.

This discourse corresponds to the author's discourse,
depending upon a number of factors. For example, the
written text is by its nature an accurate record of the
author's first-person activity in the discourse s/he
enacts, although this does not therefore determine the
reader's second-person activity in discourse s/he
derives from such a text.

To understand such issues involved in discourse, we
have devised our study to investigate cohesion and
interactivity in six different texts. Each of these
texts consists of almost 2,000 words. The texts were
chosen from textbooks used by senior college students at
Michigan State University. The texts represent two
major areas--humanities (non-scientific), and science
and technology. The texts are taken from the following
fields:

1. History (H)

2. Politics (P)

3. Philosophy (PH)

4. Civil Engineering (CE)

5. Physiology (PBS)

6. Zoology (2)

As can be seen, the texts were selected from a variety
of fields in an attempt to give a fairly wide representa-
tion for the study of the two types of written

discourse.

All of the texts appear in the Appendix. We will
refer to them by mentioning the text abbreviation, the
paragraph number, and the line number. For instance, if
the code (H 2:15) were given after an example, the ”H"
would refer to the history text, the '2' to the
paragraph number in the history text, and the "15' to
the line number in that text.

All of our texts were analyzed systematically for
the same elements. They were examined for cohesion and
interactivity features that characterize discourse. All
the investigated features are summarized in tables and,
because our method has been a mixture of explanatory and
analytical methods, are followed by a discussion of
their significance.

The research involves six chapters. Chapter I is
an introduction that describes the nature of the study
and the organization of its structure. In Chapter II,
scientific English and contributions of linguists in
that field are reviewed. This review discusses the
study of scientific discourse over the last thirty years
or so. It begins with a discussion of Savory's
contribution in the early 19503 and concludes with EST
issues identified in the 19808. The significance of
this chapter is that it sheds some light on what is

called “scientific English“ and shows that the approach

to discourse has recently moved to include rhetorical
functions rather than grammatical elements within the
sentence limits.

Chapter III highlights the differences between oral
and written discourse, since we are assuming that
features identified as characteristic of oral discourse
are interactive when they appear in written discourse.
It starts by pointing out that language used to be
identified with speech and writing used to be treated as
a means of recording that speech (language). The
discussion then continues by identifying the difference
between the two modes of discourse by referring to two
major methods of study: theoretical and empirical.

Chapter IV presents the meaning of cohesion and
interactivity. It discusses the cohesive ties and the
interactivity features that shape discourse. The
discussion begins with explanations of the meaning of
both cohesion and interactivity and concludes by
defining the features to be examined in the texts.

Chapter V continues the examination of cohesion and
interactivity by analyzing the selected texts in quanti—
tative and analytical terms. This chapter is divided
into three main sections: analysis of cohesive elements:
analysis of features related to interactivity: and
analysis of coordination and subordination that relate

to both cohesion and interactivity.

10

Chapter VI summarizes the results of the study,
accompanied by explanatory notes on cohesion and
interactivity. These notes present the reader with
implications of how to direct our writing toward
discourse. This chapter concludes with brief specula-
tions that may help in future research in the field of
discourse analysis, and the way EST students of a

language should view discourse.

CHAPTER II

AN OVERVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC ENGLISH

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter we will review various approaches
that have been used in the analysis of scientific
writing. The approaches will be discussed from an
historical perspective to show the line of development
in scientific language and to show how linguists from
various periods in this century have handled scientific
language. The discussion will show that linguists
started looking at limited characteristics of scientific
writing by investigating certain features such as vocabu—
lary and clause-types. Major difficulties that appear
to be problematic in scientific discourse will also be
discussed.

EST has appeared as a recent trend over the past
decade in the linguistic analysis of academic writing.
Smith (1982:84) suggests that much of this analysis has
been done “in the course of preparing pedagogical
materials for the teaching of English for science and

technology (EST) to non-native learners.“ Porter (1980)

ll

12

mentions that there have been some linguists involved in
the study of the language of EST since the late 19305.
For instance, he mentions that Bloomfield wrote a
section in the International Encyclopedia of Unified
Science called ILinguistic Aspects of Science“ (1938:
261) which gives explicit examples of scientific
English. For example, Bloomfield argues that scientific
English processes usually produce the following in the
language of science:

1 - expressions of exclusion, such as "not,” the
sentence structure 'if'---, 'then'---

2 - words of existence or prediction such as "there
exists“ and “is.”

3 - equational sentences--means:--equals . . .

Porter (1980) argues that for Bloomfield these
informal classifications are the nearest that he comes
to making actual syntactic description. Porter further
elaborates that Bloomfield makes a claim about sentence
connection in scientific discourse, but that claim is
left as an assertion that lacks clear support and
illustration.

Others have made some contribution to the language
of science, but they mainly focused on vocabulary as
recurring items and not as cohesive elements. For
(example, Savory (1953) has written The Language of

Science. His motives were that he found it ". . .

13

strange that no one seems to have undertaken a broad
study of the language of science” (1953:67). His book
is mainly concerned with vocabulary and is full of
subjective vagueness. For instance, he suggests that
'invention of new words should aim at three qualities:
brevity, euphony, and purity." He also mentions that it
”almost seems as if scientists preferred ugly words"
(1953:67).

One of the most serious attempts to define the
characteristics of scientific English is a pioneering
article by Barber (1962), in which Barber provides
teachers of English as a foreign or second language with
quantitative information on the language used in
science. Barber's analysis is concerned with features
of his selected texts such as syntax, sentence length,
and vocabulary, all of which will now be briefly
discussed.

Barber presents detailed analysis of sentence
structures as characteristic of scientific writing,
using a particular text. He mentions that out of 350
sentences in the text, 345 are statements, two are
commands, and three are statements with commands in
parenthesis. There are no questions or requests.
Barber found that the average sentence length is 27.6

words.

14

Barber found that verb forms occurred 2,903
times--61% were finite and 39% were non-finite-—in the
corpus. He also found that 84% of the finite group verb
forms fall into the traditional tenses, while 16% use
modal auxiliaries. Out of the 84% of the traditional
tenses, 28% are passive verbs. Barber concludes that
this is a relatively frequent use of passive verbs in
scientific writing.

In reference to the frequency of vocabulary, Barber
excerpted from his texts all words which do not occur in
the General Service List of English words. He found
approximately 23,400 running words in the texts. The
number of words he excerpted is 1,089, so the total
vocabulary of the texts is 1,089 plus an unknown but
large number of the 2,000—odd words of the General
Service List. He concludes that what English teachers
can do is to teach vocabulary which is generally useful
to students of science--words that occur often in
scientific literature.

The first two features, clause-types and sentence
lengths, are considered in only one of his texts which
makes them valid only for that text, so that it becomes
difficult to draw even tentative conclusions about
sentence-length and syntax-type features found or common

in scientific discourse.

15

By the end of the 19605, scientific discourse was
being studied with reference to transformational
grammar. One of the most thorough studies mentioned in
Huddleston (1971) is Sentence and Clause in Scientific
English by Huddleston, Hudson, Winter and Henrici.
These linguists compared twenty-seven texts for lexical
and syntactic differences. Their texts were selected
from three scientific fields, biology, chemistry, and
physics, aimed at three levels: highly specialized,
introductory level specialization, and a level of
generalized understanding. In other words, nine texts
come from specialist journals, nine from undergraduate
textbooks, and nine from popular works addressed to
well-informed laymen. The three levels are shown in
sequence in the following examples presented in
Huddleston (1971):

1. All current-time transients were measured

ocillographically (1971:110).

2. There has been much criticism of this law and
there are exceptions to it, but it still holds
good as an approximation (1971:132).

3. It is a tribute to human nature how often
relatives and friends of a dying uraemic
patient will offer one of their own healthy
kidneys even if there is only an infinitesimal

chance of the transplant's success (1971:91).

16

On the whole, their study, a statistical appraisal
of carefully defined syntactic features in selected
texts which focuses on the clause and its constituents,
aimed at giving an account of certain areas of grammar
in written scientific discourse. Huddleston found that
features such as the passive voice and relative clauses
tend to be characteristic of scientific writing. For
instance, he found that of all clauses, the percentage
of passive clauses was 26.3% in the corpus: the percent-
age of the definite relative clauses was 41%, while the
percentage of the indefinite relative clauses was 59%.

Since the early 19703, a new orientation has begun
to emerge in the study of EST. This time, scientific
English has started to be considered and studied as dis-
course, as longer stretches rather than in one sentence.
Terms such as “language in use,‘' ”communication func-
tions,“ and "rhetorical acts' have become commonly used,
although the term or notion might not necessarily imply
the same thing to different writers.

The sentence-based text analysis discussed above
has been challenged by Widdowson (1974, 1979), who has
criticized such register-based approaches for ignoring
the main rhetorical functions that cut across content
differences. Widdowson has reservations about the
typical attitudes toward the teaching of specialized

English, viewing it as an activity that "involves simply

17

the selection and presentation of the lexical and
syntactic features which occur most commonly in passages
of English dealing with the specialist topics that . . .
students are concerned with'I (Widdowson 1974:28).
Widdowson attempts to substantiate his criticism by
offering the example of the response of a typical reader
of a technical text asked to describe what s/he reads.
He explains that the reader will respond that the given
text is a description, a set of instructions, or an
account of an experiment. Widdowson (1974:29) points

out that ”these terms do not refer to the linguistic

 

properties of the sample as discourse." A few years

 

later, this view was elaborated by Widdowson and Allen
(1978) by suggesting that the teaching of specialized
English, including EST, should move from the concern
with syntactic forms to at least equal concern with
rhetorical functions.

This is a crucial point: EST is perceived in terms
of discourse structure and rhetorical function. Of
course, that would not imply that research attention to
grammatical structure is irrelevant. In fact, the
presence, absence, or frequency of certain grammatical
structures (such as 'tense') could serve as a basis for
the reader's perception of rhetorical function. But
Widdowson serves an important purpose by emphasizing the

need to study English as discourse.

18

Lackstrom et a1. (1970, 1973) also suggest moving
from a syntactic approach to the teaching of tense to
one that considers the rhetorical functions of tense in
the larger text. Lackstrom et a1. (1970:106) suggest
the following:

. . . an undue emphasis on tense-time relation-

ships may obscure what are often more crucial

factors. It may well be, for example, that

paragraph organization will replace time as a

governing factor in the choice of tense in a

particular paragraph.

Besides showing that tense choice might be deter-
mined by the rhetorical functions of the sections of a
report in which it takes place, Lackstrom et a1. indi-
cate how it might be used evaluatively. They believe
that the tense used to provide supporting information in
a report is frequently chosen not on the basis of when
the supporting events occurred, but on the basis of how
common or widespread the author believes the supporting
evidence to be. They argue that "if he knows of a
larger number of cases, he will use the present tense.
If he knows of fewer cases, he will use the present

perfect. If he knows of only one case, the past tense

will be used“ (1970:109-110).

2.2 Difficulties in scientific discourse
Linguists such as Trimble (1985), Swales (1985),
Barnes and Barnes (1981) have focused on issues in

scientific English involving science and the language

l9

specialist, materials and EST courses, and intelligi-
bility and the linguistic analysis of scientific dis-
course. For the purposes of this study, we will focus
on intelligibility and the analysis of scientific
discourse. These issues will be discussed with a major
focus on intelligibility and readability.
Intelligibility and readability have been discussed
well by Barnes and Barnes (1981), who argue that lin-
guistic features of scientific discourse show a joint
problem of both intelligibility and conceptual
difficulty when they include technical vocabulary and a
correspondingly large number of scientific concepts. It
has been mentioned that language showing some of the
surface structure of scientific discourse does not
necessarily represent authentic scientific writing.
There is a weak possibility that this would bring a
problem to specialized people in the field as they will
take great care in investigating material that is
produced and used by practicing scientists. It appears
that when authentic material is used, different
linguistic features can be identified. For instance

Svartvik (1966) has written On Voice in the English

 

Verb, which discusses discourse on the sentence level.
He found that the frequency of the passive clauses per
thousand words in his corpus ranges from 32 in one

scientific text to 3 in the sample from television

20

advertising. This was followed by a study by Huddleston
(1971) in which texts were, again, analyzed at the sen-
tence level rather than as connected discourse. For
example, Huddleston discussed topics such as mood, rela-
tivization and voice, modal auxiliaries in some other
features related to the structure of the sentence, not
the text as a whole. For instance, he found the occur-
rence of passive constructions to be 26.3% in the texts.
Another study within the same area which focused on
linguistic features was by Cheong (1978). Cheong
considered different syntactic features such as the
passive voice in scientific texts. He differentiates,
for example, between pure passives and statives, and has
reported that "statives” are common in scientific texts.
He mentions that 48% of all passive constructions are
actually statives which report states of scientific
phenomena. He further elaborates that statives are more
common in his analyzed physical science texts (59.5% in
chemistry and 57% in physics) than in his mathematical
texts (46.5% in dynamics and 40% in statics). To differ-
entiate between ”pure passives" and ”statives,” he uses
the following test: if the progressive aspect ("-ing')
of the verb can be substituted for the construction, the
structure is passive: if not, or if a “be + found

construction" can take its place, then it is stative.

21

This is exemplified in the following examples from
Cheong (1978:43):

A particle is projected from a point A at

right angles to SA, and is added on by a force

varying inversely as the square of the dis-

tance towards S.

Vectors in general are not localized: thus we

may have a displacement of an assigned length

in an assigned direction and sense but its

locality is not specified.

He argues that the first sentence is passive while the
second is stative because “are localizing” cannot be
substituted for the verb. All of this discussion of
such aspects shows the focus on features that represent
the surface structure of scientific discourse.

To avoid the analysis of such sentence-based
discouse, we should go further and try to analyze the
communicative functions of scientific writing in terms
of such definitions as defining, evaluating, hypothesiz-
ing, and so on. Within this context, Barnes and Barnes,
argue that linguistic markers provide some indication of
the communicative process in a scientific text in the
above terms. For instance, ”suggest that“ indicates a
tentative hypothesis from given data. These markers in
themselves will not supply communicative comprehension
unless the given data (material) is elementary and there-
fore fully comprehensible by its non-specialist reader.

This comprehension might be explained by the assumption

that technical/scientific terms in conjunction with

22

other words in an utterance or a sentence will often
contain communicative overtones in addition to their
defining purposes in the scientific conceptual sense.
It has further been suggested that in some cases
the communicative features provided by these semantic
relationships won‘t have any overt linguistic markers.
To clarify this point, consider the following example
presented and explained in Barnes and Barnes (1981:23):

However, this feature has no evolutionary
significance.

In reference to what has been discussed above, this
clause could be interpreted communicatively in various
ways such as explanation, differentiation, and
conclusion.

1. explanation:

background: aspects of evolution are being
considered. A feature which has been
considered is expected to have evolutionary
significance

communicative category: we think that
surprisingly it has not. This anomaly will
prepare you to anticipate a scientific
explanation to follow.

2. differentiation:

background: here the main concern is to
discriminate between animals which have
features of evolutionary significance from

those which lack it.

communicative category: I am clear now in
differentiating it as one that is not of
evolutionary significance.

3. concluding:

23

background: this feature is not evolutionary.
communicative category: contrary to previous
remarks, I conclude that this feature has no
evolutionary significance.

It could be argued that such communicative relation-
ships cannot be distinguished without understanding of a
certain given text. The more technical words and expres- V
sions used in the texts the more unintelligible they
become and the greater the range of the above possibili-
ties. Also, any feature of a sentence which contains a
number of scientific statements may subsequently be
selected for further evaluation, explanation, generali-
zation, and so on, relying on the stated academic
purposes.

It might be relevant to cite another instance
presented by Barnes and Barnes to explain the issue of
communicative comprehension of scientific discourse.
Suppose we have in a previous sentence in a text the
phrase ”low oxygen levels,” among other things. This
may be followed by a statement such as ”anaerobic
conditions control zonal relationships.” Barnes and
Barnes (1981) argue that at the surface level, it is
easy to recognize that the term ”anaerobic conditions”
refers anaphorically to 'low oxygen levels" rather than
to any other thing. However, this statement could have
some other communicative possibilities relying on the

context. For example, it could be an explanation of

24

matters raised previously in the given discourse, or a
generalization about the previous information.

The significance of such a discussion lies in the
fact that scientific situations are usually complicated
by the degree of scientific conceptual understanding
which the author assumes when introducing her/his data
to her/his audience (readers). S/he may suppose an
understanding of certain concepts introduced earlier in
the given text. As an alternative, s/he might choose to
digress into explaining necessary terms and concepts in
the current analysis or discussion. The degree of
shared scientific knowledge and how the author or writer
arranges her/his information will affect the communica-
tive events which take place in a certain situation.

The understanding of a given text is important both
in recognizing its communicative events and in arriving
at linguistic judgments about its discourse structure.
Here, our main concern is with the way discourse is
presented rather than with its content. We mentioned
earlier that scientific discourse has been analyzed
linguistically for its available syntactic structures.
We have found analysis of this kind in Cheong (1978),
Huddleston (1971), and Svartvik (1966). This may
provide the researcher with some stylistic knowledge.
However, the student or researcher does not easily know

whether what s/he investigated is regarded as a good

25

scientific style by a practicing scientist. By the use
of a larger sample, we simply get a range of a given
linguistic feature, or a range of usage aspects in
relation to one another. Such analyses won't supply us
with clues of what good scientific discourse should show
in a certain situation. Comprehension of the complexity
of the communicative events occurring is also needed.
This needs to be linked with a knowledge of how
communicative events could be best figured out within
the limits imposed by scientific method on presentation
in a certain situation.

In our discussion, we have shown the development in
the way that scientific language (English) has been
handled by some linguists in the second half of this
century.

It has been mentioned that the main concern of
early contributions to the analysis of scientific
discourse was a focus on frequency of vocabulary rather
than on the text itself. Savory (1953) has written
ngguage of Science in which he focused on vocabulary
and dealt with issues such as ”compound words,” "importa-
tion of words,“ and "prefixes.”

The ”grammatical structure with vocabulary"
approach was dominant in the early 1960s. This approach
was exemplified by a pioneering article by Barber

(1962). Barber's study has been praised by Swales

26

(1985) because it gives useful information and ammuni-
tion for EST teachers who are struggling to establish
the selective nature of EST.

In the late 19603, scientific discourse began to be
a subject of analysis with reference to transformational
grammar. The linguists' studies were based on frequency
of syntactic forms in texts. The pioneers of this
approach are Svartvik, Huddleston, and Cheong.

It has also been discussed that a new orientation
began to emerge in the 19703. This time, texts have
started to be considered in longer stretches than the
sentence, and notions such as "communicative functions”
and “rhetorical acts” have appeared in the field.
Widdowson referred to it as 'textualization,' by which
he means an approach that indicates how functions are
realized in texts. A main feature of this approach is
that it is qualitative and tells us how forms count for
communication and how they express elements of
discourse. This approach has been a main concern of
some others such as Lackstrom et al. (1973) and Barnes
and Barnes (1981). For instance, Lackstrom et a1.
emphasized that "syntactic and semantic choices" were
determined by "rhetorical considerations" such as making
a generalization or describing features.

In the late 19703, this orientation moved into a

broader approach. This time, scientific texts have come

27

to be analyzed at the discourse level (this will be
discussed in the next chapter). Pioneers of this
approach are Halliday and Hasan (1976), Smith (1982,
1983), Brown and Yule (1983), Beaman (1984), Tannen
(1983, 1984), Stubbs (1983) and others.

fild like to conclude this chapter by saying that
developments in linguistics are moving towards a broader
approach of discourse analysis that focuses on rhetori-

cal functions rather than merely on some grammatical

elements.

CHAPTER III

ORAL AND WRITTEN DISCOURSE

3.1 Introduction

 

The present study is, in the large sense,
concerned with intelligibility: we are attempting to
measure the intelligibility or readability of scientific
versus non-scientific discourse. A key idea in this
attempt comes from the work of Tannen (1982), who,
building on ideas from Chafe (1980), demonstrates that
features of oral discourse create a sense of involve—
ment, whereas features of written discourse create a
sense of detachment. Tannen goes on to show that
written discourse can contain both types of discourse
features in written fiction. Thus the reader of fiction
feels a sense of involvement greater than that usually
felt in experiencing written discourse.

Combining these ideas with those of Smith (1982)
yields a new method of viewing the discourse we are
examining here. Smith uses the term 'interactiveness”
to describe a characteristic of discourse which, he

hypothesizes, can be measured in terms of certain

28

29

syntactic properties, namely, tense and person within
the lines of features related to the presence of the
reader and the writer. To this possibility we are
adding the possibility that Tannen's ”involvement" is
fundamentally similar to Smith's ”interactiveness.“ If
so, perhaps we can examine our scientific and non-
scientific texts for selected linguistic features
typically found in oral discourse, features of syntactic
structure described by Beaman (1984). The presence or
absence of these features may be a measure of inter-
activity between reader and author, and thus of greater
intelligibility. In any case, a search of written
discourse for prOperties usually associated with oral
discourse will contribute to the theory and practice of

text analysis.

3.2 Previous Research

 

It seems that differences between oral and written
discourse have been ignored to a certain extent:
linguists have tended to draw their instances from one
mode or the other without sufficient consideration of
how those instances would differ in the other mode.

This lack of differentiation appears to be responsible
for some of the confusion expressed by current linguists
over the usage of the term discourse. It has also

caused some difficulty by allowing one to assume that

30

methods and techniques developed for the analysis of one
mode, such as the techniques of conversational analysis
of the oral mode, may easily be transferred to the
analysis of the other mode.

In linguistics, oral discourse has traditionally
been identified with language, and writing has been
treated as a means of recording such oral discourse.
Smith (1982:27-28) mentions that this idea was expressed
in the arguments of three main figures of traditional
linguistics: Saussure, Bloomfield, and Sapir. He cites
Saussure (1916:23-24):

Language and writing are two distinct systems

of signs: the second exists for the sole pur-

pose of representing the first. The linguistic

object is not both the written and spoken forms

of words: the spoken forms alone constitute the

object.

In Bloomfield (1933:21):

Writing is not language, but merely a way of
recording language by means of a visible mark.

And in Sapir (1921:19-20):
The most important of all visual speech
symbolisms is that of the written or printed
word . . . written language is a point-to-
point equivalence, to borrow a mathematical
phrase, to its spoken counterpart. The

written forms are secondary symbols of the
spoken ones . . .

It appears that the emphasis on oral discourse
dominated American structural linguistics until the rise
of the school of transformationalists, who, as Tannen

(l980:3) argues, ”effectively rejected spoken language

31

as their focus of study, dismissing it as mere
performance," and as Smith (1982:28) suggests they
“concentrated instead on written language (and perhaps
it is no accident that, accompanying this shift, the
focus of linguistic study shifted from phonology to
syntax). However, this shift merely consigned a
different mode to inferiority.“ With the recent
concentration on discourse rather than on sentences, a
balanced consideration of oral and written modes and the
difference between them is becoming crucial.

Vachek (1973) looks at the difference between
written and oral language from a functionalist point of
view. Vachek uses the term ”spoken or written norm of
the language" instead of ”spoken or written language.”
He perceives “the written norm" as the obviously
informative character of language, to which all concrete
written utterances in a certain community have to
conform, just as spoken utterances have to conform to
the rules set up by the norm of the spoken language.
The concept of spoken norm is given in his 1973
definition:

The spoken norm of language is a system of

phonically manifestable language elements

whose function is to react to a given stimulus

(which, as a rule, is an urgent one) in a

dynamic way, i.e. in a ready and immediate

manner, duly expressing not only the purely

communicative but also the emotional aspect of

the approach of the reacting language user

32

On the other hand, he views the written norm of
language as

a system of graphically manifestable language

elements whose function is to react to a given

stimulus (which, as a rule, is not an urgent

one) in a static way, i.e. in a preservable

and easily surveyable manner, concentrating

particularly on the purely communicative

aspect of the approach of the reacting lan-

guage user (1973:16).

These definitions of spoken and written language
imply that the two norms are complementary: and the
language user should have a good command of both norms
of the language to enable her/him to exploit the sys-
temic possibilities of the language to a maximum limit.
The definitions, however, ignore any contribution social
interpretation may make to the meanings language users
draw from discourse.

Halliday (1978) states his opinion concerning the
complexity of written and oral discourse by suggesting
that oral discourse is on the whole more complex than
the written one in its structure and that the spontan-
eous spoken language is the most syntactically complex
of all. He justifies this by saying that writing is
static and speech is dynamic.

Chafe (1979), in contrast to Halliday, suggests
that complex structures occur more frequently in written

than in oral discourse. He further explains that this

dependence on complex structure (such as subordinate

33

structures) in writing is due to the relationship
between the author and his/her audience. He also thinks
that writing has a “detached" quality as opposed to an
“involved” quality of speech because writers and readers
are generally removed from each other in time and

space. Besides, the slowness of writing and the speed
of reading give the writer the time to ”integrate“
her/his ideas into a more complex text.

Chafe argues that in the activity of writing we
have time to integrate our thoughts into a single
linguistic whole in a way that is not available in
speaking. In speaking, we usually produce one idea unit
at a time.

Lakoff (1979) suggests that there is 'a continuum
of discourse, arranged as to the purpose of the dis-
course and the environment in which it occurs" (1979:
23). Lakoff has suggested six criteria to be used in
distinguishing different types of discourse along the
continuum: “visibility,“ "reciprocity,“ "informality,’I
"spontaneity,'I “empathy,“ and 'inconsequentiality.“ She
further suggests that “informality,“ "spontaneity,“ and
'inconsequentiality' of speech in comparison to writing
are some of the main factors influencing the differences
between speech and writing.

In discussing the notions of written and oral dis-

course, Tannen (1980, 1982) has pioneered some important

34

concepts such as the oral/literate continuum, oral/
literate strategies, and strategies reflecting focus on
involvement. Tannen proposes a View of speaking and
writing which suggests that both forms can show a
variety of features, depending on the aspects of the
communicative context. In the light of her studies,
Tannen (1980, 1982) indicates that written fiction
combines Chafe's involvement factor of speech and the
integration factor of writing. This has been explained
by reference to oral and literate strategies, such as
the tendency in oral discourse to provide quotations and
concrete images, and to produce longer (less I'inte-
grated“) stretches of discourse than is the case with
writers who are attempting to accomplish the same ends.

In her study of spoken and written narrative in
English and Greek, Tannen has found that writing
conventionally demands that writers posit a narrative
stance which constrains linguistic choices, whereas
speakers find it ready-made in the immediate context.
Tannen's work contains the key idea, for the present
study, that written language can contain features
usually associated with oral language, and that these
features are measurable.

Tannen's list of oral strategies can be used in an
analysis of written fiction, since fiction contains

quotations and many concrete images. However, neither

35

scientific nor non—scientific academic discourse turns
out to contain quotations in any significant amount:
therefore, we must look for other research on oral ver-
sus written discourse in an attempt to find comparable
linguistic features. Beaman's (1984) study provides
important data in this regard.

Findings of Beaman's (1984) study of subordination
and coordination agree with Halliday's assumption
presented earlier concerning complexity of spoken and
written narratives. She argues that ”based on the
assumption that subordination implies complexity, the
results show that, contrary to many previous assump-
tions, spoken narrative is on the whole just as complex
as, if not more complex in some respects, than written
narrative” (Beaman 1984:78).

Beaman finds, however, that different types of
subordinate clauses predominate in the different modes,
and they are used for different discourse purposes. For
instance, she has found 'that-complementizers,"
'wh—interrogatives,‘ and "nominal relative subordinates"
are more frequently used in the spoken than in the
written narratives. On the other hand, she has found
that 'to-infinitives' and "-ing nominal subordinates"
occur more in the written narratives than in the oral

ones (see 5.3).

36

Ricoeur (1976), Goody (1977), and Ong (1975) view
written and spoken language as being quite different.
Their views are prominent in the literature and will be
reviewed here. However, the present study, based on the
empirical work of Tannen, Beaman, and others, views the
two kinds of discourse as having considerable overlap.

Ricoeur (1976) suggests that writing dissociates
the author and authorial intentions from the text's
meaning. By comparison, in spoken language, the situ-
ation designates the speaker and various non-verbal
factors may signal the speaker's intention which becomes
part of the meaning of the message itself. In written
discourse, the separation of addressor's meaning from
textual meaning is a result of the separation of “dis-
course as event' (situation) from "discourse as meaning"
(prOpositional content). Ricoeur recognizes two polar
fallacies that can result when this dialectic is not
maintained in the analysis of written language: first,
the intentional fallacy--which equates textual meaning
with the intention of its author: and second, the
fallacy of the absolute text--which hypothesizes the
text as an authorless entity. For Ricoeur, both posi-
tions are mistaken: if an intentional fallacy overlooks
the semantic autonomy of the text, the opposite fallacy
(of the absolute text) forgets that a text remains a

discourse told by somebody, said by someone to someone

37

about something. It might be said that much of the
research on scientific and non-scientific English
commits the fallacy of the absolute text.

Psycholinguists such as Rosenblatt (1969) and
Smith (1971) might quarrel with Ricoeur's comments about
meaning: psycholinguists would prefer to focus on the
meaning constructed by the reader in the act of reading.
This focus is the one most helpful in the present
overall task of studying scientific discourse as opposed
to discourse in the humanities: with this focus we can
look for the linguistic and semantic guides used by
readers, guides which may differ or overlap between the
two types of texts we are studying. Here we are
reporting Ricoeur's views without arguing the question
of whether meaning exists in the text, separate from any
reader or writer.

Ricoeur goes on to suggest that written language,
separated from its author (addressor), along with a
concomitant shift from an aural medium to a visual one,
facilitates a kind of introspection that can be denoted
as editorial distance. Ong (1975:10) comments on it as
follows:

The person to whom the writer addresses him-

self normally is not present at all. Moreover

with certain special exceptions . . ., he must

not be present. I am writing a book that will

be read by thousands, or, I modestly hope, by

tens of thousands. So, please, get out of the

room. I want to be alone. Writing normally
calls for some kind of withdrawal.

38

The complementary relation to that between message and
addressor is that between message and receiver
(addressee). Whereas a spoken message is addressed to a
second person ”you," a written one is addressed poten-
tially to an unknown reader, in that it is available to
anyone who can read the message code. Ricoeur shows how
the written text is paradoxically both universal and
contingent. It is universal in the sense that it is
available to all readers: it is contingent in that its
reception depends upon its being read (since, unlike
speaking, the moments of production and reception are
not synonymous). Once again Ong (1975) suggests that
the audience of a written text is always fictional. The
author must cast his/her reader in a role which is
modeled not on the experience of being a listener in
daily conversation, but on the conventionalized role of
being a reader of other writing. Further, Ong thinks
the reader must agree to fictionalize her/himself
according to the imposed role in order to receive the
message in the way that the author (writer) intended.
The effect writing has on the production of a
message is related to the effect it has on the reception
of a message. Goody (1977) points out the difference
between reading and listening in terms of the direc-

tionality of processing. In his reaction to Saussure's

39

dictum about the linear direction of speech, Goody
(1977:124) writes:

The linear nature [of speech] can be clearly

overstressed in the sense that the 'line' of

speech is certainly not a straight one, nor

does it have any necessary spatial one direc-

tion, only a temporal one. In this the spoken

differs from the written word, where the line
became straight in either a sideways or down-
ways, direction . . . The consequences are

radical, on the nature of the output, as well

as on the receiver himself, . . . the fact

that [the signifier] takes a visual form means

that one can escape from the problem of suc-

cession of event: in time, by back-tracking,
skipping, looking to see who-done-it before we

know what it is they did.

Because the written text is complete and spatially
available to the reader in its entirety, the process of
reading is different from that of listening to a message
which one can receive only piece—by-piece in a temporal
sequence. This is a good point in relation to the texts
analyzed here, since they are college texts which often
are read in just the way Goody describes. However, a
psycholinguist such as Smith (1971) might suggest that
characterizing texts as linear is problematic in the
works of Goody and Ong. Psycholinguists might view
reading and listening as fundamentally similar in that
the receiver uses knowledge of language and background
semantic knowledge to actively construct meaning. These
active processes are parallel, in the act of listening,

to the processes Goody mentions: for example, listeners

will ask speakers to backtrack or repeat. In the

40

present study we will assume that the processing of oral
and written language does not differ in fundamentals: we
will be comparing instead syntactic, lexical, and dis-
course guides used by readers of scientific discourse as
opposed to that in non—scientific. These are struc-

tural, not process, phenomena.

Summary

One possible explanation for the fact that major
scholars disagree as to the nature of any possible
contrast between oral and written discourse is that the
two groups of scholars used different types of data.
Ricoeur, Goody, and Ong did not gather data from the
same speakers performing the same tasks in the two
modes: Chafe, Tannen, and Beaman did analyze such data.

They studied spoken and written narratives about
the ”pear film,‘I a short film which was produced in a
project by Wallace Chafe in 1975 and his associates at
the University of California, Berkeley. The film was
used to elicit spontaneous discourse from various
speakers on the same topic. In each study, after
showing the film, subjects were asked to report what
they saw, either in writing or speech.

Since these researchers have a solid empirical
basis for their suggestions, and since their work

. provides details of syntactic structure which can be

41

compared in scientific and non-scientific discourse, we
have used their conclusions as a point of departure in
the present study, as we attempt to measure inter-

activity in written language.

CHAPTER IV

COHESION AND INTERACTIVITY

In this chapter, our major focus is on cohesion
and interactivity. We will discuss the meaning of these
notions, and present the features that constitute the
basis of our text analysis. For cohesion, anaphora will
be our main point of discussion for differentiating
between scientific and non-scientific discourse. Con-
cerning interactivity, we will deal with discriminative
features used by Smith and Beaman. These include
features related to the reader, features related to the
writer, features related to oral discourse, and features
related to coordination and subordination.

Before we discuss cohesion and interactivity, some
light should be shed on texts and their structure.
Halliday and Hasan (1976) understand "texts” as used in
linguistics to refer to any passage, whether spoken or
written, of any size that forms a unified whole. They
elaborate on this by suggesting that when any person
familiar with English listens or reads a passage which

is more than a phrase or a sentence in length, s/he can

42

43

decide easily whether it constitutes a solid meaningful
unit or just a sequence of unrelated sentences.

It has just been mentioned that a text may be
spoken or written, it may also be verse or prose, a
dialogue or a monologue. As Brown and Yule (1983)
argue, it may be anything from a single phrase to a long
novel, from a polite request for help to a seminar or a
long discussion in a committee in the congress. It is
obvious that a text is a unit of language in use, but it
is not a grammatical unit such as clauses or sentences.
As Halliday and Hasan (1976) suggest, it is related to a
sentence in the same way that ”sentence is related to a
clause, a clause to a group and so on” (1976:2).

As it has been argued, a text is not merely a
string of sentences or clauses. The text should be
looked at as having a unity of meaning in a context and
a texture that expresses the fact that it relates as a
whole to the environment in which it is found.

Because it is a semantic unit, it is realized in
the form of sentences and clauses, and we can study
discourse by looking at specific features of sentences
and clauses as long as discourse as a whole is part of
our research framework.

Again, Halliday and Hasan (1976:293) explain that

”a set of related sentences, with a single sentence as

44

the limiting case, is the embodiment or realization of a
text. So the expression of the semantic unity of the
text lies in the cohesion among the sentences of which

it is composed.‘

4.1 Cohesion of Texts

Brown and Yule (1983) suggest that cohesion takes
place when the realization (interpretation) of some
element in the text (discourse) is dependent upon that
of another. One presupposes another, in the sense that
it cannot be understood or decoded without recourse to
it. As this takes place, a relation that is called
“cohesion” is set up and the two forming elements, that
is, the presupposing and the presupposed, are poten-
tially integrated into a text. For instance, in the
following example,

'I bought a new car. It is a red Oldsmobile."
"it” presupposes for its interpretation something other
than itself. This requirement is met by the phrase "a
new car“ in the preceding sentence. The presupposition
and the fact that it is resolved provide cohesion
between the two sentences, and in so doing create a
text. This definition captures a point important to
some major types of cohesion, such as pronominal
anaphora. However, it seems weak in describing simple

lexical repetition: here the reader can understand the

45

meaning of a second occurrence of a word without having
seen it in a previous sentence. The re-occurrence,
however, ties the two sentences together, enhancing
intelligibility. The same point holds true for
repetition of syntactic structures (the "parallelism" of
traditional writing instruction).

In the present study, "cohesion" refers to the
entire range of possibilities that exist for linking a
sentence with a previous sentence, though, of course, we
can treat in detail only a limited number of these.
Cohesion has a structure which usually refers to a
postulated unit higher than an utterance or a sentence,
such as a paragraph, an episode, or a topic unit. Brown
and Yule (1983) suggest that cohesion could be inter-
preted as a set of semantic resources for linking a
certain sentence with precedent ones. They have omitted
syntactic and phonological knowledge as resources.

In Brown and Yule's (1983) definition, the
presupposition of something that has been mentioned
earlier, whether in the preceding sentence or other
ones, is known as ”anaphora." This may be clear in the
following examples:

John went on a trip to a beautiful country.

He loves going on trips in June every year.

France was his choice for this year where he
enjoyed the sun in the south.

46

In this example, ”he" in the second sentence goes
back to 'John' in the first one, while ”France" in the
third sentence refers to "country'. in the second one.
This kind of cohesion (anaphoric reference) is the most
usual pattern in the case of reference and substitution.
Such instances tend to form cohesive chains, sequences
in which 'he' or ”it,” for instance, refers back to the
immediately previous sentence-~and to another word in
other sentences--forming a whole sequence of reference
before finding a substantial element.

Another mode of cohesion is another form of
reference called "cataphora." The presupposition with
cataphora goes in the opposite direction, with the
presupposed element following. Halliday and Hasan
(1976) comment on this kind of cohesion by suggesting
that the distinction between ”anaphora“ and ”cataphora”
arises if there is an explicitly presupposing item
present whose referent clearly either precedes or
follows. If the cohesion is lexical, with the same
vocabulary occurring twice, then clearly the second
occurrence must take its interpretation (realization)
from the first: the first can never be said to point
forward to the second. If "Edward” follows “Edward,"
there is no possible contrast between anaphora and

cataphora. But on the other hand, items such as ”this”

47

or "it” can point forward, deriving an interpretation
from something that follows.

Before departing to another point, it should be
pointed out that there remains another possibility, i.e.
the information needed for interpreting some element in
the text is not to be found in the text at all, but in
the situation. This is more common in oral than in
written discourse. Let's present an example quoted from
Halliday and Hasan (1976:18):

Did the gardener water these plants?

In this example 'these' may refer back to the preceding
text, to some earlier mention of those particular plants
in the discussion. It is also possible that it goes
back to the environment in which the discourse is taking
place--to the "context of the situation," as it is
called--where the plants in question are present and can
be pointed to if necessary. The understanding or inter-
pretation would be "those plants there, in front of

us.” This is called 'exophora' since it points outside
the text altogether (Halliday and Hasan 1976).

Stubbs (1983) is interested in cohesion as one
index to underlying coherence between illocutionary
acts. He points out the existence of propositional/
syntactic cohesion in oral discourse, as in question and

answer sequences. He also speaks of lexical cohesion

48

occurring when lexical items are drawn from one “seman-
tic field.” For instance, he argues that we could have
cohesion by simple repetition of near synonyms as in
“smashed," "burst,“ “knocking down,“ ”burnt out,“
“ripped,” ”tugged," and 'tore' (198:28).

Gumperz, Kaltman and O'Connor (1984) describe
speakers using stress to provide cohesion. For example,
they argue that Asian and American speakers of English
differ widely in their common discourse strategies.
Asians usually lead up to their main point by first
presenting background information pronounced at a high
pitch with rhythmic stress, then switch to lower-pitched
and less emphatic speech to make the point. Americans
signal their major point with emphatic rhythmic stress
and deemphasize the background information by shifting
to lower pitch. They further argue that “participants
who interpret a sequence in terms of one system, may
fail to see a passage as cohesive which seems quite
normal to those applying the system” (1984:6).

It is apparent that speakers and writers can and
do use all their linguistic resources to develop cohe-
sion in texts. For our study of scientific discourse
versus non-scientific discourse, the questions are, what
are the differences (if any) in use of cohesive devices,

and how might differences affect intelligibility?

49

‘4.2 Interactivity

 

After the discussion of cohesion, we now focus on
our second major issue involved in the study, inter-
activity. We all acknowledge the fact that one of the
essential functions of any language is communication.
Widdowson (1984) suggests that this communication is
called for when the language users recognize situations
which require the convergence of information to
establish a convergence of knowledge. This process of
communication requires negotiation of meaning through
interactiveness in certain ways. The meaning of
negotiation involves the interaction which occurs to
establish the meaning of the given texts and to realize
their effectiveness as indicators of illocutionary
intent. Widdowson argues that this “interactivity" is a
necessary condition for the performance of any kind of
discourse. It could be overt and reciprocal as in oral
discourse, or covert and non-reciprocal as in the
written one.

It has already been stated that discourse is a
communicative process by means of interactiveness. The
situational product of the process is a shift in a state
of affairs: its information is given and intentions are
made clear. Its linguistic outcome is a text (dis-

course), as Halliday frames it, and the recovery of

50

discourse from text relies on how far the situational
features which complement the recorded utterances are
known to the addressee (receiver). Widdowson (1984)
states that in the case of reciprocal discourse, when
texts are recorded in writing, this is typically done by
3rd—person non-participant intervention, and subsequent
recovery may well involve a difficult analytic operation
using techniques for reconstitution or expansion. But
in the case of non-reciprocal discourse, i.e., the typi-
cal written discourse, texts are designed to facilitate
recovery, but the nature of such texts allows the reader
to recover selectively with regard to her/his aims.
Widdowson believes that the reader is not a 'real'
participant in the discourse recorded in the text and
therefore s/he is relieved of the usual responsibility
of cooperation. Thus the reader may take shorter ways
and need not follow the same routes that were taken by
the author to be able to find the clues of interactivity

within the lines of any given text.

4.3 Features of Interactivity

Smith (1982) states that Dolezel (1973) has
classified written discourse as narrative and character
discourse. Character discourse involves the speaker
(writer), listener (reader), and the topic of discourse,

whereas narrative discourse involves the details of the

51

telling of the topic of discourse. He implies the
latter is more interactive. This was modeled after
Bfihler's 1934 model of communication with three main
functions: the expressive, which involves the idiosyn-
cratic speaker of the communication: the allocutional,
which includes addresses to the hearer: and the
referential, which is the topic of the communication.
In Doleiel's version (adaptation) of Bther's model,
character discourse includes the three functions whereas
the narrative one contains only the referential one.
This dichotomy is similar to the one drawn between oral
and written discourse by authors reviewed in the
previous chapter.

Such a differentiation in the number and type of
communicative functions happening in narrative and
character discourse is reflected by the different
distributions in them of certain “discriminative text
features,“ such as ”person,“ "tense,“ and 'allocution.‘
For example, within each category of such features,
character discourse is marked (unexpected) for those
features which shift from speaker to speaker (as the use
of lst- and 2nd-person pronouns which change reference
when speaker change takes place), while narrative dis-
course is unmarked (expected), using only non-shifting
or absolute features as the 3rd-person pronouns whose

referents remain constant even when speaker change takes

52

place. Here Smith (1982) argues that Doleiel borrowed
the notion of shifting grammatical features from
Jakobson (1957, 1971) who defined a “shifter” as a
grammatical category characterizing a narrated event
with reference to a certain speech, event, or to the
participant of a speech-event. Shifters are basically
grammatical features such as personal pronouns and
tense.

We notice here that the discussion relates to
literary rather than scientific discourse. However,
these literary features do occur in scientific discourse
but with varying degrees of concentration.

Within the frame discussed above, Smith suggests
that the parts of a literary text in character and nar-
rative discourse are not in simple and linear relation
to each other in a traditional novel. The parts of
character discourse are framed by parts of narrative
discourse: narrative discourse encodes the narrator's
perspective on her/his topic and her/his attitude
towards his/her audience. It seems that it is in narra-
tive discourse that the details of the "telling” of the
work are revealed: that which is "told” is revealed in
both the narrative and the character discourse. The
discriminative text features thus serve to distinguish
between the act of telling and the content of the

telling. This is in a way analogous to the distinction

53

between discourse as event (the telling) and discourse
as meaning (the told).

This also appears to be important in linguistic
theoretical studies of discourse, when the details of
the telling of a text are often studied under the rules
of ”performative information." Regarding this, Longacre
(1976) links every utterance of whatever length and in
whatever setting with an implicit performative verb. He
states ”it is profitable to think of performatives in
terms of the various discourse genres with which they
are associated“ (1976:251). This was also discussed by
Grimes (1975), who points out the influence of speaker
and hearer on the form and content of discourse and
presents the functions of person and tense in encoding
such information. Van Dijk (1972) also includes in his
discussion of a text grammar (as opposed to a sentence
grammar) the need to account for “performative cate-
gories and modalities” which dominate the entire surface
derivation of a text.

Beaman (1984) has studied the difference between
written and oral discourse by analyzing its syntactic
complexities, trying to reach convincing conclusions
about the two modalities of discourse (see 5.3).

We also have mentioned that the model of discourse
of Doleiel has been used to characterize the extremes of

a “continuum of performative frames,“ i.e., more and

54

less interactive texts. The significance of the
discriminative text features in characterizing relative
degrees of interactivity will depend on their frequency
in the given texts. Texts without any reference to the
participants of the performative frame will be con-
sidered least interactive: texts with a full range of
discriminative features will be considered more

interactive.

4.4 Features of Dolegel's Model

 

4.4.1 Person

It is recognized that lst- and 2nd-person pronouns
do not shift reference when used in the performative
frame of a text. Smith (1982) mentions that the refer-
ence of 'I' and 'you' is constant--the author (writer)
and the receiver (reader). However, a difference in the
degree of interactivity among texts results from the
degree to which 'I' and "you” are explicitly mentioned
in the text. A range of interactivity, rather than a
simple positive or a negative distinction of inter-
activity, is possible. This range may be created by
combinations of the features shown in Figure l.

Third-person references to the writer or the
reader involve some acknowledgment of the presence of
these participants in the performative frame of the

text, but are considered less interactive than lst- and

55

FIGURE 1

Some Linguistic Features of Interactivity
(from Smith (1982) and Beaman (1984))

Presence of the Reader
--interrogatives

--lst person plural imperatives
--full imperatives

--2nd-person pronouns (general)
—-2nd-person pronouns (particular)

 

Presence of the Writer

--distribution of tenses

--plura1 lst-person pronouns

--singu1ar lst-person pronouns

—-tense: narrative and character
group

 

Coordination and Subordination
--coordinating conjunctions
--nominals

--adjectivals

--adverbials

 

Counter-Interactive Syntactic Features

—-impersonal/inanimate subjects

--passive constructions
2nd-person references to these participants, as they
involve a kind of distancing from the self. It has been
argued that 2nd-person pronouns are considered to be
more interactive than lst—person forms because the use
of ”you" presupposes a speaking or writing ”I” whereas
the use of lst-person form does not necessitate an
explicit mention of "you.“ For lst—person pronouns,
plural forms are considered less interactive when they

refer either to a single speaker or writer, since this

56

use involves a strategy on the part of the speaker/
writer either to increase their authority or to hide
themselves in a larger group to avoid personal

responsibility-regarding interrogatives and imperatives.

4.4.2 33333

Smith (1982) suggests that the use of tense
reveals the perspective of the author on the events or
subject matters being referred to. Dolelel (1973)
indicates that the author in narrative discourse stands
in a fixed position outside the past events being
narrated: hence the consistent use of past tenses in
narrative discourse. On the other hand, the writer of
character discourse speaks or writes from the interior
of the narrated event, which makes it more interactive
than narrative discourse: hence the use of present and
future tenses. This has been recognized by some
linguists to represent the writer's rhetorical footing
towards the event.

Some linguists, such as Smith (1982), think that
the use of personal pronouns with tenses has a special
significance. For example, the use of lst- and 2nd-
person pronouns with narrative tenses as in an auto-
biography is more interactive than impersonal 3rd-person

subjects used with simple present forms as in an

57

expository essay or in a scientific text. Features of
coordination and subordination will be dealt with
extensively in a separate section in the following

chapter.

CHAPTER V

ANALYSIS OF COHESION AND INTERACTIVITY

5.1 Cohesion

 

We mentioned earlier that Halliday and Hasan
(1976) believe that a primary determinant in the
cohesion of any text is its cohesive relationships
within and between the sentences that create texture.
Brown and Yule (1983) followed suit by suggesting that a
text has texture which distinguishes it from things that
are not texts--this texture is provided by cohesive
relations. The cohesive relationships of a text are
usually set up where the interpretation of some element
in the text is dependent on, or at least influenced by,
that of another one.

Halliday and Hasan draw a taxonomy of types of
cohesive relationships that are usually found in any
text to build cohesion within that text. These cohesive
relationships are numerous, but the major one that will
be investigated in this part of the study is anaphora.

Halliday and Hasan (1976) state that ”anaphora” is

a cohesive relationship that presupposes something that

58

59

has been mentioned earlier, whether in the preceding
sentence or elsewhere. It tends to form cohesive
chains, sequences in which "it,” for instance, points
back to the immediately preceding sentence: this may
lead to another 'it' in that sentence, and it is
sometimes necessary to go back two, three, or more
sentences, stepping across a whole sequence of ”it”
before finding the original element.

Now let's consider our scientific and non-
scientific texts more closely by identifying anaphora
supported by explicit examples. The texts will be
analyzed in sequence trying to find out the anaphoric
characteristics quantitatively and qualitatively, fol-
lowed by comparisons to reach some informative conclu-
sions about the difference between scientific and non-
scientific discourse. However, all of our quantitative

findings will be reported and discussed in Chapter VI.

5.1.1 Non-Scientific Texts

 

5.1.1.1 History Text

 

The analysis of this text, "The War in EurOpe,'
reveals that anaphora has been found in 32 instances out
of 51 sentences (see Table 5.1) to link the text
cohesively. For example:

. . . only Hitler could have brought them

together, and only the threat of Nazi Germany

could have held them together through four
years of war. (H 1:11)

60

In this example we find the pronoun “them" mentioned
twice. This pronoun has reference to an earlier element
in the text: 'them' presupposes this earlier element to
build a cohesive unity within it. It actually refers to
"Churchill,“ “Stalin," and ”Roosevelt“ mentioned in an
earlier sentence. The earlier sentence is:

The Grand Alliance of World War II, sometimes

called the 'Strange Alliance' joined together

Britain, the world's greatest colonial power

led by Churchill, an imperialist determined to

maintain the British Empire: with Russia, the

world's only communist nation, led by Stalin,

a revolutionary determined to maintain and

expand communism: with the United States, the

world's greatest capitalist power, led by

Roosevelt, a capitalist who frequently

criticized colonialism and was no friend of

communism. (H 1:1)

This shows explicitly that 'them' refers back to the
three leaders mentioned in the previous sentence to form
an immediate cohesive relationship that keeps the text
hanging together. By immediate, I mean that the
presupposed element is present in the immediate previous
clause or sentence.

Let's consider another example from this text to
explain another kind of anaphoric relationship: that is,
the mediated one, which means that there is a relation-
ship separating the two cohesive elements. For example:

There were two specific problems with

Marshall's program of a 1942 build-up and a

1943 invasion: first, it [emphasis added here

and in following exampleg] would be . . . ,
and second, it would mean that the United

States . . . (H 6:86)

61

As we see, the second ”it“ in our cited example refers
to the first “it“, and both of them refer back to
Marshall's program. The significance of this is that
the second 'it' refers cohesively to the first 'it',
which eventually goes back to the presupposed element--
Marshall's program--to form a mediated relationship.

This kind of anaphora occurred 3 times in the
history text, whereas the ”immediate“ type occurred 26
times. There is also a third type called "remote,“ in
which the presupposed element is found in the previous
three, four, or more clauses or sentences in the text.
This is illustrated in the following quote:

The process began in January 1942 when

Churchill and his military leaders came to

Washington to discuss strategy. Churchill

presented the British view, which called for

tightening the ring around Germany, then

stabbing in the knife when the enemy was

exhausted. H3 advocated a series of Opera—

tions around the periphery of Hitler's

EurOpean fortress . . . This represented

traditional British policy, abandoned only

from 1914 to 1918, an aberration Churchill was

determined not to repeat. Hg would let the ‘

Continentals do . . . What 33 had forgotten

. . . (H 3:28)
It is clear that “he" in the last sentence is connected
originally with "Churchill” in the first sentence in the
paragraph, but this relation is realized through the
sequence of the other referents mentioned in the

sentences in between: lexical repetition ('Churchill'

and 'he').

62

5.1.1.2 PhilosophypText

 

This text contains 32 immediate anaphoric relation-
ships and two mediated ones, and has no remote relation—
ships, out of 43 sentences. The following example shows
this referential relationship that helps in creating
cohesion in the text:

I have two reasons for describing the equal

rights of all men to be free as a natural

right: both of them were always emphasized by

the classical theorists of natural rights.
(P 2:14)

 

 

If we take a look at the above sentence, we will find
that there is a direct anaphoric relationship between the
pronoun "them" and 'two reasons," which constitutes a
cohesive relationship. This is an immediate anaphoric
relationship because there are no other relationships
that separate the referent from the presupposed element.

The third pronoun ”they" in the following quote
reveals a mediated relationship:

This right is one which all men have if they

are capable of choice: they have it qua men

and not only if they are members of some

society or stand in some special relationship

to each other. (P 2:17)
This example shows that there are both immediate and
mediated relationships, where "they" refers to the

previous 'they' and all refer to 'men' to form a

cohesive relationship.

63

5.1.1.3 Politics Text

 

In this third non-scientific text, we find the
incidence of anaphora of all types less than those in
the philosophy text and slightly more than those in the
history text. In this text, anaphora of all types
occurred 35 times in 66 sentences: 26 examples are
immediate, one is mediated, and 6 are remote.

An illustration of anaphoric reference is seen in
the following instance:

Voting is not a strenuous form of activity,

but iE is apparently beyond the level of

performance of four out of every ten adults.

(P 1:13)

The presupposing element in the above example is the
word “voting," and the referent 'it' connects the two

clauses cohesively. This use of "it” shows strength in

the example to keep the text as a whole.

5.1.2 Scientific Texts

 

5.1.2.1 Civil Engineering Text

 

Our hypothesis states that scientific discourse
differs from non-scientific discourse quantitatively and
qualitatively. The analysis of cohesion in our
scientific texts--civil engineering, physiology, and
zoology--will reveal the positiveness or negativeness of
such a hypothesis by presenting the results of the

analysis of the texts.

64

By considering the concept of “anaphora” in the
Civil Engineering text, it has been found that only 12
occurrences of this type of reference are available in
the 50 sentences of the text. In addition, all these
incidences are of one type: immediate relationship.
This example shows one such relationship::

A plate girder (see Chapter 7) is of such

large depth and span that a rolled beam is not

economically suitable-—i£ is tailor made

(built up out of plate material) to suit the

particular span, clearance, and load

requirements. (CE 6:53)
When the reader looks at this example carefully, s/he
will find that “it” refers to an item that has gone
before it. In this case, the previous item is “plate

girder“ which presupposes 'it' and gives connectedness

to the text.

5.1.2.2 Physiology Text

 

This scientific text shows a different trend from
the engineering text regarding the anaphoric relation-
ship. This text contains 39 anaphoric relationships, of
which 38 are immediate and only one is mediated, in 70
sentences. For example:

If we consider a piece of meat as a typical
sample of food, we realize why this is so.

The lean meat is mainly muscle, which contains
proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Consider
the proteins. They are insoluble, interwoven,
and bound together to form the structure of
the muscle. As such, they are not readily
moved about. In order to make this part of
our muscle structure . . . (PHS 1:17)

65

In this quote, we find different elements of cohesion.
As our main concern is with anaphora for now, we will
identify elements related to it. If you take a look at
"proteins” in the third sentence of the quote, you will
realize that it is a presupposing element for later
referents. “They" in the sentence that follows goes
back to "proteins” in the sentence that precedes it to
show strong connectedness in the discourse. If we again
look at “they” in the last sentence of the quote, we
will find that it refers to "they" in the previous
sentence and eventually goes back to “proteins" to
constitute a mediated anaphoric relationship to make the

text hang together.

5.1.2.3 Zoology Text

 

This scientific text is approximately equal to the
physiology text with reference to anaphora. The inci-
dence of the three types of anaphora in this text is 34
times, out of 63 sentences. Immediate anaphora repre-
sents 31 occurrences: there is only one mediated
incidence, and two remote ones. This is an example from
the zoology text:

A more complex type of inheritance than mono-

factorial inheritance occurs when two pairs of

factors are considered concurrently. They may
affect different phenotypic characters or some
single character. This can again be illu-

strated by characters with which Mendel worked
in peas . . . (z 23:164)

66

We see in this example that "they'I coheres with ”two
pairs,‘I which presupposes it, whereas "this“ in the last
part of the quote refers to a previous element to form a

mediated anaphoric cohesion.

5.1.3 Summary of Anaphora

 

To conclude this discussion of anaphoric relation-
ships, we should consider Table 5.1, which reveals the
incidence of anaphora of all types in the scientific and
non-scientific texts. A major difference is that the
civil engineering text has fewer anaphoric relationships

than the non-scientific and other scientific texts.

TABLE 5.1

INCIDENCE OF ANAPHORA IN SENTENCES
FROM SCIENTIFIC AND NON-SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

 

Type of Anaphora

 

 

Immediate Mediated Remote Total
Text N % N % N % N %
History 26 51.1 3 5.9 3 5.9 32 62.7
Philosophy 32 74 2 4.6 0 0 34 79
Politics 26 39 1 1.5 6 9 35 53
Total Non-

Science 84 52.5 6 3.7 9 5.6 99 61.8
Civil Eng. 12 24 0 0 0 0 12 24
Physiology 38 54 l 1.4 0 0 39 55.5
Zoology 31 49.2 1 1.5 0 0 34 55.5
Total

Science 81 44.2 2 1.1 2 1.1 85 46.4

 

67

Differences appear when types of anaphora are
taken into consideration. Table 5.1 reveals that immedi-
ate anaphora constitutes the largest portion, while the
other two types represent a much smaller percentage.

If we also look closely at the table, we will find
that mediated anaphora occurs more frequently in two
non-scientific texts than in the scientific ones. This
also applies to remote anaphora, which occur more fre-
quently in the non-scientific texts, as the same table
reveals. When these two types are combined, the three
non-scientific texts contain fifteen instances: the
scientific texts contain only four. Furthermore, the
philosophy text seems to more closely resemble the
scientific texts than the other two non-scientific texts
in mediated and remote anaphora.

Our analysis of cohesion has not considered
"cataphora“ because it has no significant occurrence in

the texts.

5.2. Interactivity

 

It was mentioned earlier that the analysis of
interactivity will consider discriminative features in
six different texts representing scientific and non-
scientific discourse. As these sample texts are exa—
mined for the distribution of features of interactivity,

they will be grouped under the following headings:

68

1. features related to the presence of the reader

2. features related to the presence of the writer
In addition to the analysis of these features, interac-
tivity will be examined in the discussion of coordina-
tion and subordination, and counter-interactive
syntactic features will be discussed in the next two

sections.

5.2.1 Presence of the Reader

 

It was mentioned above that the presence of the
reader in the text is the most interactive pronominal
feature because a reference to "you” entails ”I.“ The
most important features of the presence of the reader in
a text are the presence of the 2nd—person pronouns,
whether general or particular, and clauses in interro-
gative or imperative mood.

Table 5.2 shows that all the texts except zoology
lack the 2nd-person pronoun: in zoology it occurred
twice as a general reference. The presence of the
reader in this text is represented by the explicit
mention of ”you.“ Its occurrence can be seen in the
following quote:

With independent assortment, the four possible

types of gametes are formed in equal propor-

tions. As you can see this has been assumed

in the above 4 times checkboard, or table. By

inserting the function 1/4 for each gamete and

multiplying the 1/4 for any gamete by the 1/4

of any other, you can see that l/l6 of the

total offspring will represent each genetic
combination. (Z 27:193).

69

TABLE 5.2

INCIDENCE OF THE PRESENCE OF THE READER
AND THE PRESENCE OF THE WRITER IN
SENTENCES FROM ALL TEXTS

 

 

 

 

Presence of Reader Presence of Writer
2nd—person Interroga- lst-person lst-person
pronoun: tion or singular plural
gen. or imperative
particular
Text N % N % N % N %
History 0 0 4 7.8 0 0 0 0
PhilosOphy 0 0 5 11.6 13 30.2 7 16.2
Politics 0 0 l3 l9 7 0 0 11 16 6
Total Non-

Science 0 0 22 13.75 13 8.1 18 11.25
Civil Eng. 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0
Physiology 0 0 2 2.85 0 0 l 1.42
Zoology 2 3.17 0 0 0 0 8 12.6
Total

Science 2 1.1 3 1.61 0 0 9 4.9

 

In this quote, it is obvious that "you” refers to the
reader. This presence of ”you” gives the reader the
role of'a participant in the discourse and makes it more
interactive.

Interactivity in the texts can also be shown by the
presence of the reader in clauses of interrogative or
imperative mood. We know that interrogating someone,
like giving orders and commands to others, must involve

at least two peOple. In written discourse, such

70

interaction can appear between the writer (questioning
or giving commands) and the reader (receiving questions
or orders) who analyzes it and reacts, or constructs a
meaning according to her/his understanding. Contrary to
the incidence of the presence of the 2nd-person pro-
nouns, discussed above, all texts except zoology contain
features of this category to show presence of the
reader. Table 5.2 reveals that this feature occurred
mostly in the politics text, followed by the philosOphy
text, then history, then physiology, and finally the
civil engineering text. Its occurrence may be exempli-
fied in the following:

Why should anyone worry about twenty or thirty

or forty million American adults who seem to

be willing to remain on the outside looking

in? What difference do they make? Several

things may be said. First, anything that

looks like a rejection of the political system

by so large a fraction of the population is a

matter of great importance. Second, anything

that looks like a limitation of the expanding

universe of politics is certain to have great

practical consequences. Does nonvoting shed

light on the bias and the limitations of the

political system? (P 7:80)
If we look at this paragraph from the politics text, we
find that there are features which indicate the presence
of the reader in the text. For instance, we find three
explicit questions present in the quote that address the

reader about the issue of elections in the U.S. This

kind of interrogation gives the reader a direct

7l

involvement in the discourse and results in real

interactiveness between the writer and the reader.
In this section, we find that the interactive

presence of the reader is more prevalent in the

non-scientific texts than in the scientific ones.

5.2.2 Presence of the Writer

It has been recognized that the presence of the
writer is considered to be less interactive than the
presence of the reader, but still an interactive
feature. The main features that will be discussed and
usually show the writer's presence are the lst-person
singular and the lst-person plural, and the distribution
of narrative and character tenses.

Our analysis of the texts, again, shows that the
presence of the writer is more frequent in the non-
scientific texts than in the scientific ones. Before
comparing the figures of its incidence, it may be
appropriate to mention some examples of the feature:

I shall advance the thesis that if there are

any moral rights at all, it follows that there

is at least one natural right, the equal right

of all men to be free. By saying that there

is this right I mean that . . . (PH 1:1)

I can best exhibit this feature of a moral
right . . . (PH 4:138)

In the above quotes from the philosophy text, we find

that there is explicit use of the lst—person singular

 

 

72

“I“ in the text. The writer even starts the text with
the pronoun 'I' to show his authority and involvement in
discussing the issue of human rights. This explicit use
of 'I' leads to the reader's direct recognition of the
identity and purposes of her/his discourse partner, the
writer. Table 5.2 shows that this occurs only in the
philosophy text, with a frequency of 13 times out of 43
sentences. This use of "I” is a conventional aspect of
writing in philosOphy: in other disciplines, “I” is
specifically discouraged or even prohibited.

Another main feature that influences interactivity
is the use of the lst-person plural "we.“ This feature
appeared in four of the texts: philosophy, politics,
physiology, and zoology. Again, the bulk of its
occurrence is found in the non-scientific texts rather
than in the scientific ones. Some examples are:

If forty million adult citizens were disen-

franchised by law, 13 would consider the fact

a datum about the system. (P 2:22)

33 are forced to conclude that ye are governed
by invisible forces. (P 5:52)

If 33 cross a polled shorthorn with . . .
(Z 28:207)

In these examples, the writer introduces a plural form

to refer to a bigger group such as those who are special-

ized in the field or who have interest in the subject.
Table 5.2, again, indicates that this feature has

occurred mostly in the politics text, with a frequency

73

of 11 times: it occurred in the zoology text 8 times, in
the philosophy text 8 times, and in the civil engineer-
ing text only once. On the whole, the greater incidence
of this feature in the non-scientific texts shows their
greater interactivity.

In terms of tense1 that relates to the presence
of the writer, all six texts contain samples from both
narrative (past perfect, simple past, and past progres-
sive) and character (present perfect, simple present,
and present progressive) groups. As Table 5.3 shows,
the simple present is the most commonly occurring tense
for philosophy, politics, civil engineering, physiology,
and zoology. It is worth noting that four of the texts,
all the non-scientific in addition to the zoology text
from the scientific group, exhibit incidence of simple
past and past perfect, thus making them more interactive
in terms of the range of tenses available. Now, it may
be useful to present an example that shows these tenses:

The process pgggn in January 1942 when

Churchill and his military leaders £323 to

Washington to discuss strategy. Churchill

presented the British view, which called for

tightening the ring around Germany, then

stabbing in the knife when the enemy was

exhausted. He advocated a series of
operations. (H 3:28)

 

 

1The term ”tense“ refers, in linguistics, only
to affixes: however, for purposes of convenience I am
adopting the common practice of using the term to
include both actual tenses and verbal constructions.

74

 

o o N.m ha 0 o m.oH ON 0 o h.mv ow H.H N Uwufiucwwum

 

Hoses

0 0 RN ea 0 o ma NH o o m.mm mm sa.m m smoaoom

o o o o o o m.~ N o o m.~m em 0 o smofiowmagm

o o o o o o NH 6 o o ov om o o .mcm Hm>mo

o o o.mm em m.v s m~.o~ Ne o o H.m~ Rm o.m m omumucomum

Icoz Hmuoa

o o m o o o o v o o o.m~ ma 6 v mumuMHom

o o as m o o m.vm ma 0 o H.3m «N 6.HH m undouoawcm

o 0 «.mm om ma 5 me mN o o ~m.m w o o suoummm

w z w z w z w z w z w z w 2 same
.moum ummm .wuwm .mmoumoum ucmmmum uumuuwm
ummm mHQEMm ummm mamooz ucmmmum oamswm ucomoum
anouw m>flumuumz mzouw umuumumnu

 

memE UHmHBzmHumlzoz Qz< UHmHBzmHum
20mm mmozmfizmw zH mmzma m0 mUZMQHUZH

m.m mam<a

75

If we look at the simple past tense in the above quote
from the history text, we will find that it contains the
words 'came,‘ "presented,” "called,“ and "advocated”
which usually indicate narration in discourse because
they are in the past form. This tense (simple past) is
best represented in the history text since the discourse
of history usually presents accumulated events that hap-
pened in the past. Table 5.3 reveals that it occurred
20 times in this text, out of 51 sentences. It has also
appeared 5 times in the philosophy text and 6 times in
the politics one. In the scientific group, it was not
used, except in the zoology text with a frequency of 17
times. This high frequency in the zoology text could be
explained by the fact that the author refers to other
scientists in the field and frequently mentions what
those people found in the field. For example, he talks
about Mendel's classical genetics and his work regarding
the chemical nature of hereditary materials. This is
clear in the following:

In regard to this, Mendel stated . . . (2 3:26)

One trait Mendel studied . . . (Z 4:33)

He 229 two varieties . . . (Z 4:34)
These examples show some sort of narration: the author
reports what Mendel said, studied, or discovered.

This presence of the narrative tense would be seen

by the reader as representing the presence of the writer

76

in the text, thus creating more interactivity in the
texts that have it.

Another tense related to the narrative group that
may create interactivity since it indicates presence of
the writer, according to Smith (1982), is the past
perfect. This tense is found only in the history text
where narration is a typical characteristic of history
discourse. Its incidence in the text is 7 times. This
may be exemplified in the following:

He would let the Continentals do their own

fighting, just as the great British statesmen

of the past had done. What he had forgotten,

however, was that in the past the British

friends on the continent had shared general

British political and economic concepts.
(H 3:41)

 

 

 

The other group which Smith (1982) believes may
reflect the presence of the writer in the texts is the
character one. This group includes the simple present,
present progressive, present perfect, future, hypothe-
tical, and conditional tenses. The tenses of this group
that appear in our analysis are: simple present, present
perfect, and modality that combines future with hypothe-
tical and conditional reference in the texts.

In the analysis, we have found that simple present
occurs most frequently in the group, especially among
the scientific texts. This high frequency of simple

present in the scientific texts can be explained by the

77

fact that one of its functions is to present scientific
facts: and we all know that science and technology are
full of facts rather than fiction. Some examples are:

The bending moment causes curvature of the
beam axis. (CE 3:39)

The physical forces include maceration, or

mechanical breakdown of the solid food, and

solution. (PHS 2:30)
In these two examples, we find two verbs in the simple
present tense, "causes" and “include”, both of which
state scientific facts. Scientific fact is not recorded
in the past: it still exists and will exist in the
future. For example, we cannot say "the physical forces
included maceration" because the inclusion of maceration
is a perpetual scientific fact. Table 5.3 shows that
the physiology text contains the highest frequency of
the incidence of this tense (37 out of 70 sentences) and
the history text has the lowest incidence among the
texts with a frequency of 2 out of 51 sentences.

Present perfect is found in 3 of the texts:
philosophy, politics, and zoology. But it is more
frequently used in the two non—scientific texts than in
the scientific ones. We also found that the future,
hypothetical, and conditional tenses have greater
representation in the non-scientific texts as shown in

Table 5.3.

78

5.3 Coordination and Subordination

In discussing the difference between oral and
written discourse, Tannen (1980) mentions that spoken
language exhibits a high degree of "involvement” in
contrast to the "detached“ quality of written discourse.
She thinks that the “involvement" (interactivity) factor
in oral discourse results from phenomena such as
concreteness and imageability, inclusion of specific
details and direct quotations, and repetition of lexical
items and phonemes.

Beaman's study (1984) of Tannen's data investi—
gated coordination and subordination in written and
spoken discourse. Beaman has reached the conclusion
that, contrary to others' assumptions, spoken discourse
is on the whole just as complex as written discourse,
although the complexity assumes different forms. For
example, she found that ”finite nominals' are more
frequent in spoken than in written narratives: they
occurred with a frequency of 10.9% in the oral
narratives and only 3.8% in the written narratives.
'Adjectivals' also occurred more frequently in the
spoken narratives, with a frequency of 11.7%, compared
to the written ones with a frequency of 6.9%. On the
other hand, written narratives were found to more

frequently have ”non-finite nominals' and 'adverbials.“

79

For the “non-finite nominals,‘ the frequency was 30.4%
in the written narratives and 17.5% in the oral nar-
ratives. Concerning adverbials, the frequency was 13%
for written discourse and 8.4% for spoken discourse. It
is probably useful to list in detail the features found
by Beaman as being characteristic of oral discourse and

those found more often in written discourse:

Oral Narratives Written Narratives
Coordinating Conjunctions: Subordination:

“and”, "but", 'so', Nominals (non—finite)

”or“, "and so" to— infinitive

-ing nominal

Subordination: Adjectivals:
Nominals (finite) “which”
that-clause “that“
"that“! (¢) (¢)
Wh-interrogative "when"

'how','what','why”

Adjectivals: Adverbials:
'WhO'p “that": "When“: '38.:
'where' 'while','whether',
”after”, “since“,
Adverbials: “as if”, "wherever”,
I'because", 'if', "whereby”
“where", "like”, ”once"

'before', 'so that"
These results of Beaman's study of coordination and
subordination will be used as a possible index of
interactivity in our study.

In this section of the study, we will report

frequencies and percentages of occurrences of major

80

types of sentence structures as data relevant to intel-
ligibility in general.

It might be relevant to look first at Beaman's
findings regarding sentence structure, then discuss the
findings of this study. Beaman found that simple
sentences accompanied by non-finite clauses occur less
frequently in both types of discourse than do simple
finite sentences. These non—finite clauses are more
common in the written narratives (11%) than in the
spoken narratives (6%).

Beaman also found that coordinate sentences are
the most common type of sentence structure in the
narratives: 25% in the spoken narratives and 38% in the
written narratives. The frequency of subordinated
sentences is low in both the spoken (13%) and written
(12%) narratives. If the percentage of subordination in
discourse is used as a measure of greater syntactic
complexity, it clearly shows that neither the spoken nor
the written narratives can be considered the more
complex or intelligible mode of discourse.

Another finding of Beaman was that the coordina-
tion/subordination construction is more frequent in the
spoken narratives (27%) than in the written narratives
(18%), but a closer look at the divisions (reported

earlier in this chapter) of clauses within the sentences

81

may perhaps provide a better understanding of these
differences.

The findings of our study are given in Table 5.4,
which reveals that simple sentences occurred less often
than complex sentences in all texts. For instance, the
percentage of their occurrence is 17% in the history
text, 0% in the philosophy text, and about 24% in the
zoology text. The same table shows that simple
structures occurred with similar frequencies in the
scientific texts compared to the non-scientific texts,

except for philosophy.

TABLE 5.4

INCIDENCE OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE TYPE
IN SENTENCES FROM THE SCIENTIFIC
AND NON-SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

 

Sentence Structure

 

 

Simple Coord. Subor. Coor./Sub. Total

Text N % N % N % N % N %
History 9 17.6 11 21.5 18 35 13 25 51 100
Philos. 0 0 7 16 12 27 24 56 43 100
Politics 19 29 13 19.5 25 38 9 13.5 66 100
Total Non-
Scientific 28 17.5 31 19.3 55 34.3 46 28.1 160 100
Civil

Eng. 6 12 19 38 12 24 13 26 50 100
Physiol. 18 25.5 23 33 23 33 6 8.5 70 100

Zoology 15 23.8 15 23.8 24 38 9 14 63 100

Total
Scientific 39 21.3 57 31.1 59 32.2 28 15.3 183 100

 

82

A difference between scientific and non-scientific
texts does appear, however, in coordinate sentences,
where we find that the frequency is higher in the
scientific texts than in the non-scientific ones. For
example, the highest frequency of this structure in the
non-scientific texts is 21.5% in the history text, while
the lowest in the scientific texts is found to be 23.8%
in the zoology text.

Table 5.4 also shows that subordinate clauses are
slightly more frequent in the non-scientific texts than
in the scientific ones. With reference to mixed
coordination and subordination sentences, philosophy was
very high (56%) and physiology was low (8.5%). This may
suggest that there are more features of interactivity in
the philosophy text than in the physiology text.

From these fairly gross comparisons, we can
already see that philosophy stands apart from the other
areas. Beaman's finding is that simple sentences and
coordination structures are more common in oral than
written discourse: philosophy had 0% simple sentences
and the lowest frequency of coordinate structures. The
percentage of coordinate/subordinate sentences was
strikingly higher in philosophy than in other areas, and
this too is likely to be far removed from the patterns

of oral discourse. If oral discourse patterns are more

83

interactive (and therefore more 'readable'), we see so
far that our philosophy text is much less interactive
than the others. But our analysis can be carried much

further, in line with Beaman's more detailed findings.

5.3.1 Incidence of Coordinating Conjunctions

 

Beaman found "and“ to be a coordinating conjunc-
tion typical of oral discourse. By this measure, we can
see one general difference between our scientific and
non-scientific texts.

Table 5.5 shows that there are four main coordin-
ating conjunctions found in the corpus: ”and,“ “but“,
'or,‘ and "nor.“ Here are some examples to show their
use in the texts:

Only Hitler could have brought them together,

and only the threat of Nazi Germany could have

held them together through four years of war.

(H 1:11)

The big three mistrusted each other, but each

of the partners knew it needed both of the

partners. (H 1:14)

The beam carries the loads to its supports,

which may consist of the bearing walls,

columns, pg other beams into which it frames.

(CE 1:5)

These examples contain the coordinating con-
junctions "and," “but,“ and 'or:' we might speculate

that these conjunctions are not only interactive but

also build a cohesive relationship that keeps the

84

TABLE 5.5

INCIDENCE OF COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS
IN SENTENCES FROM THE SCIENTIFIC
AND NON-SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

 

 

 

Conjunction
and but or nor
Text N % N % N % N %
History 16 31.1 9 17.6 3 5.8 1 1.9
Philosophy 15 34.8 13 30.2 3 6.9 1 2.3
Politics 15 22.7 4 6 0 0 0 0

Total Non-
Scientific 46 28.2 24 15 2 3.17 2 1.25

Civil Eng. 24 48 3 6 3 6 0 0
Physiology 29 41.4 3 4.2 2 3.17 0 0
Zoology 14 22.2 1 1.6 2 3.17 0 0
Total

Scientific 73 39.8 7 3.8 6 4.3 O 0

 

texts hanging together. If we consider Table 5.5, we
find that the frequency of "and' is higher in the
scientific texts than in the non-scientific ones, making
them more interactive by Beaman's standard: this is a
surprising result. However, in contrast to ”and," ”but"
is more frequent in our non-scientific texts. These
contradictory results may indicate that coordinating

conjunctions are one of our less reliable indices.

5.3.2 Incidence of Subordinate Conjunctions
Beaman states that subordination is an asymmetri-
cal relationship between two clauses: one is indepen-

dent, and the other one is dependent and is usually

85

introduced by a subordinating conjunction. Subordinate
clauses have been divided into three main types:

nominals, adjectivals, and adverbials.

5.3.2.1 Nominals

 

Quirk et a1. (1972) mention that nominal subor-
dinate clauses are those clauses that function as noun
phrases. The present study found much greater use of
nominal subordination in our written non-scientific than
in our written scientific texts--126 instances out of
160 sentences in the non-scientific, compared to only 15

out of 183 sentences in the scientific texts.

5.3.2.1.1 That-Clauses

 

Beaman (1984) argues that this type of clause is
usually the most common one among the nominal subor-
dinate clauses, especially in oral discourse. Some
examples from the texts are:

Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall felt

that the tightening-ring concept was risky
rather than safe. (H 4:56)

 

The distinctive feature of amino acids and
proteins is that they contain nitrogen. (PHS
14:143)

The deflection of beams is calculated on the
assumption that it is entirely caused by the
curvature due to bending moment. (CE 3:42)

In all of the above examples, “that“ is found to link

independent with dependent clauses. For instance, we

86

find it links the clause ”Army Chief of Staff George C.
Marshall felt" with the clause ”the tightening-ring
concept was risky rather than safe.“

In our analysis of the texts, Table 5.6 indicates
that the occurrence of "that-clause” is much higher in
the non-scientific texts than in the scientific ones.
For instance, it occurred with a frequency of 53.4%
times in the philosophy text, and with a frequency of
only 1.6% in the zoology text. This distinction between
the two modalities of written texts may indicate that
interactivity is greater in non—scientific discourse

than in scientific discourse.

5.3.2.1.2 Nominal Relative Clause

 

This type of nominal subordinate clause functions
more like noun phrases than the other nominal subor-
dinate clauses. This is clear in the following example:

The most important common characteristic of

this group of moral concepts is that there is

no incongruity, but a special congruity in the

use of force or the threat of force to secure

that what is just or fair or someone's right

to have done shall in fact be done. (PH 3:102)
Table 5.6 shows that the overall frequency of nominal
relative clauses is not high in all texts, but it is

higher in the non-scientific texts.

87

 

 

o.H m H.H N H.v v N.m o oHuHuooHom
Houoa
o. H o o N.m N o.H H HmoHooN
v. H o o v.H H m.N N smoHoHosnm
N H o N N H o m .mom HH>Ho
m.o HH H.mm mm m m mN.Hm om oHuHoooHom
ucoz Houoa
m N H.mH oH m.v m H.mH oH moHuHHom
m.o m H.ov oH m.o m v.mm NN snoouoHHso
N.HH o no 4N m.m N m.mm NH snooon
N z N z N z w z oxoa

omsmao mean

o>HuHcHucwloe

o>HomHom HooHaoz

woooHoauona

 

maxma UHmHBzmHumIZOZ 02¢ UHmHBZMHum mmB 20mm
mmvzmazmm ZH ZOHedzHQmomDm udZHZOZ m0 mUZmQHUZH

®.m mam<a

88

5.3.2.1.3 To-Infinitive Clause

This is a non—finite type of nominal subordinate
clause. As Quirk et a1. (1972) suggest, finite verbs
are characterized as having tense distinction, they
occur as the verb phrase of main clauses, and they have
mood (imperative or subjunctive) that indicates the
speaker's (author's) attitude to the prediction as in,
for example, "They study French" or 'They studied
French.“ On the other hand, non-finite verbs have no
tense distinction or imperative mood, and cannot be in
constructions with a subject of a main clause. For
instance, we cannot say "She to speak it easily," but we
can say 'She spoke it easily“ or 'It was easy for her to
speak it easily." This type of subordinate clause
(to-infinitive) discriminates widely between the
scientific and the non-scientific discourse. Some
examples are:

The process began in January 1942 when

Churchill and his military leader came to
Washington to discuss strategy. (H 3:28)

 

Where lateral support is needed to_prevent
only lateral buckling . . . (CE 9:114)

 

There is a major difference in the frequency
between the two. Table 5.6 indicates that the "to-
infinitive'I appears 53 times in the non-scientific texts

and only 2 times in the scientific ones.

89

 

Nominal -ing clauses are the last type of nominal
subordinate clauses to be discussed. These non-finite
clauses are exemplified in these instances:

Roosevelt also knew that the hard—pressed
Russians--facing nearly two hundred German
divisions on a front that extended from
Leningrad to the Caucasus, with huge areas,
including their prime industrial and
agricultural lands . . . (H 8:140)

 

The problem of beam design consists mainly in
providing enough bending strength and enough
shear strength at every location in the span.
(CE 2:19)

 

As Table 5.6 shows, this type of nominal subordinate
clause is also more frequent in the non-scientific texts
than in the scientific ones.

On the whole, we notice that there are differences
between the scientific and the non-scientific written
discourse with reference to nominal subordinate clauses.
Our analysis has shown that the incidence in all types
of nominal subordinate clauses is higher in the

non-scientific discourse.

5.3.2.2 Adjectivals

 

Relative clauses are considered to be the most
common type of adjectival subordinate clauses. Relative
clauses are adjectival subordinate clauses that begin
with a 'wh-pronoun,‘ ”that,“ or ¢ (Beaman 1984). This

may be exemplified in the following:

90

The most common rolled steel beam cross sec-

tion . . . with much of the material in the

top and bottom flange, where it is most effec-

tive in resisting bending moment. (CE 3:31)

The above example contains 'where' as the adjectival
relative subordinator. This subordinator is not common
in any of the texts. As Table 5.7 shows, it occurred
only once in four of the texts: history, philosophy,
civil engineering, and physiology. This does not show
any difference between the two types of texts.

“Who” represents another adjectival subordinate
clause which occurred more frequently than "where.“
Table 5.7 shows that the incidence of ”who” is much
higher in the non-scientific texts than in the
scientific ones, where it does not occur at all. This
provides us with another distinction between the two
types of the written discourse. It might be suggested
that this pronoun provides more cohesion in the
non-scientific discourse. Some examples are:

. . .the distinction between the people who

exercise their franchise and those who do not

deserves to be examined because it may be most

important in the political system. (P 1:17)

. . . led by Roosevelt, a capitalist who

frequently criticized colonialism and was no

friend of communism. (H 1:9)

These two examples show the occurrence of 'who' as an

adjectival subordinator that creates cohesion between

the parts of the sentences.

91

TABLE 5.7

INCIDENCE OF ADJECTIVAL SUBORDINATION IN SENTENCES
FROM THE SCIENTIFIC AND NON-SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

 

 

 

Adjectival
who which that E where whom
Text N % N % N % N % N % N %
History 1 1 3 5.8 O O 4 7.8 l 1.9 O 0
Philosophy 6 13.9 18 41.8 3 6.9 2 4.6 1 2.3 2 4.6
Politics 4 6 5 7.5 3 4.5 8 12 O O 0
Total Non-

SCientifiC 11 6.8 28 17.5 6 3.8 14 8.8 1 .6 2 1.1
Civil Eng. 0 o 3 6 2 4 o o 1 2 o o
physiology 0 o 22 31.4 1 1.4 o o 1 1.4 o o
Zoology O O 15 23.8 0 O 0 0 O 0 O 0
Total

Scientific 0 0 49 21.8 3 1.6 O 0 2 1.1 O O

 

A major distinction in the adjectival subordina-
tion is found when considering ”which“. Table 5.7
reveals that "which“ is the most frequent adjectival
relative subordinate in all the texts. Our scientific
texts rely on ”which," whereas our non-scientific texts
employ a wider range of, and greater number of,
adjectival subordinate structures. Two examples are:

The lean meat is mainly muscle, which contains
proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. (PHS 1:19)

This is an abbreviation which represents the
rest of each amino acid molecule. (PHS 16:162)

Table 5.7 also shows the incidence of another type
of adjectival subordinate clauses, i.e., “that." Its

use as an adjectival subordinate could be exemplified in

92

the following instances, differentiating it from its use
as a nominal subordinate that was discussed earlier:
First, anything that looks like a rejection of
the political system by so large a fraction of
the pOpulation is a matter of great
importance. (P 7:84)

Beams support loads that are applied at right
angles. (CE 1:1)

In these two examples, “that“ is obviously used as an
adjectival subordinate, not as a nominal one. Its occur-
rence is not high in the texts, and Table 5.7 reveals
that the history text lacks this type of adjectival
clauses. All in all, its incidence does not indicate a
significant distinction between the scientific and the
non-scientific texts.

Another feature of the adjectival subordinate
clause worth discussing is deletion (¢), which is
employed differently among the texts. Table 5.7 again
shows that it was used only in the non-scientific
texts. This provides another distinctive feature for
the non-scientific texts, and can be exemplified in the
following example:

The operation, code name SLEDGEHAMMER, would

be a suicide mission designed to take pressure

off the Russians. (H 7:109)

'Whom' was also investigated, but it has a very
low incidence, occurring only twice in the philosophy

text. This is not significant for differentiating

between the two types of discourse.

93

5.3.3 Adverbials

 

The last type of subordinate clauses to be
analyzed is the adverbial subordinate clause. Some
examples are:

The process began in January 1942 yhgg

Churchill and his military leaders came to

Washington to discuss strategy. (H 3:28)

II forty million adult citizens were disen-
franchised by 1aw . . . (P 2:17)

Such loads are usually . . ., 33 illustrated
by the load labelled in Fig. 3.1 (a). (CE 1:3)

These examples show the use of different types of
adverbial subordinators, ”when,“ 'if' and ”as”. Our
analysis of the data has revealed the use of other
subordinators, as Table 5.8 indicates. Though the
numbers are small for each individual subordinator, the

overall totals are significant.

5.4 Counter-Interactive Syntactic Features

We mentioned earlier, according to Doleiel's char-
acterization, that Smith believes some features related
to the characteristics of oral discourse come last in
the order of interactivity in written discourse because
they are related indirectly to performative interactiv-
ity. For purposes of this study, we will adhere to
Smith's perspective. Two general indices will thus be
considered as inversely related to interactivity: the

passive voice and the impersonal/inanimate subject.

94

 

 

o o H.H N H.H N o o N o H.N s H.N s o o N.H N N.N NH H.N NH N.N NH oHNHssoHoN
Hssoa
o o o N o o o o o o N.N N N.H H o o N o o o N.NH N N.NH N NNoHNON
o o N.H H N.H H o o o o N.H H N.H H o o N.H H N.N s N.H H H.N N NNoHoHNNsN
o o N H N H o o o o N H s N o o s N NH N NH N N N .NsN HH>Ho
N. H N. H N.H N NN.H N NN.H N N. H NN.H N NN.H N N.H N NN.N NH N.NH NH H.N N oHNHssoHoN
Imoz Hmuoe
N.H H N.H H N.N N o o o o o o o o o o o o N.H N N.NH N o o NNHNHHNN
o o o o N.N N N.N N o o N.N H o o N.N N N.N H N.N H N.NH N N.N N NsooNoHHsN
o o o o o o o o N.N N o o N.N N o o N.N N N.H N N.N N N.N N NsosmHN
N z N z N z N z N z N z N z N z N z N z N z N z sNoH
ooco umuwm mwsmoon “masons ouououonu own» on oocwm nwsonu swoonuam on ma cons
HNHNoo>N<

 

maxme UHmHHzmHomlzoz nz< UHmHHzmHum may
zomm mMUZMHzmm zH ZOHH<anMomDm A<Hmmm>o< mo muzmoHUZH

w.m mqm<H

95

Linguists such as Svartvik (1966) and Huddleston
(1971) have stated that the passive construction is
usually frequent in the scientific discourse of fields
such as chemistry, physics, and biology. A prominent
feature of this is that the passive sentences tend not
to mention names of people in experiments or in describ-
ing the design of a device: still, an agent might be
recovered from earlier clues in the text. This is
because scientists' reference to people is often not
necessary. It is true that passive constructions do not
actually state who the people are, but it can almost
certainly be guessed who they are from the context.

It could be claimed that a function of the passive
voice in discourse (mainly scientific) is to reflect
objectivity: in other words, to signal impersonal
perspective in a process, a research or an experiment,
contrary to a popular belief that it is used for the
sake of avoiding responsibility toward the research or
experiment. This could be clarified in the following
examples taken from the texts:

Standard AISCM nomenclature pertaining to the

W (wide-flange) hot-rolled steel beams is

illustrated in Figure 3.2. (CE 4:46)

. . . vitamins, minerals and water are also
required in the diet. (PHS 1:6)

Table 5.9 shows the frequency of passive sentences in

the texts. The incidence of the passive, as Table 5.9

96

TABLE 5.9

COUNTER-INTERACTIVE SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF
FINITE VERBS IN SENTENCES FROM SCIENTIFIC
AND NON-SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

 

 

Passive verb Inanimate/impersonal

Text N % N %
History 9 17.6 14 27.4
Philosophy 31 72 7 16.2
Politics 19 28 21 31.8
Total Non-

Scientific 59 36.8 42 26.25

Civil eng. 47 94 39 78
Physiology 56 80 37 52.8
Zoology 49 77.7 38 60.3
Total

Scientific 152 83 114 62.3

 

indicates, is more frequent in the scientific texts.
This finding agrees with other linguists' conclusions in
other studies who have found that passive voice is a
characteristic of scientific discourse.

It has also been recognized that in expository
writing, both scientific and non-scientific, there are
inanimate and depersonalized subjects, apparently
intended to emphasize what is important at the partic-

ular stage of process or research described, to the

97

deliberate exclusion of something else. This is clear
in the following:
The process began in January 1942. (H 3:22)

. . . loads cause positive bending moment
throughout the span. (CE 3:28)

On the whole, we find that the incidence of both fea-
tures (the passive and inanimate/impersonal subjects) is

notably higher in scientific discourse.

Summary

We have seen that the analysis of syntactic
features has shown major differences between the two
modalities of written discourse. In the analysis of
cohesion, we found that anaphora occurred with a higher
frequency in the non-scientific texts (63.1%) than in
the scientific texts (46.4%).

The analysis of features related to interactivity
has shown that there is more "presence for the reader“
in the non-scientific text than in the scientific texts.
For instance, Table 5.2 reveals that the frequency of
"interrogatives and imperatives" is 13.75% in the
non-scientific texts compared to 1.6% in the scientific
texts. This also applies to the "presence of the
writer,” where we find 'lst—person singular” occurring
with a frequency of 8.1% in the non-scientific texts and

with a frequency of 0% in the scientific texts.

98

In reference to coordination and subordination, we
found that the coordinating conjunction "and” occurred
more frequently in the scientific group (39.8%) than in
the non-scientific group (28.75%). We also found that
"nominal subordinates“ appeared with a much greater
frequency in the non-scientific texts (78.75%) than in
the scientific texts (8.1%). 'Adjectivals' also
occurred more often in the non-scientific discourse
(39.3%) than in the scientific one (24.5%).

Our analysis in this chapter has also indicated
that "counter-interactive syntactic features“ are more
common in the scientific texts than in the non-
scientific texts. Table 5.9 reveals that the “passive
voice' has occurred with a frequency of 83% in the
scientific texts and a frequency of 36.8% in the non-
scientific texts. In addition, “inanimate/impersonal"
subjects appeared more frequently in the scientific

texts (62.3%) than in the non-scientific texts (26.25%).

CHAPTER VI

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

This study has discussed scientific English, the
differences between oral and written discourse, and the
major features of cohesion and interactivity. A text
analysis of both cohesion and interactivity features has
been presented.

Because the main objective was to distinguish
between scientific and non-scientific written discourse,
the study began with a review of literature on EST. We
pointed out that most previous studies on this type of
discourse were at the sentence level and lacked a frame-
work of discourse theory. For example, we mentioned
that early contributions to the field focused on vocabu-
lary and then on grammatical analysis of the sentence.
Later, in the 19703, studies started considering units
longer than the sentence by using some rhetorical
functions.

This study has considered speculations of scholars
who studied discourse on a level larger than the sen-

tence or the clause. Halliday and Hasan (1976), for

99

 

 

100

instance, explain the issues involved in "cohesion“ and
define possible cohesive elements that make the text
hang together. In other words, they view "cohesion“ as
a concept which refers to all possibilities that are
available in the text that create discourse
connectedness. "Anaphora," for instance, is an
important cohesive element that helps in building up
that connectedness. This cohesive element (anaphora) is
a relationship that presupposed something mentioned
earlier in the text.

It was also pointed out that Smith (1982) and
Doleiel (1973) classify written discourse as narrative
or character discourse. Their distinctions in the
number and type of communicative functions occurring in
these two types of discourse is reflected by different
distributions of certain ”discriminative features“ such
as "person” and "tense.“ Within this frame, we used
features related to the presence of ”the reader” and
"the writer" as indices to investigate interactivity.
For example, elements such as interrogatives, first-
person plural imperatives, and second-person pronouns
were investigated as features related to the reader.
Distribution of first-person singular and first-person
plural are discussed as features that indicate the

presence of the writer.

101

Since we assumed that “interactivity" may be
affected by a high frequency of features of oral
discourse, we referred to Tannen's studies and used
Beaman's features as indices in our study. Tannen
(1980) suggests that the relationship between oral and
written discourse is influenced by the fact that spoken
language shows a high degree of “involvement" (inter—
activity) in contrast to the "detached'I quality of
written discourse. It was pointed out earlier that
Tannen thinks interactivity results from factors such as
concreteness and repetition of lexical items.

Beaman (1984) followed suit and was inspired by
Tannen's speculations regarding the relationship between
oral and written discourse. Beaman used data (narra-
tives) in her study which was analyzed earlier by
Tannen, and tried to come up with conclusive findings
about the two modes of discourse. Beaman's study
considered features within ”coordination and subordina-
tion' and concluded that oral discourse is just as com-
plex as written discourse. These elements were used as
indices in our study to differentiate between scientific
and non-scientific discourse with regard to interactiv-
ity and intelligibility. We should point out, however,
that not all of Beaman's features could be considered to
result in enhanced intelligibility because some tran—

scripts of oral discourse are notoriously incoherent.

102

6.1 Discussion of Results

 

We have already stated that our study analyzed
scientific and non-scientific texts in terms of some
features that tend to create cohesion and interactivity.
The analysis of ”cohesion" has focused on one main
feature, namely anaphora, whereas the analysis of
"interactivity“ included more features, i.e., features
related to the reader, features related to the writer,
features related to coordination and subordination, and
features related to counter-interactivity.

Through the present study we have discovered
several contrasts between scientific and non-scientific
English. These contrasts are in the pronominal, tense,
and sentence-structure features of the two types of
discourse. Although all of these features are at the
sentence level, except anaphora, we have viewed them in
a discourse context, suggesting that they may affect the
"interactivity" of the text.

In this study we have made the tentative assump—
tion that interactivity, as defined by major scholars
and in the dimensions we have added to that definition,
promotes intelligibility. However, in an exploratory
study such as the present one, it is prudent to suspend
judgment in some cases. Conclusions--and reservations--

are described below.

103

6.1.1 Cohesion

Our analysis of the corpus has indicated that
there are differences between the two types of written
discourse in many of the discussed features, but there
are also some similarities. Through our analysis of
“anaphora,“ we found that there are differences in its
total occurrence in the scientific and the non-
scientific texts, especially in the civil engineering
text where it occurs less frequently than in the others.
Table 5.1 indicates that the frequency of “anaphora“ in
the civil engineering text is 24%, but it is much higher
in the philosophy text, where it appeared with a fre-
quency of 79%. The results of the analysis of anaphora
as revealed in Table 6.1 show that its incidence is
higher in the non-scientific texts (61.8%) than in the

scientific texts (46.4%).

TABLE 6.1

SUMMARY OF ANAPHORA FOR SENTENCES IN
SCIENTIFIC AND NON-SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

 

 

Type of Non-Science Science
Anaphora N % N %
Immediate 84 52.5 81 44.2
Mediated 6 3.7 2 1.1
Remote 9 5.6 2 1.1
Total 99 61.8 85 46.4

 

104

These differences in the occurrence of ”anaphora”
between the two modalities of discourse may suggest that
the non-scientific texts are more cohesive and that this
may have more connectedness within its lines. As
pointed out earlier, this speculation applies more
specifically to the engineering text than to other texts
because it has a lower incidence of that cohesive

element.

6.1.2 Interactivity

 

In reference to interactivity, where the bulk of
the analysis took place, we found major differences in
the features analyzed, as shown in Table 6.2. This may
suggest a distinction between the two kinds of

discourse.

TABLE 6.2

SUMMARY OF TOTALS OF THE PRESENCE OF
THE READER AND THE WRITER

 

 

Non-Science Science
Feature N % N %
reader: 2nd-
person gen.
or poss. 0 0 2 1.1
reader: Interg.
or imperative 22 13.75 3 1.6
writer: lst-
person sing. 13 8.1 0 0

writer: lst-
person plural 18 11.25 9 4.9

 

105

In this section, we started our analysis with
features related to the reader (see Table 6.2). The
analysis indicated that the incidence of ”interroga-
tives' and 'imperatives' was higher in the non-
scientific group of texts (13.75%) than in the scien-
tific group (1.6%). This is a clear—cut difference
between the two types of text, suggesting more inter-
activity for the non-scientific texts.

Within the elements of features related to the
reader, we found that 2nd-person pronouns occurred only
in the zoology text: the frequency of occurrence was low
(3.17%), as indicated earlier in Table 5.2. This insig-
nificant difference between the two types of text may
not indicate a major difference in their interactivity.

The analysis of the elements included in the
features related to the presence of the "writer" shows
that the occurrence of the supposedly interactive
lst-person singular is 8.1% in the non-scientific texts
and 0% in the scientific texts (see Table 6.2). It also
reveals that the lst-person plural is more common in the
non-scientific texts than in the scientific texts: it
appeared with a frequency of 11.25% in the non-
scientific texts and with a frequency of 4.9% in the
scientific texts.

All in all, we found that these two features

(features related to the presence of the "reader" and

106

the 'writer') occurred more frequently in our non-
scientific texts than in the scientific texts. All the
features just listed do seem to this researcher to
create interactivity, as claimed by Smith (1982). In
the following data on tense, however, Smith's claims of
interactivity are more tenuous.

Major differences were found in the analysis of
'tense' in the two types of texts. In the character
group of tenses, we found that the occurrence of "simple
present," which indicates more interactivity because it
shows present of the writer, constitutes a major distinc-
tion between the scientific and the non-scientific
texts. This feature appeared in all six texts, but with
varying degree (see Table 5.3). For instance, its
frequency in the history text was 3.9% but its frequency
in the physiology text was much higher (52.8%). This
may be explained by the perception that scientific
discourse often deals with universals, which are
generally in English given in the present tense. But
the extent to which that perception is accurate is
unknown. Non-scientific discourse also deals with
universals.

In the narrative group of tenses, as Table 5.3
shows, we found that the incidence of the "simple past“
is the most striking feature. This tense appeared in

all the non-scientific texts but only in the zoology

107

text from the scientific group. Its highest frequency
is in the history text (90%). The history text is
naturally expected to be higher in incidence of this
tense than the others because it often discusses
possible consequences of past events and is more

speculative in nature than science.

TABLE 6.3

SUMMARY OF TOTALS OF TENSE DISTRIBUTION

 

 

Non-Science Science
Tense N % N %
present perfect 9 5.6 2 1.1
simple present 37 23.1 80 43.7
present progressive 0 0 0 0
modals 42 26.25 20 10.9
past perfect 7 4.3 0 0
simple past 57 35.6 17 9.2
past progressive 0 0 0 0

 

If we consider the total frequency of these fea-
tures, we will find that the "simple present“ appeared
more often in the scientific group of texts (43.7%) than
in the non-scientific group (23.1%). In contrast, the
“simple past“ appeared with a much higher frequency in
the non-scientific texts (35.6%) than in the scientific
texts (9.2%). This asymmetry may be one indication that
tense is not the best indicator of interactivity in a

text. In any case, it is difficult to be sure of the

108

effect of these two features, despite the suggestions of

Smith (1982) that both are interactive.

6.1.3 Coordination and Subordination

 

6.1.3.1 Coordination

 

The analysis of “coordination and subordination'I
revealed more differences between the two types of
texts. In reference to coordination, Beaman (1984)
found that all of the coordinating conjunctions analyzed
('and," “but," and ”or') were more frequent in the
spoken narratives (84.5%) than in the written ones
(39%). This implies that coordinating conjunctions are
characteristic of oral discourse and reflect more
interactivity in discourse. In our study, we found the
major difference to be in the occurrence of the
coordinating conjunction ”and," which is found more
frequently in the scientific texts than in the non-
scientific texts. Table 6.4 reveals the frequency of
occurrence of the coordinating conjunction ”and“ to be
39.8% in the scientific texts compared to 28.75% in the
non-scientific texts. Differences among the other
coordinating conjunctions are not significant except in
the case of ”but," which occurred with a frequency of
3.8% in the non-scientific texts and a frequency of 15%
in the non-scientific texts. 'Or' is more frequent in
the scientific texts, as shown in Table 6.4, but the

difference in its incidence is not striking.

109

TABLE 6.4

SUMMARY OF TOTALS OF
COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS

 

 

Non-Science Science
Conjunction N % N %
and 46 28.2 73 39.8
but 24 15 7 3.8
or 2 3.17 6 4.3
nor 2 1.25 0 0

 

In general, we found these features more common in
the scientific texts. This may indicate that they are
more intelligible and interactive, despite the fact that
they are less interactive in other features such as
counter-interactive syntactic features. As Beaman
indicated in her study, the higher the incidence of
coordinating conjunctions, especially "and,” the more
complex the discourse is. This is reflected in our
study and suggests that the more frequently these
features occur in a text, the more intelligible that

text becomes.

6.1.3.2 Subordination

 

In Chapter 5, we mentioned that Beaman (1984)
suggested in her study that some subordinators are
characteristic of oral discourse, while some others are
characteristic of the written one. The following list

indicates the suggested characteristics of both modes of

discourse:

110

 

 

 

 

Subordinates of Subordinates of
Oral Discourse Written Discourse
Nominals (finite): Nominals (non—finite):
that-clause to-infinitive
wh-interrogative —ing nominal
Adjectivals: Adjectivals:
'who', “that", 'which', "that“, '0',
”where” ”when“
Adverbials: Adverbials:
"because”, “if”, “when", 'as', I'while",
"where", "like“, “whether”, 'after',
”before", “so that” 'since', ”as if“,
'whenever', "whereby",
"once”

The analysis of some features in subordination has
shown a different direction from the analysis of coordin—
ation. In our analysis of nominal subordinates, we
found striking differences between the scientific and
non-scientific texts. For example, the incidence of
”That-clauses" is much higher in the non-scientific
texts (31.25%) than in the scientific texts (3.2%). We
also found a large difference in the frequency of
”To-infinitive clauses”, which appeared with a frequency
of 33.1% in the non-scientific texts and with a fre-
quency of only 1.1% in the scientific texts. On the
whole, Table 6.5 reveals that all non-scientific texts
are higher in their frequency with regard to nominal
subordinates than scientific texts. Since Beaman's
findings are that these are characteristic of oral

discourse, this may suggest that the non-scientific

111

TABLE 6.5

SUMMARY OF TOTALS OF
NOMINAL SUBORDINATION

 

 

Nominal Non-Science Science
Subordinator N % N %
That-clause 50 31.25 6 3.2
nominal relative 8 5 4 4.1
to-infinitive 53 33.1 2 1.1
-ing clause 11 6.8 3 1.6

 

texts are more interactive and intelligible than the
scientific texts when we refer to these subordination
features.

The analysis of adjectival subordinates did not
show significant differences in the incidence of its
features. The only major difference within these fea-
tures is that '0' is more frequent in the non-scientific
group of texts (8.8%) than in the scientific texts (0%),
as shown in Table 6.6. Thus our speculation about
“interactivity“ or ”intelligibility" with regard to
“adjectival subordinates“ is not conclusive.

If we examine Table 6.7 we will notice that there
are no major differences in the frequency of the inci-
dence of adverbial subordinates. The table indicates
that the frequency of these adverbials is not signifi-
cantly higher in the non-scientific texts than in the
scientific texts. By carefully examining the details 0f

Table 6.7, we find small differences between some of

112

TABLE 6.6

SUMMARY OF TOTALS OF ADJECTIVALS

 

 

Non-Science Science
Adjectival N % N %
who 11 6.8 0 0
which 28 17.5 49 21.8
that 6 3.8 3 1.6
0 14 8.8 0 0
where 1 .6 2 1.1
whom 2 1.1 0 0

 

these adverbials. For instance, “when“ occurred with a
frequency of 3.1% in the non-scientific texts and with a
frequency of 8.7% in the scientific texts. There is
also a slight difference in the frequency of the inci-
dence of 'if' in both modalities of written discourse.
The analysis of "adverbials” has not suggested a
significant enough distinction in discourse to permit us
to speculate conclusively about interactivity or

intelligibility in our texts.

6.1.4 Counter-Interactive Features

 

The last feature analyzed in this study was
”counter—interactive syntactic features.” We are con-
sidering two main features, passive voice and inanimate/
impersonal subjects, to be "counter-interactive“ because
Smith (1982) indicates they inversely influence inter-
activity. The investigation of their incidence revealed

major differences between the two modalities of written

113

TABLE 6.7

SUMMARY OF TOTALS OF ADVERBIALS

 

 

Non-Science Science
Adverbial N % N %
when 5 3.1 16 8.7
if 17 10.6 15 8.1
as 10 6.25 12 6.5
although 3 1.8 3 1.6
though 2 1.25 0 0
since 2 1.25 4 2.1
so that 1 .6 4 2.1
therefore 2 1.25 0 0
whether 2 1.25 0 0
because 3 1.8 2 1.1
after 1 .6 2 1.1
once 1 .6 0 0

 

discourse. Table 6.8 reveals that the frequency of the
passive construction was 83% in the scientific texts and
28% in the non-scientific texts. This agrees with the
findings of Svartvik (1966), discussed in Chapter II.
Similarly, the frequency of inanimate/impersonal
subjects indicated a striking difference in occurrence:
62.3% in the scientific texts and 31.8% in the non-
scientific texts. This significant difference may
indicate that scientific texts are ”counter-interactive”

and thus less intelligible than non-scientific texts.

6.1.5 Speculations about the Philosophy Text
Our analysis revealed some inconsistency regarding
the distribution of some of the discussed features in

the philosophy text. In the analysis of "anaphora,“ we

114

TABLE 6.8

SUMMARY OF TOTALS OF COUNTER-INTERACTIVE
SYNTACTIC FEATURES

 

 

Non-Science Science
Feature N % N %
passive 59 36.8 152 83
inanimate/
impersonal 42 26.25 114 62.3

 

found that it occurred with a frequency of 79% in the
philosophy text, 62.7% in the history text, and 53% in
the politics text. The high frequency of this cohesive
element in the philosophy text shifts the total from
57.8% to 61.8% in the non-scientific texts (see Table
6.9). In the scientific group of texts, it appeared
with a frequency of 24% in the civil engineering text
and with a frequency of 55.5% in both the physiology and
zoology texts (see Table 5.1). We notice that the
incidence of anaphora is highest in philosophy among all
the texts, but it does not influence the balance of
distribution between the non-scientific and scientific
texts.

The philosophy text also shows a high frequency in
a feature related to the presence of the writer, namely,
lst-person singular, which affects the distribution in
the two modalities of discourse. As Table 6.9 indi-

cates, without its incidence the frequency will be zero

115

 

m.~o o.m~ mm.om w.Hm N.NH N.NN muoohnsm
oumENcmsH\HmsomuoaaH

 

mm w.- w.om mm mm o.NH mcowuosuumaou o>Nmmmm
N.HN 0.0 m.NH m.n w.H< w.m :nONSB: I
o m.m w.o e m.mH H sons: I
HmHm>Huoofiv<
~.m N.NN m~.Hm H.nH «.mm m.mm somsmaolumnas
"mamcfiaoz
w.m N.HH mH o ~.om o.NH :usn: "mcoNuocsflsoo
wcaumcfivuooo
N.NN NN.HH H.NN N.NH H.HN NN.N usoNooN oHsaHN
o o H.N o N.NN o .NsHN soNsosusNH
Humuuus onu mo mocomoum
N.Ns N.HN N.HN NN NH N.NN ouossssN
N N N N N N musumom
muxoe muwa muxoe moNuHHom mzoowoaanm muoumfim
ownuucwHom oNuNucmNomlcoz camaucmfiom
Hmuoa cN ansomoaficm Icoz HmuoH

usosNHs Hsooe

 

meH wmmomOAHmm NEH zH
mMMDH<mm mo MUZMMMDUUO HzmemHmzoozH

¢.o m4m<H

116

for both the non-scientific and scientific texts. The
table reveals that it occurred with a frequency of 30.2%
in the philosOphy text, resulting in a total of 8.1% in
the non-scientific group of texts.

In reference to "simple present,“ philosophy has
the highest frequency among the non-scientific texts.
Table 6.9 shows that it occurred with a frequency of
51.1%. The percentage of its incidence in the
non-scientific texts without the philosophy texts is
11.76%, but with the philosophy texts included it is
23.1%. However, the high incidence of the feature in
this particular text does not affect the distinction
between non-scientific and scientific texts.

PhilosOphy, again, shows a high incidence of ''but"
in the coordinating conjunctions. Table 6.9 reveals
that this feature appeared with a frequency of 30.2% in
the philosophy text, 17.6% in the history text, and 6%
in the politics text, totalling 15% in these texts. If
we eliminate the philosophy texts, it will be 11.8%.
The high occurrence of this feature in the philosOphy
text does not fluctuate the total difference in the
frequency of both the non- scientific and scientific
texts.

Our investigation of the texts has also revealed
that the nominal "that-clause” occurred with a higher

frequency (53.4%) in the philosophy text than in the

117

other texts, as Table 6.9 shows. The total percentage
of the non-scientific texts with regard to this feature
is 31.25%, and 24.2% without including the philosOphy
texts. The high incidence of this feature in the
philosophy text does not affect its overall distribution
between the two modalities of written discourse.

Regarding “adjectivals,“ the philosophy text
contains the highest frequency of ”who” among the
non-scientific texts. Table 6.9 indicates that "who”
occurs with a frequency of 13.9% in the philosophy text,
1% in the history text, and 6% in the politics text,
totalling 6.8% with the philosOphy texts and totalling
3.5% without the philosophy texts. 'Which' also
appeared with the highest frequency in the philosophy
text, with a frequency of 41%, resulting in a
substantial difference in the total incidence of this
feature, as Table 6.9 indicates, but, again, this has no
influence on the distribution of this particular feature
in both types of texts. In reference to “adverbials,“
Table 5.8 indicates that their frequency in the
philosophy text has no special significance, except for
'if', which appeared in the philosophy text with a
frequency of 16.2% compared to 5.8% in the history text
and 10.6% in the politics text.

This non-scientific text (philosophy) also

includes the highest incidence of ”passive”

118

constructions among the non-scientific group of texts.
Table 5.9 indicates that it occurred with a 72% fre-
quency in the philosophy text compared to 17.6% in the
history text and 28% in the politics text. The high
incidence of this feature in the philosophy text shifts
the total from 22.8% to 36.8%, as Table 6.9 indicates.
In contrast, the incidence of "inanimate/impersonal“
subjects in the philosophy text is the lowest among the
same group of texts. Again, Table 6.9 reveals that this
feature occurred with a frequency of 16.2% in the
philosophy text, 27.4% in the history text, and 31.8% in
the politics text. The low incidence of this feature in
the philosophy texts shifts the total from 29.6% to
26.25%. However, the atypical occurrence of these two
features does not indicate any influence on their total
frequency in the non-scientific and scientific texts.

On the whole, our analysis indicated that the
fluctuating frequency of some features of ”cohesion" and
"interactivity“ in the philosophy text does not influ—
ence the distribution of those features in the text to
the extent that it disrupts the distinction between the
non-scientific and scientific texts. This inconsistency
of those features in that particular text may be
explained by the perception that the tradition in the

art of writing philosophy is a mixture of arguments,

119

discussions, assumptions, speculations, and even logic

statements.

6.2 Discussion

 

Our discussion of the results in the study has
indicated that some features are more common in the
non-scientific modality of discourse whereas others are
more frequent in the scientific one. We found that
anaphora, features relating to the presence of the
reader, features relating to the presence of the writer,
simple past, the coordinating conjunction “but,” and
nominal subordinates are more characteristic of our
non-scientific texts. On the other hand, we found that
simple present, the coordinating conjunction ”and," and
the counter-interactive features are predominant in the
scientific texts. In addition, the analysis indicated
that there is some similarity in the frequency of
adjectivals and adverbials.

Despite the presence of some overlap in the
analysis of the various features regarding written
discourse, we may speculate that there is an indication
that non-scientific written texts are more cohesive,
interactive, and consequently more intelligible and
readable than scientific written discourse. This
speculation may be explained by the conception that

scientific discourse usually deals with universals and

120

factual information coming from the laboratory, which
may cause the author to be more concerned with present-
ing his results and information in a less interactive or
intelligible way rather than being concerned with
features related to rhetorical functions.

In conclusion, it should be remembered that this
study is an exploratory one, the first of its kind in
several ways. For instance, the idea of using syntactic
features characteristic of oral discourse as a possible
index of interactivity is unique to this study. The con-
trast between scientific and non—scientific discourse,
with reference to cohesive elements and interactivity
features, was studied qualitatively and quantitatively
to support our discussion. In the classic phrase, ”more
research is needed“ before conclusions can be drawn
about interactivity in texts. Certainly more research
on cohesion would be welcome. Further research might
involve study of readers' response to the two types of
texts.

Implications for EST would include the desira-
bility of teaching cohesive devices in English as well
as helping readers to avoid reliance on interactivity in
reading. Such implications can be developed by investi-
gating our students' writing and reading. For instance,
in some of the writing classes, focus should be directed

toward teaching and explaining cohesive elements such as

121

vocabulary, anaphora, cataphora, and so on, that create
cohesiveness in writing a text. For reading, we might
develop reading tests that will reveal the effect of
interactivity on our students' comprehension through
their own responses. This kind of testing may help in
discovering which interactivity elements may hinder
understanding.

In general, EST should not be considered a
separate system but rather a development from, or an
alternative realization of, what has already been
learned in English. Its primary objective should be to
change the learner's concept of English from that which
represents it as a separate set of facts about words and
some sentence patterns to that which represents it as a

means of communication in scientific discourse.

APPENDIX

History
From: Rise to Globalism
By: Stephen E. Ambrose

(pp. 44-50)

#1 The Grand Alliance of World War II, sometimes
called the 'Strange Alliance,” joined together
Britain, the world's greatest colonial power led by
Churchill, an imperialist determined to maintain the
British Empire: with Russia, the world's only
Communist nation, led by Stalin, a revolutionary
determined to maintain and expand Communism: with the
United States, the world's greatest capitalist power,
led by Roosevelt, a capitalist who frequently
criticized colonialism and was no friend of
Communism. Only Hitler could have brought them
together, and only the threat of Nazi Germany could
have held them together through four years of war.
The Big Three mistrusted each other, but each of the
partners knew it needed both of the others. Neither 15
Britain or America together nor any other combination
of two was powerful enough to defeat Germany. It
took all three great nations to do the job.

#2 So the Grand Alliance was successful. Despite
many stresses and strains, it held together to the
end, an impressive achievement. In the process,
however, nerves were stretched almost to the breaking
point. Most of the time the divisive issues did not
have Britain and the United States lined up against
the Russians but rather pitted the United States
against Britain, with the Russians siding most often
with the Americans.

#3 The process began in January 1942 when Churchill
and his military leaders came to Washington to
discuss strategy. Churchill presented the British 30
view, which called for tightening the ring around
Germany, then stabbing in the knife when the enemy
was exhausted. He advocated a series of operations
around the periphery of Hitler's European fortress,
combined with bombing raids against Germany itself
and encouragement to Resistance forces in the
occupied countries, but no direct invasion in the
near future. This represented traditional British
policy, abandoned only from 1914 to 1918, an

122

123

aberration Churchill was determined not to repeat.

He would let the Continentals do their own fighting,
just as the great British statesmen of the past had
done. What he had forgotten, however, was that in
the past British friends on the Continent had shared
general British political and economic concepts. In 45
1941 those who were willing to fight Hitler, whether
they were Russians, Frenchmen in the Resistance,
Yugoslavs, or Greeks, were mostly on the political
Left, either Socialists or, more often, Communists.
Churchill's policy, to the extent that it was

carried out, meant that he would have to give a
tremendous boost to the forces of the Left in Europe,
for they would be there with the guns when the end
came.

#4 The American military opposed Churchill's
policy, although not on political grounds. Army
Chief of Staff George C. Marshall felt that the
tightening-ring concept was risky rather than safe,
and that it would waste lives and material rather
than save them. To leave the Red Army to face the 50
bulk of the Wehrmacht, as Churchill advocated in
effect, was to court disaster. Marshall was not at
all sure that the Russians could survive unaided, and
he thought it would be the greatest military blunder
in all of history to allow an army of eight million
fighting men to go down to defeat without doing
anything to prevent it. For the Allies to avoid a
confrontation with the Germans on the Continent in
1942 and 1943 might save British and American lives
in the short run, but it might also lead to a
complete victory for Hitler. Even if Churchill was
right in supposing that the Red Army would hold out,
Marshall believed that the effect would be to let the
war drag on into 1944 or even 1945. The end result
would be higher, not lower, Anglo-American 75
casualties.

#5 Marshall therefore proposed that that Anglo-
Americans set as a goal for 1942 a buildup of
American ground, air, and naval strength in the
United Kingdom, with the aim of launching a massive
cross-Channel invasion in the spring of 1943. Only
thus, he argued, could the Americans bring their
power to bear in a decisive manner, the Allies give
significant help to the Russians, and the final aim
of victory be quickly achieved.

#6 There were two specific problems with Marshall's
program of a 1942 buildup and a 1943 invasion:

First, it would be of no help to the Russians in
1942, and second, it would mean that the United
States would spend the whole year without engaging in 90
any ground fighting with the Germans. The second

124

point worried Roosevelt, for he wanted to get the
American peOple to feel a sense of commitment in the
struggle for Europe (well into 1942 public-opinion
polls revealed that Americans remained passive about
the German threat, eager to strike back at the
Japanese). The fastest way to do it was to get
involved in the European fighting. The President
therefore insisted that American troops engage German
troops somewhere in 1942. But Roosevelt was also
drawn to Churchill's concept of closing the ring,
with its implication that the Russians would take the
bulk of the casualties, and he was determined that
the first American offensive should be successful,
all of which made the periphery more tempting as a 105
target than northwestern Europe.

#7 Marshall prOposed, as an addition to his program
for a 1943 invasion, an emergency landing on the
French coast in September 1942. The operation, code
name SLEDGEHAMMER, would be a suicide mission
designed to take pressure off the Russians. It would
go forward only if a Russian collapse seemed
imminent. But although Marshall had no intention of
starting SLEDGEHAMMER except as a last resort, he
could and did hold it out to F.D.R. as an operation
that would satisfy the President's demand for action
in 1942. The obvious difficulty with SLEDGEHAMMER
was the risk, and Churchill countered with a
proposal, code name TORCH, to invade French North
Africa as a beginning in the program of closing the 120
ring. This was certainly much safer than a cross-
Channel attack in either 1942 or 1943, especially
since it would be a surprise assault on the territory
of a neutral nation (North Africa was ruled by the
French government at Vichy, under Marshal Henri
Petain: it was Fascist and pro-Nazi, but had declared
its neutrality in the war). TORCH dovetailed nicely
with British political aims, since it would help the
British re-establish their position in the
Mediterranean.

#8 Roosevelt had to choose between Marshall's and
Churchill's proposals. The pressures on him, from
all sides, were as tremendous as the stakes. Soviet
Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov had visited him in the
spring. In a burst of enthusiasm F.D.R. had promised 135
Molotov a second front in 1942. Although the
President had tried not to be specific about where it
would be opened, Molotov, like the rest of the world,
thought of a second front only in terms of the plains
of northwestern Europe. Roosevelt also knew that
the hard-pressed Russians--facing nearly two hundred
German divisions on a front that extended from

125

Leningrad to the Caucasus, with huge areas, including
their prime industrial and agricultural lands, under
occupation, with millions of dead already, and with a
desperate need for time in which to rebuild their
industry and their army--regarded a second front as
absolutely essential and as a clear test of the
Western democracies' good faith. If the Anglo-
Americans did nothing soon to draw off some German 150
divisions, the Russians could believe only that it
meant the Allies were willing to see Hitler win, in
the East at least.

#9 Roosevelt was never foolish enough to believe
that anyone but the Nazis would benefit from a German
victory over Russia, but he did have other concerns
and pressures. America was far from full
mobilization. Whatever Marshall's plans, the U.S.
Army could not invade France alone. Even in
combination with the British, the United States would
have taken heavy casualties. Churchill and his
military were insistent about not going back to the
Continent in 1942, or indeed until everything had
been well prepared, and they made North Africa sound
attractive to the President. Churchill was willing 165
to go to Moscow himself to explain TORCH to Stalin,
and said he could convince the Soviets that TORCH did
constitute a second front. Given British
intransigence, it seemed to F.D.R. that for 1942 it
was TORCH or nothing. He picked TORCH.

126

Philosophy
From: 'Are There Absolute Rights?“
by: H.L.A. Hart

(pp. 77-81)

#1 I shall advance the thesis that if there are any
moral rights at all, it follows that there is at
least one natural right, the equal right of all men
to be free. By saying that there is this right, I
mean that in the absence of certain special
conditions which are consistent with the right being
an equal right, any adult human being capable of
choice (1) has the right to forbearance on the part
of all others from the use of coercion or restraint
against him save to hinder coercion or restraint and
(2) is at liberty to do (i.e. is under no obligation
to abstain from) any action which is not one coercing
or restraining or desinged to injure other persons.
#2 I have two reasons for describing the equal
rights of all men to be free as a natural right: 15
both of them were always emphasized by the classical
theorists of natural rights. (1) This right is one
which all men have if they are capable of choice:
they have it qua men and not only if they are members
of some society or stand in some special relation to
each other. (2) This right is not created or
conferred by men's voluntary action: other moral
rights are. Of course it is quite obvious that my
thesis is not as ambitious as the traditional
theories of natural rights: for although on my view
all men are equally entitled to be free in the sense
explained, no man has an absolute or unconditional
right to do or not to do any particular thing or to
be treated in any particular way: coercion or
restraint of any action may be justified in special 30
conditions consistently with the general principle.
So my argument will not show that men have any right
(save the equal right of all to be free) which is
”absolute,” 'indefeasible,' or 'imprescriptible.'
This may for many reduce the importance of my
contention, but I think that the principle that all
men have an equal right to be free, meagre as it may
seem, is probably all that the political philosophers
of the liberal tradition need have claimed to

127

support any programme of action even if they have
claimed more. But my contention that there is this
one natural right may appear unsatisfying in another
respect: it is only the conditional assertion that if
there are any moral rights but as a denial of some
assumed logical similarity between sentences used to 45
assert the existence of rights but as a denial of
some assumed logical similarity between sentences
used to assert the existence of rights and other
kinds of sentences. But it is still important to
remember that there may be codes of conduct quite
prOperly termed moral codes (though we can of course
say they are 'imperfect') which do not employ the
notion of a right, and there is nothing contradictory
or otherwise absurd in a code or morality consisting
wholly of prescriptions or in a code which prescribed
only what should be done for the realization of
happiness or some ideal of personal perfection.
Human actions in such systems would be evaluated or
criticized as compliances with prescriptions or as
good or bad, right or wrong, wise or foolish, fitting 60
or unfitting, but no one in such a system would have,
exercise, or claim rights, or violate or infringe
them. So those who lived by such systems could not
of course be committed to the recognition of the
equal right of all to be free: nor, I think (and this
is one respect in which the notion of a right differs
from other moral notions), could any parallel
argument be constructed to show that, from the bare
fact that actions were recognized as ones which ought
not to be done, as right, wrong, good, or bad, it
followed that some specific kind of conduct fell
under these categories.

I

#3 (A) Lawyers have for their own purposes carried 75
the dissection of the notion of a legal right some
distance, and some of their results are of value in

the elucidation of statements of the form "x has a

right to . . . ' outside legal contexts. There is of
course no simple identification to be made between

moral and legal rights, but there is an intimate
connection between the two, and this itself is one
feature which distinguishes a moral right from other
fundamental moral concepts. It is not merely that as

a matter of fact men speak of their moral rights

mainly when advocating their incorporation into a

legal system, but that the concept of a right belongs

to that branch of morality which is specifically
concerned to determine when one person's freedom may

be limited by another's and so to determine what 90
actions may apprOpriately be made the subject of

128

coercive legal rules. The words 'droit,' diritto,'
and 'Recht,‘ used by continental jurists, have no
simple English translation and seem to English
jurists to hover uncertainly between law and morals,
but they do in fact mark off an area of morality (the
morality of law) which has special characteristics.

It is occupied by the concepts of justice, fairness,
rights, and obligation (if this last is not used as
it is by many moral philosophers as an obscuring
general label to cover every action that morally we
ought to do or forbear from doing). The most
important common characteristic of this group of
moral concepts is that there is no incongruity, but a
special congruity in the use of force or the threat 105
of force to secure that what is just or fair or
someone's right to have done shall in fact be done:
for it is in just these circumstances that coercion
of another human being is legitimate. Kant, in the
Rechtlehre, discussed the obligations which arise in
this branch of morality under the title of officia
juris, "which do not require that respect for duty
shall be of itself the determining principle of the
will,” and contrasts them with officia virtutis,
which have no moral worth unless done for the sake of
the moral principle. His point is, I think, that we
must distinguish from the rest of morality those
principles regulating the proper distribution of
human freedom which alone make it morally legitimate
for one human being to determine by his choice how 120
another should act: and a certain specific moral
value is secured (to be distinguished from moral
virtue in which the goodwill is manifested) if human
relationships are conducted in accordance with these
principles even though coercion has to be used to
secure this, for only if these principles are
regarded will freedom be distributed among human
beings as it should be. And it is I think a very
important feature of a moral right that the possessor
of it is conceived as having a moral justification
for limiting the freedom of another and that he has
this justification not because the action he is
entitled to require of another has some moral quality
bUt simply because in the circumstances a certain
distribution of human freedom will be maintained if 135
he by his choice is allowed to determine how that
other shall act.

#4 (B) I can best exhibit this feature of a moral
right; by reconsidering the question whether moral
rigfrts and "duties" are correlative. The contention
that: they are means, presumably, that every statement
0f t:he form 'x has a right to . . .' entails and is

129

entailed by 'Y has a duty (not) to . . .', and at

this stage we must not assume that the values of the
name-variables 'X' and 'Y' must be different persons.
Now there is certainly one sense of a 'right' (which

I have already mentioned) such that it does not

follow from X's having a right that x or someone else
has any duty. Jurists have isolated rights in this
sense and have referred to them as "liberties'l just 150
to distinguish them from rights in the centrally
important sense of 'right' which has 'duty' as a
correlative. The former sense of “right” is needed
to describe those areas of social life where
competition is at least morally unobjectionable. Two
people walking along both see a ten—dollar bill in
the road twenty yards away, and there is no clue as
to the owner. Neither of the two are under a ”duty“
to allow the other to pick it up: each has in this
sense a right to pick it up. Of course there may be
many things which each has a 'duty' not to do in the
course of the race to the spot--neither may kill or
wound the other--and corresponding to these ”duties“
there are rights to forbearances. The moral
propriety of all economic competition implies this 165
minimum sense of 'a right“ in which to say that 'X
has a right to' means merely that x is under no
"duty” not to. Hobbes saw that the expression 'a
right“ could have this sense but he was wrong if he
thought that there is no sense in which it does
follow from X's having a right that Y has a duty or
at any rate an obligation.

#5 (C) More important for our purpose is the
question whether for all moral “duties" there are
correlative moral rights, because those who have
given an affirmative answer to this question have
usually assumed without adequate scrutiny that to
have a right is simply to be capable of benefitting
by the performance of a duty: whereas in fact this
is not a sufficient condition (and probably not a 180
necessary condition) of having a right. Thus animals
and babies who stand to benefit by our performance of
our "duty” not to ill-treat them are said therefore
to have rights to prOper treatment. The full
consequence of this reasoning is not usually followed
out: most have shrunk from saying that we have rights
against ourselves because we stand to benefit from
our performance of our 'duty" to keep ourselves alive
or.develop our talents. But the moral situation
vflumzh arises from a promise (where the legal-sounding
terulinology of rights and obligations is most
aPPr‘Opriate) illustrates most clearly that the notion
0f Ihaving a right and that of benefitting by the

130

performance of a 'duty' are not identical. X

promises Y in return for some favour that he will 195
look after Y's aged mother in his absence. Rights

arise out of this transaction, but it is surely Y to

whom the promise has been made and not his mother who

has or possesses these rights. Certainly Y's mother

is a person concerning whom X has an obligation and a
person who will benefit by its performance, but the
person to whom he has an obligation to look after her

is Y. This is something due to or owed to Y, so it

is Y, not his mother, whose right x will disregard

and to whom X will have done wrong if he fails to

keep his promise, thought he mother may be physically
injured. And it is Y who has a moral claim upon x;

is entitled to have his mother looked after, and who

can waive the claim and release Y from the obliga-

tion. 210

131

Politics

From: The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist's
View of Democracy in America

 

by B.E. Schattschneider

(pp. 95-99)

#1 Theoretically, the American political community
consists of about one hundred million adult

citizens. This assumption is a natural one because
the franchise has now been extended to nearly all
adult citizens and the right to vote might be taken
as a mark of membership in the political community.
On the other hand, if belonging to the community is
thought of as something involving active
participation in the political process, the system is
much smaller. The difference between fact and theory
is shown by a single datum: about forty million adult
citizens do not vote in presidential elections.
Voting is not a strenuous form of activity, but it is
apparently beyond the level of performance of four
out of every ten adults. In one way or another, 15
factors unknown to the law block out a stupendous
segment of the nation from the political system. The
distinction between the people who exercise their
franchise and those who do not deserves to be
examined because it may be most important in the
political system.

#2 If forty million adult citizens were disenfran-
chised by law, we would consider that fact the first
datum about the system. It may even be more
important that this result has been accomplished by
extralegal means.

#3 Obviously, no political system could achieve 100
percent participation in elections. Even when full
allowance is made, however, the scale of nonvoting in
the United States is so great that it calls for some 30
explanation beyond the various psychological and
educational factors usually cited.

#4 The blackout of the forty million or so calls
for a re-examination of the whole system. Nonvoting
on this scale sheds a strange light on American
democracy because it points up a profound
contradiction between theory and practice. In this
chapter, we shall discuss the nonvoting millions as a

132

study in the sc0pe, intensity, and bias of the
political system.

#5 With some important exceptions, the most
striking fact about the phenomenon is that it seems
to be voluntary. Outside the South, it has not been
considered necessary to erect barriers against an
invasion of the political system by the nonvoters, 45
and no one seems about to do so. The community is
willing to live with the hazards of a situation that
places a curtain--a tissue-paper curtain, but still a
curtain--between the participants and the nonparti-
cipants. If the abstention of several tens of
millions makes a difference, as it almost certainly
does, we are forced to conclude that we are governed
by invisible forces, for to an astonishing extent the
sixty million are at the mercy of the rest of the
nation which could swamp all existing political
alignments if it chose to do so. The whole balance
of power in the political system, and nothing
tangible protects the system against the flood. All
that is necessary to produce the most painless
revolution in history, the first revolution ever 50
legalized and legitimized in advance, is to have a
sufficient number of people do something not much
more difficult than to walk across the street on
election day.

#6 Every regime lives on a body of dogma, self--
justification, glorification, and propaganda about
itself. In the United States, this body of dogma
and tradition centers about democracy. The hero of
the system is the voter who is commonly described as
the ultimate source of all authority. The fact that
something like forty million adult Americans are so
unresponsive to the regime that they do not trouble
to vote is the single most truly remarkable fact
about it. In the past seven presidential elections,
the average difference in the vote cast for the
winning and the losing candidates was about one fifth
as large as the total number of nonvoters. The
unused political potential is sufficient to blow the
United States off the face of the earth.

#7 Why should anyone worry about twenty or thirty
or forty million American adults who seem to be
willing to remain on the outside looking in? What
difference do they make? Several things may be

said. First, anything that looks like a rejection of
the political system by so large a fraction of the
pOpulation is a matter of great importance. Second,
anything that looks like a limitation of the
expanding universe of politics is certain to have
great practical consequences. Does nonvoting shed

133

light on the bias and the limitations of the 90
political system?
#8 In American history, every change in the scope

of the political system has had an impact on the
meaning and operation of the system. Broadly
speaking, the expansion of the political community
has been one of the principal means of producing
change in public policy: expansion has been the grand
strategy of American politics. Every major change
in public policy (the Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln,
and Roosevelt revolutions) has been associated with
an enlargement of the electorate. Has something gone
wrong with the basic pattern of American politics?
Has the political system run out of gas? Have we
lost the capacity to use the growth of the electorate
to provide a new base for public policy? If we have 105
lost the capacity to involve an expanding public in
the political system, it is obvious that American
democracy has arrived at a turning point.

#9 One of the easiest victories of the democratic
cause in American history has been the struggle for
the extension of the suffrage. After a few
skirmishes in the first decades of the nineteenth
century, the barriers against male suffrage gave way
all along the line. A generation ago one distin-
guished United States senator was in the habit of
saying that rivers of blood have been shed for the
right to vote. No greater inversion of the truth is
conceivable. The struggle for the ballot was almost
bloodless, almost completely peaceful, and aston-
ishingly easy. Indeed the bulk of the newly 120
enfranchised, including Negroes and nearly all women,
won battles they never fought. The whole thing has
been deceptively easy. Somewhere along the line the
anti-democratic forces simply abandoned the field.

It is hard for Americans to believe how easy it was
because they have a hOpelessly romantic view of the
history of democracy which attributes a revolutionary
significance to the extension of the legal right to
vote.

#10 The expansion of the electorate was largely a
by-product of the system of party conflict. The rise
of the party system led to a competitive expansion of
the market for politics. The newly enfranchised had
about as much to do with the extension of the
suffrage as the consuming public has had to do with 135
the expanding market for toothpaste. The parties:
assisted by some excited minorities, were the
entrepreneurs, took the initiative and got the law of
the franchise liberalized. It has always been true
that one of the best ways to win a fight is to widen
the scope of the conflict, and the effort to widen

134

the involvement of the more or less innocent
bystanders produced universal suffrage. Our under—
standing of this development has been greatly
confused by the compulsion to interpret our past in
terms of the classical definition of democracy, which
inevitably assigns a dramatic place in history to the
seizure of power by the people.

#11 The meaning of political competition in the
expansion of the electorate is illuminated by the 150
experience of the Solid South. The South is the last
remaining area in the United States in which the
struggle against democracy is carried on in terms of
legal and extralegal restrictions of the right to
vote. The southern states were able to exclude the
Negro from the political system only by establishing
a political monopoly. Once established the system
has been used not only to disenfranchise Negroes but
also to depress political participation generally.
#12 The socialization of politics as far as the
right to vote is concerned has now been nearly
complete for a generation, but the use of the ballot
as an effective instrument of democratic politics is
something else altogether. This is the point at
which the breach between theory and practice of 165
American democracy appears to be widest. If we do
not understand what this breach is about, we simply
do not understand American politics. The question
is: If the conflict system is responsible for the
extension of the legal right to vote, is it also
responsible for limiting the practice of voting.

#13 It is reasonable to look for some of the causes
of massive self-disfranchisement in the operation of
the political system. What is there about the system
that depresses participation? Obviously, the
relation of the electorate to the government is not
so simple as it is commonly supposed to be.

135

Civil Engineering

From: Basic Steel Design

 

By: Bruce G. Johnston

(pp. 36-41)

#1 Beams support loads that are applied at right
angles (transverse) to the longitudinal axis of the
beam. Such loads are usually caused by the downward
pull of gravity, as illustrated by the loads labeled
P in Figure 3.1(a). The beam carries the loads to
its supports, which may consist of the bearing walls,
columns, or other beams into which it frames. At the
supports the upward “reactions“ have a total magni-
tude equal to the weight of the beam plus the applied
loads P. Since the weight of the beam is not known
until after it is designed, the structural steel
design of a building frame starts at the top--at the
roof--and the dead weight of each structural member
is added in after it is determined as the designer
proceeds downward. 15
#2 Imagine a free-body diagram of the left portion
of the beam with bending moment (Mg) and the shear
(V) necessary at the cut section to provide static
equilibrium. The problem of beam design consists
mainly in providing enough bending strength and
enough shear strength at every location in the span.
For short spans, it is most economical to use a
single-beam cross section throughout the span, and in
such case only the maximum values of bending moment
and shear need to be determined.

#3 A simple beam is supported vertically at each
end with little or no rotational restraint, and
downward loads cause positive bending movement
throughout the span. The top part of the beam
shortens, due to compression, and the bottom part of 30
the beam lengthens, due to tension. The most common
rolled steel beam cross section, shown in Figure
3.1[c], is called the W section, with much of the
material in the tOp and bottom flange, where it is
most effective in resisting bending moment. The web
of the beam supplies most of the shear resistance and
in so doing is slightly distorted, as shown in Figure
3.1[e]. The contribution of this distortion to beam
deflection is usually neglected. The bending moment

136

causes curvature of the beam axis, concave upward, as
shown in Fig. 3.1[d] for positive movement, concave
downward for negative moment. The deflection of
beams is calculated on the assumption that it is
entirely caused by the curvature due to bending
moment. 45
#4 Standard AISCM nomenclature pertaining to the W
(wide-flange) hot-rolled steel beams is illustrated
in Fig. 3.2.

#5 The reader should gain a familiarity with
information in the AISCM relative to rolled sections,
reading the descriptive material and scanning the
tabular material ion the following AISCM locations:
#6 A plate girder is of such large depth and span
that a rolled beam is not economically suitable--it
is tailor made (built up out of plate material) to
suit the particular span, clearance and load
requirements.

#7 It is assumed that the reader is familiar with
the calculation of shears and moments, with the
drawing of shear and moment diagrams, and with the 60
usual designation of support conditions. Various
cases are illustrated in Fig. 3.3. At the top the
loads and supports are shown for (a) a cantilever
beam, (b) a simple beam with a cantilever overhang at
the right end, and (c) a beam fixed at the left
(fixed) end and the simple support are statically
indeterminate: that is, they cannot be determined by
simple statics. Shear diagrams are shown on the
second line, moment diagrams on the third. Although
the calculation of shears and moments will be
included in many of the illustrative examples,
reference should be made to a text on strength of
materials or elementary structural theory for
additional informaiton on these topics. Shear and
moment diagrams for a variety of loading conditions 75
will be found in AISCM, pages 2-198 to 2-211. For
uniform, or distributed, loads the shear and moment
diagrams are similar to those shown in Fig. 3.3, but
the shear, since it changes with load, is a sloping
line instead of a horizontal one, and the moment
diagram is a continuous curve between reactions. The
reader should review the mathematical relationships
between load, shear, and bending moment as found in
his reference text on strength of materials.

#8 Beams are usually framed with other beams, or
with a floor slab, as shown in Fig. 3.4, so that the
beam cannot move sideways and the beam is forced to
deflect vertically in the strong (y--y) plane (see
Fig 3.2).

137

#9 Whenever a beam deflects in the plane in which 90
it is loaded, the simple theory of bending may be
used. The condition may be forced, as previously
mentioned, or it can occur naturally if the plane of
the loads contains a principle axis of the cross
section. However if the load is in the strong (y--y)
plane, the beam may need lateral support to prevent
it from buckling sideways: alternatively, the
specifications provide for reduced allowable loads if
lateral support does not meet certain minimal
requirements. If loaded in the weak (x--x) plane,
lateral buckling is no problem. Sections that lack
two axes of symmetry may require more positive
lateral supports than does the W section when they
are loaded in the usual manner. For example, the
laterally unsupported channel member will twist if 105
loaded throught the centroidal axis, and requires
restraint against both twist and lateral buckling.
The zee section does not twist but deflects at an
angle to the plane of the loads unless supported. An
angle loaded must be supported against both twist and
lateral deflection. It is also important to recog-
nize that if the zee or angle section is used without
lateral support, the stress due to bending cannot be
calculated by the simple beam formula. Where lateral
support is needed to prevent only lateral buckling
there is no calculable stress in the lateral
supports.

#10 Most beams are designed by simple bending
theory, and the design process involves the
calculation of the maximum bending moment and the 120
selection of a beam having an equal or greater
bending moment resistance. The selection is then
checked for maximum shear capacity, and the end
connections or bearing support details are designed.
A deflection check may also be required.

#11 Some of the more complex beam design problems,
such as general biaxial bending and combined bending
and torsion, are treated in Chapter 8. A brief
treatment of plastic design will also be included in
Chapter 8. In plastic design the required design
load is multiplied by a load factor to give the
required ultimate (plastic) strength, and the
continous beam or frame is chosen to have equal or
greater ultimate load capacity. The stress due to
bending is not calculated--in various sections of the 135
beam it will be at or even slightly greater than the
yield point at the ultimate strength of the
structure. Plastic design is advantageous when fully
continuous beams or frames are used. These are
statically indeterminate in the elastic range, but
the analysis problem becomes statically determinate

138

when the ultimate strength is reached, another

advantage for plastic design. However, allowable

stress (elastic) design is customary and adequate for

the design of statically determinate beams. Elastic,

or allowable stress, design will be emphasized in

this chapter, although a brief introduction to beam
behavior in the inelastic range will be included,

because it is essential to an understanding of
specification modifications of allowable stresses as 150
well as to the study of plastic design.

139

Physiology

From: Anatomy and Physiology

 

By: E.J. Reith, Bertha Breidenbach
and Mary Lorenc

(pp. 266—269)

#1 Many kinds of foods are available to us for
dietary purposes. Despite this, there are only
three major chemical components of these foods,
namely, carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids. In
addition to the three major components of food, other
substances, such as vitamins, minerals, and water,
are also required in the diet. The amount of each of
these constituents varies in different foods. Data
on these relative amounts have been accumulated and
can be found in textbooks or handbooks on nutrition
and foods. This chapter is concerned with the manner
whereby the body processes the major food consti-
tuents and makes them suitable for absorption into
the bloodstream. Although some constituents of our
dietary intake can be absorbed without breakdown into 15
smaller units, most are too big and must be

degraded. If we consider a piece of meat as a
typical sample of food, we realize why this is so.
The lean meat is mainly muscle, which contains
proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Consider the
proteins. They are insoluble, interwoven, and bound
together to form the structure of the muscle. As
such, they are not readily moved about. In order to
make them part of our own muscle structure, they must
be broken down into small units such as amino acids,
which are soluble and movable. These units can then
be used as building blocks for our own tissues.

#2 The process of preparing food for absorption is
called digestion. Both physical and chemical factors
are operative in digestion of food. The physical 3O
forces include maceration, or mechanical breakdown of
the solid food, and solution (dissolving a sub-
stance). Mechanical breakdown occurs in the mouth by
chewing and in lower parts of the digestive tube by
various movements of the alimentary canal. Macera-
tion aids in providing smaller and more numerous
pieces of food which can then more readily go into

140

solution. In the dissolved state, they are effec-
tively acted upon by enzymes. Solution simply means
dissolving the various foodstuffs so that they go
into molecular dispersion. Solution effects are most
important in the digestion of fats.

#3 Chemical digestion is mainly a process of
hydrolysis. This is the splitting of a larger
molecule into smaller molecules by a molecule of
water. An illustration is provided [Eq. (22-1)] to
show that water is an essential feature in hydrolysis
in that it becomes part of the product. The reaction
is speeded up in the alimentary canal by enzymes.

#4 Enzymes are biological catalysts. They are
produced by cells, and thus far all have been found
to be proteins. This being the case, they possess
certain characteristics common to proteins, namely,
they are inactivated by significant changes in pH and
temperature. Fortunately, the body provides a
relatively constant temperature, which is ideal for
the operation of most of our enzymes. The pH of the
solutions in which they work is also well suited to
effective digestion.

#5 Current methods of naming enzymes frequently
give some insight either into the substance upon
which they act, called the substrate or into the
manner in which they act. The ending -ase designates
a substance which is an enzyme. Thus, maltase is an
enzyme which speeds up the splitting of maltose.
Protease is an enzyme which speeds up the splitting
of proteins. In addition to those names which relate
the enzyme to the substrate, other names are also
used. Among them are certain old names, such as
pepsin, ptyalin, and erepsin.

#6 Another significant property of enzymes is their
substrate specificity. That is, they act on one
substrate or one kind of substrate only. Amylase
acts on startch, but it has no effect on proteins and
fats: protease acts on proteins, but it has no effect
on carbohydrates or fats.

#7 Our discussion is limited to digestive enzymes
which, after being produced by cells, are secreted
into the lumen of the alimentary canal, where they do
their work.

#8 A brief consideration of the structure of carbo-
hydrates, proteins, and lipids will help the student
understand the processes involved in chemical
digestion of food.

#9 These are compounds which have a general formula
of (CH O)n. This means that for every atom of
carbon, there are two of hydrogen and one of oxygen.

45

60

75

141

Three groups of carbohydrates will be considered
here: monosaccharides, disaccharides, and polysac-
charides. 90
#10 Monosaccharides. These are simple sugars

which form the building blocks of other carbohy-
drates. Examples are glucose, galactose, and
fructose. Each of these contains six carbon atoms
and is thus called a hexose. A number of biologi-
cally important monosaccharides contain only five
carbon atoms and are called pentoses. They are found
in nucleic acids and other compounds.

#11 Glucose. Glucose is also called dextrose. It
is the sugar found in blood. Glucose is important
not only because it is found in the blood but because
it is the building block of starch, glycogen, and
other carbohydrates. The empirical formula for
glucose is C6H1 O . This simply indicates how

many carbon, hydrggen, and oxygen atoms are present 105
in glucose. More information is obtained from the
structural formula, which shows how the atoms are
arranged. Glucose exists as an open chain and as a
ring. Most of glucose is in the ring form, and only a
small amount is in the open-chain form. When glucose
is part of a polysaccharide, it is present in the
ring form.

#12 Galactose and Fructose. These compounds also
have an empirical formula of C H 20 . They

differ from glucose in the arrgngemgnt of their
atoms. They also exist in the Open-chain and ring
forms. However, only open forms are shown. These
sugars are derived from the degradation of disacchar-
ides. In subsequent paragraphs, these sugars will be
represented symbolically as solid or shaded rings. 120
#13 Disaccharides. Disaccharides are compounds
which can be split into two monosaccharides. Three
disaccharides are of importance in nutrition: mal—
tose, lactose, and sucrose. Maltose is a disaccharide
which can be split to yield two molecules of glucose.
It is derived from the breakdown of starch and
glycogen. Lactose is found in milk: it can be split
to yield one molecule of glucose and one of
galactose. Sucrose is table sugar: it can be split
to yield one molecule of glucose and one of fructose.
#14 Polysaccharides. Polysaccharides are large
carbohydrates which consist of repeating units of
smaller sugars. Starch and glycogen are examples of
polysaccharides. Both consist of repeating uinits of
glucose. Starch is a major component of most plants, 135
whereas glycogen is animal carbohydrate.

#15 Proteins are compounds of remarkable complexity,
containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

142

Some also contain sulphur or other elements. Like
polysaccharides, they consist of long chains of
repeating units which, in the case of proteins, are
called peptides. When the chain is hydrolyzed, each
peptide yields an amino acid. The distinctive
feature of amino acids and proteins is that they
contain nitrogen. This introduces certain problems
in excretion, since nitrogenous wastes must be
excreted by the kidneys.

#16 Figure 22-2 illustrates the arrangement of four
peptides in a chain. When the polypeptide is hydro-
lyzed from either end, an amino acid and a tripeptide ‘150
are formed. When the tripeptide is hydrolyzed from
either end, another amino acid and a dipeptide are
formed. Finally, when the dipeptide is hydrolyzed
two more amino acids are formed.

#17 The short polypeptide which is illustrated above
is a very incomplete picture of a protein molecule.
There are about 23 amino acids which have been
isolated from proteins. Each of these amino acids
contributes a nitrogen and two carbons (N-—C--C--) to
the chain, and in this respect they are similar.
However, they differ in the nature of the R side
group. This is an abbreviation which represents the
rest of each amino acid molecule. The amino acids
can be put together in innumerable ways to form
thousands of proteins, just as letters of the 165
alphabet can be put together to form innumerable
words. Aside from the type and sequence of amino
acids, which determine the structure of proteins,
there are other aspects of their structure. For
example, they are held in certain configurations by
attractions between the side groups: or several
polypeptide chains may be bound together: or the
protein may be bound to a carbohydrate or lipid.

#18 Lipids are characterized by being slightly
soluble in water and soluble in a number of fat
solvents, such as alcohol, acetone, xylene, and
ether. Several groups of compounds are classified as
lipids: neutral fats, phospholipids, sterols, and
other compounds. Neutral fats are lipids which yield
fatty acids and glycerol upon hydrolysis. Phospho- 180
lipids have a phosphorous-containing group in place
of one of the fatty acids. Sterols have common
four-ring base. Cholesterol, steroid hormones, and
bile acids belong to this group.

143

Zoology
Breeding and Improvement of Farm Animals
By: Everett J. Warwick & James E. Legates

(pp. 39-44)

#1 It is left to future research to determine more
precisely and specifically the basis for, and
importance of, extrachromosomal transmission of
hereditary materials.

#2 Neither Mendel nor his successors for many years
had any understanding of the chemical nature of the
hereditary material. Their studies were, of neces—
sity, limited to determining the behavior or mode of
transmission of genes as basic to all genetic
specialties. The methodology of classical genetics
is to make matings among individuals of a species
having apparent differences in such ways that the
mode of transmission can be determined. Basic laws
were determined by observing and counting individuals
with sharply differentiated characters. Mendel's 15
success was due to his choice of material and his
mathematical treatment of the results.

#3 Two major principles or laws were postulated by
Mendel from his data. The first involved segregation
and recombination. Individual genes were viewed as
discrete units which maintained their identity
without blending with other genes in the zygote.
These genes, which are present in duplicate, separate
(segregate) in the formation of gametes and recombine
as discrete units at fertilization. The second is
the principle of independent assortment. In regard
to this, Mendel stated, "The relation of each pair of
different characters in hybrid union is independent."
The genes influencing the traits in his experiments
sorted out independently. Later we will see that 30
this second postulate was modified by linkage.

Mendel was apparently not aware of this.

#4 One-Factor Inheritance. One trait Mendel
studied was plant height in peas. He had two
varieties, one growing to a height of 180 to 210 cm
(tall) and the other to only 22 to 45 cm (dwarf).
When crossed, all offspring were tall. When the
offspring of the crosses were allowed to self-
pollinate (equivalent to offspring x offspring

144

matings in species which cross-pollinate or in which
the two sexes are separate), they produced off-spring
in the approximate ratio of 3 tall to l dwarf. The
results are what would be expected if (1) each
individual carried two hereditary factors affecting
plant height: (2) the two original varieties 45
were pure for tallness or dwarfness, respectively:
(3) of the hereditary factors did not blend but
retained their identities even though tallness
obscured or dominated the factor for dwarfness when
both were in the same individual: (4) the off-spring
produced germ cells of two kinds in equal numbers,
with half carrying the factor for tallness and half
the factor for dwarfness: and, (5) the two kinds of
germ cells combined at random, i.e., with those
carrying the factor for tallness having an equal
probability of combining with one carrying the factor
for tallness or one carrying the factor for dwarfness
and vice versa.

#5 If we let T represent the factor for tallness
and t the factor for dwarfness, the cross with the 60
resulting 3:1 ratio can be represented schematically
as follows:

#6 Several of the terms used above plus a few
others illustrated by the example are defined as
follows: 1

#7 Hybrid . The offspring of parents which are
genetically pure for one or more pairs of different
hereditary factors.

#8 F1. 1 The hybrid or first filial generation
from a given mating. Offspring from intermating of
the F generation are the F , etc.

#9 Phenotype. The externgl appearance or some
other observable or measurable characteristic of an
individual. In the above example, tall and dwarf are
the phenotypes. 75
#10 Genotype. The genetic constitution of an
individual. In the case of size of pea plants the
genotypes are TT, Tt and tt.

#ll Dominant. One member of a pair of hereditary
factors or genes whose effect is manifested in the
phenotype wholly or partially regardless of which
other member of the pair or series is present. In
the pea plant size example, T, the factor for
tallness, is dominant to t, the factor for dwarfness.
#12 Recessive. A hereditary factor whose effect is
not observable when present with the dominant member
of the pair or series. In the genotype Tt, the
factor t is not phenotypically expressed.

#13 Homozygote (adj. Homozygous). Individuals which
are genetically pure for a given pair or series of 90

145

hereditary factors. The genotypes TT and tt are
homozygous. A homozygous individual will produce
only one kind of gamete as regards this particular
factor pair or series.

#14 Heterozygote (adj. Heterozygous). Individuals
which carry unlike members of a given pair of heredi-
tary factors, i.e., Tt. Heterozygous individuals
will produce two kinds of gametes in equal propor-
tions for the factor pair or series involved.

#15 Segregation. Separation of members of a pair of
factors at germ cell formation. The genes remain as
constant entities through generations and separate at
germ cell formation rather than combining or
blending. This is the first principle of Mendelian
heredity.

#16 Alles. Members of a pair (or series) of
hereditary factors at a locus on a chromosomal pair
which segregate in formation of gametes.

#17 The simple cross of tall and dwarf pea varieties
illustrates behavior in characters controlled by only
a single allelic pair of genes or hereditary factors.
All the F 's are genetically Tt and phenotypically
tall. Each parent was genetically pure, or homo-
zygous, and produced only one type of gamete for this
particular character.

#18 When the F 's are mated with each other to
produce the F generation, the situation is more
complicated. Since the F 's are genetically

impure, or heterozygous, {hey each produce two kinds
of gametes. These are produced in equal numbers and
fertilization occurs at random with gametes of the
other parent. That is, a T gamete of one parent has
an equal probability of uniting with a T or at gamete
of one parent has an equal probability of uniting
with a T or a t gamete of the other parent. The four
possible F genotypic combinations as shown in the
diagram ocgur with equal frequency. Thus the F
generation is composed of 1/4 dwarf and 3/4 talf
individuals. Of the talls, 1/3 (1/4 of all off-
spring) will be homozxygous. They are thus geneti-
cally like the original tall parent. Two-thirds will
be heterozygous like the F 's. If these hetero-
zygotes are used for breeding, their genetic
performance will be exactly like that of the F1
generation.

#19 It should be emphasized that the F ratios are
what would be expected on the average if large
numbers of offspring were produced. With only a few
offspring there could be rather great deviations from
the expected ratio. Male gametes are produced in
great numbers in most species, and it is a matter of

105

120

135

146

chance which ones eventually fertilize female

gametes. This chance at fertilization is governed by

the laws of probability, which are discussed in

Chapter 5.

#20 Literally thousands of characters have been
identified in plants, insects, and higher animals

which behave in inheritance as one-factor pairs with
dominance. Some of these of interest or importance

in animal breeding are discussed elsewhere in this 150
book. In other monofactorial cases the genes exhibit
only partial dominance. This is illustrated
diagrammatically in the following case of a cross

between pure red and pure white four o'clocks:

#21 It can readily be seen that the genes behave

exactly the same in this cross as in the cross of

tall x dwarf peas. However, the heterozygote is
intermediate in color.

#22 The degree of dominance can vary greatly. In

some cases, it is complete or almost complete so that

the heterozygote gives no phenotypic evidence of its
genetic constitution. In other cases the hetero-

zygote is a phenotypic intermediate.

#23 Two—Factor Inheritance. A more complex type

of inheritance than monofactorial inheritance occurs 165
when two pairs of factors are considered concur-

rently. They may affect different phenotypic

characters or some single character.

#24 This can again be illustrated by characters with
which Mendel worked in peas. He crossed round peas

RR with wrinked peas rr and got all round peas in the

F1 of this cross and 3 round to l wrinkled in the

F generation. He crossed plants having yellow
cgtyledons YY with those have green cotyledons yy and

got all yellow cotyledons in the F cross and 3

yellow to 1 green in the F . Mendel then crossed

plants with round seed and yellow cotyledons with

those which had wrinkled seed and green cotyledons.

In the F he got nothing but round seed and yellow
cotyledohs. But when he made the F by crossing 180
F plants he got the following resu ts:

#25 The F phenotypic ratio in a monohybrid

showing dosinance is 3:1, so in a dihybrid (if the
respective sets of genes are in different chromo—

somesl we would expect the ratio in the F2 to be

(3:1) or 9:3:3:l.
#26 These results demonstrate the second law of
inheritance, namely that of independent assortment.
Independent assortment simply means that one member
of a pair of genes going to one germ cell has no
influence on which member of any other pair goes to
that cell.

147

#27 With independent assortment, the four possible
types of gametes are formed in equal proportions. As
you can see this has been assumed in the above 4 195
times 4 checkerboard, or table. By inserting the
fraction 1/4 for each gamete and multiplying the 1/4
for any gamete by the 1/4 for any other, you can see
that l/l6 of the total offspring will represent each
genetic combination.

#28 Depending upon dominance or lack of dominance in
the gene pairs, the F of a two-factor cross can
deviate from the 9:3:3:1 ratio found when both pairs
exhibit dominance. In cattle, polled is dominant to
horns, but in Shorthorns, color exhibits partial
dominance. RR gives red, rr gives white, but Rr is
an intermediate called roan. If we cross a polled,
red Shorthorn with a horned, white one, we would
have:

#29 If we had a case in which both characters lacked ‘210
dominance, our phenotypic ratio would become
l:2:2:4:l:2:l:2:1.

#30 The above dihybrids involved two pairs of genes
determining two different qualities. Cases are also
known in which two pairs of genes act upon the same
quality. Comb type in poultry is an example. If a
bird has the double recessive rrpp, it is single-
combed: if it is RRpp or Rrpp, it is rose-combed: if
rrPP or rer, it is pea-combed: and if it has at
least one R and one P, it will be walnut combed.

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