Introduction

This paper focuses on the role of discourse-based grammar instruction and how it facilitates the acquisition of academic literacy skills. As a complement to top-down schema activation and macro-level discourse processing strategies, I am presenting bottom-up grammar-based strategies, drawing on research that has been done on the grammar of discourse.

Serious work on the grammar of English discourse began with Halliday & Hasan’s (1976; 1989) work on cohesion in English. They described four types of grammatical cohesion: reference, ellipsis, substitution, and conjunction. Reference involves pronouns, demonstratives, the definite article, and other forms that can corefer backwards or forwards in discourse. Ellipsis involves the omission of an element to avoid repetition (e.g., A: Who did it? B: John [where B’s reply omits the redundant information in the predicate]). Ellipsis is more frequent in speech than in writing. The same is true of substitution, which is the use of a closed set of forms to avoid repetition (e.g., one/ones, do, so, the same.) Conjunctions are words or phrases that make explicit the logical relationships holding between propositions or discourse segments (e.g., also, however, therefore, in conclusion).

Of these four categories, reference and conjunction are the most important ones for academic reading and writing and deserve explicit instruction, whereas ellipsis and substitution can be dealt with on an “as needed” basis.

Learner Problems With Reference and Conjunction

As Halliday and Hasan (l976; 1989) noted, reference markers in English discourse can refer to complex phrases, complete propositions, and even blocks of text, not just to nouns or simple noun phrases. Two examples follow:

“Election realignments ‘occur because a new generation comes in with sufficient unity and number to tip the balance between two otherwise closely competing points of view. And that’s what we think is underway.’”
(R. Brownstein quoting M. Hais, 2013, p. A21) 

"…the ITA exam is considered a high-stakes exam. While the procedure [described earlier] directly impacts some stakeholders and indirectly others, it is important to be aware and considerate of all the consequences at every stage of this process to make it fair, effective, and non-discriminatory."
(Londe, 2010-2011, p. 256)

In the first example, the demonstrative that refers back to virtually everything in the preceding discourse that describes an election realignment. The author then proposes that such a realignment is occurring. In the second example the demonstrative this combines with the general academic noun process to refer back to the entire step-by-step process involved in carrying out an international teaching assistant exam. In my experience, these are the types of textual references in academic writing that ESL/EFL learners need to become proficient in when they read academic writing and then learn to use in their own academic writing—especially those students who do not have this type of textual reference in their L1.

There are many problems with conjunctions that I have observed in the writing of my nonnative graduate students. Some of their errors in the use of connectors strongly suggest that they could benefit from exposure to and analysis of well-selected authentic written discourse containing commonly occurring connectors. They need to become aware that even though some connectors intuitively seem to belong to the same general semantic category—among the four outlined by Halliday and Hasan (l976): additive, adversative, causal, and sequential—conjunctions generally cannot substitute for each other. Two examples of the same conjunction error, both in the writing of Japanese L1 speakers, follow (cited in Celce-Murcia, 2002):

"Lightbown & Spada (l990) showed that learners who received error corrections performed better on some corrected sentences than those that did not. White (l991)….also showed the positive effect of corrective feedback in developing second language proficiency in classroom interaction. On the contrary, other studies examined the effect of corrective feedback in an experimental environment and found that the effect…was much more limited."

For example, a teacher might provide feedback for a student’s error in an utterance elicited by the teacher in a question-answer sequence. On the contrary if a student asks a question with an error in the utterance, but whose approximate meaning is understood by the teacher, the teacher will answer instead of correcting the student’s question…

Clearly, in both of these cases, an L1 writer would use a connector like in contrast rather than on the contrary. Williams (l996) uses logical formulas to show us why we cannot substitute these two connectors for each other, and he cites authentic examples from academic discourse to illustrate his analysis (formulas and examples from Williams):

X (a) in/by contrast Y (b):

…primary labor market jobs are characterized by good wages, upgrading opportunities, on-the-job training, and fringe benefits. In contrast, secondary labor markets are characterized by jobs with low wages, little or no on-the-job training, few opportunities for upgrading and few fringe benefits.
(Anderson, 1979, p. 42)

Here we have two parallel but contrasting topics, X and Y, that have parallel but contrasting comments, a and b, respectively. In such cases, a connector like “in contrast” is most appropriate.

X (negative proposition); on the contrary, Y (contradiction of X):

In this article I offer a different view, based on new insights into how cultural change comes about. According to this view, the spread of the Indo-European languages did not require conquest. On the contrary, it was likely to have been a peaceful diffusion linked to the spread of agriculture from its origins in Anatolia and the Near East…
(Renfrew, 1989, p. 106)

I believe that the frequent practice in ESL/EFL writing textbooks of listing similar logical connectors together can be highly misleading. Authentic text-based discourse should be used, along with formulas like those of Williams’ (l996) to teach the use of these forms.

The Role of the Tense-Aspect System in Written Discourse

I would now like to move from Halliday and Hasan’s work on cohesion to research on the English tense-aspect system that several of my graduate students, colleagues, and I have done, focusing on patterns we discovered in written discourse.

Tense Use in a Psychology Textbook
The first example is one that Donna Brinton (1994) made me aware of; it comes from an introductory psychology textbook Psychology in Action (Huffman, Vernoy, & Vernoy, 1994), in which paragraphs with specific examples always are expressed in the simple past tense whereas adjacent paragraphs making generalizations based on the examples are always in the simple present tense. Here is one example:

In 1848, Phineas Gage suffered a bizarre accident when an explosion happened at his work place. As a result of the explosion, an iron rod entered his skull and pierced his frontal lobe. Phineas recovered physically from this accident, but his personality changed forever.

From the case study of Phineas Gage, it appears that the frontal lobe controls much of our individual personality and defines our ability to make decisions. We now know that the frontal lobe helps us to plan and change actions.
(Brinton, 1994, p. 9)

Although in most cases the specific example preceded the generalization, the opposite order was also possible, but the tense usage remained consistent. The specific example was always in the past tense and the generalization in the present tense. L2 learners aware of these tense patterns in adjacent paragraphs or episodes should have an advantage in their reading of this academic discourse. Such knowledge, too, should facilitate their writing on the exams or assignments they do for the course.

Tense in Written Narratives of Significant Events
In the second of the following two examples, the past perfect tense has a discourse function completely different from its typical sentence-level uses, which are:

1. I had already done the dishes when John arrived.

2. If Ann had studied harder, she would have passed.

Sentence (1) deals with a sequence of events, and the past perfect marks the earlier of two events in the past. Sentence (2) is a counterfactual conditional in which both clauses are to be interpreted negatively (i.e., Ann didn’t study hard enough; she didn’t pass the course). The past perfect and the “would have + past participle” mark the counterfactuality.

The example here, titled “The Convocation,” involves rhetorical use of the past perfect at the discourse level:

The students sat in the bleachers of Pauley Pavilion watching the faculty enter in their caps and gowns. Dignitaries continued to arrive while the band played a festive melody for the onlookers. To the cheers of the crowd, President Clinton came in and took his assigned seat on the podium…UCLA’s 75^th Anniversary had begun.
(UCLA Daily Bruin, May 25, 1994)

Note that the past perfect is in the final sentence of the episode and that it occurs with a punctual verb phrase. Such use of the past perfect adds a dramatic flair that would be missing if the simple past had been used. The writer is saying, “Pay attention; this is important.”

Related Use of Historical Present
Something we have known for a long time is that past events can be narrated in the present tense to create the impression that the event is taking place as the text is being read. We call this stylistic trick “the historical present.” Thus if an event like the convocation were retold in the historical present, we could expect to get the following tense shift:

Past tense report with past perfect climax →

(regular pattern)

Present tense report with present perfect climax →

(historical present pattern)

I recently found such a historical present example while reading an article in the National Geographic titled, “Life in an Icy Inferno”:

…we’re wearing harnesses and hard hats and descending on ropes and ladders into an ice cave know as Warren Cave, which has been hollowed out by steam from the volcano. We unclip the harnesses about 40 feet below the surface of the mountain…We are here to retrieve a temperature probe—one of 23 the group left on the mountain a year ago in the hopes of determining how much the soil temperatures change and thus whether these environments are relatively stable. As we move away from the entrance, the light fades, and we have to use flashlights…Then Moore disappears down a corridor and, after a few moments, gives a shout. He’s found the probe. [i.e., he has found].
(National Geographic, July, 2012, p. 115) 

Existential “There”
My final example is the discourse use of existential there in academic writing. The usual ESL/EFL presentation involves presenting learners with sentences that locate some object in space:

There is a book on the table.
There are two pencils on my desk.

This is not how existential there is used in academic writing—nor in most types of written discourse, where its most common use is to present a list of related topics (Ahlers, 1991; Huckin & Pesante, 1988). The following example comes from a biology textbook:

“There are [emphasis added] three major modes of natural selection [The three modes are then listed and defined; I omit the lengthy definitions]:

1. Stabilizing selection favors….
2. Directional selection shifts….
3. Disruptive selection favors….”

(Starr & Taggart, 1989, p. 547)

In other words, the way existential there is used in academic written discourse has little to do with the conventional sentence-level presentations in ESL/EFL textbooks. What the textbooks do is fine as a sentence-level introduction for beginners; however, instruction at the intermediate and advanced levels needs to deal with the discourse functions of this construction. If not, the results are unfortunate, as I shall illustrate.

The teaching of existential there becomes even more complicated if we consider the case of Japanese EFL learners, who have no equivalent construction in their language. I looked at some discourse data that I had at my disposal: PhD dissertation proposals in applied linguistics. I selected three officially approved proposals and examined each one carefully for use of existential there:

Proposal 1, by a native speaker of English

44 pages of double-spaced 14 pt. font
15 uses of existential there (1 in a quote)

Proposal 2, L1 Japanese with advanced L2 English

39 pages of doubled-spaced 12 pt. font
33 uses of existential there (4 in quotes)

Proposal 3, L1 Japanese, intermediate L2 English

30 pages of doubled-spaced 12 pt. font
Zero uses of existential there

Proposals (1) and (2) used existential there very similarly, and two-thirds of their tokens were in the review of the literature section (10 and 22 tokens respectively). Proposal (2) had a longer literature review than (1), which explains the greater number of tokens.

Proposal (3) is an example of what Schachter (1974) first observed and referred to as “avoidance”: not using a construction because of unfamiliarity or discomfort with it. There were, in fact, several places in the literature review of this proposal where I felt that a native English speaker or a skilled and advanced L2 user would have produced an existential there construction. Here is one such example:

Excerpt From Proposal (3)
“Lastly, Chaudron discusses four problems with feedback to justify the usefulness of the set of types and features in Chaudron (1977). The four problems (Chaudron, 1988: 145, 149) are as follows…”

Suggested Reformulation
Lastly, there are four problems concerning feedback that justify the usefulness of the set of types and features first proposed in Chaudron (l977) and discussed again in Chaudron (l988: 145, 149)…

My reformulation not only uses existential there to introduce the list of problems the author wishes to mention, but it also allows for focus on feedback, the topic of the proposal, rather than on Chaudron, one of several applied linguists who had published research on feedback. Clearly, the writer of proposal (3) has not learned when to use existential there in academic writing.

Conclusion

L2 reading and writing are complex processes that demand many top-down and bottom-up skills on the part of learners. One of the reasons why ELLs encounter so many difficulties is that they have not been taught the kinds of discourse-level grammar discussed above. We need to reanalyze virtually all of English grammar at the discourse level in order to be able to teach our students the grammar they will need when they read and write English for academic purposes. Sentence-level knowledge of structures and ability to use these sentence-level structures are but elementary prerequisites to learning how to interpret and produce these structures in written English at the discourse level.

References

Ahlers, E. A. (l991). A discourse analysis of non-referential there in academic writing (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of California, Los Angeles, CA.

Anderson, B. E. (1979). Improving the employability of the unemployed. In H. J. Bryce (Ed.), Revitalizing cities (pp. 39–60). Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Brinton, D. (1994).  Handbook for non-native speakers to accompany “Psychology in Action” by Huffman, I, Vernoy, M., and Vernoy, J. 3rd edition.  New York, NY: Wiley & Sons.

Brownstein, R. (2013, February 14). Courting the Twenty-Somethings. National Journal. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/political-connections/courting-the-twenty-somethings-20130214 

Celce-Murcia, M. (2002). On the use of selected grammatical features in academic writing. In M. J. Schleppegrell & M. C. Colombi (Eds.), Developing advanced literacy in first and second languages: Meaning and power, (pp. 143–158). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1989). Language, context, and text: A socio-semiotic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Huckin, T., & Pesante, L. (1988). Existential there. Written Communication, 5(3), 368–391.

Judson, O. (July 2012).  Live in an icy inferno.  National Geographic, July 2012, p. 115

Londe, Z. C. (2010-2011). Stakeholders in international teaching assistants’ oral language exam. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 18(2), 253–256.

Huffman, K., Vernoy, M., & Vernoy, J. (1994). Psychology in action (3rd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Renfrew, C. (l989). The origins of Indo-European languages. Scientific American, 261(4), 106–114.

Schachter, J. (1974). An error in error analysis. Language Learning, 24(2), 205–214.

Starr, C., & Taggart, R. (1989). Biology, the unity of life (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Williams, H. (l996). An analysis of English conjunctive adverbial expressions (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of California, Los Angeles, CA.