The importance of developing noun phrases in student

The importance of developing noun phrases in student writing Panel: What can linguistics tell us about writing? CCCC, Kansas City, Missouri. March 16, 2018 Sandra Gollin-Kies, Ph. D Benedictine University, Lisle, Illinois. USA.

A student text from FYC ¢ 2 What I want to focus on is how the citizens didn’t have enough human rights and how they were controlled so much by government and they didn’t have the freedom of speech to talk for themselves or stand up. An example I came across for totalitarianism in the novel was when “down in the street little eddies of wind were …

Spoken vs written discourse Features of conversational language “interactiveness and personal involvement (1 st and 2 nd person pronouns, WH questions), personal stance (e. g. , mental verbs, thatclauses with likelihood verbs and factual verbs, factual adverbials, hedges), and structural reduction and formulaic language (e. g. , contractions, that- omission, common vocabulary, lexical bundles)” (Biber et al. , 2002, p. 186). 3

Another FYC text ¢ In 1984, there is no such thing as the internet, so of course there wouldn’t be such a thing as advertising online. That’s what makes our privacy culture and Oceania’s privacy culture different. What makes it the same is the fact that the governing power in Oceania (the party) is intruding citizen’s privacy and taking over their lives. (A Link to the Past. FYC 1984. ) 4

Features of academic writing “informational density and complex noun phrase structures (frequent nouns and nominalizations, prepositional phrases, adjectives, and relative causes) as well as passive constructions” (Biber et al. , 2002, p. 186). 5

An academic /professional text (Business ethics textbook) ¢ 6 All the players in the health system follow a billing system based on 500 groups of 3, 500 medical procedures and 12, 574 diagnostic codes. How an illness is coded can make a substantial difference in the amount of reimbursement the medical provider receives for the care of the patient. (Jennings, 2009. Case 4. 11, p. 156)

Nominalization and noun phrases in academic writing ¢ Academic written English shows higher lexical density and greater abstraction than conversation (Halliday 1979, 1985; Halliday and Matthiesson, 2004). ¢ Nominalization is the major resource for abstraction and compression of information (Halliday, 1979; Biber and Gray, 2010; Biber et al. ) ¢ The use of complex nominalization has greatly increased in published academic writing (Biber and Gray, 2010) 7

Nouns and nominalization Pre- and post-modification of nouns is the major resource (though not the only one) for embedding information in the clause. ¢ Abstract and complex nominalization can create ambiguity for readers. ¢ Students can have difficulty managing nominalization. ¢ 8

Corpus Materials and Methods ¢ The FYC corpus from first-yr students at a mid-western 2 yr community college. (Over 1. 2 million words) l “Heroes” Texts (norming exam for placement test) l 6 Essay assignments from first semester FYC l ¢ 2 nd Semester FYC essays on George Orwell’s “ 1984. ”. Reference corpora l COCA Academic (Academic journal articles) 2011 -2012 (5. 2 million words) l ¢ 9 MICUSP (Michigan Corpus of Upper level Student Papers) 50 essays from final year undergraduates at the University of Michigan. Mostly literature and religion. (102, 500 words) UAM Corpus Tool 3. 1 (O’Donnell) used for corpus analysis

Our hypotheses ¢ Compared with experienced academic writers, first year students under-utilize the semantic resources afforded by expansion of the noun phrase. ¢ It is further hypothesized that this underutilization is a function of a student’s stage in academic literacy development. *See Biber and Gray (2011); Biber, Gray and Poonpon (2011); Parkinson and Musgrave, 2014). 10

General Statistics (%) FYC MICUSP COCAA Noun Verb 23. 5 17. 5 23. 3 14. 4 31. 7 12. 5 Adj Pron Det Adv Prep 6. 8 6. 3 10. 1 5. 8 11. 1 6. 44 6. 5 9. 6 5. 6 11. 9 7. 5 2. 2 7. 2 2. 9 9. 6 Conj 3. 4 3. 1 11

BUT… Absolute number of nouns does not tell the whole story. ¢ What kinds of nouns? ¢ How are they arranged? ¢ Developmental sequence hypothesis ¢ 12

Expansion of the Nominal Group Det. + (premod. ) + headnoun + (postmod. & complement) Hypothesised developmental stages (See handout) 13

The simple sentence structure of academic texts “Creative medical billing” Subject All the players (in the health system) Verb follow Object/Complement a billing system (based on 500 groups (of 3, 500 medical procedures and 12, 574 diagnostic codes. )) 14

Developing control over noun groups. ¢ 15 In 1984, there is no such thing as the internet, so of course there wouldn’t be such a thing as advertising online. That’s what makes our privacy culture and Oceania’s privacy culture different. What makes it the same is the fact that the governing power in Oceania (the party) is intruding citizen’s privacy and taking over their lives. (A Link to the Past. FYC 1984. )

Suggestions for the writer… 1. The idea of different and the same -> differences and similarities ¢ Suggested rewrite: The privacy cultures of 1984 and 21 st century American society show important similarities and differences. [add some sentences explaining those differences). 2. Change some verbs to nouns intruding-> intrusion; taking over -> domination] ¢ e. g. In both cases, government intrusion into private lives, aided by the use of technology promotes a sense of helplessness in the population. [Continue …In Oceania…In 21 st century America …] 16

How could this student re-write to achieve a more scholarly voice? ¢ What I want to focus on is how the citizens didn’t have enough human rights and how they were controlled so much by government and they didn’t have the freedom of speech (to talk for themselves or stand up). An example (I came across (for totalitarianism (in the novel))) was when “down in the street little eddies of wind were … ¢ Student’s text is conversational; some pre-packaged phrases, but little postmodification). Contains verbs and adverbs that could be re-packaged as nominalizations. ¢ 17

Conclusion ¢ Some evidence that supports Biber et al. ’s developmental stages. l ¢ ¢ ¢ 18 FYC students use the same range of resources of the expanded nominal group, but more of stages 2 -3. FYC shows a lesser degree of elaboration, especially multiple embedding, than MICUSP or COCAA. FYC shows weaker control over elaboration, especially multiple embedding, than MICUSP or COCAA. Surprisingly, FYC use noun phrases in apposition more than expected (Effect of journalism ? )

What does this all mean? First year students are still in the process of mastering certain grammatical resources that are outside their everyday experience. ¢ FYC students have more exposure to instructional spoken classroom genres like the lecture, written genres such as the textbook, and online journalism than professional academic writing. ¢ 19

If the noun phrase is so important … ¢ 20 Why is the noun phrase paid so little attention in grammar-teaching and in grammar textbooks?

Some suggested textbooks on grammar (see notes): Kolln, M. (1991) Rhetorical grammar: grammatical choices, rhetorical effects. . (with Loretta S. Gray. Up to 10 th edition) ¢ Rei Noguchi (1991) Grammar and the Teaching of Writing ¢ Nigel Caplan (2010) Grammar choices for graduate and professional writers *Andrea Lunsford St. Martin’s Handbook 8 th edition (issues? ) ¢ 21

A pedagogical “laboring” cycle ¢ ¢ 22 Noticing: Draw attention to the variety of resources for elaboration of the noun phrase in reading academic and other genres. Analyzing: Students engage analytically with samples of typical academic writing and compare with their own and peers’ texts. Practice: Students practice expanding and refining their own nominal groups. Reflection: Students reflect on the effects of nominalization and expanded noun groups on their own writing.

A “Laboring” task for us ¢ Analyze “Creative Medical Billing” for nominal groups. (The first one has been done for you) ¢ 23 Practice in revision to develop more nominalization and post-modification (time permitting).

Text analysis: Creative medical billing* All the players in the health system follow a billing system based on 500 groups of 3, 500 medical procedures and 12, 574 diagnostic codes. How an illness is coded can make a substantial difference in the amount of reimbursement the medical provider receives for the care of the patient. For example, coding the removal of a mole as a larger procedure (known as upcoding) will bring additional funds from an insurer. Breaking down surgeries (or unbundling them) into segments such as exploration, removal, and repair of scar tissue will substantially increase claims. Itemizing each test in a battery of tests (exploding the battery) can triple the cost of a single blood sample. Doctors accomplish all these billing strategies by savvy use of the coding process. * Jennings (2009). Case #4. 11 p. 156. ¢ 24

Suggested system for hand-analysis in workshop 1. 2. 3. Underline all verbs Double underline (bold) all nouns Identify prepositions and non-finite verbs that introduce post modification ¢ ¢ 4. 25 Start parentheses. Look for prepositions or non-finite verbs inside that signal more embedding- start parentheses. Close with the same number of parentheses at end of a whole post-modification segment.

Analysis: Here is the first sentence… ¢ 26 All the players (in the health system) follow a billing system (based on 500 groups (of 3, 500 medical procedures and 12, 574 diagnostic codes. ))

Creative medical billing (suggested analysis) ¢ ¢ ¢ 27 All the players (in the health system) follow a billing system (based on 500 groups (of 3, 500 medical procedures and 12, 574 diagnostic codes. )) How an illness is coded can make a substantial difference (in the amount (of reimbursement (the medical provider receives for the care of the patient. ))) For example, coding the removal (of a mole) as a larger procedure (known as upcoding) will bring additional funds (from an insurer. )

Creative medical billing (suggested analysis contd. ) ¢ ¢ ¢ 28 Breaking down surgeries (or unbundling them) (into segments (such as exploration, removal, and repair (of scar tissue))) will substantially increase claims. Itemizing each test (in a battery (of tests (exploding the battery))) can triple the cost (of a single blood sample. ) Doctors accomplish all these billing strategies by savvy use (of the coding process. )

Observations about this text Verbs are all present tense ¢ “ing” words and noun clauses can substitute for nouns (“something/someone”) ¢ Adverbials, adverbs, discourse markers used sparingly. ¢ 29

Observations contd. Simple sentence structure ¢ No compound sentences ¢ No subordinate clauses ¢ A lot of embedding (rank-shifting): prep. phrases, rel. clauses ¢ Very little pre-modification of nouns ¢ 30

References ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 31 Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). Spoken and Written Language. Geelong, Victoria. Deakin University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. , & Martin, J. R. (1993). Writing science: literacy and discursive power. (Critical perspectives on literacy and education). London: Falmer. Halliday, M. A. K. , & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3 ed. ). London: Arnold. Jennings, M. (2009). Business Ethics: Case Studies and Selected Readings. Mason, OH. : South-Western. Cengage Learning. Martin, J. R. (2008). Incongruent and proud: devilifying ‘nominalization. ’ Discourse and Society. (19) 6, 801 -810 Noguchi R. R. (1991) Grammar and the Teaching of Writing: Limits and Possibilities. Urbana, IL. : NCTE. O’Donnell, M. UAM Corpus Tool 3. www. http: //www. wagsoft. com/Corpus. Tool/ Parkinson, J. , & Musgrave, J. (2014). Development of noun phrase complexity in the writing of English for Academic purposes students. Journal of English for Academic Purposes. (14), 48 -59. Scott, M. (2012). Wordsmith Tools version 6. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software.

Thank you! skies@ben. edu Project details will be available after the conference at: www. rhetory. com 32