Acquiring a Scholar's Voice: Findings from two Student Corpora The Acquisition of Hypotaxis in First-Year Composition CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015 Daniel Kies Department of English College of DuPage

2 The Genesis of the Project (1/3) 2 CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015 We noted several items related to the question of orality:  Growing concern for a “shift to orality” and consequently a degeneration, degradation, and overall diminishment of the English language We noted a second trend in this line of thought:  The blame is usually attributed to the wide-spread adoption of communications technology by the millennial generation In short, there was no evidence in the corpus for evidence of orality, much less increasing orality.

33 Background of our research corpus:  The FYC corpus is from the same composition courses taught by the same instructor over the period. This stability produces highly comparable data in terms of writing topics, and reduces variability that might have been due to different instructors’ pedagogical styles or abilities.  The writing prompts were intended to elicit essays in different academic genres such as summary, review of an article, argumentative/persuasive essay, descriptive/comparative response, analysis of persuasive writing, and definition. Students typically wrote academic research essays on topics related to the Orwell’s The Genesis of the Project (2/3) CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

4 The Genesis of the Project (3/3) 4 Background of our student writers:  All students have similar backgrounds  cultural,  linguistic, and  socio-economic  Most students come from the western suburbs of Chicago that surround the college  All students have similar educational achievements CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

55 Research question  Do FYC students’ patterns of parataxis and hypotaxis differ from the writing of senior undergraduate MICUSP students?  Note Bene: MICUSP is the Michigan Corpus of Undergraduate Student Papers. ( The subcorpus selected for the FYC comparison were fifty 4 th year literature students. (102,534 words) CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

66 Definitions (1/2)  Taxis refers to the arrangement of phrasal or clausal constituents  Parataxis refers to the arrangement of grammatical (and semantic) equals and is realized in several ways: parataxis syndeticasyndetic coordinators punctuation juxtaposition semicolon comma CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

7 Definitions (2/2)  Hypotaxis refers to the grammatical (and semantic) subordination of one constituent to serve a grammatical (or semantic) role in another constituent and is realized in several ways: hypotaxis forms functions finite nonfinite nominal relative adverbial comparative full relative -ed –ing absolute infinitive verbless CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

8 Methodology (1/2) Tools:  WordSmith Tools (Mike Scott)  UAMCorpusTool (Mick O’Donnell) Materials (the taxis study corpus):  MICUSP (102,534 words from senior undergrads’ writing – literature papers)  FYC (587,499 words from student research essays on George Orwell’s 1984) 8 CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

9 Methodology (2/2) Techniques: Establishing sets of metrics from earlier research to provide a means to measure the orality of the students’ texts:  Biber et al. (2006) examined a range of university registers, both spoken and written (T2K-SWAL corpus).  The T2K-SWAL corpus provides a useful backdrop against which to compare student writing in the FYC and the MICUSP corpora. 9 CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

10 Claims about Writing (1/2) Writing has been claimed to be:  More structurally complex and elaborate  More explicit  More decontextualized/autonomous  Less personally involved/ more detached or abstract  Higher concentration of new information  More deliberately organized (Biber, 1988, p. 47). CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

11 Halliday and Mattheissen describe the register variation as a constellation of features that distinguish orality, i.e., “very spoken” genres, from “very written” genres, such as academic texts this way: “… something that would in spoken English be typically expressed as a clause is expressed instead [in writing] as a group of words centering on a noun.” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. 171) Claims about Writing (2/2) CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

12 Results (1/5) Biber, 1988, pp , 1992, 2006, Biber, Conrad, Reppen, Byrd, and Helt (2002), and (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, and Finegan,1999) found that finite dependent clauses including that clauses, WH clauses, causative adverbial clauses, and conditional adverbial clauses are characteristic of interpersonal spoken registers. For example there was little difference between FYC and MICUSP on the frequency of finite clauses or the numbers of coordinators per 1000 words or the use of punctuation as indicators of parataxis. CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

13 Results (2/5) However, significant differences were found in the frequency of relative clauses and adverbial clauses among the FYC and MICUSP. The results seem to indicate that although subordination of this type is typical of informal spoken registers, the data evidences some development as students progress, given the general distinction that novice writers elaborate at the clause FYC CorpusMICUSP undergrads Relative pronouns 17 /1000 words Relative pronouns 14 /1000 words Relative clauses 10 /1000 words Relative clauses 8 /1000 words Nonfinite clauses 35 /1000 Nonfinite clauses 31 /1000 level while experienced academic writers elaborate the phrase, particularly the noun phrase. CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

14 Results (3/5) However, CorpusTool’s indicator of “Connectedness” was also significantly different for all finite clauses, including relative clauses. This result is counter-intuitive, considering that FYC contains more relative pronouns and clauses, to infinitives, -ed clauses, and adverbial clauses overall. FYC Corpus MICUSP CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

15 Results (4/5): Nonrestrictive Relatives: Hypotaxis Grades into Parataxis?  Consider this example from the corpus: ____________________________________________ In my opinion, many of the parents living with these children need councelling or family councelling between the children and the foster parents in order to alleviate many of the lack of communications which where revealed which councelling some of these children such as lack of empathies listening from the parent's lack of support, in many of these children's problems which often would cause the child to give other forms of substitution, many of which were relating to some criminal tendancies such as petty theft, lack of interest in school studies, lack of modivation in general, a general feeling of not being loved and understood, which often was revealed to the counselor [only italics added]. CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

16 Schematic Presentation of the Previous Example MAIN CLAUSE Adverbial In my opinion Subject many of the parents living with these children Verb need Object … family councelling … [The Obj is post modified by an INF SUB CL] Subordinator in order Verb to alleviate Object many of the lack of communications [This Obj is post modified by sequence of Rel Clauses] REL CL A which were revealed REL CL B which councelling...in many of the children's problems REL CL C which often would cause a child to give forms of substitution REL CL D many of which were relating to some criminal tendancies... REL CL E which often was revealed to the counselor. CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

17 Paratactic Relative clauses Other student texts reveal the same sorts of patters:  Writing is one of my hobbies, which helps me to relax.  A mask may be front of some sort, to which true identity is hidden.  In high school my writing was worse because I could not write a well constructed sentence or a well constructed paragraph. Which made my essay unacceptable. In my free time, after I got out of high school, I would write a lot of sentences and paragraphs. This helped me to strengthen my writing. Which I had thought I had improved in a lot. Now I think I can write an acceptable essay on almost any subject [italics added]. CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

18  He met the chairperson, who invited him to the meeting., and she invited him to the meeting.  Here come the Gladstone boys, whom I mentioned to you yesterday. ; I mentioned them to you yesterday. Paratactic Relative Clauses CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015 { {

19 Results (5/5): Indeterminacy in Adverbial Clauses CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015  Adverbial clauses (like many other subordinate clauses) present backgrounded (i.e., presupposed, given, or old) information, cf., Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik (1985); Dillon (1981); and van Dijk (1977).  Given that college composition students often poorly understand or control this function of hypotaxis, the result is an awkward sentence style or the misuse of subordinating conjunctions, as discussed above. Consider the next examples, where the italicized portions of the students' sentences demonstrate hypotactic syntax between clauses, conflicting with a semantic relationship that seems paratactic (illustrated in the paraphrase after each example).

20 Indeterminacy in Adverbial Clauses CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015 ... once I thought what I was writing then look on my paper to see if my thoughts come on paper, they haven't. [cf., I think about what I am writing and then look on my paper to see if my thoughts came on paper, and they haven't.]  I finally thought about this [a teacher's actions and suggestions] that night and other nights. I finally started taking into account his complex nature, that I should only expect him to be ribbing everybody just like me. [cf.,... and I should only expect him to be ribbing everybody [who was shy] just like me.]

21 Indeterminacy in Adverbial Clauses CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015  There were others [writing problems] but basically I am able to write, whereas the reader is able to comprehend. [cf.,... and the reader is able to comprehend.]  I find myself using a word once, twice, or maybe three times within a paragraph or sentence, even though I should be able to use another related word. [cf.,... and I should be able to use another related word.]

22 Indeterminacy in Adverbial Clauses CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015  Adverbial clauses in the FYC corpus occur almost exclusively as marked themes in sentence-initial position serving a scene-setting function (see also Bever and Townsend (1979); Bolinger (1978); Dillon (1981); Greenbaum (1969); Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik (1985); and van Dijk (1977)

23 Indeterminacy in Adverbial Clauses 1. When Orwell was a young man, he joined the army. [cf., Orwell was a young man, and he joined the army.] 2. When Winston had trouble thinking he usually got sidetracked.... [cf., Winston had trouble thinking, and he usually got sidetracked....] CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

24 Illustrating Time and Cause Sense of when a. He was lecturing to his class when suddenly a door flew open. b. *When suddenly a door flew open, he was lecturing to his class. [not the same as (a)] c. He was lecturing to his class and suddenly a door flew open. d. Suddenly a door flew open and he was lecturing to his class. e. The car stopped when it hit the pole. f. When it hit the pole, the car stopped. CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

25 Indeterminacy in FYC clauses: A Parataxis/Hypotaxis Gradient? PARATAXIS |–—and ————————which——when 1 ——when 2 —| HYPOTAXIS |–—coordinators———indeterminate—time —— cause —| (two senses of when) CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015 Curme’s (1931) notes the historical development of the modern English relative clause as an derivative of coordinated structures, in his history of the English language, by the way.

26 Conclusions (1/3) CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March FYC students seem to master forms before they master function, especially the (the foregrounding/backgrounding functions of hypotaxis) 2. We can hypothesize that a significant number of structures in the prose of college composition students are semantically indeterminate and that taxis is a gradient phenomenon in FYC. 3. In the language of FYC students, a mismatch appears between meaning and grammar, between function and form generally, between the semantics of parataxis and the syntax of hypotaxis in the complex-complex specifically. This mismatch seems to be an example of a larger phenomenon in language development — overextension. The gradient nature of subordination discussed above is an overextension of paratactic semantics and function to structures with hypotactic syntax.

27 Conclusions (2/3) CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015 Graphically, conclusion three can be illustrated thus: MICUSP

28 Conclusions (3/3) CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015 Graphically, conclusion three can be illustrated thus: FYC

29 Suggestions for Further Research  How do the hypotheses about developmental patterns in the acquisition of hypotactic structures compare to the development of other syntactic patterns, e.g.,  The development of full relative clauses precedes reduced  The development of full subordinate cl. before reduced sub. cl.  The development of (non-)finite clauses with more complex use of information focus  How do the hypotheses about developmental patterns in the acquisition of hypotactic structures compare across different writing student populations, e.g.,  Developmental students or  (Academic) ESL students CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

30 References Biber, D. (1988). Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge NY: Cambridge University Pres. Biber, D., Johannsen, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow, England: Pearson Education. Biber, D., Conrad, S.M., Reppen, R., Byrd, R.P., Helt, P., Clark, V., Cortes, V., Csomay, E., Urzua, A. (2004). Representing Language Use in the University: Analysis of the TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language Corpus. TOEFL Monograph Series. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Biber, D. (2006) University Language: A corpus-based study of spoken and written registers. John Benjamins. Curme, G. (1931). A grammar of the English language, volume II: Syntax. Essex, CT: Verbatim. Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar (3 ed.). London: Arnold. O’Donnell, M., (2015) UAMCorpusTool version , wagsoft.com. Scott, M. (2012). Wordsmith Tools version 6. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman. CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015

31 Contact Information Daniel Kies Department of English College of DuPage 425 Fawell Boulevard Glen Ellyn, Illinois 60137, USA Presentation available at 31 CCCC 2015 Tampa 21 March 2015