In this section we explore the role of grammatical patterns within larger patterns of language. We will consider the role of individual grammatical words and phrases but will focus on complete sentences.
Activity
Read Text: Christian Aid, an advertisement for making a will. Make a list of the main patterns you can find in the text. For example, the patterns can consist of repeated words and phrases, grammatical patterns (same type of pronoun or verb or noun phrase) as well as typographic and other patterns of layout. What do you think are the main effects produced on the reader by the patterns you have noticed? (Note: there is no commentary on this activity.)
Please remember neighbours.
horoscopes weather forecasts problem pages school notices recipes legal texts.
Text: Christian Aid
Activity
The poem ‘This is a Photograph of Me’ is by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. As you read the poem and start to work out what it means to you, you might think about the following questions:
Text: ‘This is a Photograph of Me’
Commentary
The title to this poem is intriguing. You might consider that its meaning is quite 1 Who is the ‘me’ in the poem? Who is being shown the photograph?
2 Can you take the words of the poem literally?
3 Why is the speaker only ‘just under the surface’, if s/he has drowned the day before? Why can we ‘eventually’ see the subject of the poem if we ‘look long enough’?
It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks blended with th paper;
then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up what ought to be a gentle slope, a small frame house. In the background there is a lake, And beyond that, some low hills. (The photograph was taken the day after I drowned. I am in the lake, in the center of the picture, just under the surface. It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say how large or samll I am: the effect of water on light is a distortion but if you long enough. eventually
straightforward. You might consider that the line is spoken by somebody who is showing somebody else a photograph. You might consider that the poem is the photograph. Answers to these questions seem to be basic to our understanding of the poem. But it is not impossible that all the references in the poem to things being vague ‘(balsam or spruce)’, ‘a thing that is like a branch’, and to outlines and shapes being ‘blurred’ and ‘smeared’ and ‘blended’ are deliberate, that everything is not as it at first seems and that we should perhaps not always assume that everything we see is obvious.
And in this connection you might also think about the word drown. Has the speaker literally drowned or are we invited to think of other meanings for the word drown? For example, we can ‘drown’ in a sea of paperwork or letters to be written or we can ‘drown’ in unsolved problems. However we choose to interpret the poem we cannot ignore such words; and we are likely to remain intrigued, in particular, by a word like this which is ambiguous. ‘This’ is a deictic. Words like this, that, those, here, there are all deictics. Deictics are directing or pointing words in so far as they direct our attention to particular points of reference. In this poem ‘this’ points to something which is near to us, maybe even to what is in front of our eyes, but it is not clear exactly what it refers to.
Several grammatical choices made in the poem by the writer also underline a tone of uncertainty and lack of clarity. For example, the poem refers twice to when the photograph ‘was taken’. The choice of voice is that of the passive voice; and the subject, that is, who took the photograph, is not declared. In English a passive sentence allows actions to be described without the main agent of those actions needing to be mentioned; and sometimes the omission of the agent can be deliberate because we may not know the agent or because we choose not to mention by whom or by what means something is done. The use of the passive voice here in the sentences
adds to the apparent vagueness and indefiniteness of the experiences described.
References to time are also vague and not entirely logical and consistent. The tense of the poem, although mostly in the present, alternates between past and present. For example, ‘the day after I drowned’ contrasts with ‘I am in the lake’. The reader is consequently not sure of the temporal order or dimension in which they are placed by the poem.
This commentary continues after the next activity.
Activity
We have observed above that there are several means open to us in language to register certainty and uncertainty, definiteness and indefiniteness. Before looking at the extract below from a conversation between university students, look back to the activity on p. 144 and to the commentary on p. 145 where there is discussion of different degrees of
It was taken some time ago. The photograph was taken the day after I drowned
certainty in language use. Now read the extract below and underline all those words and phrases which allow the speakers to sound deliberately vague, tentative and ‘politely’ indefinite (students are discussing how they’ve changed since coming to university).
Commentary
Likewise, what is certain and what is less certain is written into contrasts in modality in the poem. Modality in language underlines our subjective assessments of things; for example, adverbs like probably, perhaps, generally, apparently, definitely and phrases like it is certain, I am sure or I don’t know, verbs such as it seems or it appears or the use of the present tense (e.g. Oil floats on water) encode different degrees of subjective response in the view-point of a speaker or writer. More specifically too there are modal verbs and modal expressions such as must, will, can, ought to, should, be bound to.
In ‘This is a photograph of me’ there are contrasts between a view-point in which everything is definite (‘…you will be able to see me’; ‘… there is a lake’) and a way of seeing where there is greater vagueness and unclarity (‘…it seems to be’; ‘It is difficult to say where precisely’). The speaker in the poem knows what ‘ought to be’ but things do not seem straightforward.
A note of strangeness and uncertainty is also created by the poet by putting the conclusion to the poem in brackets. And after the definiteness and confidence of the short penultimate sentence
the final sentence is in distinct contrast. It is longer, more complex in structure and mixes subordinate and main clauses (the ‘if’ conditional clause is a subordinate clause), so that the grammar meanders as if ‘it is difficult to say’ where things are going and what they might mean.
We perhaps need to ask why the poet is making so much of uncertainty of viewpoint and the difficulty and unreliability of seeing clearly. (Notice by the way the number of times that there are references to ‘seeing’ (‘see’, ‘scan’, ‘look’).) We also perhaps need to ask who the speaker is and who is being spoken to. And in so doing we need to accept the
A: But you don’t notice so much in yourself, do you? I don’t think so, on the whole.
B: I don’t know, I definitely feel different from the first year. I don’t think I look any different or anything.
A: You’re bound to keep changing, really, all your whole life hopefully.
B: I don’t know, I think it’s probably a change coming away, I suppose…
I am in the lake, in the center of the picture, just under the surface.
seemingly improbable situation of someone who has already drowned showing us a picture of him/herself.
A basic interpretation of this poem might begin by saying that the ‘I’ in the poem is appealing for help and, in particular, for another person who will take the trouble to look closely at his/her situation. To do this requires another person prepared to see beneath the material surface of things and to adopt a more spiritual perspective. Only then might the identity and problems of the ‘I’ emerge more clearly.
The above analysis should not suggest, of course, that there are no other significant patterns or that they do not have a part to play. What is, however, evident is that a skilful and careful use of grammatical patterns is a key starting point for recognising significant meanings in the poem and that such analysis can provide a basis for further exploration and interpretation.
For a further discussion of main and subordinate clauses see p. 156. Note: see satellite text: The Language of Poetry
Activity
Write a couple of paragraphs about Text: Friends of the Earth, a campaign leaflet inviting people to join this environmental group. In your paragraphs say what effect the leaflet has on you. Pay particular attention to the choices of language. For example, you may like to comment on some or all of these features: present tense; noun phrases; present participles; modal verbs; pronouns. (Note: there is no commentary on this activity.)
Text: Friends of the Earth
Activity
Write a page for a book which is designed to be read by children who are learning to read in the very early years of primary school. Your text should have the topic of family and family life. Twenty to thirty words should be sufficient.
After you have written a page consider what kinds of words you have selected? What are your most typical sentence patterns? Did you repeat these words and sentence patterns?
Read Text: Boys and girls and consider the accompanying illustration. Have you read this kind of text before? If so, where? What is the connection between the text and the illustration? What do you notice about the sentence patterns in this text?
Text: Boys and girls
Commentary
Texts similar to this are often found in schools as part of reading schemes for children who are learning to read. Such texts are basic ‘readers’ with ‘key words’ which will help most in the early stages of learning to read. Are the patterns of words and sentences similar to the ones you wrote in the page of your book for infant school children?
This text is also laid out in a traditional typeface associated with many such readers, such as those produced in the Ladybird series (which can be found in the children’s section of most libraries). Such texts also promote basic values with children often shown, as in the illustration here, as part of happy (usually white) families engaged with their parents, brothers and sisters, and often their pets, in simple and basic everyday pursuits such as gardening, picking and storing fruit, sailing toy boats, helping to build a rabbit pen (for Peter) and helping with the cooking (for Jane) or, as here, on a shopping trip and a visit to their new school.
The sentence structure is also very basic and is built on five sentences in which the same type of main clause is repeated. The sentence in each case is short and simple and readable. In each case the subject (S) comes first followed by a verb (V) and an object (O) or a phrase (here all the phrases are prepositional phrases—‘in the car’, ‘at home’, ‘in the car with Daddy’). Basic structures reinforce basic values.
This very basic structure can be varied (for example, an alternative pattern is to put an object first: ‘Wine I like but I prefer beer’, where the first clause here is OSV) but it is a fundamental sentence pattern in English and it is reinforced here by the repetition.
Activity
Compare the previous text with that for the promotion of a health drink Text: Yakult. How many of the clauses in this text are similar to the Boys and girls text? If the clause structure is different in the Yakult text, why is it different?
Text: Yakult
Commentary
This text contains a greater variety of clauses. The patterns include both main clauses and subordinate clauses. A subordinate clause relies grammatically on the main clause to which it is attached, usually in a dependent relationship so that the information in the subordinate or dependent clause contains information which is in the background compared to the main clause. Examples from this text are (the subordinate clause is underlined):
As we get older, the number of good bacteria goes down.
Although healthy digestion is vital for a healthy body, most people don’t know their small intestine from their big toe!
Drinking Yakult daily is a deliciously easy way of supplying friendly bacteria to the digestive system because it contains the good guy bacteria…
The text has a scientific character and seeks to impress the reader with references to research and by using technical vocabulary. The advertisement provides the reader with a lot of information and scientific explanation and the subordinate clauses, in particular, are used to elaborate the information contained in the main clause. The clauses are linked by conjunctions which signal the way in which the information in the main clause is elaborated. (The main conjunctions are ‘as’, ‘although’, ‘because’.) Thus:
AS introduces reference to a process. ALTHOUGH introduces a concession. BECAUSE introduces a reason.
Text: Yakult is explored further in Unit 4, p. 176, with particular reference to its metaphorical structure. Conjunctions are further explored in Unit 4, pp. 212ff.
Activity
If you were writing an advertisement for a product, which products might you choose to promote using these very basic grammatical structures and why? Using the text: Boys and girls as a model, write an advert in the same style for one of the following products.
(Note: there is no commentary on this activity.)
Activity
Now look at Text: Internal memo. The memo is chatty and informal. Rewrite the memo as a formal letter from Mark Tatchell as if he did not know the recipient of the memo. What have you changed? Are the structures of SVO any different? Are your clauses different? If so, why. If not, why not?
Text: Internal memo