Texts in the Dansk Engelsk Skole Bog "Count me in!" & German English School Book "English G" - What`s the difference?

Table of contents

1) Introduction

2) Text - what is it? And what patterns can we trace?
a) A definition of "text"
b) Lexical cohesion
c) Grammatical cohesion
d) Information structure

3) The Danish schoolbook "Count me in!" and the German schoolbook "English G"
a) What do the books offer? What text types are available?
b) What types of cohesion can be identified
c) Sentence function, tense and voice

4) Conclusion

5) Bibliography

1) Introduction

The means of communication is text, written or spoken. We exchange information by talking or writing to each other; we read books, magazines, newspapers or any other kind of written text either for personal entertainment, for intensive studies or just to find out what's going on. In linguistics, "discourse" is a common phrase. If you look it up in the dictionary, you will find "talk" as a synonym. Going back to the Latin origins, we find "discursus" meaning "to run", "to run on" and also "to run to and fro". One could think now that "to run on" a topic doesn't necessarily refer to spontaneous speech and that's not completely wrong. It has historically been applied to spoken language like speeches. The modern meaning of "discourse", however, encompasses both formal speeches and spontaneous conversations because all kinds of talk "run". The speakers try to shape their interactions in a way that the listener can follow the thoughts and ideas of the speaker. A pattern is "woven" (in order to use another metaphor to describe talk-as-discourse). Looking at our own talk, we often use the terms "to cotton on" or "to lose the thread of the conversation".

So far, only spoken language has been described but written language "runs" or gets "woven" as well, even though "discourse" referring to texts is used within the academic world much more often than outside.

For this coursework, I decided to have a closer look at the English schoolbook. During work experiences in a Danish school and due to personal connections to Denmark, for me the question arose, why everybody in Denmark speaks a much better English than the people in Germany although the pupils in both countries start learning the language at school at about the same age. Is it because of the unsynchronised TV programme?

Or are there any differences in the material that is used at school?

I chose two different books that are in use for the subject English: one new book that is used in Denmark called "Count me in!" and the current German book "...". My aim is to trace down the way the texts in both books are constructed.

2) Text - what is it ? And what patterns can we trace ?

a) Short definition of text

The roots of the word "text" can also be found in Latin: textere and textum can be translated with "to weave" and the word text originally meant "something woven". It was mentioned in the introduction that a pattern is woven which leads to the "relationship between text, textile ("capable of being woven") and texture ("having the quality of woven cloth")"¹. Texts can therefore be referred to as a kind of "material".

A slightly different aspect of text is given on a web page of the University Munich². Here we find two different approaches to the expression "text":

One so called pre-theoretical definition saying that text is a formally restricted, mostly written utterance that normally encloses more than one sentence.

And a second approach that refers to textlinguistics and defines text as a language related form of uttering a communicative action.

The best definition, in my opinion, is given by Salkie :

"Some linguists distinguish between text and discourse, using text to mean what one speaker or writer says, while a discourse for them has two or more speakers / writers interacting. In this book two terms are used interchangeably to refer to any stretch of language that may be longer than a single sentence, and which therefore may have structural properties which go beyond the scope of grammar. For the sake of simplicity we shall usually use the word text."³

It gives a comprehensible explanation of the expressions and it also shows that the field of textlinguistics is very new and the terminology among linguists is used in many different ways so that clarification is often necessary to prevent misunderstandings.

b) Lexical Cohesion

If we go back to the metaphor describing texts as a "woven material", it must also be possible to trace how the material is constructed. Are there any rules? How do we make sense of a row of sentences?

Normally we do not have any difficulties in deciding whether it is just a collection of sentences that do not relate not each other or a paragraph forming a unity. It is cohesion that makes the difference or as Halliday and Hasan say: "Cohesion is what gives a text texture."⁴ In this part of the second chapter, we are going to have a look at lexical cohesion or in other words: the relationship between words.

One way of making a text coherent is word repetition. Here, we have to differentiate between function words and content words. Function words are words such as "the" which can be found in a text many times whereas nouns belong to the class of content words. They can be directly repeated as well but not in the same dimensions.

Instead of repeating the same word over and over again, it can be replaced by a word with the same meaning. The use of synonyms or near-synonyms is another way of making a text hang together. As it is often very difficult to find two words with exactly the same meaning; words which are close in meaning are `legal' as well. Of course, we can also approach this from the other direction and use antonyms.

The next cohesive device is the use of superordinates which means that one word encloses another in meaning such as "fruit" and "apples" or "dog" and "shepherd". The more specific word is called hyponym. Depending on the topic, there can be further hyponyms to hyponyms themselves as the classification of organisms (living organisms - animal - reptile - ...) shows. A link that I have not mentioned so far is the specific-general reference including words "referring to the same thing or person, but where one has more detail than the other"⁵, for example "apples" and "cooked apples". The example of the apples leads us to another aspect: "apples" and "pips" - here we can differentiate between the apple as a whole and the pips as parts of it.

Ordered series is also a way of linking sentences, encompassing the days of the week, the seasons or also the months of a year, minutes of an hour, hours of a day or indications about the time of the day. So far, I have listed possibilities that can be identified in any kind of text but what happens if we go through a medical report or hairdressing instructions? Not only will we find a variety of the cohesive devices mentioned above but also vocabulary related to the specific occupation; so called semantic fields can (but do not necessarily have to) contain technical language. A text can simply use words that are connected to a special activity, an experience or the same subject matter. Romantic fiction, for example, uses vocabulary associated with love.

A writer can play with words and mix vocabulary from different semantic fields in a way that might be hard to disentangle the two systems. You can discover an example in the introduction of this coursework where I described one thing as if it were another: text as "woven material". Bringing two systems of vocabulary together in such a way is called metaphor.

It is, however, not only vocabulary that makes the unity of a text; this leads us to the next strategy:

c) Grammatical Cohesion

Beside lexical cohesion (the way lexical items are woven together), there is a second aspect which deals with the grammatical features. We all learn grammar as an integral part of learning language, but there is a slight difference between labelling parts of a sentence and knowing grammar. In this unit, I will introduce some grammatical principles and patterns that are most commonly used.

- Reference

The English Dictionary defines the verb "to refer" as "to send for information" or "to seek information" What does that mean ?

The principle of reference is the following: "it tells the reader that they can only make complete sense of the word or structure they are looking for if they look elsewhere in the text to get a fuller picture"⁶.

We can differentiate several kinds of reference:

Personal pronoun reference

The nouns of a sentence can be replaced by a pronoun; it can either be I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they or variants such as me, him, her, us, them. The term personal pronoun might make you think that this is an indication of their reference function, but the words it, they and them can also refer to inanimate objects, non-human animates or even abstract ideas. Here are two examples:

Justine said that she was going to the cinema.

In this case, Justine is replaced by the pronoun she and as the pronoun refers back to Justine, we call it anaphoric reference.

I couldn't believe it - the car was a complete wreck.

Here we already have the case, that it refers to an object: the car. And this time, the reference doesn't refer back to something but to something that comes later in the text: the car. That is what we call cataphoric reference.

Two additional kinds of references of the personal pronoun category are the exophoric and the endophoric reference. The use of you can refer directly to the reader and tell the reader to use himself/herself as the reference point. The writer can also be self-referential by using I. Both cases show us that the personal pronouns have the function of a sign-post "leading out of the text and making us focus on the human agents who are producing and receiving the text"⁷. If the reader has to go outside the text it is called exophoric reference; if the reader can remain within the text not in need of any information from outside we call it endophoric reference.

Demonstrative reference (deictics)

The next cohesive tie encompasses the expressions the, this, that, these, those, here and there.

As "verbal pointers" or also known as deictic terms, they show where something is. Deictic terms can also be used in the cataphoric (referring forwards) or anaphoric (referring backwards) way, just like the personal pronouns.

Two examples:

I went to Spain last year and I would like to go there again. (anaphoric) But the problem is: how can I afford it ? (cataphoric)

Comparative reference

This kind of reference does not only make us look elsewhere for closer information but also search for information with a special aim: the name contains the verb already _ to compare the parts that are linked. It is fairly easy to identify the grammatical pattern of comparisons. There is either the suffix -er at the end of the adjective (when two items are being compared), or the suffix -est if the comparison contains more than one item.

Comparisons can also involve aspects such as quantity and number using expressions like more, fewer, less and another. The reference point is mostly given (e.g. Anne is taller than Patrick) but it is also possible to omit it.

- Substitution

What does that mean ? Here, the writer replaces certain parts of a text, especially long phrases, by shorter expressions or even single words (do and so) in order to shorten the text, to avoid unnecessary repetitions and to make the text more economic. The difference between the two words is, that do is used to replace verbs and so substitutes whole clauses: A: That must have been a shock for him.

B: I think so. (substitution for: I think that it must have been a shock for him.)

A: Has Linda put an advertisement in the local newspaper ?

B: She must have done, because Tom has read something about it. (substitution for: She must have put an advertisement in the local newspaper, because ...)

Beside verbs and parts of sentences, substitution can also involve nouns, "and here we often make a substitution in order to redefine the original item"⁸.

Example:

Terry looked at the potatoes and picked the large ones.

- Ellipsis

Ellipsis involves the omission of elements altogether (while substitution is rather about swapping elements). Speakers who know each other quite well do not need to say every word specifically. This is the case among friends who have shared meanings and references. There are written texts where ellipsis is used to create such a close atmosphere. It hardly ever happens that the omission of certain elements confuses the reader. The opposite is the case: the ties between reader and writer become stronger because the reader adds a personal aspect by filling the gaps.

- Conjunction

Using conjunctions is a way of connecting parts of sentences, phrases and clauses. It also includes the aspect of how items should be linked as different text types require different ways of connections. It depends on the purpose of the text what kind of conjunctions are suitable. In books about textlinguistics, we find various structures, even different expressions for conjunctions. While Salkie distinguishes four types of connectives⁹ (addition, opposition, cause and time connectives), we find 5 types in Carter's book.

In order to get the full picture, I made the following collection:

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

d) Information structure

Beside the vocabulary and certain grammatical constructions, there are some more aspects that focus on how different text types are linked. In order to explain this, we go back to the metaphor of weaving:

You can make various garments of a piece of fabric and texts as ,,woven material" can also come in different shapes. We can even go one step further and say that the design of fabric is equivalent to the internal patterns of text because the information given in a text has also got a certain structure.

But not only texts come in different shapes, it is also the sentences within a text that have different functions:

- Question sentences: reader is asked to look for further information
- Statements: reader is given a description of something
- Commands (also known as ,,Imperatives"): reader is told to do something
- Exclamations: emotions are directly expressed

Another way that can help us to identify a genre is the tense in which the text is written. There exist certain conventions when it comes to genres and one of them is the use of particular verb tenses. In non-fiction or information texts you would not find the past tense, as it is their intention to tell the reader about reality and ,,how things are". One can say now, that prose fiction also tells the reader about the ,,nature of things", but in this case it is done by looking back to a series of events that happened to fictional characters. For that reason, you will mostly find the past tense.

The verb voice can vary as well, according to the genre. By using the active or the passive voice, an author can give different emphases to sentences. Here are two reasons why the passive voice is often preferred:

- It depersonalises a text as the agent can be neglected; that means that the people behind actions are unimportant whereas the process itself is the major aspect.

- It focuses on institutional procedures rather than on the persons involved.

The theme is the last aspect I want to mention. In the first part of the sentence, we often find the subject matter, the theme. In a text where sentences are linked very tightly, the end of a sentence, also called ,,focus", can become the theme of the following sentence. It is absolutely necessary that there is some continuity concerning the theme, but texts can make nonsense if they are too tight ( example: the theme is either mentioned explicitly over and over again or the theme changes constantly from sentence to sentence).

3) The Danish schoolbook "Count me in!" and the German schoolbook "English G"

a) What do the books offer? What text types are available?

,,Count me in !"¹⁰ is a very new book and many schools in Denmark are about to replace the old English books by this edition. To be more precise, we do not talk about a single Englishbook that contains both texts, exercises and grammar; ,,Count me in !" is a collection of texts in one book and a second book with exercises. The third book is the edition for the teacher¹¹ containing short summaries and annotations to the texts, additional information such as further background knowledge and explanations of certain expressions, lists of sources that are available for possible projects (e.g. CD-ROM's, addresses the pupils can use for personal research, Internet, ...etc.), further literature, references to the activity book and suggestions for pupil activities. Grammar is an aspect of minor interest as there is no special grammar book or grammar section connected to the texts beside what is available in the ,,Count me in !" exercise book. Teachers find their bearings in the syllabus and use an independent grammar for their purposes. Very often, they do not follow the units in the schoolbook but use different texts. This way, they decide themselves in what order grammar issues are taught. The emphasis concerning ,,Count me in !" is put on communication.

In Germany, ,,English G"¹² is currently in use, consisting of an ,,all inclusive" book for the pupils (texts, exercises and grammar) and a book for the teachers. The pupil's book follows a certain structure: within one unit, there are different texts with exercises and grammar issues to go with them.

In order to get a basis of comparison, I picked a topic that is dealt with in both countries:

,,Australia". My intention was to find out, what texts are offered and for that reason, the exercise and grammar sections are irrelevant.

In the Danish book, ,,Australia" is one of the topics for the 7th grade. It encompasses two units which means 30 pages of texts and material for visualisation (texts only, no exercises or grammar). With regard to the length of the texts, there are road signs with not more than 3 words up to extracts of novels filling more than 2 pages. I have already mentioned road signs and novel extracts. Beside these two text types, we find the following: information texts (either as texts covering a certain issue or as captions going with a picture), a fact file, descriptions, explanations, a table, list of examples of Australia slang, advertisements, stories, an interview, a symbol dictionary, song texts, a conversation, identity cards, a menu card, and a letter. Altogether, I found approximately 17 different text types.

The book used in Germany covers ,,Australia" in one unit and on 13 pages of which 7 pages can be excluded from the beginning as they focus on grammar and exercises related to the grammar issues. The result is 6 pages of texts and visual material about Australia. I already mentioned that in Denmark it is the 7th grade who gets to know this continent whereas in Germany it is the 9th grade. The length also ranges from short texts of three words (road signs) up to a two page novel extract. As we only have 6 ,,text" pages, the range of text types is accordingly small: newspaper articles, a fact file, a road sign, information texts (either covering a special topic or as captions connected to a picture), a song and the story which makes 6 text types.

b) What types of cohesion can be identified?

Within the units about Australia, I tried to find comparable texts. This was not very easy because in the German book, the choice is not that big, the texts are split up in various paragraphs and moreover, they are surprisingly short. As a compromise, I chose three paragraphs in English G with the headlines ,,Life `down under'", ,,Australia's native people" and ,,raw material"; the Danish book offers the text ,,Today's Australia", divided into 5 shorter paragraphs without an explicitly named headline. This way, the extracts have about the same length and the content is fairly the same as both texts can be labelled as ,,documentary texts". My intention was to find out, how new information is presented to the pupil, whether there are more cohesive devices in the Danish text than in the German text.

In the Danish book, I identified 15 different types of cohesion. The following table shows what kind of cohesion (the exact category), lexical or grammatical, and how often it occurred during the whole text:

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

The proportions of lexical and grammatical cohesive devices are very balanced and even within the categories, there is no particular means that is used disproportionately often.

And here are the results of the English G text:

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Within the range of 13 different kinds of cohesion, there are 4 lexical and 9 grammatical ones which means that we find a lot more references and conjunctions. In total, we have a higher number of sentences and less connections between them because the text introduces many new ideas within one paragraph. The headlines given are not the only topic that is dealt with. A row of ideas and new information means less cohesion as there is not necessarily a relation between them. The numbers in this table, however, come very close to the numbers of the Danish chart.

c) Sentence function, tense and voice

As both texts are information texts, we find stating sentences only. Another point that is closely related to information texts is the use of the present tense. Both in the Danish and the German text, the present tense is used the most. There are some exceptions however, such as several sentences in the present perfect referring to events that happened in the past (historical events) but which still have their effects in the present and which might influence the future as well.

The use of the passive is very rare in these texts. I the Danish text, there is only one sentence in the passive voice (past passive) whereas the German text contains three different kinds of the passive (present passive, present perfect passive and past passive). The reason for this is certainly that the text is for the 9th grade where all forms of the passive are covered already.

4) Conclusion

Reading the texts only gives you the impression that there is not striking difference between the Danish and the German text. After this analysis though, I think there are some differences. Within the Danish text, there is greater order, which means that the ideas are introduced according to the paragraphs. First there is ,,Australia on the map", ,,Population", ,,Immigrants in the City", ,,Aborigines" and as a connection to Australia as a country ,,Landscapes". We have less points but the information about these points is more detailed and clearly presented. We must not forget, that ,,Count me in!" offers a bigger variety of texts about Australia, so the teacher and the pupils can chose what they would like to concentrate on and also how much time they would like to spend on the unit. The topics can be history, facts about the continent, the flag, the language, getting around in Australia, living in Australia, stories, novels and songs. To all these topics, there are texts available.

The German book looks slightly different. As I have already mentioned, the unit ,,Australia" is fairly short, the number of texts is small and the texts themselves are packed with information. They have to be, because the pupils should get as much information as possible. Within one paragraph, for example, there are several points such as the inhabitants, the climate, outdoor activities, immigrants and regulations by the government. The result is that the texts are very complex, less ordered and harder to understand. Moreover, it is not only the texts that are very complex, it is also the structure of the whole unit. It starts with a newspaper article about an Aborigine, a short paragraph about ,,Invasion Day" followed by some facts about the country and several paragraphs referring to pictures. It is more or less like a puzzle where the pupils have to put the bits and pieces together.

The point that surprised me most is that the proportion of grammar in ,,English G" is even higher than the proportion of texts whereas in ,,Count me in!", there are no grammar parts at all. It seems to me that ,,English G" uses the texts to introduce new grammar items and that the contents are far less important. This is a pity because Australia is a very interesting country and the pupils should get more detailed information about it. A bigger variety of texts means more choice and the class can study the chosen topics more thoroughly. In my opinion, this is more sensible than covering as much as possible on as few pages as possible. Result: The Danish book focuses on information, the German book puts its emphasis on grammar. To finish off this coursework, I would like to add that it was very interesting to have a closer look at material that is used in both countries. Due to a work experience and close connections to Denmark, I had (and still have) the possibility to discover new ideas and methods that might be useful for the teaching of foreign languages in this country. Beside films in original versions on Danish TV, the way the language is taught in school is an additional reason why their English is better than the one of German pupils. Meaning comes before accuracy - an aim that should become the top priority in German schools as well.

Larissa Rieber

5) Bibliography

ASTON, J., HØJRUP, M., MORTENSEN, P. O., 1997. Count me in! Student's Book.

1.udgave, 2. oplag. København: Alinea A/S ASTON, J., HØJRUP, M., MORTENSEN, P. O., 1996. Act & Respond 4 - engelsk i 7. Klasse. Vejledning til det fjerde års undervisning med: Count me in!

1. Udgave. København: Alinea A/S CARTER, R., et al., 1997. Working with texts. A core book for language analysis. London; New York: Routledge HALLIDAY, M.A.K. and HASAN, R., 1976. Cohesion in English. Harlow: Longman SALKIE, R., 1995. Text and Discourse Analysis. London; New York: Routledge

SCHWARZ, H., TAYLOR, C. and FETTEL, F., ed., 1990.¹³ English G. Band B5 für das 9. Schuljahr. 1. Aufl. - Berlin: Cornelsen

HUBER, O., (s.t.). Text (online). München: Universität München. Available at: <http://www.fak14.uni-muenchen.de/~ohuber/TEXT.html> [Accessed 21-05-99]

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¹ Carter, Ronald, Angela Goddard, Danuta Reah, Keith Langer, Maggie Bowring: Working with Texts. A core book for language analysis. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. S. 166

² http://www.fak14.uni-muenchen.de/~ohuber/TEXT.html

³ Salkie, Raphael: Text and Discourse Analysis. London; New York: Routledge, 1995. S. XI

⁴ Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan: Cohesion in English. Harlow: Longman, 1976

⁵ Carter, Ronald, Angela Goddard, Danuta Reah, Keith Langer, Maggie Bowring: Working with Texts. A core book for language analysis. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. S.172

⁶ Carter, Ronald, Angela Goddard, Danuta Reah, Keith Langer, Maggie Bowring: Working with Texts. A core book for language analysis. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. S. 189

⁷ Carter, Ronald, Angela Goddard, Danuta Reah, Keith Langer, Maggie Bowring: Working with Texts. A core book for language analysis. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. S. 198

⁸ Carter, Ronald, Angela Goddard, Danuta Reah, Keith Langer, Maggie Bowring: Working with Texts. A core book for language analysis. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. S. 211

⁹ Salkie calls conjuncions ,,connectives"

¹⁰ Aston, Judith, Mogens Højrup, Poul Otto Mortensen: Count me in! Student's Book. 1.udgave, 2. oplag. København: Alinea A/S, 1997

¹¹ Aston, Judith, Mogens Højrup, Poul Otto Mortensen : Act & Respond 4 - engelsk i 7. Klasse. Vejledning til det fjerde års undervisning med: Count me in! 1. Udgave. København: Alinea A/S, 1996

¹² Schwarz, Hellmut, Carl Taylor, Franz Fettel (Hrsg.): English G. Band B5 für das 9. Schuljahr. 1. Aufl.- Berlin: Cornelsen, 1990

¹³ Book References according to the Harvard System