Assignment extractsThe following are short extracts from good assignments from previous years. In a few placeswe have cut out a sentence or two, indicated with […]. We’ve chosen good examples, ofcourse, but they are not perfect and they are not the only way you can approach the tasks.There are a few errors which have not been corrected but these were not significant enoughto affect the overall high quality.Please be aware that the questions and tasks are not exactly the same from year to year.This means that you cannot use these as templates for your own answer, just for generalguidance. We are showing you these so you can get an idea of the amount of detail studentshave given, and the way that they have organised and worded their answers.Please remember the regulations on plagiarism as you use these examples, which are thework of others. This means that you must not copy (even very short sections). You must notcopy sentences and then change individual words.We have replaced the references with XXXX so that you have the opportunity to find yo

 

Phonology(no examples of transcription given)AssimilationAssimilation covers the situation where one sound is altered because it appears in thecontext of another sound (XXXX). I will illustrate assimilation with three excerpts from thedialogue.Assimilation can happen between allophones, that is phonemes which can be pronounceddifferently in different phonetic contexts (XXXX). For example, the word “in” in Sentence 4can be pronounced as [ɪn] or [ ĩn ]. Here the nasalised [ ĩ ] and [ɪ] are two allophones of thephoneme /ɪ/. If it is produced in a normal way, the word “in” will be pronounced as [ɪn],which can sound over careful. The vowel phone [ɪ] is nasalized because of the influence ofthe following nasal consonant [n]. This is regressive assimilation in which a preceding soundis influenced by a following sound (XXXX). In English, this is viewed as the most commonkind of assimilation (XXXX).Another instance of assimilation at phoneme level can be observed as well in the word“must’ve taken” in Sentence 7, where the “ve”, which would normally be pronounced as thevoiced /v/ is likely to be said as the unvoiced /f/ because it is followed by an unvoiced

 

Allophones

 

When we speak, we notice that the same phoneme in some words has distinctpronunciation. These sounds are referred to as allophones which are “sounds that belong toa phoneme and realize the phoneme in particular context” (XXXX). For example, in thewords tasty and bit, we have the same phoneme t but it is realised differently. The word(tasty) has a /t/ that is an aspirated voiceless plosive. Ladefoged and Johnson (XXXX) as wellas Roach (XXXX) assert that the initial syllables /t, p, k/ are aspirated, voiceless plosiveswhen they come before vowels. In similar context, it is indicated that voiceless plosives areunaspirated when they are found at the end of the syllable with no vowels after them(XXXX). To illustrate, the t in (bit) is a voiceless plosive that has no following vowels, and it isunaspirated. Similarly, the p in (put) is another aspirated voiceless plosive, whereas in“sprouts”, it is an unaspirated voiceless plosive. In addition, Ladefoged and Johnson (XXXX)along with Roach (XXXX), pointed out that /t, p, k/ are unaspirated after /s/. The termcomplementary distribution is used to represent such allophonic differences of a phoneme.

Problems for speakers of other languages

 

The allophonic differences in a written grapheme are considered problematic for L1Speakers of Arabic. Words like ‘greens’ and ‘looks’ for instance carry the same letter s, yet itis pronounced differently: /gri:nz/, /lʊks/. Learners, sometimes, confuse these realisationsand pronounce them as /s/.Saudi learners almost never use connected speech due to the lack of exposure to L2 and notknowing the aspects of connected speech. The pronunciation of “making a” as /meɪkɪnnə/for instance would be uttered as / meɪkɪŋ ðə/, often with a slight gap between the writtenwords. According to Roach c learners should be made aware of the aspects of connectedspeech while listening. I have noticed that learners often sound too careful while speakingwith the frequent pauses between words can seriously affect their fluency. It is emphasizedthat “an essential part of acquiring fluency in English is learning to produce connectedspeech without gaps between words (XXXX)

 

Lexis We only provide examples related to paradigmatic relations. However, they could follow asimilar approach when discussing ‘word formation and syntagmatic relations’. They need to providethe definition to explain the terms. Then analyse examples from the text to illustrate these terms.These examples can be presented as a table (Extract 1) or in text (Extract 2)

Extract 1Analysis of synonymy in the extract adapted from Carroll, L. 1865. Alice in WonderlandAdventures

.Example Line 13 ‘…and shetried to curtsey asshe spoke…

Synonymy’.Line 16 ‘…so Alicesoon began talkingagain…’.

Analysis The use of ‘talking’ as a synonymy of ‘spoke’ is usedas an alternative way to show that Alice is engagingin the act of speaking.

 

 

Synonymy – verb‘talking

 

In the context of the extract, the verb phrase ‘shebegan again’ indicates that Alice was speaking and isgoing to continue to do so from this forward.Speak and talk are very close to having the samemeanings and in the extract they could replace eachother. But in some collocates only one word wouldfit e.g. speak the truth rather than *talk the truth.

 

Line 1 ‘Would thefall never cometo an end!’

ine 25 ‘… and thefall was over.’Synonymy – ‘over

In the context of the extract, ‘over’ is a synonym of‘end’ These are less synonymous than ‘speak’ and‘talk’. ‘Over’ seems to be an adjective while “end” isa noun and so they do not fit in the same context.Perhaps it would be better to say that “be over “ is asynonym for “come to an end”

 

Extract 2

Paradigmatic relations, the semantic relations between elements of the same category(XXXX) including synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and meronymy.

Synonymy

Antonymy Antonymy, the oppositeness of meaning between words (XXXX), is classified by McArthur etal (XXXX) into gradable, complementary and relational. Gradable antonyms show a more-less relation based on a spectrum, e.g. big-small. Size serves as the spectrum for this pairthat can be modified by adverbs, e.g. very big-small. [….]

Complementary antonyms are pairs of absolute opposites, the assertion of one implying thedenial of the other, e.g. could – couldn’t. The explanation for this pair can be: “he couldspeak” denies the statement “he couldn’t speak”. “Up” in “she looked up” (line 26) and“down” (line 1) in “down, down, down” would normally be treated as antonyms. “Shelooked up” implies that she did not look down. However “up” in “written up” (line 15) doesnot seem to carry an opposite meaning to “down” in “Down, down, down”.Similarly, Latitude or Longitude (line 17) are complementary but could not be described asantonyms. I discus these words in hyponyms

 

Relational antonyms demonstrate a reversal of relationship, the one presupposing theother, e.g. before-behind (line 30). This pair can be tested by the pattern “A is before Bmeans the same as B is behind A”.

Words may have different antonyms in different contexts (XXXX; XXXX). In the text, “ little (line 14 ) and “much” (line 17) are not antonyms here , while in other contexts, littlebecomes the antonym of much (little-much energy), loud (little-loud voice), important(little-important matter), etc.

 

Hyponymy[…]

Meronymy

 

Pragmatics

 

Speech acts

 

The basic idea behind the notion of ‘speech acts’ is that people do not only use language tosay things, but also do things. To classify speech acts, Austin (XXXX) made a three-folddistinction: locution is the actual words that a speaker utters; illocution is the speaker’sintention behind the utterance; perlocution is the effect the utterance might have on thehearer. In next section, I will use this framework to analyze the three given texts

 

Locutionary act	(Line 1) A: can I be annoying and ask for mybacon to be crispy?Form: yes/no interrogative
Illocutionary act	A wants the bacon to be reprocessed.Function: request
Perlocutionary act	B might then reheat the bacon to make it crispyfor A.

In this context, the illocutionary act of A is very explicit, so B understands A’s intentionundoubtedly. The effect is that B fulfills A’s request

 

Austin (XXXX) claims that all utterances should be analyzed in a certain context, and thereare three types of acts speech can perform: first, locutionary acts, which means the normalsense of the words uttered (XXXX).[…] In English, there are three sentence forms, declarative, imperative and interrogative. Andthe typical function association with the sentence forms are statement, order and question.When form and function match, we call it a direct speech act (XXXX). When a typical formdoes not match its function, we call it an indirect speech act (XXXX). Examples are elaborated in the following In text 1, the court official asks that “Now could you give your current name, rank andstation?”Locution- ask whether the witness is willing to give his name, rank or station Illocution- please give me your name, rank and station. Perlocution- give court official his name, rank and station. The sentence form is interrogative, but the court official is giving an order to the witness,which means the sentence form and function do not match. Therefore, it is an indirectspeech act

Politness theory Politeness theory is based on the notion of “face” which is the image of yourself that you presentto other people and it is through interaction that people want others to acknowledge their face(XXXX). However, there are occasions whereby a person may say something to another thatthreatens their face, this is referred to as a face-threatening act (FTA). There are two types, threatsto the positive face I.e., acts that could potentially make the speaker feel disliked and threats to thenegative face I.e., acts that could potentially threaten a speaker’s independence and freedom(XXXX). Therefore, politeness theory focuses on maintaining face for all those involved in theinteraction. In text one, there is a potential risk posed to the court officials face whereby they makea request to the witness, to mitigate the risk, a negative face strategy was deployed in the form ofhedging whereby the modal auxiliary ‘could you’ is used. This negative face strategy was deployedto maintain the witness right of freedom (XXXX) whilst still receiving the intended response seen inline 13.In text two, line 7, a face-threatening act was performed while saving a positive face and was doneto avoid offending speaker C for asking for a hot chocolate. Speaker A deploys a positive facestrategy in claiming common ground I.e., there is always one awkward person. The risk is minimisedby appealing to the friendliness between speakers where they can joke about the request made.Another example of a negative face strategy (text three) is seen in line 9, ‘I’m afraid’ which acts asa kind of apology, showing the doctor’s concern for the patient whilst making sure that they do notfeel imposed by the advice given. The choice and strength of a possible FTA is determined by thesocial distance (D) between the speaker and listener (social status), the power difference (P) (whohas more power) and the degree of threat (R) I.e., is the act of imposition (XXXX). In text three, thedoctor and patient do not share the same status, with the doctor being higher in status. This resultsin a high social distance; the doctor also holds more power illustrated by his medical knowledge,resulting in a high-power difference. Finally, due to the nature of the conversation and the type ofrelationship that is shared, there is a higher rank of threat with the patient’s life in the hands of thedoctor. Therefore, because there was high D, P, and R a negative FTA is deployed to mitigate t The genre and register’s relationship are considered to rather complement instead ofbeing opposite to each other (XXXX). Genre is more culture- based, whereas register ismore situationl- based. (XXXX Register and genre Genre Extract 1 GenreSwales (XXXX) defines genre as a class of communicative event, and components of whichshare sets of communicative purposes. Genre is mainly about how language is useddifferently in different situations. Specific genre is applied in particular language system. Bymeans of which, communicative and social purposes are achieved. During this process,people interact in certain conventional approaches base on resemblance and differencebetween communicative events.a. Genre FeaturesOn the aspect of language use, genre is used to achieve interaction goals. As a purposefulactivity, genre acts as an important role in particular culture, which is also being processedstep by step (XXXX) There are specific stages being set up to construct the whole structureto fulfill the social goal. According to related structure and goal, particular lexical andgrammatical patterns are selected appropriately. For instance, in text 1, the news articleachieves its purpose by means of three main stages. First, there is a brief introduction of theevent taking place and its background of attenders, date, and place. Subsequently, theintroduction of sponsor is presented, in order to make the public be familiar with therelated organization. Then, the following text presents several details of the annual event,like content, address and ways of contact on social media. Those stages are carried out fromsurface to deep extent, aiming at promoting and advertising the event of Leeds PrideCelebration. This pattern is the typical structure of news in written language of websitepages.b. Discourse CommunitySwales (XXXX) refers the discourse community as a group of people who share commoninterests and goals. Genre and discourse community are closely associated. Because genrehelps to define discourse community. Conversely, discourse community helps to analyze thegenre. Goals and purposes of discourse community are usually presented and fulfilled in aparticular genre by means of written language. It is reasonable that conventions and rules ofdiscourse community are often adjusted according to different genre. For instance, thediscourse community in text 1 is the group of people covered by the news like groupmembers as sponsor and staff, activity participants like LGBT fans and allies