Use Of Subordinate Clauses Research Articles

‘WHICH THE GREEKS CALL …’: THE RHETORIC OF CODE-SWITCHING IN DE ARCHITECTURA 3.1

In the first chapter of De architectura book 3, Vitruvius famously expounds upon the theory of proportionality, ultimately crafting the analogy of the human body as a composition of ideal ratios. In this exposition, the architect repeatedly makes use of technical jargon, implementing terms found nowhere else within the Latin literary corpus. Amidst this series of rare Latin vocabulary, however, Vitruvius also includes a striking twenty-seven Greek borrowings—of which twelve are novel terms not found in the corpus before this passage, and seven are terms not found again. While many of these Grecisms are explicated by Vitruvius through the use of subordinate clauses or apposition, the very existence of Latin equivalents and the resultant redundancy of terms renders Vitruvius’ linguistic vacillation strictly unnecessary and rather obfuscating in effect. After all, why borrow a term that requires definition when a corollary already exists within one's primary, ‘matrix’ language? Likewise, once one has committed to adopting a second language of technical vocabulary, why bother translating? Other, similar lexical borrowings are evident throughout De architectura, yet the opening of book 3 offers a unique opportunity to analyze Vitruvius’ method of code-switching in close detail, revealing how the author uses the technique to draw attention both to the technicality of his art and to the Greek tradition evoked by these words.

Exploration of the Effect on Continuation Task and Its Teaching Implication in High School

Using primarily a literature-based approach, this paper examines the effects of reading followed by writing on students' language performance (including accuracy, complexity, and fluency) based on the theory of reading followed by writing for learning. The results show that the read-follow-up writing task requires interaction with reading comprehension to promote synergistic effects that effectively enhance learners' language output, especially in terms of accuracy and complexity. On this basis, to explore how reading followed by writing promotes fluency, accuracy and complexity in second language writing, the study shows that 1) progressively increasing the linguistic complexity of input texts contributes to the development of second language accuracy, while simplified texts with constant complexity contribute to the improvement of fluency. 2) The effect of input text linguistic complexity on the complexity of second language writing is inconsistent across indicators, with complexity Constant complexity increases the use of subordinate clauses in linguistic output, while increasing complexity significantly increases the number of parallel sentences used. The study points out that reading followed by writing is an effective way to improve the efficiency of foreign language teaching and learning by closely integrating language output and input and aiming to accelerate students' language use.

Особливості гуцульської говірки села Розтоки Вижницького району Чернівецької області

The purpose of the research is to describe the main features of the Hutsul dialect in the village of Roztoky Vyzhnytcia district Chernivtci region. This ancient dialect of Northern Bukovyna not been the specific topic yet. The material of the study was the author's recordings of dialect speech in the village of Roztoky in 2017. There were characterized the most important phonetic, morphological and syntactic features of spoken language manifested in spontaneous dialectal speech. Special attention was paid to ancient local features of dialect. There were described the word change of nominal parts of speech, morphological features of nouns, adjectives, numerals, dialectal forms of pronouns, peculiarities of dialectal conjugation too. Moreover, there was noted about the functioning of prepositional-noun constructions, reinforcing particles and exclamations, the frequent use of subordinate clauses, their stringing in the dialectal text. This research also emphasizes the isoglosses of the phenomena that separate the dialect from the neighboring Bukovyna dialects.

Literate and linguistic features of Chinese EFL learners’ narrative versus expository writing

This study evaluated the narrative and expository English writing corpus from 20 Chinese English learners at three linguistic levels: the use of literate words (elaborated noun phrases, conjunctions, adverbs, and mental state verbs), the degree of sentence complexity, and the use of subordinate clauses (nominal, adverbial and relative clauses). Results first showed a genre effect on literate word use but not on utterance length and clausal density. Specifically, there were more elaborated noun phrases and conjunctions in expository texts, but more adverbs in narrative texts. Results also revealed a genre effect on the use of relative clauses but not on other clauses. Finally, a strong correlation between literate word use and the production of complex syntax was found after controlling for the effects of genre. These results highlight the need for genre-dependent writing instruction to make students aware of the different language resources expected across genres as specific contexts of communication.

The effect of blended learning on the development of clause combining as an aspect of the acquisition of written discourse by Jordanian learners of English as a foreign language

AbstractThis study investigates the effect of blended learning on the development of clause combining as an aspect of the acquisition of written discourse by Jordanians who are learning English as a foreign language. Sixty participants majoring in English language at the University of Jordan took part in this study. The participants were divided into treatment and control groups, and the experimental design of a pretest and posttest was employed to test the effectiveness of blended learning on the ability of these participants to combine clauses in English using parataxis or subordination through a writing task. The results reveal that the treatment group outperformed their control group counterpart on the posttest in terms of verb morphology, distinguishing between nucleus and subordinate clauses, use of parataxis, use of subordinate clauses for temporal reference and to structure information, among others. The results also show that the use of technological devices improved students' attitudes to learning clause combining and made the learning process easier and more enjoyable. We suggest that blended learning develops the techniques of clause combining by learners of English as a foreign language, which in turn enhances their discourse knowledge in the target language and positively affects their ability to package information.

Writing Anxiety and the Use of Subordinate Clauses in the Written Compositions of Jordanian EFL Undergraduate Students

The present study aimed to explore the correlation between writing anxiety and the an aspect of the grammatical complexity of Jordanian EFL students’ written compositions, i.e. the use of subordinate clauses. Eighty seven students, who were purposefully chosen from among the freshmen and senior students at Al-Balqa Applied University participated in the study. Writing Anxiety Inventory (WAI) was used in order to collect the data during the first semester of the academic year 2017/ 2018. The findings of the study showed statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the freshmen and senior students in both the levels of writing anxiety and the number of subordinate clauses used in written compositions, in favor of the group of senior students. In addition, a significant correlation was found between the level of writing anxiety and the grammatical complexity of the written compositions of the participants of the study, as reflected in their use of subordinate clauses. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research are presented.

Focus on language versus content in the pre-task: Effects of guided peer-video model observations on task performance

The present experimental study examined whether a different focus during a pre-task planning observation task affects learners’ subsequent oral task performance. Forty-eight ninth-grade students learning German as a foreign language were randomly assigned to two different planning conditions: video observations with a focus on language (FonL) and video observations with a focus on content (FonC). With a communicative oral task we measured the effects on oral task performance, in terms of attempted (accurate) use of the target structure and complexity, in terms of number of words, subordination and coordination. In addition we investigated whether there was a trade-off between attempted (accurate) use of the target structure and complexity. Results showed that the focus of the observations at the pre-task stage did indeed lead to different outcomes: students in the language condition used the grammatical target structure more often and more accurately, whereas students of the content condition generated more coordinate and subordinate clauses. Trade-offs were found between attempted (accurate) use of the target structure and the use of subordinate clauses. These findings imply that, depending on the purposes of the lesson, the observation of peer-model videos with different planning foci can be effectively used to promote (accurate) use of targeted grammatical structures and improve complexity during subsequent task performance.

Subordination Across Ghanaian And British Newspaper Editorials: A Register Perspective

This is a corpus-based empirical study which argues in the light of the register theory that grammatical categories are functional and relate to their situational context of use. Using editorials from Ghanaian and British newspapers, this paper examined the usage dynamics and the functional motivations behind the use of subordinate clauses in the editorial register. Clause subordination in this study is argued to offer the opportunity for idea expansion. Limiting the focus to functional clauses, it was found that though there are enormous patterns of similarity in the distribution of the three functional clause-types across the variable sociocultural contexts studied in line with claims by register theory, some distributional inconsistencies exist in the details of the subtypes of some of the functional clause-types. The results revealed that nominal clauses are consistently preferred across newspapers from the two sociocultural contexts, followed by relative clauses; an observation that led us to conclude that the nominal clause is indispensable to the editorial register because it performs elaboratory functions necessary for editorial communication. The findings of this cross-cultural study generally enhance our understanding of the language of newspaper editorials as well as the sociocultural variations that exist in the newspaper editorial genre.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUBORDINATE CLAUSES IN GERMAN AND SWEDISH AS L2S

In this article, we aim to contribute to the debate about the use of subordination as a measure of language proficiency. We compare two theories of SLA—specifically, processability theory (PT; Pienemann, 1998) and dynamic systems theory (DST; de Bot, Lowie, & Verspoor, 2007)—and, more particularly, how they address the development of subordinate clauses. Whereas DST uses measures from the complexity, accuracy, and fluency research tradition (see Housen & Kuiken, 2009), PT uses the emergence criterion to describe language development. We focus on the development of subordinate clauses and compare how subordination as such is acquired and how the processing procedures related to a specific subordinate clause word order are acquired in the interlanguage of second language German and Swedish learners. The learners’ language use shows that the use of subordination (as measured by a subordination ratio) fluctuates extensively. From the beginning of data collection, all learners use subordinate clauses, but their use of subordinate clauses does not increase linearly over time, which is expected by DST. When focusing on processability and the emergence of subordinate clause word order, however, a clear linear developmental sequence can be observed, revealing a clear difference between the nonacquisition and the acquisition of the subordinate clause word order rules. Our learner data additionally reveal a different behavior regarding lexical and auxiliary or modal verbs.

Subordination in Children's Writing

This paper reports an investigation into the use of subordinate clauses in the writing of a class of 7 to 9 year old children when attempting five different writing tasks. The importance of developing subordination in writing is related to previous research and to evidence from reviews of school inspections. The different patterns of subordination are discussed, between tasks and pupils, and in relation to variation in the writing of individual children when tackling the different tasks. The paper ends by suggesting how similar investigations can assist schools in promoting children's writing.