Features of Formal English
Phonological Patterning – page 103 -107 & Activities 6 & 7 page 157.
 In formal situations speech is more likely to be produced with the view to clarity; speakers will
hold back on the natural reductive speech production processes to ensure that the sounds are
sufficiently distinct.
 Sound symbolism, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, rhythm, rhyme & consonance.
 Sound Symbolism:
o Refers to the connection between the form and the meaning of a language expression.
o Beautiful-sounding v ugly-sounding words.
o Common feature of advertising.
o Phonesthemes (association of sound sequences with particular meanings) – look over
Activity 6, page 157, also page 104
 Alliteration:
o Sequence of words that begins with the same consonant sound.
o She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
o Catchy. Feature of persuasive texts and poetry.
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGJu6LzUfYM
o see page 104
 Assonance:
o Repetition of same or similar vowel sounds.
o Beanz means Heins.
o Feature of persuasive texts and poetry.
o See page 105
 Onomatopoeia
o Pronunciations that echo that natural sounds of the world.
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpTV5i9CKuw
o see page 105
 Rhythm
o Regular recurrence of stresses in speech.
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOqTyC0qoQE
o see page 105
 Rhyme
o Feature of poetry involving the recurrent use of syllables of similar sounds at the ends
of poetic lines.
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niRmPBtf9fU
o see page 105
 Consonance
o A kind of harmony produced by the recurrent use of sounds in a sequence of words for
pleasant effect.
o See page 106, also see page 107 for example in advertising.
Lexical Choice & Morphological Patterning – page 107 – 112 & Activities 8 – 14 pages 157 - 159
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Lexical choice often represents register. E.g. ‘quack’, ‘doctor’, ‘physician’.
This subsystem involves word formation processes: collocations, idioms, morphemes,
creative word formation, affixation (stem, derivational affixes, neologisms), compounding,
acronyms.
 Lexical choice will also be an indicator of semantic field (page 108).
 Lexical choice can be identified through jargon.
 Collocations
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o Words that routinely co-occur.
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weiUcVUsQ-c
o See Activity 9, page 158 also page 109.
Morphology & derivational affixes.
o Morphology (study of word structure).
o Derivational affixes: prefix, suffix or infix that causes a change to the stems word
class.
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdrgdVgmX28
o See activity 12, page 158 and Activity 13 on page 159, also pages 109-110.
Neologism & creative word formation
o New or invented expressions.
o See bottom of page 109 also Activities 10 & 11 page 158.
Compounding
o Combination of two of more free morphemes.
o Blackboard, surfboard.
o See page 110 – 111, also Activity 14, page 159.
o View the case study on page 111.
Acronyms
o Words formed from the initials of other words.
o See page 112 & Activity 8 page 157.
Initialism
o Pronounced as strings of letters.
o See page 112 & Activity 8 page 157.
Semantic Features – pages 112 – 116 & Activities 15 – 19 pages 159 – 162.
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Many different stylistic features that revolve around meaning.
Denotation v connotation. Denotation = the dictionary meaning. Connotation = the affective
meaning a words takes on by associations that might arise out of beliefs or experiences.
Figurative language: expressive use of language that employs words or phrases in a non-literal
way to gain clarity and vividness. Terms of figurative language: metaphor, simile,
personification / animation, hyperbole, irony, oxymoron, pun, lexical ambiguity.
Incudes jargon.
Figurative language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z03pREr8epg
Metaphor
o Reference to something by using language expressions that are normally associated
with something else. Metaphor always involves the comparisons of two items where
there is some sort of relationship.
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN104uji--Y
o See page 113, also Activity 15 page 159.
Simile
o Comparison of two items that is explicit. Involves the use of word such as ‘like’ or ;as’.
o See page 113.
Personification/animation
o Human qualities are attributed to inanimate things. A link is created between
something that is non-human and something that is human.
o See page 113 – 114
Hyperbole
o Exaggerated language, usually for emphasis.
o See case study page 114 and activity 15 page 159.
Irony
o Words that express a meaning that is opposite of the literal meaning. On a rainy day
saying “fabulous day for a picnic”.
o See page 115.
 Oxymoron
o Combination of contradictory words.
o E.g deafening silence, organized chaos.
o See page 115 and activity 16 page 160.
 Pun
o Play on words or phrases that have more than one possible meaning.
o See page 115 also activity 15 page 159.
 Lexical ambiguity
o Words or sentences are ambiguous if that can be understood or interpreted in more
than one way.
o See page 116 and the case study, also activities 17 & 18 page 161.
Syntactic Patterning – pages 117 – 133, Activities 20 – 25 pages 163 – 168.
 Many formal texts have a distinctive style that relates to the syntactic aspect of their structure.
 A more formal register does not mean you will only see compound-complex sentences – do
NOT make this assumption.
 Coordination / subordination
o Coordination = main or independent clauses – can stand alone, often as simple
sentences.
o Subordination = dependent clauses – cannot stand alone: need more information to
make sense.
o See page 117 . The case study on page 118 is important to read. Activity 21 page 163,
activity 23 page 166 – 167.
 Active / Passive
o Active: natural word order= subject, verb, everything else. Has an actor/agent and a
patient obeject. The subject performs the action.
o Passive Voice: the object of an active sentence occurs in the subject site. The object is
acted upon by the subject.
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePfmgMTgXl8
o See page 119, also activity 22 page 165, activity 23 page 167, Activity 24 page 167 -168,
also see the case study on page 119.
 Nominalisation
o Changing verbs to nouns.
o Feature of formal language because a nominal styles gives speakers/writers the
opportunity of being non-commital as to who is doing what to whom.
o For example, “in the event of a default in the payment plan…” – non-committed as to
who will do what to whom, whom being the person that doesn’t make a payment, the
who could mean anyone from say office staff, teachers, police, debt collectors etc. The
other, more informal and non-nominalised version could be “if you don’t pay what you
owe…”.
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNlkHtMgcPQ
o See page 119 – 120, case study on page 121, Activity 22 page 165.
 Antithesis, parallelism and listing.
o Antithesis: placing two words or ideas in opposition to bring out a contrast. E.g. “Setting
foot on the moon may be a small step for a man but a giant step for mankind.” When
contrasting ideas are brought together, the idea is expressed more emphatically. As a
literary device, antithesis makes contrasts in order to examine pros and cons of a
subject under discussion and helps to bring forth judgment on that particular subject.
o Parallelism: language structures of similar construction and meaning are placed side by
side so they create a sense of balance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08ijQNA1ZI0
o Listing: has an accumulative effect and enables a writer/speaker to create a range of
impressions. A writer uses listing to add emphasis to a point, show they are
knowledgeable or to offer a variety of ideas in the hope that the reader will be familiar
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with one or several of them.
o See page 121 – 122, see the case study for listing at the bottom of 122, Activity 20 page
163, Activity 21 page 163 – 164, Activity 23 page 166 – 167.
Sentence Types
o Declarative – statements
o Imperative – instructions or orders
o Interrogative – questions
o Exclamative – express exclamations.
o See page 123, case study on page 124, Activity 22 page 165
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAAizXG1osU
Information flow
o Given information – information that is already familiar to the reader/listener.
o New information – drives the discourse forward, information that is unfamiliar to the
reader/listener.
o Front focus/ fronting: placing a clause element other than the subject at the front of the
sentence. Fronting is a type of focus strategy often used to enhance cohesion and
provide emphasis.
o End focus: new information can be put to the end of a sentence. E.g. “I gave a brand new
pen to John”.
o There-construction / existential there: By using ‘there’ as a dummy subject the
writer/speaker can delay introducing the real subject of a sentence. “There’ is called a
dummy subject because it has no meaning in itself, its function is to put the real subject
in a more prominent position. E.g. “There are a great many worried people”, “Once upon
a time there lived a beautiful princess”
o Left dislocation: moving a phrase to the left of a sentence. E.g. “Those Dementors,
they’re horrible things.
o Right dislocation: moving a phrase to the right of a sentence. E.g. “They’re horrible
things, those Dementors”.
o See pages 124 – 131, Activities 21 page 163, 25 page 168.
Cohesion and coherence
o Deictic expressions: use of words such as ‘this’, ‘here’, ‘that’ to point things out to people.
o Use of pronouns to maintain reference to people.
o Anaphoric reference: a form of referencing in which a pronoun or noun phrase points
backwards to something mentioned earlier in the discourse. E.g the film was
breathtaking and the audience watched it in silence.
o Cataphoric reference: a form of referencing in which a pronoun or noun phrase points
forwards to something mentioned later in a discourse. E.g. It was lovely, a day to
remember.
o Inference: relying on reader/listener prior knowledge.
Sentence structure:
o Simple sentence: contains one coordination/independent clause. Contains only one
finite verb and can be described as a main/independent/coordinate clause.
E.g.
The cook ate.
The cook ate dinner.
The cook made the guests dinner.
The cook thought the guests were rude.
The cook made a large stew for the evening meal.
o Compound sentence: contains two or more simple sentences
(main/independent/coordinate clauses) linked by coordination conjunctions. Each
clause carries equal weight and therefore can exist on its own.
E.g.
The girl weeded borders and removed dead flowers from the roses.
The children often watched television but they preferred the cinema.
We could go to the park or we could visit the museum.
o Complex sentence: clauses do not have equal value. One main/independent/coordinate
clause plus one or more subordinate/dependent clause.
E.g.
If in doubt, call the free phone number.
o Compound-complex sentences: one or more main/independent/coordinate clauses with
one or more subordinate/dependent clauses.
E.g.
The police needed to discover who had been seen and then hoped to make an arrest
for the safety of the community.
The lorry left when it had been loaded and returned two hours later after it had
delivered its load