CHAPTER III METHOD
3.5 Analytical Framework
3.5.1 The Formulation of the Linguistic Feature of the Narrative
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grades of the narrative.
3.5 Analytical Framework
3.5.1 The formulation of the linguistic feature of the narrative
Each of the linguistic features in Biber's analysis of the speech and the writing (1988) was used to investigate the linguistic features in native English speakers' narratives. After the analysis of sixty-seven linguistic features were categorized into sixteen grammatical items, four linguistic features, including the first personal
pronoun, the third personal pronoun, the simple past tense and proper nouns presented the highest occurrence in this study.
The high frequency of the first and third person pronouns in the position of the subject established one linguistic feature called the agentive subject because they represented agentive referents. Furthermore, the first and third personal pronouns, which are two of the key linguistic features in this study, can express the perspective of the writer. In the five narratives written by native English speakers, the first person pronouns were used the most; therefore, the first person perspective is a linguistic feature of the narrative. Another high frequency linguistic feature was the simple past tense in these five narratives. Based on the high frequency of the simple past tense, it became one of the linguistic features of the narrative for this study.
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Aside from the single linguistic feature, the group of linguistic features can refer to the specified function in the text (Chafe, 1982; Biber, 1988). The co-occurrence of the set of linguistic features is a linguistic feature of the narrative in this study. The high frequency of co-occurrence of the linguistic features, including the third person pronouns and the proper nouns, like the name of the character, served as a linguistic feature for this study. This linguistic feature of the narrative was called constant themes in this study because the same referent of the pronouns and the proper nouns as the theme was found among sentences. With its high frequency in the narratives from native English speakers, many writers used the first personal pronoun as the theme to form constant themes in the narrative. The term of constant themes was first proposed by Danes (1974) in his four types of thematic progression, and his definition of constant themes is that the same themes among the sentences are repeated.
Therefore, constant themes, i.e. the same referent with the same pronouns or the same proper nouns as the theme in the sentence, are one of the linguistic features of this study.
Through the analysis of linguistic features of tense and aspect markers, the focus was on the verb. In this process, we noticed that, numerous action verbs were used in the sentences. These action verbs and the high frequency of the first or third person pronouns formed many sentences with the active voice in the narrative. Therefore,
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action verbs and the active voice were viewed as two linguistic features of the
narrative. Furthermore, from the investigation of the verbs in the narratives written by native English speakers, we found that the verbs occurred in chronological order for the development of the narrative. According to this discovery, the chronological order is a linguistic feature of the narrative for this study. Based on the observation of the occurrence of each linguistic feature and co-occurrence of a set of linguistic features and analysis of the verbs, seven linguistic features of the narrative and their examples are listed in Figure 3.1.
Seven Features in Narratives Examples(from Refining Composition
Skills)
1. Agentive subject Forcibly, she walked us the seven long, hilly blocks from our home to school, depositing our defiant tearful faces before the stern principal.
2. Simple past tense I recognized him as a repressed maniacal child-killer, and knew that if we ever saw his hands we'd be in big trouble.
3. Action verb We piled into jeeps provided by the Jamaican government and headed north
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into the interior.
4. Active voice The activities in the kitchen increase as my father stirs the gravy and my mother puts the finishing touches on the festive table setting.
5. First person perspective We relish the fact that we have nothing to do but wait for the events of the day to unfold. (First person perspective) 6. Constant themes I hated that smell. I favored crisp new
scents.
7. Chronological Order We piled into jeeps provided by the Jamaican government... We turned onto a dirt road that cut though... We had been on foot for about fifteen minutes...
Figure 3.1 Linguistic features of the narrative and examples in native English speakers' narratives.
Note. The words underlined in the table refer to the occurrence of the linguistic
features of the narrative.
After the formulation of the seven linguistic features of the narrative, in the
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following section, these seven linguistic features of the narrative are used to evaluate the narratives of Taiwanese English textbooks (TET) and Taiwanese students' writing (TSW) in the senior high school to know their presences of each linguistic feature of the narrative.
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CHAPTER IV
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the study’s findings are presented and discussed. First, the narratives of Taiwanese English textbooks and Taiwanese students' writing were analyzed according to seven linguistic features of the narrative. Second, the grades-related linguistic features of the narrative were found by the data from Coh-Metrix. Third, we compared the linguistic features of the narrative with the grade-related linguistic features of the narrative.
4.1 The Analysis of the Seven Linguistic Features of the Narrative in Taiwanese English Textbooks and Taiwanese Senior High School Students' Writings In this section, we will investigate the narratives collected from English
textbooks and students’ writings with the seven linguistic features of the narrative:(1) Agentive Subject, (2) Action Verb, (3) Active Voice, (4) Simple Past Tense, (5) First Person Perspective, (6) Constant Themes, and (7) Chronological Order. Seven parts are included in this section to present the uses and the example for each linguistic features of the narrative in these narratives.
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4.1.1 Agentive Subject
The subject used in Taiwanese English textbooks (TET) and Taiwanese students' writing (TSW) is the agentive subject as in narratives of native English writers. The reason for this choice of subject is that the narrative writing is similar to telling a story, and in the story, the people are essential parts of the story. In general, the key role in the story’s narrative, which is made up of a series of events, is played by humans; the description of their actions is factual or imagined. To create a story for humans in the picture, all the narratives in TET and TSW use the agentive subject. In Table 4.1, the total numbers of words, total numbers agentive subjects and the percentage of them are presented. The higher percentage in TSW indicates the lack of the flexible
syntactic pattern due to the numerous sentences beginning with the agentive sentences.
The log likelihood ratio and the P value are also shown in Table 4.1; it presents that the difference of the usage of agentive subject in TET and TSW is significant.
Table 4.1 The usage of agentive subject in TET and TSW
TET TSW total numbers of words 3090 9973 total numbers of agentive subjects 292 1097 Percentage 9.4% 10.9%
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In the Taiwanese English textbook, most of the narratives involve one specified person. One of narratives chosen in this study is a story about a man named Gulliver who had made a special trip to Lilliput.
An example of a narrative in a Taiwanese English textbook is shown below.
(1) I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir; for as I happened to lie my back, I found my arms and legs were fastened to the ground with my hair tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt…
This example is the narration of the main leading character’s first arrival in the new place. The words underlined are the subject in each sentence, and they are the referent to the main leading role.
In TSW, the agentive subject is also used to refer to the main leading role, and this choice of the subject not only corresponds to the pictures but also represents the doer of a series of actions within the story.
An example in the student's narrative is shown below.
(2) One day, when I was in Teacher Brown’s class, I couldn’t help taking out my smart phone because there were so many applications that I just wanted to use it at every moment. When I was using a communication application
1Log likelihood ratio can be calculated by Log-likelihood and effect size calculator
(http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/llwizard.html). The value of log likelihood ratio can present the significance of the difference of two frequency scores.
2The P value is used as an index to present the significance of the result in the statistical test. If the P value is less than 0.05, it means the result is significant; if the P value is less than 0.01, it means the result is the most significant. But if the P value is higher than 0.05, it means the result is not significant.
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which is called LINE, I lowered down…
In the example of the student’s writing, every subject in the main clause underlined is I, which is the main leading role in the pictures shown on the test sheet.
4.1.2 Simple Past Tense
In the narration, people would correlate the event with the time. In English, the tense used to narrate the event which happened in the past can be the simple present tense and the simple past tense. The simple present tense can refer to the fact that the event in the narrative truly happened, while the simple past tense can emphasize that the event in the narrative was accomplished in the past.
All narratives of TET and TSW use simple tense as the referent of the time.
However, most of the writers in TSW used the simple past tense. Only eight writers in TSW used the simple present tense. The possible reason for the numerous uses of the simple past tense in TSW may be that the event in sequential pictures is similar to their experiences so that the simple past tense is chosen. On the other hand, in TET, the simple past tenses are used frequently to present the story or the experience of the main leading role. Therefore, for the writers of TET and TSW, the simple past tense is the choice with the highest frequency in writing a narrative. Table 4.2 shows us this result. Because more agentive subjects are used in TSW, the percentage is higher in TSW for the narration of the subject. Furthermore, the difference of the usage of the
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simple past tense in TET and TSW is the most significant according to the largest log-likelihood ratio and the smallest P value.
Table 4.2 The usage of the simple past tense in TET and TSW
TET TSW total numbers of words 3090 9973 total numbers of verbs with the simple past
tense difficult to see. He almost missed the old lady, stranded on the side of the road. But even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help…
As we can see, the simple past tense is used to narrate the surrounding and actions of the man. The verb in the simple past tense includes the words underlined. Aside from the narrative for the example (3), the other four narratives collected in this narrative used the simple past tense as well.
In students' writings, narratives with the simple past tense or the simple present tense can be found throughout. However, the choice of the simple past tense is more
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common than the simple present tense.
The following is the example of TSW with the simple past tense.
(4) This morning, my first class was math, and I not only hated math, but also I didn’t understand what the teacher was talking about, so I opened my bag, then took up my smartphone. I turned on the Wi-Fi, I received a lot of messages…
The writer of this example used the simple past tense to narrate the mood and action.
The words underlined are the verbs of the simple past tense.
Let's turn to the example of TSW with the simple present tense.
(5) Today is a cloudy day… the bird in the sky attracts my mind, the class is so boring that I can’t focus my concentration on the book… I open the monitor, there is a message from my girlfriend…
The words underlined are the simple present tense verbs in the example (5). There are some differences in the student's writing with the simple past tense. In the narrative with the simple past tense, the verb to be (was/were) is used less often than other types of verb. On the other hand, in this student's writing with the simple present tense, the verb to be (is) is used more often than other type of verbs. Furthermore, we also notice that the writers who use the simple present tense would more readily make the error of the tense easier because they may easily have inconsistent verb tenses in some sentences. In eight students' narratives with simple present tense, some verbs with the simple past tense were found in their narratives.
The following is the example of the students' narrative with many simple present tenses and fewer simple past tenses.
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(6) It's a normal school day, and Teacher Lin is teaching math. But Jay is using his phone under the table..."Teacher Lin, I am sorry, I shouldn't use my phone during the class." Jay said. "Yes, you shouldn't... am I a boring teacher? "
Teacher Lin asked.
In the example (6), the words underlined include verbs in the simple present tense and simple past tense. We found that the verb with the simple past tense appeared with the dialogue. In the narratives of Taiwanese English textbooks, the dialogue used the simple past tense because the time reference was the past.
Therefore, although the writer of the example (6) chose the simple present tense in the narrative, the dialogue in the narratives of the Taiwanese English textbooks may have an impact on changing the simple present tense into the simple past tense to the student’s decision of the tense for the word said and asked of the dialogue in the example (6).
4.1.3 Action Verb
The verb type in the narrative functions as a tool to accompany each action of the event. Many writers of the narrative in this study tend to use action verbs other than stative verbs in their writing because the narrative is the type of writing that combines actions as chronological events. Furthermore, the action verbs can create the
foregrounding, and it serves as “the phenomenon of linguistic highlighting” (Halliday, 1973) in the text.
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In Table 4.3, all the writers in TET and TSW used action verbs in their narratives, and the result is listed in Table 4.3. Although there are some stative verbs in the
narrative of some of these writers, the number and the uses of the action verbs in every sentence is significant compared to the stative verbs: The average of action verbs as the main verb of the sentence is twelve, while the average of stative verbs is only two in each student’s narrative. The lower percentage in TSW is affected by the more uses of the verb to be in the writing. In the usage of action verb in TET and TSW, there’s no significant difference because of the smallest log-likelihood ratio and the highest P value in Table 4.3.
Table 4.3 The usage of action verb in TET and TSW
TET TSW total numbers of words 3090 9973
total numbers of action verbs 307 908 Percentage 9.9% 9.1%
Log-likelihood ratio 1.72
P value >0.05
Below is an example from the article chosen from the narrative of TET.
(7) She sat down and cried. She had spent many happy hours planning a nice Christmas present for Jim, her dear husband, but... Della stopped crying and stood up. She turned and stood before the mirror. She pulled her hair down...
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In this example, the writer uses many action verbs to describe a series of actions of the woman. All the action verbs underlined in these three lines make the story progress chronologically and vividly.
Let's look at how the student uses the action verbs in the narrative.
(8) No matter how I explain, he just ignored, and demanded me to his office immediately... I stood too far from him to hear what he was saying and who
he was talking to...
The example (8) deals with the context: the teacher wants him/ her to go to office, and the process: the student goes to the office. The underlined action verbs present the actions of the teacher and the student. We could know clearly the order of each action by the sequential action verbs. The action of each agentive subject is linked the adjacent action verbs.
4.1.4 Active Voice
In narratives of English native speakers, the active voice can not only emphasize the subject, which may play the main leading role or one related to the main leading role, but also correlate the subject and the verb closely to clarify the sequential change of the action carried out by the subject. Furthermore, in the process of learning
English grammar, the active voice is learned earlier than the passive voice; English learners in Taiwan are more familiar with this usage. From the aspect of the pattern of these two voices, the passive voice is more difficult for revealing the change of the
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position of the subject and the object, and the insertion of the combination of the verb to be and the verb participle to form its syntactic construction. Therefore, in the narrative of TET and TSW, all of the writers use the active voice in their writing, and the result is shown in Table 4.4. But few sentences with the passive voice can be found in the situation, like being scolded or the state of the object. The higher
percentage in TSW expresses that the syntactic pattern in TSW is less changeable than in TET. We can also know that the usage of active voice in TET and TSW has the most significant difference because the log-likelihood ratio is the highest and the P value is the smallest in Table 4.4.
Table 4.4 The usage of active voice in TET and TSW
TET TSW
In the example (9), the narration of the action of the man and woman is presented
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with the active voice. The words underlined in the example are the verbs in all the clauses, and these verbs are used to form the S-V-O sentence pattern in the example.
This provides a closer relation of the subject and verb so that the reader can
understand the clear link of the subject and the action made by the subject from the sentence.
Let's turn to the usage of the active voice in the narrative of TSW below.
Let's turn to the usage of the active voice in the narrative of TSW below.