Unit 7 .

- Introduction, conclusion and

understandability
7.1. Language and context
7.1.1. Legibility

Legibility (also readability) is the combination of characteristics that allows a text to

be interpreted as difficult. There is two types of legibility:

 Typographical legibility: it means how the writing disposition can influence the
understanding of a text.

 Linguistic legibility: how the use of language influences the understand of a text.

7.1.1.1. Factors which influence the legibility of a text

If we want to write an understandable text; during the planning phase, we have to

consider:

 How to visually present the text (typographical legibility).

 What linguistic elements we should use to clearly express concepts and meanings
(linguistic legibility).

Typographical legibility

Regarding the typographic legibility, the writer has to decide:

 The font that is going to be used.

 The font size of the sections, subsections, footnotes, etc.

 How to highlight in the text the most relevant ideas and concepts.

 How much space between lines.

 How to present the lists.

 What type indentation.

  Where to include the tables and schemes (In the body of the text, in the appendix
at the end, etc.).

In general, when we submit an academic paper, some of these aspects are already
established beforehand, for example the font size (generally 11 or 12) and type
(Times New Roman and Arial the most popular), and also the space between lines
(usually 1 and 1,5).

However, other factors depend on our criterion. In this case, the most important
criterion is to be coherent. This is why we have to always use the same marks to
highlights a concept, present the sections using the same font size, etc.

A very important aspect is to not use in excess bold, italic and the underline in
order to highlight ideas. If we do, these marks will lose strength. Below there is an
example:

It allows the adaptation of the task to the individual needs of the student:
internet offers a huge rank of options - videos, records, exercises, etc. It can offer
endless resources which allow teachers to have more tools for helping students
with different learning modes to effectively acquire a language. As H. Gardner
noted at the end of the 1980s, there is not only one kind of intelligence, but
several and each individual would have developed some kinds among others. This
will affect during the individual's learning. For example, if a student has the special
intelligence more developed, this student would better learn with audiovisual
sources than another student who has developed more the musical intelligence.
The latter would learn more effectively if the activities include, for example, songs.
We have tried to include tasks which are adapted to different forms of
learning.

In this case, everything in bold is important, but its excessive use causes a
confusion to the reader, which will not know what is really important.

Linguistic legibility

Regarding linguistic legibility, it is important to consider:

 Ambiguous ideas.

 Poorly developed ideas.

 Bad use of punctuation.

 Absence of discursive organisers.

 Absence of referential elements.

 Recurrent modification of the prototypical word order.

The presence of these elements obscures the text, it forces the reader to make
hypotheses of what is the text about, and it can cause misunderstanding.

7.1.1.2. Legibility analysis

In the following example, the teacher of an ELE (Spanish as a Foreign Language)

course asked to the students to make a summary of a work they consider
interesting in order to make a common file of consulting. The text presented below
is a fragment of the summary done by one of students. The student is a native
Spanish speaker. The work chosen was La cocina de la escritura. (D Cassany,
1995).

This book is the Spanish version of La cuina de l'escriptura, written by this author.
It is a manual where gives advises to teach the reader to write properly.

The book is divided in two parts: the first (the 5 first chapters) talks about the
importance of the previous phases of writing and the second (chapters 6 to 15)
about the process of writing.

Both parts, have a prologue that helps the reader to have a previous idea about the
content. Cassany highlights in his prologue the relevance of knowing how to
correctly do a written text and presents it as a competence that very few people
has and encourages the reader to develop his or her own writing style. Cassany
considers that his book is a reference for both beginner and professional writers.

In the first part of the book, D. Cassany says that there a lot of previous studies
associated to the writing done at the beginning of the XX century and he points out
some Spanish authors, but he considers that the most profitable investigations
were done in United States [...]

If we read in depth this text, we can find some elements that complicate legibility.
Below we present some examples, the emphasised parts are in bold and the
explanation is in italic:

 
 LINGUISTIC
EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT
CAUSES

"It is a manual where gives advises to teach the reader to write properly."
Grammatical
Incorrect use of the pronoun where, in this case it has to be used the relative
errors
pronoun that.

"Both parts, have a prologue that helps the reader to have a previous idea
about the content. Cassany highlights in his prologue [...]"

"This book is the Spanish version of La cuina de l'escriptura, written by this

Repetitions
author. It is a manual where gives advises to teach the reader to write properly.

The book is divided in two parts: [...]"

Repetitions give a sense of very poor knowledge of vocabulary.

"[...] the first (the 5 first chapters) talks about the importance of [...]

'Talk about' is too colloquial in this case, a better option could be deal with.
Inadequate
choice of "[...] how to correctly do a written text [...]"
vocabulary
'Do' is a very generic word, better choice: compose.

"[...] D. Cassany says that there a lot of previous studies [...]" Best option:
states.

"Both parts, have a prologue that [...]" A comma must never be used between
the subject and the verb.

Bad punctuation "Cassany highlights in his prologue the relevance of knowing how to correctly
do a written text () and presents it as a competence that very few people has
and encourages the reader to develop his or her own writing style. [...]" The
sentence is too long, the parentheses () mark where to put a stop. In that case
the conjunction and would be deleted.

"This book is the Spanish version of La cuina de l'escriptura, written by this

author." The author is not mentioned before. Although, his name appears in
Inadequate use of the title, the first part of a text is an introduction which has to specify what is
anaphoric the text about and, if the text is a summary, who wrote the book that is going to
elements be summarised.

"[...] and presents it as a competence [...]" We do not know what it refers to,
the previous clause is not the reference.

Ideas not clearly "D. Cassany says that there a lot of previous studies associated to the writing
expressed done at the beginning of the XX century".

The reader might not be sure if it was 'the writing' that was done at the
 beginning of the century or the studies, ambiguous sentences difficults the
reader to understand the idea expressed.

"the first (the 5 first chapters) talks about the importance of the previous
phases of writing and the second (chapters 6 to 15) about the process of
Not developed
writing."
ideas
In this case, it might be convenient to list the 'previous phases of writing'; and
also what aspects in the process are important for the author.

Table 7.1. Linguistic causes.

Reflection tasks 7.1.

Below, there is a fragment of a summary about Chapter I of C. Martin Vide

research (1996, pages 11-26). The receiver is the teacher. The student was asked
to choose a text that he or she thinks that is relevant, and make a summary. Read
it and complete the tasks that follow it:

This chapter is part of Elementos de linguistic, this chapter presents reflections

about some aspects related to the human language.

The author starts defining linguistics as the study of natural languages in different
manifestations and mentions some problems related to the concept of human
language: the difficulty to define it, the complexity of looking for common properties
between languages and the difficulty to identify the facts that influences the
linguistic change.

Aspects that occupies linguistic investigation, that according to his perspective,

present two different approaches that correspond to a theoretical plan (its objective
is to understand the structure, acquisition, the use and the change of the
languages) and a practical plan (which itends to understand the properties of the
languages).

After these suggestions, C. Martin Vide suggests that there are three basic
questions to formulate in order to limit the study area of linguistics: the thematic
field of study (what is it about?), tha nature of the scientific objective (what is
language?) and the finality of investigation (what does it pretend?). During this
chapter, each one of these points are developed.

In the first section, the author reflects on the first question (what is linguistics
about?), he consider that in human language the persoective multiplicity are
predominant, which gives to linguistics an interdisciplinary feature and it "obliges"
the authors select what is the basic nucleus of the language. [...]
1. As in the example given above, complete the table below. You can add other
causes, such as 'Too long sentences', 'Unnecessary idea' (ideas that are no
relevant for the text), 'Long parentheses', etc.

LINGUISTIC CAUSES EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT

Grammatical errors  

Repetitions  

Inadequate choice of vocabulary  

Bad punctuation  

Inadequate use of anaphoric elements  

Ideas not clearly expressed  

Not developed ideas  

2. After identifying the inadequacies of the text in reflection task 1, make the proper
changes to increase its legibility. Then, comment on the changes you made.

Read the comments about this task in the virtual campus. The comments are
posted in the section "Evaluation".

7.1.2. The introduction

The introduction is the first part of an academic text. As D. Cassany (2007) states,
the function of the introduction is to select the reader and to prepare him or her for
the reading. The introduction anticipates, organises and sums up the content. Its
function is to present the topic and offer a theoretical framework in order to
contextualise the writing.
7.1.2.1. Criteria to compose an introduction

An introduction is the first part of text that has contact with the reader. It gives him
or her the first impressions of the text. This is why it is essential to have in mind the
principles presented below when preparing it:

 Being attractive for the reader. It has to be adjusted to the type of receiver.

 Being well structured. The reader must easily distinguish the prototypical parts.

 Express the ideas with clarity. It is important to develop ideas in order to make the
reader easily understand them.

7.1.2.2. Prototypical parts of an introduction

The introduction has three prototypical parts:

1. Introduction of the topic, where the field of study is defined. Here, the author
mentions the most relevant researchs that, to the moment, have been done about
the topic.

2. Raise a question that justifies the paper.

3. Present the purpose of the paper. In this part, it is frequent to justify the election
of the topic, because there are no researchs about it or because its relevance in
the field.

Sometimes, a fourth part is added. It explains the points that will be treated along
the paper.

7.1.2.3. Analysis of an introduction

The different parts of an introduction are presented below. The text belongs to an
article aimed at professionals of second language teaching. Its objective is to
present some techniques of correction for the oral expression.

a) Introdcuing the topic of research

One of the most usual and significant exercises in foreign language or second
language courses are the correction of errors. Teachers spend a large amount of
time and effort correcting oral and written productions of the students. This is a
task that they accept as a consubstantial part of their work. Teachers usually
develop this task intuitively, by following their beliefs and without receiving any
training for that.

Correction of errors entails a complex process of taking decisions. In the case of

the correction of the oral production, the topic of this article, the process can be
appreciated in M. H. Long (1977: p. 289) proposal. In his proposal, Long presents
a model of taking decision when the teacher has to correct a student. In addition,
the correction of oral production correction has a higher level of complexity than
the written expression, mainly because of two causes. First, the correction cannot
be planned. Secondly, it needs to be immediate: the reaction and taking the
decision must be done in few seconds.

b) Raising a not answered question

According to the ideas presented above, it is obvious to think that any correction
cannot imply a long process of reflection. The teacher must have a series of
authomatised mechanisms and techniques of corrections to use in class. These
mechanisms must have their basis on reflections previously made.

c) Present the purpose of the research

The purpose of this article is to research into different techniques of oral

expression correction and to suggest orientations to effectively use them.

We think that this article might be useful to FL and L2 teachers. So, we pretend to
provide a series of instructions in order to help teachers to establish their own
criteria of correction. It must help them taking the fast decisions that oral interaction
requires.

d) Summary of the points treated along the paper

Next, some of the most relevant publications about this topic are analysed.
Following, the used methodology and tools of research are specified. After that, the
data collected in a questionary presented to teachers will be analysed. Finally,
conclusions of this research will be presented.

Free translation from: Barbero Cardedo, V.: ¿Cómo acertar en la corrección?

Ventajas e inconvenientes de las técnicas de corrección de errores en la
expresión oral. ASELE n 46, page 17. May 2012.

Reflection tasks 7.2.

This is an introduction from an assignment done for the subject English in the
community of the master MLAEILE of Funiber in collaboration with Universidad de
Jaén. The essay is about English as a global language. Read it and complete the
tasks that follows the text:

There is no doubt that in the latest decades the world has undergone several
changes in the styles of living, the culture and the adoption of new technologies.
The language has been perhaps the most relevant mean to get those changes.
Particularly, English became what people say a universal language and this idea
does not differ from what we all can see, how English opened the frontiers of the
modern world. However, in some places of the world this language still represents
a threat since their cultures frighten about the acculturation that it implicitly brings.

The causes for this universality are very well known and comprehensible. English
first began to spread during the 16th century with British Empire and was strongly
reinforced in 20th by USA world domination in economic, political and military
aspects and by the huge influence of American movies. The concept of a Universal
Language is more significant only now, in the era of world mass communication.
Before this era Greek, Latin, French were to some extent universal languages,
though mainly in Europe.

Riding the crest of globalization and technology, English take over the world as no
language ever has, and some linguists are now saying it may never be dethroned
as the king of languages. It has consolidated its dominance as the language of the
Internet, where 80 percent of the world's electronically stored information is in
English, according to David Graddol, a linguist and researcher.

1. Identify the different parts of the introduction. Can you identify all the parts in this
introduction? Does the order helps to understand the different parts?

2. With the information given, restructure and rewrite the introduction to properly fit
in the scheme studied during this unit.

Read the comments about this task in the virtual campus. The comments are
posted in the section "Evaluation".

7.1.3. The conclusion

The conclusion constitutes the closure of the academic text. It is this part where
hypotheses about the results are formulated and/or mentions how the work can be
the basis for new researchs.

In order to write it, a summary of the data or hypotheses is done; then they should
be related to the field of research of the paper and to the intial objectives.
7.1.3.1. Criteria when writing the conclusion

When wrinting the conclusion, it is important, in addition to obey the academic

writing principles (see unit 6), to consider the aspects below:

- Being well structured: it allows the reader to easily distinguish the different parts.
It will guide the reader during the reading.

- Justify with clarity the hypotheses formulated and what is the paper contribution
to the field of study it belongs.

It will help the reader to know the implications of the research.

7.1.3.2. Prototypical parts of a conclusion

A conclusion is usually structured as follows:

- Summing-up the main points of the research. This part is a summary of

everything explained during the body of the paper.

- Pointing out the results of the research and the weak and strong points of the
research. It means, the advantages it presents and what can be improved (only if it
is a research paper, not a reflection paper).

- Recommendations for future investigations about the topic: it must specify what
aspects must be kept in mind in researches of the same field of study.

7.1.3.3. Analysing a conclusion

The different parts of a conclusion are presented below. The text belongs to an
article aimed at professionals of second language teaching. Its objective is to
present some techniques of correction for the oral expression.

a) Summing-up the main points of the research or the text.

Empirical work on the linguistic description of ELF at a number of levels has in fact
been under way for several years now. Research has been carried out at the level
of phonology (Jenkins 2000), pragmatics (Meierkord 1996), and lexicogrammar
(Seidlhofer 2004, which also offers an overview of descriptive work to date). ELF
corpora are now also being compiled and analysed, such as the English as a
lingua franca in Academic settings (ELFA) corpus (Mauranen 2003) and the
general Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) (Seidlhofer 2004).

b) Pointing out the results of the research and the aweak and strong points.

While space prevents summarizing the findings of this research here, two
illustrative examples can be mentioned. Thus, Jenkins (2000) found that being able
to pronounce some sounds that are often regarded as 'particularly English' but also
particularly difficult, namely the 'th' sounds /u/ and /D/ and the 'dark l' allophone [ ɫ],
is not necessary for international intelligibility through ELF. Similarly, analyses of
ELF interactions captured in the VOICE corpus clearly show that although ELF
speakers often do not use the third person singular present tense '-s' marking in
their verbs, this does not lead to any misunderstandings or communication
problems.

This gradually accumulating body of work is leading to a better understanding of

the nature of ELF, which in turn is a prerequisite for taking informed decisions,
especially in language policy and language teaching (McKay 2002). Thus, the
features of English which tend to be crucial for international intelligibility and
therefore need to be taught for production and reception are being distinguished
from the ('non-native') features that tend not to cause misunderstandings and thus
do not need to constitute a focus for production teaching for those learners who
intend to use English mainly in international settings.

c) Recommendations for future investigations about the topic

Acting on these insights can free up valuable teaching time for more general
language awareness and communication strategies; these may have more
'mileage' for learners than striving for mastery of fine nuances of nativespeaker
language use that are communicatively redundant or even counter-productive in
lingua franca settings, and which may anyway not be teachable in advance, but
only learnable by subsequent experience of the language. It should be stressed,
however, that linguistic descriptions alone cannot, of course, determine what needs
to be taught and learnt for particular purposes and in particular settings-they
provide necessary but not sufficient guidance for what will always be pedagogical
decisions (Widdowson 2003).

Seidlhofer, B. (2005): "English as a lingua Franca", ELT Journal, N. 59, page 340.
October 2005. Oxford University Press.

 
Reflection task 7.3.

This is an introduction from an assignment done for the subject English in the
community of the master MLAEILE of Funiber in collaboration with Universidad de
Jaén. The essay is about English as a global language. Read it and identify the
different parts of the conclusion. Can you identify all of the parts in this conclusion?
Do you notice something different from what we studied?

To our personal views, English is inseparable from globalization. Although the

global acceptance of English has been predicted for over 200 years (Kachru
1992a: p. 2), resistance to it has grown in the last twenty, partly because of the
concomitant phenomenon of language death. The Scientist magazine bluntly
entitled 'The English Language: The Lingua Franca of International Science', in an
article published in 1989. (The Economist, 2001).

Since language communication is culture based, whether it is the culture studies

classroom or the foreign language classroom, the cultural component is always
present. Intercultural skills can be developed when students are exposed to target
cultural patterns in the context of other cultures.

In this way, they are presented with the opportunity to uncover cultural similarities
and differences, comparing and contrasting dominant beliefs and values in a given
society with the chance of seeing target culture through their own and through the
eyes of other 'foreigners'. Acquiring a multifaceted perspective that respects
diversity (plurality) in unity would finally develop multicultural competence.

In conclusion, would it be fair to expect that the status of English remain the same
in these decades of unprecedented social and economic global change? English,
nowadays considered as 'Lingua Franca,' is spoken by many more non-native
speakers around the world than native speakers. What will happen to English in
the 21st century? Will the most commonly used language of international
commerce, politics, science, diplomacy, and the most used one on the Internet
become indeed a Lingua Franca? The evolution of language seems to be a
necessity as we progress as a society, so why should be language teaching and
learning left out of this evolution?

Read the comments about this task in the virtual campus. The comments are
posted in the section "Evaluation".

7.2. Review
 

This section summarises the knowledge acquired during this unit.

- The introduction has presented the three main topics of the unit: the creation of
an introduction and a conclusion and the relevance of the legibility.

- The section legibility has given information about the factors that makes a text
understandable and has given examples of it.

- Sections introduction and conclusion have presented in depth the features, the
parts and the criteria to introduce and conclude an academic paper or research.

- These sections included the subsections analysing an introduction and

analysing a conclusion, where it could be seen how these criteria and features
are used in real article examples.

7.3. Check your knowledge

 

Enter the virtual campus and access the Reflection exercises section. There you
will find the tasks you have seen during this unit. You have to complete all of them
and, when you finish them, the system will provide you the feedback. If you need
more information, consult the files "Assessment", right under the section
Assessment of the unit.

Remember that, apart from reading the Contents and completing the Reflection
exercises, you have to complete the activities and the exam or the final task. The
teacher had provided the information about them in the Group forum.

Bibliography
 

[1] C. Martín Vide, ed. (1996). Elementos de Lingüística. Octaedro, Barcelona.

[2] Cassany, Daniel. (1995). La cocina de la escritura. Colección Argumentos. Ed.

Anagrama. Barcelona.

[3] Cassany, Daniel. (2007). Afilar el lapicero. Guía de redacción para

profesionales. Barcelona: Anagrama.