ENGLISH LANGUAGE: CONTEXT AND PURPOSE

ENG3702

UNIT 2 (Study Guide)

TEXT AND INTERPERSONAL MEANING

When you have worked through this study unit you should be able to:

 analyse how vocabulary, grammar and visual features imitate and

construct connections between readers and writers;
 write texts for different purposes and readers;
 distinguish between, formal, informal and hybridised texts; and
 understand how language features (e.g. vocabulary and grammar)
influence the meaning of texts.

Please refer to Part A, Section 3 in Critical Reading and Writing in the Digital Age
for this unit.

2.1 Understanding social relationships

In Unit 1 we looked at how writers organise information and how what we read and write
can create a replication of our reality. In this Unit, we look at why certain texts appeal to
us more than others. The aim of the Unit is to provide you with some understanding of
why social constructs are so important to us. One common example of a social
construct that we use and interact with every day is money. Money is an adopted social
construct because we as a society have agreed to its importance and value. We will
also explore how language is used to create relationships between writers and readers.

For instance, you may love reading horror novels. Perhaps Stephen King is your
favourite author. You have read all of his books and decide to try out the latest Dean
Koontz novel, but this author does not quite do it for you. Why? What makes Stephen
King and Dean Koontz so different? They are, in many ways, the same. They both write
horror, they are both famous, talented and have a huge readership. After a while, you
come to the realisation that the difference between them is not the stories they write, or
how popular they are but, rather, their personal style. Most of you have already
experienced this. We all have authors that we enjoy reading more than others.

Activity 2.1

Describe one person in a couple of sentences. This person can be anyone – a friend, a
family member, or even a celebrity.

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Whoever you wrote about in your answer, likely falls under one of three interpersonal
relationship dimensions for a reader. Cate Poynton (1989) proposes that there are
three interpersonal relationship dimensions, namely:

 Power: in this instance you may have written about a person possessing
physical or mental strength. This person could be seen as a symbol of authority.
They could be wealthy, respected, or knowledgeable. For instance, you may
have written about someone famous in your answer above.
 Contact: suggests a relationship that is different to power. In this instance, the
person you wrote about may be someone who you communicate with every day.
They could be friends or family members.
  Emotion: forms our third interpersonal relationship. This relationship could be
either positive or negative. For example, you may have written about your boss
who you dislike or your child that you love. The emotional dimension could be
said to be somewhat reliant on the power and contact dimensions.

Use your answer from Activity 2.1 to understand these dimensions a little better.

Please consult Part A, Section 3.0 in your textbook now and complete Activity 25.

You may be asking yourselves why it is important to understand these three

dimensions. What benefit could it possibly have? Who you wrote about is less important
than how you wrote about them. Understanding how readers perceive and interpret
texts in terms of the three dimensions is an important step towards finding the correct
interpersonal tone when we write. After all, writing is always written to be read; whether
by you, your friends and family, or published for a larger audience, you need to visualise
who your ideal reader may be.

By understanding these dimensions you can understand what type of text you have
written and who it was written for. For instance, will your text come across with force,
authority, status and expertise (power)? Will it relate to readers in the same
context/situation (contact) or will your text express certain feelings (emotion)?
The most obvious ways of displaying power is when we want to change the way people
think, sometimes even getting them to do what we want. These are often displayed by
commands in two ways.

The most straightforward command is constructed by using the imperative mood. For
instance, ‘clean your room’, or ‘don’t touch that’. The second command is known as a
modal construction. Here the command is softened by using a verb or adjective
before the verb. For instance, ‘you can clean your room’, ‘you need to clean your room’,
or ‘you must clean your room’.
Notice the degree of intensity with each modal construction example given – ‘can’,
‘need’, ‘must’. However, ‘you can’ and ‘you must’ are still less severe than a direct
command. You will also notice that the speaker is always in a position of power in these
examples and that the reader or listener is not on the same level of authority.

Activity 2.2

You have been tasked to write out a simple cardiopulmonary procedure (CPR) for your
colleagues at work. What type of interpersonal tone and relationship will you use?
Consider the three dimensions of power, contact, and emotion here.

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When we want to make a reader or listener engage with what we are saying or writing
we need to use the interrogative mood. This is easily achieved by merely asking
questions. For instance, ‘have you cleaned your room?’ or, ‘did you touch that?’. In
these instances the power dynamic is skewed. The speaker is questioning, thus
assuming power, but a question also supposes that the speaker lacks knowledge to the
answer.

Of course, questions themselves are not always as clear-cut as that. There are
expository questions which are used to stimulate interest. These types of questions
are commonly found in activities, assignments and exams. They are open for
discussion, interpretation and discourse. Then, on the opposite side of the spectrum, we
have rhetorical questions which do not need an answer. Rhetorical questions are
often used to lead up to a point or are used to begin a discussion. Look at the last
sentence of the next paragraph to see a rhetorical question being used.

It is important to note that whether we ask a question or issue a command, we are

effectively doing the same thing. We are trying to adjust, adopt, encourage and reform
behaviour. Questions and commands are simply a means to achieve a level of intimacy
with the reader, trying to get them to act or speak in a way which the writer/speaker
wants them to. But what if writers simply want to make a statement?

Writers will commonly use what is known as the declarative mood to make a
statement. For example, ‘my son is cleaning his room’. This is a statement, and it is
different from the imperative mood as it is not issuing a command but, rather, observing
a fact. When we use the declarative mood it is in order for statements to sound more
assertive or commanding. The level of intensity for these statements can be raised and
lowered much like the examples given for modal construction commands. Naturally, the
choice of words we use will instill various levels of authority.

Please refer to your textbook, Part A, Section 3.2 for a more detailed look at how
modals of probability, frequency, universality, and markers of subjectivity affect
how true a statement usually is.

Activity 2.3

Write a blog on myUnisa exploring when you think it is appropriate to write more
cautiously (in other words, drop the intensity of a text)? Provide a few examples in your
blog.

Would you agree with the idea that questions and commands try to emulate a degree of
contact with the reader? Why?
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2.2 Being personal with pronouns

In Unit 1 we looked at how the passive voice can remove one participant in a clause
and how nominalisation removed both. These devices, unsurprisingly, make language
seem very impersonal. In the same way adding pronouns or participants makes
language personal.

Rather simplistically, what we are dealing with here is subjective language versus
objective language. Subjective language includes the use of many pronouns; in these
texts, the aim is to make the text more personal. A diary entry, for instance, would be Commented [MP1]: Suggest the use of examples of a diary
entry, research texts by way of illustration, unpacking the subject
very personal to the writer who writes in it every day. Their opinions are theirs and they matter as well as demonstrating some of the things to focus on in
analysis.
can speak on any topic without the need to justify their claims. Similarly, were you to
read that diary you would have no problem accepting that whatever is written is the
author’s opinion. However, microbiologists who are writing about how climate change
affects fungi, would need to distance themselves and their opinions from the facts of
their research. Why you may ask? Well, here the reader is different – the reader is
interested in the facts of the research, not whether the microbiologist merely presumes
something to be true based on their own beliefs about climate change.

The examples presented above, as stated, are overly simplistic. The choice to include
or exclude pronouns is entirely dependent on what we are writing and what the text
hopes to achieve. Consider the sentence above. Did you notice the pronoun ‘we’? I
have chosen this pronoun to represent myself as the writer and you as the reader. The
inclusion of this pronoun makes it seem as though we (the writer and reader) are
involved in the learning together. If I were to have to written the sentence as follows,
‘The choice to include or exclude pronouns is entirely dependent on what I am writing…’
then I have removed you – the reader – as a participant in the text. This instance makes
it seem as though I am writing this sentence for myself. Now consider this: ‘The choice
to include or exclude pronouns is entirely dependent on what you are writing…’ Here I
have removed the writer from being involved in the text. This sentence comes across as
me being in a position of power, giving you an instruction. Thus, the interchangeability
of these pronouns can have a dramatic effect on how readers interpret a sentence and
how writers wish for readers to interpret text.

The use of the pronoun ‘you’ is particularly interesting. This pronoun can be used to
address one, many or general readers. Consider:

How are you? (one)

Who of you are going to the game on Sunday? (many)
You should not swim after eating. (general)

Similarly, the pronoun ‘we’ is just as interesting as this could be written to include the
reader (we will not back down) or exclude the reader (we were hoping to talk to you).
The pronouns you use while writing either display the existence of a participant or the
nonexistence of one. These are powerful tools when you want to include yourselves in a
text or distance yourselves from a text. However, what we are really doing here is
changing how the reader understands the text. In other words, pronouns help us
achieve a degree of personalisation with a reader.

Please refer to your textbook, Part A, Section 3.3 and complete Activity 29.

Activity 2.4

Consider this email sent to a successful job applicant:

Dear Keren,

We loved your interview yesterday! We were wondering whether you’d be Commented [MP2]: Although the focus is on pronouns, we can
also underscore the ‘complexity’ (e.g. use of exclamations,
interested in starting with us tomorrow? Let us know if this is too soon. I know we contraction) of this supposedly formal communication with
elements of informality – contemporary versus conventional. We
will accomplish great things together! We look forward to hearing from you. can also include something or example/s about writing in the digital
age (as in the book title) to show how texts are tied to time/age/era
etc.

Can you pick out which use of the pronoun ‘we’ is inclusive here? Explain.

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Can you think of a few other examples of text where writers would use pronouns to
‘fake’ personalisation with a reader? Justify your answers.

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2.3 Imitating speech in writing

We have seen above how pronouns can either include or exclude readers and writers.
Another way to look at this is to say that pronouns merely imitate personalisation. I do
not have to physically meet you and get to know you to make you feel included in what I
am saying. Pronouns like ‘we’ and ‘you’ can allow writers to achieve this level of
intimacy with readers. Furthermore, this imitation of personalisation can be very useful
to writers.

Thus, writers are usually trying to connect with their readers in one way or the other. We
have already covered how the contact dimension and the use pronouns can achieve
this. However, writers have another trick up their sleeve. This trick is known as minor
sentences.

On the face of it, minor sentences are just that. They are incomplete sentences, usually
omitting the verb or subject. Thus, minor sentences are not really a sentence at all, but
they are still very common when we talk. Dialogue, mostly found in novels or plays,
incorporates this technique often and when it is done well readers tend not to notice it at
all.

Activity 2.5

Consider this dialogue with minor sentences.

Example 1: ‘Where are you, Harry?’

‘My room.’
‘Why?’
‘Got to study.’
‘For what?’
‘The exam.’

Now let us look at the same dialogue scene without minor sentences.

Example2: ‘Where are you, Harry?’

‘I’m sitting on my bed in my room.’
‘Why are you in your room, sitting on the bed?’
‘I have to study. I haven’t even started yet.’
 ‘What are you studying for?’
‘I’m writing an English exam on Monday.’

Considering the two examples above, which portion of dialogue is better? Explain.

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These two examples of dialogue are doing the same thing: they are both conveying
information to the reader. You may argue that the second example is the better example
because it allows the reader more access to what is happening in the story more, but let
us investigate a little more.

The second example is more detailed and the reader does not have to try and fill in the
missing parts, but the second example also assumes that the reader needs to be told
everything. The second example shows a writer coming from a position of power. Also,
no one speaks like that!

The first example with minor sentences sounds more like dialogue between two people.
If this were a novel, you would already know that Harry had not studied even though his
exam was coming up. If this were a novel, you would be irritated by the second example
because the writer over-explains everything. Imagine reading dialogue like this for an
entire novel!

In the first example, the writer trusts the reader to supply the missing information and, in
so doing, forms a bond with the reader. The writer in the first example is telling the
reader, ‘you’re good here’; in the second example, the writer is telling the reader, ‘OK.
So this is what’s happening now. Are you sure you understand?’

The use of minor sentences should not be overused. Sometimes writers need to provide
information in order for texts to be understood. If you were writing a novel and used
minor sentences for every portion of dialogue and exposition, your reader would be
completely lost. Writers thus have to judge when to provide readers with information
(less contact) and when to trust readers to fill in information (more contact).

Please refer to your textbook, Part A, Section 3.4 and complete Activity 31.

Other ways in which writers try to establish a form of personalisation with readers is
through the use of rhythm, technical vocabulary and emotional meaning. These
three devices are covered in the textbook in detail, but let us briefly look at them now.
The first, rhythm, is simply a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in words.
Rhythmical writing has a higher degree of contact with a reader because it is intended
to be read out loud, mimicking speech. If a text has more stressed syllables the slower
we read; likewise, if a text has more unstressed syllables, the faster we read.

Activity 2.6

Can you think of any texts that use rhythm to mimic speech? Provide a few examples.
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Do you think the use of rhythm contributes to the meaning of texts? Explain.
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Technical vocabulary is another device writers use to create a level of personalisation

with readers. Consider the difference between the informal ‘blow up’ and the formal
‘explode’, for example. The more technical/ formal your vocabulary is, the harder the
readability will be.

Please refer to your textbook, Part A, Section 3.5, Table 3.3 for more information
on technical vocabulary.

Emotional meaning can be sub-divided in three sections, namely lexis, emoticons and
contested terms. Certain words have different conceptual and emotive meanings. For
instance, if you want to convey that someone is unattractive, you could either say ‘that
person is plain’, ‘that person is dull’, or ‘that person is fugly’. Notice that we are
conveying the same concept (unattractiveness) but the emotive meanings range in
severity through our choice of lexis. Emoticons are used all the time these days. They
are used in mediums with high contact between writers and readers (text messages,
emails) and convey emotion without face-to-face contact. Lastly, contested terms are
words that cause a negative emotion. For example, ‘he’s a big guy,’ vs. ‘he’s
overweight’ vs. ‘he’s a chunker’.

2.4 Visual texts

Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) propose that there are three main interpersonal
meanings between the producer of a visual text and the viewer. These dimensions are
known as the contact, social distance and perspective.

Please refer to your textbook, Part A, Section 3.7, Figure 3.5 now.

Visual contact refers to how images speak to their viewers. This is achieved through a
means known as the gaze. The gaze refers to how the participant(s) within the visual
text engage with the viewer. We need to ask ourselves whether the participants want
something from the viewer or whether the participants are supplying information. This
can be answered by merely looking at where the participants are looking. Are the
participants looking at the viewer or themselves? Therefore, do the participants demand
something from the viewer or are they simply offering something to the viewer?

Please refer to your textbook, Part A, Section 3.7, Images 3.1 and 3.2 to see the
difference between visual demand and visual offer.

Social distance is the distance between the viewer and the participant in the visual
text. This is achieved through frame size. These can be close shots, medium shots, and
long shots. A participant in a close shot is looking for some kind of personal
engagement from the viewer. Similarly, a long shot means that the viewer is merely
observing something with no intention of engagement with the participant.

Activity 2.7

Briefly explain why real estate agents always have a picture of themselves facing the
viewer in a close shot. As an example of the type of picture, please refer to Image 3.1 –
Author of the Month, Todd Whitaker.

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Where would a viewer see an example of a participant in a long shot? Explain.

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Perspective is a term used to describe how a three dimensional object (like person) is
projected on a two dimensional surface (like a piece of paper). The perspective of an
image can either be subjective or objective. If a perspective is subjective then the
point of view is forced onto the viewer. These types of visual texts require the viewer’s
attention. This is achieved through two ways: degrees of involvement or degrees of
power.

 Degrees of involvement give the impression that the viewer is either included or
excluded from the visual text. This is achieved through a horizontal angle. In
simple terms, are we looking at the image directly? If the image is parallel to our
frontal plane then this suggests inclusion. Whereas a slanted angle suggests that
the viewer is excluded.
 Degrees of power are represented through the vertical angle. Are the viewers
looking up at an image or down at an image? If the viewer is looking up at a
participant then the viewer is projected in a less powerful position relative to the
participant. Likewise, if the viewer is looking down at a participant, then this
suggests that the viewer is in a more powerful position.
So far we have seen how perspective can be subjective, but it can also be objective. In
this instance, the visual text does not take into account the viewers positioning relative
to the image. Objective perspectives are realised in two ways: objective frontal angle
and objective perpendicular angle.

Please refer to your textbook, Part A, Section 3.7, Images 3.4 and 3.5 for examples
of the different objective perspective angle images.

Conclusion

In this unit we have seen how writers can create interpersonal relationships with a
reader through the three dimensions of power, contact and emotion. The use of
questions or demands can establish power between a writer and reader, but this
authority can also be tamed. We have also explored how pronouns can make a text
more or less personal, and how effective the imitations of rhythms and minor sentences
found in speech can suggest a closer contact with the reader. Finally, we touched on
visual texts which make use of contact, social distance, and perspective to create
interpersonal meaning.

Self-assessment exercise

What benefits, if any, do you see when texts are hybridised with formal and informal
language? Discuss. As a starting point for your answer, consider Table 3.3 in your
textbook.

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Glossary

Exposition: introduces background, setting, characters and other

elements of a text in order for audiences and readers to
make sense of a text.

Interpersonal: relates to the interaction and communication between one or

more people.

Mimic: to copy or imitate.

References

Goatly, A & Hiradhar, P. 2000. Critical Reading and Writing: An Introductory

Coursebook. London: Routledge.

Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual
Design. London: Routledge (2nd edition in press).

Poynton, C. 1989. Language and Gender: Making the Difference. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Written and Compiled by Panayotis Scordis