1. Dress Up With Words
Formal and Informal Writing
Fiona Jane Ellingsen
2. Parts of Speech
• Pronouns (pronomen) like I, you, everybody, which
• Determiners (bestemmerord) with four main sub-
types:
– Articles: the, a
– Qualifiers (mengdeord): many, all, every, no
– Possessives (eieformer): my, your, his, their, etc..
– Interrogatives (spørreord): what, which, whose;
• Auxiliaries (hjelpeverb): be, have, do, can, will etc…
• Prepositions: for, of, under, in by, among, etc…
• Conjunctions (konjunksjoner): andm but, when,
because, if, so, that, etc…
4. Why should I write?
• Purpose e.g. to inform, complain, influence
and persuade, entertain, ask for information
or a combination of these.
• Audience:
– age, gender and background
– knowledge of your topic
• Personal / Public
5. Styles of writing
• Lexical density
– This means the number of lexical words (nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs) is relatively high as
compared to the number of words in the text.
That means it communicate a lot of information
• Evaluative language
– This term means that the writer introduces his /
her own opinion into the text
6. Lexical Density
Identify the noun phrases in this text:
• Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of
English schoolboys marooned on a tropical
island after their plane is shot down during a
war. Though the novel is fictional, it is an
exploration of the idea of human evil and is
believed to be partly based on Golding’s
experience with the real-life violence and
brutality.
7. Identify the noun phrases in this text:
• Lord of the Flies is a story about some
schoolboys whose plane was shot down
during a war. They were isolated on an island
with little hope of rescue. It is about how evil
humans can be. It is based on William
Golding’s experiences during WWII.
8. • Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of
English schoolboys marooned on a tropical
island after their plane is shot down during a
war. Though the novel is fictional, it is an
exploration of the idea of human evil and is
believed to be partly based on Golding’s
experience with the real-life violence and
brutality of World War II of World War II.
9. What is missing?
• Lord of the Flies is a story about some
schoolboys whose plane was shot down
during a war. They were isolated on an island
with little hope of rescue. It is about how evil
humans can be. It is based on William
Golding’s experiences during WWII.
10. Simple sentences
• A simple sentence is a single clause with a
subject (S) and a verb (V) e.g.
– William Golding wrote.
– I--------S----------I I---V---I
• Simple sentences can have an object (O)
– William Golding wrote a novel.
– I--------S----------I I--V--I I---O---I
– And/ or …
11. Simple sentences
an adverbial (A) such as
– William Golding wrote a novel very quickly.
– I--------S----------I I--V--I I---O---I I---A---I
• Or a prepositional phrase (P)
– In 1954, William Golding wrote a novel.
Also simple sentences can have linking verbs
(LV) like be or look that describe the subject:
– In 1954, William Golding wrote a novel he liked.
12. Compound Sentences
• A compond sentence has two or more
coordinate and independent clauses:
– His first and greatest success came with Lord of
the Flies (1954), which ultimately became a
bestseller in both Britain and the US.
• A complex sentence has at least one main
clause and one subordinate clause:
– The novel’s sales enabled Golding to retire from
teaching and devote himself fully to writing.
13. Coherent and Convincing Writing
• A well written text is more than a sequence of
grammatically correct lexically precise
sentences.
• A good piece of writing consists of paragraphs,
which consist of sentences, which consist of
clauses.
• Therefore:
14. Coherent and convincing writing
always consists of:
Initial part Middle part Final part
Text / essay Introduction Body Conclusion
Paragraph Topic Sentence Discussion Rounding-off
statement
Sentence / clause Initial element as a
cohesive tie
Core Final elements as
new information
16. The ten language commandments
1. There is no shame in using a full stop
2. If you’ve more than one thing to say,
say one thing at a time.
3. Be polite to your readers.
4. Don’t get infected with ”noun disease”.
5. Be a right handed writer.
6. Don’t get word crazy.
7. Don’t be afraid of calling a spade a spade.
8. Strive to keep it simple (KISS)
9. Have personal opinions often.
10. Use sound controll
17. Formal and everyday words
• English words can be traced back to:
–Germanic origin
–Romance language (French, Spanish etc…)
–Latin and Greek
18. Germanic words
• Germanic words go back to the language of
the 5th
century Anglo-Saxon invaders who
pushed the Celtic-speaking population
westwards.
19. Romance and Latin/Greek words
• Most Romance words came into English after
the Norman Conquest in 1066
• Both Romance words and Latin/Greek words
were mostly used in the high social classes for
several centuries and did not come in general
use before the late 15th
century.
20. Formal vrs informal
• The difference between formal and informal
English has historical origins:
• Words of Romance and Latin/Greek origin are
still felt to be formal and learned, often
associated with prestige and authority.
• Germanic words are common, everyday
words that most users are familiar with.
21. Examples
• Disperse = spread
• Conceal = hide
• Cancel = call off
• Postpone = put off
• Execute = carry out
• Encounter = run into
22. Version 1
The evidence taken from the
observation of the behaviour of
apes and children suggests that
there are three clearly separate
groups of simple causes for the
outbreak of fighting and exhibition
of aggressiveness by individuals
23. Version 2
If we look at monkeys’ and
chidren’s behaviour, we’ll notice
three simple reasons why they
become aggressive and start to
fight.
Editor's Notes
Although buy and purchase are both lexical words and mean roughlythe same thing they are still very different; buy is a common everyday word, purchase is more formal. They beong to two different contexts of communication.
