One on One with Second Language Writers: A Guide for Writing Tutors, Teachers, and Consultants

Glossary

Glossary adjective (part of speech)—label for words that limit, modify, or describe nouns adverb (part of speech)—label for words that modify or limit verbs, adjectives, or clauses; typical meanings include manner (quickly, surreptitiously), time (yesterday), location (there), reason (consequently), and degree (many) agreement—relation in which the form of one word is determined by the meaning of another; in English occurs when a verb is marked for the number and person of the subject and a pronoun or demonstrative is marked for the number and proximity of its referent aspect—grammatical property of a verb that expresses whether the action is ongoing or completed; ongoing meaning is called progressive aspect and is marked by using the -ing form of the verb (they are dancing); completed meaning is called perfective aspect and is marked by using the past participle form of the verb (they have danced) clause—unit of language containing at a minimum a verb and an indicator of the verb’s subject and any words that may be related to the subject or verb; may or may not be able to stand alone as a sentence cohesion—the devices in a text that connect its different sentences and make it clear that they belong together; common devices include the use of the definite article (the), demonstratives (this/that, these/those), pronouns, repetition of words, and transitional expressions collocation—property of words that makes them more likely to occur in the environment of some words than others; for example painter is more likely to occur after house than shack 141 conjunct—syntactic term referring to a word, phrase, or clause that links one sentence to another; transitional expressions are one example definite article—the; generally indicates that the noun that follows has a specific referent that a reader or hearer can be assumed to understand; sometimes, however, used with generic referents as in The camel has been a useful means of transporting goods for centuries demonstratives—a set of words (this, that, these, those) that may function either as a pronoun or a determiner and indicate whether an entity being referred to is near or far dependent clause—type of finite clause that cannot be used by itself as a sentence; may serve adjectival (The student who had stayed up all night did not wake up for class), nominal (What I want to know is where I put my keys), or adverbial (We wanted to finish dinner before the game started) functions within a sentence determiner—group of words that occur before nouns in English and that serve to clarify the properties or referent of the noun; include articles (the/a book, possessives (my/his/our book), numbers and quantifiers (two books, many books), and demonstratives (this/that book) finite clause—clause for which the tense (present, past, future) of the verb is clear; includes both independent and dependent clauses flow—property of a text that allows a reader to read without stopping; creating flow requires careful consideration of what the reader will and will not know as well as the information needed at any point in the text to form an interpretation fossilized structures—word usage patterns that are different from what is commonly accepted as the standard pattern (such as using she go where most people expect she goes) and that language learners keep using even after the pattern has been explained to them; often these are patterns that do not interfere with understanding the writer’s intentions 142 Glossary fragment—group of words punctuated as a single sentence but that most people would not accept as expressing a complete meaning; a common example with second language writers is sentences using a form of the verb be but that do not have a subject (Is very dangerous when you go there.) Generation 1.5 students—refers to university students who immigrated to the United States while they were in elementary, middle , or high school; their educational background is therefore different from students who studied and learned English in other countries before coming to the United States for university work genre—named category of texts such as book reports, business letters, or research papers that serve a common social and communicative purpose and that can be recognized by particular structural features gerund—type of non-finite clause that serves a nominal function in a sentence; headed by the -ing form of a verb...