Boran, G. (2015). Information Structure in EFL Teaching.

International Online Journal of Education and

Teaching (IOJET), 2(3). 199-214.

http://iojet.org/index.php/IOJET/article/view/95/114

INFORMATION STRUCTURE IN EFL TEACHING

Gültekin Boran

Gazi University Gazi Faculty of Education

gboran@gazi.edu.tr

Gültekin Boran received his bachelor’s degree from the ELT program of Gazi Education

Faculty of Gazi University, master’s degree from MA TEFL program of Bilkent

University and Ph D diploma from the ELT program of the Institute of Social Sciences of

Gazi University. He worked as an EFL teacher in secondary schools and as an EFL

instructor in various faculties of Gazi University. Gültekin Boran is currently an assistant

professor in the ELT program of Gazi Education Faculty of Gazi University. His research

interests are micro teaching in EFL teacher training, teaching pronunciation, pragmatics,

language learners’ motivation and error analysis in language teaching.

elsewhere without the written permission of IOJET.

mailto:gboran@gazi.edu.tr

Boran

199

INFORMATION STRUCTURE IN EFL TEACHING

Gültekin Boran

gboran@gazi.edu.tr

Abstract

When speaking or writing in a foreign language, being grammatically and semantically

competent may not be enough to convey the necessary information to the interlocutors in

dual conversations or to the readers who read our texts in various genres such as personal

letters, formal letters, e-mails, etc. Namely, individuals who communicate in a foreign

language may generate grammatically and semantically well-formed sentences or phrases

but their sentences and phrases may still not be comprehensible enough because they fail

in highlighting the new information (unfamiliar information) and deemphasizing the given

(old) information. Therefore, teaching how to utilize intonation, sentence stress and pitch

when speaking English and teaching how to utilize various syntactic constructions such as

fronting, left-dislocation, clefting, pseudoclefting, passive structures and word order in

order to highlight new information and deemphasise given information when both

speaking English and writing a text in English are of great importance in foreign language

teaching. In this article, the concept of information structure is reviewed, examples are

given both in Turkish and English and suggestions are made for English as a Foreign

Language (EFL) classes.

Key words: information structure, given and new information, pragmatics

1. Introduction

Even though a sentence is grammatically and semantically well-formed, it may not be

able to express the idea and convey the message because the new information it carries is

not highlighted well enough and it emphasizes the wrong elements of the sentence or

phrase at the wrong time.

According to Finegan and Besnier (1989), what speakers and writers do about

information structure is very similar to what a painter does when creating his/her painting

and they state that “Speakers and writers are responsible for highlighting certain elements

and backgrounding other elements, exactly as a painter highlights particular details and

deemphasizes others with judicious use of colour, shape, and position” (p. 214).

Information structure concerns the way in which pragmatic information (such as what

information is new, recent or unfamiliar, what information is old or familiar, what

information is important, etc.) is packaged into a sentence. In order for our sentences to be

successful in conveying information, we must emphasize the appropriate elements at the

right time and deemphasize others. The issue of highlighting new information and

deemphasizing given information in language texts oral or written is termed as information

structure which is also known as information packaging (Finegan, 2008, p. 249).

As Finegan (2008) points out, “In order to mark information structure in a sentence,

speakers rely on the fact that syntactic operations permit alternative ways of shaping

sentences” (p. 250). Finegan (2008) gives the following sentences which are alternative

ways of saying the same thing. Obviously, a different element is emphasized in each

sentence.

1. The firefighter discovered a leak in the basement.

2. In the basement, the firefighter discovered a leak.

mailto:gboran@gazi.edu.tr

International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2015, 2(3), 199-214.

200

3. A leak in the basement was discovered by the firefighter.

4. It was the firefighter who discovered a leak in the basement.

5. What the firefighter discovered in the basement was a leak.

6. It was a leak that the firefighter discovered in the basement.

7. What was discovered by the firefighter was a leak in the basement.

8. The firefighter, he discovered a leak in the basement.(Finegan, 2008, p. 250)

Finegan (2008) points out that we exploit such a choice of alternatives to mark

information structure.

2. Some definitions

In order to have a preliminary idea about information structure, some definitions will be

useful.

Crystal (1992) defines information structure as “... a proposed analysis of sentences into

information units” (p. 187). He also states that “... in speech these units are usually

distinguished by intonational criteria, the information focus being conveyed by nuclear

tone. For example, in the sentence ‘Mary bought a RED car’ the intonational emphasis on

‘red’ conveys that ‘red’ is the new information in the sentence, while ‘Mary’, ‘bought’ and

‘car’ are part of the given information” (p. 188).

Finegan (2008) states that information structure is “...the level of structure at which

certain elements in a sentence are highlighted or backgrounded according to their

prominence in the discourse” (p. 539).

We can infer from the definitions above that the elements highlighted or emphasized in

a sentence are new information which the sender thinks the receiver does not know and the

elements which are backgrounded or deemphasized are the given information which the

sender thinks the receiver already knows. To state briefly, information structure is divided

into two major parts: new and given.

3. Categories of information structure

The categories of information structure are listed as given and new information, topic,

contrast, definiteness, and referentiality. According to Finegan and Besnier (1989), “These

categories must be applicable to all languages although the ways they use them are

different and with these categories, how discourse is constructed can be comprehended.

Ultimately, these explanations may put forward hypotheses about how the different

components of the human mind (such as memory, attention, and logic) work and get into

interaction with each other” (p. 215). An important difference exists between the types of

syntactic constructions found in particular languages and the categories of information

structure. Furthermore, the range of syntactic constructions available in different languages

differs noticeably; for example, some languages have a passive construction but others do

not have that kind of construction. Because the categories of information structure are not

language dependent, we cannot define them in terms of particular structures. Nonetheless,

there is a very close relation between pragmatics and syntax (sentence and phrase

structure). In all languages of the world, one major function of syntax is to bear and

convey pragmatic information. The way in which pragmatic structure maps onto syntax

differs from language to language (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 215).

Boran

201

As stated earlier, information structure is composed of two major parts: new

information also termed as unfamiliar information and given information also known as

old information. It will be useful to review given and new information in detail.

3.1. Given and new information

According to Finegan and Besnier (1989), one key category of information structure is

the difference between given and new information. As Finegan and Besnier (1989) point

out, “Given information is information currently in the forefront of the hear’s mind; new

information is information being introduced into the discourse” (p. 216). They give the

following two-turn interaction as an example:

Alice: Who ate the custard?

Tom: Mary ate the custard? (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 216)

‘Mary’ is the new information because it is just being introduced into the discourse, and

‘custard’, in contrast, is the given information in Tom’s answer because it can be presumed

to be in the mind of Alice, who has just introduced it into the discourse in the previous turn

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 216).

On the other hand, given and new information can be introduced into the discourse by

the same speaker. Consider the following example:

- A man called while you were on your break. He said he’d call back.

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 216)

Finegan and Besnier (1989) state that a piece of information is sometimes received as

given because it closely associates with something that has already been introduced into

the discourse. For example, when an interlocutor introduces a noun phrase into a

discourse, all the subparts of the referent can be treated as given (old or familiar)

information. Examine the following example.

1. Kent returned my car last night after borrowing it for the day. One of the wheels was
about to fall off and the dashboard was missing (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 216).

In face-to-face conversations and most other kinds of discourse, interactors take first

person (speaker) and second person (addressee) pronouns to be given information

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 216). These noun phrases do not need to be introduced as

new information into the discourse (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 216). Consider the

following example:

A: I bought this book in Istanbul.

B: Really? When were you there?

Finegan and Besnier (1989) point out that noun phrases carrying new information

usually have stronger stress than those carrying given (old) information, and they are

commonly expressed in a more elaborate fashion - for instance, with a full noun phrase

instead of a pronoun, and sometimes with an adjectival clause or adjectival modifiers.

Finegan and Besnier (1989) give the following typical example of how new information is

introduced into a discourse:

- When I entered the room, there was a tall man with an old-fashioned hat on, quite
elegantly dressed (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 217).

Finegan and Besnier (1989) state that “... given information is commonly expressed in

more attenuated ways – ways that are abbreviated or reduced. Sometimes given

International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2015, 2(3), 199-214.

202

information is simply left out of a sentence altogether” (p. 217). Consider how the given

information (is at the door) is left out in the following interaction:

A: Who’s at the door?

B: The mailman (is at the door) (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 217).

3.2. Topic

According to Finegan and Besnier (1989), “The topic of a sentence is its centre of

attention - what the sentence is about, its point of departure. The notion of topic is opposed

to the notion of comment, the element of the sentence that says something about the topic”

(p. 217).

Given information is the element of the sentence about which we say something;

namely, given information represents the topic. On the other hand, new information

represents what we want to express about the topic; it is the comment and thus, if Mary ate

the custard is offered in a response to the question What did Mary do?, the topic would be

Mary (the given information) and the comment would be ate the custard (the new

information) (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 217). The topic of a sentence can often be

phrased as in this example:

- Speaking of Mary, she ate the custard. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 217)

As Finegan and Besnier (1989) suggest, given information does not always function as

the topic. In the second sentence of the following sequence, the noun phrase her little

sister represents both new information and the topic.

- Mary ate the custard. As for her little sister, she drank the cod-liver oil. (Finegan &
Besnier, 1989, p. 217)

According to Finegan and Besnier (1989), similarly given information can function as

comment, as the underlined element in the following sequence shows. The given/new

contrast differs from the topic/comment contrast.

- Harold didn’t believe anything the charlatan said. As for Hilda, she believed
everything he said. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 217)

It is very difficult to make an exact definition about what a topic is. While the topic is

the sentence element that serves as the centre of attention, a sentence like ‘Oh look!’

uttered to draw attention to a beautiful sunset, has an unexpressed topic (“the setting sun”

or “the sky”). Thus a topic may not necessarily mean a property of the sentence, but it may

be a property of the discourse context. Despite the difficulty in defining topic, the notion

of topic is important and needs to be distinguished from other categories of information

structure (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 218).

3.3. Contrast

Contrast is a category of information structure. As Finegan (2008) remarks, “A noun

phrase is said to be contrastive when it occurs in opposition to another noun phrase in the

discourse” (p. 254). In the following conversation, Sara in Beth’s answer is contrasted

with Matt in Alan’s question.

Alan: Did Matt see the ghost?

Beth: No, Sara did. (Finegan, 2008, p. 254)

Finegan (2008) states that “Contrast Beth’s answer with another possible one in which

the noun phrase would not be contrastive: Yes, he did” (p. 254).

Boran

203

Besides, Finegan (2008) states that contrast can also be marked in sentences that

express the narrowing down of a choice from several candidates to one. In such sentences,

the noun phrase which refers to the candidate that is chosen is marked contrastively.

- Of everyone present, only Sara knew what was going on. (Finegan, 2008, p. 254)

However, Finegan (2008) also points out that Sara in the following sentence is not

contrastive.

- Gerard knew what was going on, and Sara did, too.

Finegan (2008) offers a simple test and states that “...if a noun phrase can be followed

by rather than, it is contrastive” (254). Examine the following example.

Speaker A: Did Matt see the ghost?

Speaker B: No, Sara, rather than Matt, saw the ghost. (Finegan, 2008, p. 254)

Additionally, a single sentence can have more than one contrastive noun phrase.

Finegan (2008) gives the following example in which Sara contrasts with Matt, and an

entire cast of spirits contrasts with a ghost.

Aaron: Did Matt see a ghost?

Bella: Yes, Matt saw a ghost, but Sara saw an entire cast of spirits.

(Finegan, 2008, p. 254)

According to Finegan (2008), “In English, contrastive noun phrases can be marked in a

variety of ways, most commonly by pronouncing the contrastive noun phrase with strong

stress” (p. 255).

- You may be smart, but he’s popular. (Finegan, 2008, p. 219)

3.4. Definiteness

Speakers mark a noun phrase as definite when they think that the listener can identify

the referent of the noun phrase or the noun phrase is marked as ‘indefinite’ (Finegan &

Besnier, 1989, p. 219). In the example below, the definite noun phrase ‘the neighbour’ in

B’s answer presupposes that A can determine which neighbour B is talking about.

According to the explanation Finegan and Besnier (1989) give about the example below,

“B’s answer is appropriate if A and B have only one neighbour or have reason to expect a

particular neighbour. If they have several neighbours, none of whom they know

particularly well, B cannot assume that A will be able to identify which neighbour is at the

door, and the answer to A’s question must be indefinite” (p. 220).

A: Who’s at the door?

B: It’s the neighbour. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 220)

We can give the following dialogue in Turkish as an example for the same purpose.

Compare the following example in Turkish with the example above.

A: Kim bağırıyor? (Who is yelling?)

B: O Adam bağırıyor. (The/That man is yelling.) (The pronoun, ‘O’ in Turkish

is used for definiteness.)

According to Finegan & Besnier (1989), “Definiteness must be distinguished from

givenness because a noun phrase can be definite and given, indefinite and given, definite

and new, or indefinite and new” (p. 221). The underlined noun phrase in the first sentence

is indefinite and new, and the one in the second sentence is definite and given.

International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2015, 2(3), 199-214.

204

- Once upon a time, there was a young woman who lived on a remote farm in the
country. The young woman was named Mary. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 221)

Finegan and Besnier (1989) point out that “...a noun phrase that refers to new

information can also be definite” (p. 221). In the following sentence, ‘the plumber’ is

definite, and it is acceptable whether or not the speaker has introduced a particular

identifiable plumber into the previous discourse.

- The kitchen faucet is leaking; we have to call the plumber.

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 221)

In certain circumstances, a noun phrase can be both indefinite and given, as with the

underlined noun phrase in the following example:

- I ate a hamburger for breakfast – a hamburger, I might add, that was one of the worst
I’ve ever eaten. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 221)

We can conclude that definiteness and givenness are distinct categories of information

structure.

3.5. Referentiality

Finegan and Besnier (1989) state that “A noun phrase is referential when it refers to a

particular entity. In the first example, the noun phrase an Italian with dark eyes does not

refer to anyone in particular and is therefore non-referential. In the second example, in

contrast, the same noun phrase does have a referent and is referential” (p. 222).

1. Katie wants to marry an Italian with dark eyes, but she hasn’t found one yet.

2. Katie wants to marry an Italian with dark eyes; his name is Mario.

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 222)

The same category can be observed in the following example in Turkish:

1. Ali bahçeli bir eve taşınmak istiyor fakat henüz aramak için vakit bulamadı. (Ali

wants to move to a house with a garden but he did not have time to look for one.)

2. Ali bahçeli bir eve taşınmak istiyor; taşınmak istediği ev şimdi oturduğuna çok yakın.

(Ali wants to move to a house with a garden; the house which he wants to move to is

very close to the one where he lives now.)

4. Intonation and information structure

Before the Second World War, the Prague School constituted serious studies on

information structure. Brown and Yule (1983) report that “They studied what they called

‘the communicative dynamics’ of the elements contributing to a sentence, within the

framework of functional sentence perspective” (p. 153).

Halliday, in one of his articles published in 1967, elaborated and developed the Prague

Scholars’ work which was related directly to his own interest in the structure of texts. He

also drew other Western linguists’ interest to the matter. He adopted the Prague School

view of information as consisting of two categories: new information which the addressor

believes the addressee does not know, and given information which the addressor believes

the addressee already knows, either because it is physically present in the context or

because it has already been mentioned in the discourse (Brown & Yule, 1983, p. 153).

Halliday also supported Prague Scholars’ idea that intonation in English has a role in

emphasizing new information and backgrounding given information. Halliday is

Boran

205

concerned to specify the organization of information within spoken English and to relate

this organization to phonological realization, specifically to intonation (Brown & Yule,

1983, p. 154). Additionally, Lee (2013) emphasizes the role of sentence stress in

information structure in English: “English sentences typically bear at least one greater

stress prominence known as a sentence stress (or nuclear accent), which is heavier than

other lexical and phrasal stresses. Sentence stress typically marks the flow of new

information, in that sentences, clauses or utterances typically contain older or topical

information and a set of newer information” (p. 3). He also exemplifies this role of stress

with the following recorded sample of family dinner conversation about movies:

(1) Recorded conversation sample:

1 A. He would make diagrams of almost all the shots and –

2 B. Really?

3 K. Yeah... that’s how they were able to make that new Psycho, uhm

4 They used all of his notes, yes.

5 So it was actually – it was exactly the same as the original

6 except for the actors.

7 B. Including the dialogue?

8 A. I think so.

9 C. Oh, please pass the salad.

10 And both dressings. (Lee, 2013, p. 4)

Lee (2013) explains his example that illustrates how the new information is marked

with a sentence stress: “As seen above, the new information, often in the predicate, is

marked with a sentence stress. Most often, it relates the flow of new information in an

utterance, in that it falls on a content word, often the last content word bearing new

information. However, it can sometimes mark emphasis instead (line 5, line 10), in which

case it may not fall near the end of a clause, and can readily occur on function words

(‘both’ in line 10)” (Lee, 2013, p. 4).

4.1. Information units

As Brown and Yule (1983) report, “Halliday assumes that the speaker intends to encode

the content of the clause (the basic unit in his grammatical system). In many ways, what

Halliday views as the 'ideational' content of a clause may be compared with what others

have called the 'propositional' content of a simple sentence. This clause content is

organised by the speaker into a syntactic clausal structure, in which the speaker chooses

among the thematic options available to him and, in spoken language, the clause content is

organised into one or more information units which are realised phonologically by

intonation” (p. 155). Crystal (1989) points out that intonation has an important function to

convey new information in speech. He emphasizes the significance of intonation with an

example: “… if someone says ‘I saw a BLUE car’ with maximum intonational prominence

on blue, this pronunciation presupposes that someone has previously queried the colour;

whereas if the emphasis is on ‘I’ , it presupposes a previous question about which person is

involved. It would be very odd for someone to ask ‘Who saw a blue car?’ and for the reply

to be ‘I saw a BLUE car” (p. 171).

As Brown and Yule (1983) point out, according to Halliday, the speaker is obliged to

disintegrate his speech into chunks of information units. He is also obliged to present his

message in a series of packages. However, he is free to decide where each information unit

begins and ends and how it is organized internally. Thus, given that the speaker has

decided to tell his hearer that ‘John has gone into the garden with Mary’, the speaker may

package this information into one chunk as in the following example:

International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2015, 2(3), 199-214.

206

1. John has gone into the garden with Mary.

Or two or three chunks as in:

2. John-has gone into the garden with Mary.

3. John – has gone into the garden with – Mary. (Brown & Yule, 1983, p. 155)

Brown and Yule (1983) further asserts that “The ‘internal organization’ of the

information unit, relates to the way in which given and new information is distributed

within the unit” (p. 155). Brown and Yule (1983) also report Halliday’s view about the

sequencing of new information and given information: “...the speaker will order given

information before new information. The 'unmarked' sequencing of information structure

is taken to be given-new. Naturally, information units which are initial in a discourse will

contain only new information” (p. 155).

On the other hand, new information may become given information after it has been

introduced into the discourse and when it is referred again. Furthermore, Cook (1989)

points out that “… any unit of information may of course change status as the discourse

proceeds, and what was new in one sentence becomes given in the next, precisely because

it has just been said. Indeed communication might be defined as the conversion of new

information into given information, and successful communicator as a person who

correctly assesses the state of knowledge of his or her interlocutor. If we misjudge, and

treat what is given as new, we will be boring; in the reverse case when we assume the new

to be given, we will be incomprehensible” (p. 64).

In the following conversation, new information becomes given information.

A: What is your brother’s name?

B: His name is JOHN.

A: What does he do?

B: (Laughing) John is only TEN years old. (Cook, 1989, p. 64)

4.2. Tone groups and tonics

As Brown and Yule (1983) point out, “Information units are directly realized in speech

as ‘tone groups’ and they are also identified as ‘breath-groups’, ‘phonemic clauses’ or

‘tone units’. The speaker distributes the quanta of information that he wishes to express

into these phonologically defined units” (p. 155).

Brown and Yule (1983) point out that it is possible to distinguish tone group

phonologically. An important characteristic of tonic syllable is that it has the maximal unit

of pitch on it. According to Lehiste (cited in Brown & Yule, 1983, p. 155), Tonic syllable

is also called ‘nuclear syllable’ or ‘sentence stress’ and it has maximal moving pitch,

maximal pitch height, maximal intensity and/or maximal duration.

In the following sentence the tonic is marked by capitalization, tone group boundaries

by // and the silent ictus by . The tonic syllable functions to focus the new information in
the tone group.

//  I / find it incompre /HENSible //

Finegan and Besnier (1989) state that “… in English and some other languages,

intonation is an important information-marking device. Generally, noun phrases

representing new information receive stronger stress than noun phrases representing given

Boran

207

information, and they are uttered on a slightly higher pitch than the rest of the sentence.

This is called “new-information stress” (p. 230).

Finegan and Besnier (1989) give the following example which illustrates sentence

stress to mark new information.

A: Whose foot marks are those on the sofa?

B: They’re Hilda’s foot marks. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 239)

Cook (1989) suggests the following practice:

Practice 1: Imagine a situation in which you have just marked 200 examination scripts.

You might then be asked any of the following questions:

A) What have you just done?

B) How many examination scripts have you marked?

C) Who marked these 200 examination scripts?

D) What did you say you had marked?

E) What have you done with these 200 examination scripts?

F) When did you mark these examination scripts?

1) For each question, give a short answer of between one and five words.

2) If your spoken answer to each question was the full ‘I have just marked 200

examination scripts’, which word or words would you stress in each case?

3) If you had written a full answer to each question, how could you have rearranged the

word order to draw attention to the most important word or words?

(Cook, 1989, p. 66)

5. Pragmatic categories and syntax

Languages use a variety of ways to express a given ‘thought’. Most frequently, the

difference between these various ways of expressing the same thing is a pragmatic one. As

Finegan and Besnier (1989) point out, “Languages differ in the extent to which and the

way in which pragmatic information is encoded in morphology and syntax. Some

languages like Japanese have function words whose sole purpose is to indicate pragmatic

categories. Other languages like English depend on syntactic transformations like

passivization to convey pragmatic information” (p. 224). They also state that for some

languages, like French and Chinese, intonation is less important in marking information

structure. However, in English, intonation is an important tool for information structure.

Namely, different languages use different strategies to encode pragmatic information

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 224).

Under the following subtitles, syntactic strategies in marking pragmatic information

will be explained and some examples in English and Turkish will be given.

5.1. Fronting

One of the strategies that speakers may use to mark information structure is fronting

and it is a type of focus strategy which is often used to enhance cohesion and

provide emphasis. According to Crystal (1992), fronting is carrying a sentence element

from the middle or final position of a sentence to the initial position. Crystal (1992) gives

the following example:

http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/cohesionterm.htm
http://grammar.about.com/od/e/g/emphasisterm.htm

International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2015, 2(3), 199-214.

208

We turned left at The Rose.

At the Rose, we turned left. (Crystal, 1992, p. 147)

Finegan and Besnier (1989) point out that “Fronting is a movement transformation that

operates in many languages, although its exact function varies from language to language.

In English, it creates sentence (a) from the structure underlying sentence (b), which has the

same meaning” (p. 224).

(a) Hilda I cannot stand.

(b) I cannot stand Hilda. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 224)

In English, fronting is used to mark ‘givenness’ by speakers and the fronted noun

phrase represents given information.

A: I heard that you really like mushrooms.

B: Mushrooms I’d kill for. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 224)

As Finegan and Besnier (1989) point out, “A noun phrase can be fronted and if its

referent is part of a set that has been mentioned previously in the discourse, even though it

may not represent given information itself” (p. 224). In the following example given by

Finegan and Besnier (1989), “...mushrooms is a hyponym of vegetable, which is

mentioned in the question that immediately precedes the fronted noun phrase; the result is

pragmatically acceptable” (p. 225).

A: What’s your favourite vegetable?

B: Mushrooms I find delicious. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 225)

Fronted noun phrases are often contrastive in English.

A: Do you eat cauliflower?

B: I hate cauliflower, but mushrooms I find delicious.

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 225)

As Finegan and Besnier (1989) point out, “The fronted noun phrase must be the more

salient element of the sentence. If this requirement is violated, the result is pragmatically

ill formed” (p. 225). In the example given by Finegan and Besnier (1989), “In B’s answer

in the following interaction, mushrooms is not the most salient element in the sentence,

because the hearer’s attention is distracted by the phrase with butter and parsley” (p. 225).

A: What’s your favourite vegetable?

B: *Mushrooms I love to eat with butter and parsley. (*Pragmatically ill-

formed because the sentence does not fit well into the context in which they

occur).

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 225)

5.2. Left-dislocation

Finegan (2008) defines left-dislocation as “an operation that derives sentences such as 1

from the same underlying structures as basic sentences such as 2” (p. 261).

1. Holly, I can’t stand her.

2. I can’t stand Holly. (Finegan, 2008, p. 261)

Boran

209

Manetta (2007) points out that a left dislocated noun phrase that appears in an initial

pre-clausal position that is coreferential with a personal pronoun that occurs elsewhere in

the clause. Manetta (2007) gives the following example sentences. The left dislocated

phrases are bolded.

(1) My turtle, he froze to death.

(2) My aunt Vicky, she used to get bird poop on her every year.

(3) The knife, I kept it at school. (Manetta, 2007, p. 1029)

Although left-dislocation syntactically resembles fronting, there are several differences

between fronting and left-dislocating. In particular, a fronted noun phrase does not leave a

pronoun in the sentence, but a left-dislocated noun phrase leaves a pronoun (Finegan &

Besnier, 1989, p. 226).

Margaret I can’t stand. (Fronting)

Margaret, I can’t stand her. (Left-dislocating) (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 226)

5.3. Clefting and pseudoclefting

Frascarelli and Ramaglia (2008) exemplify clefting and pseudoclefting with the

following two sentences:

(1) It is a book that I gave John. (cleft)

(2) What I gave John is a book. (pseudocleft) (Frascarelli & Ramaglia, 2008, p. 1)

According to Finegan and Besnier (1989), “Clefting and pseudoclefting are

transformations that are commonly used in English and many other languages to mark

information structure in the sentence” (p. 227). In the example they give, sentence (a) is a

cleft sentence, sentence (b) is a pseudocleft sentence, and sentence (c) is the basic sentence

that corresponds to (a) and (b) – that is, the sentence that is derived from the same

underlying structure but to which no transformation has applied.

(a) It was Harold that Stan saw at the party.

(b) What Stan saw at the party was Harold.

According to Finegan and Besnier (1989), we can use both cleft and pseudocleft

constructions to mark givenness, and the clefted noun phrase gives new information in a

cleft construction. The rest of the sentence presents given information. In the following

example, (b) can be the answer to the information question in (a). The answer to the

question is clefted. However, (c) cannot be the accurate answer because the clefted

element is not the requested new information.

(a) Who did Stan see at the party?

(b) It was Harold that Stan saw at the party.

For similar cases, following examples are possible in Turkish. In the constructions a, b,

and c, different elements are emphasized as new information.

(a) Mehmet’i kim şikâyet etti? (Who complained about Mehmet?)

(b) Cemaldi Mehmet’i şikâyet eden. (It was Cemal who complained about Mehmet.)

International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2015, 2(3), 199-214.

210

Although different elements are emphasized in (b) and (c), the emphasized element in

(a) is the answer in (b).

As Finegan and Besnier (1989) point out, pseudocleft constructions and cleft

constructions are similar and in pseudocleft sentences, the new information is placed after

the verb ‘to be’, and the rest of the clause is between the WH-word and the ‘be’ verb.

(a) What did Stan see at the party?

(b) What Stan saw at the party was Harold dancing the rhumba.

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 229)

5.4. Passives

Finegan and Besnier (1989) emphasize the role of passive construction in marking

information structure and they state that like many other languages that have a passive

construction, passive constructions can also be exploited to mark information structure in

English. They give the following example to show how information structure is marked in

passive sentences.

(a) The old man was scolding the mermaid.

(b) The mermaid was being scolded by the old man.

Finegan and Besnier (1989) explain the examples above: “Of these three sentences, all

of which can describe essentially the same situation, (a) is active, while the other two are

passive structures. In (b), the agent is expressed (by the old man), whereas there is no

expressed agent in (c)” (p. 232).

Native speakers and writers of English use agentless passive sentences and agent

passive sentences for specific purposes. An agentless passive sentence is constructed if the

agent is not important (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 232). Consider the following

examples:

- A new shopping mall is being built near the Interstate.

- New Christmas stamps are issued every year

- Linguistics 100 has been cancelled today. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 232)

Agentless passives are used in Turkish for the same purpose.

- Yeni köprü gelecek ay bitirilecek. (The new bridge will be completed next month.)

- Bunların yarın postalanması gerekiyor. (These need to be posted tomorrow.)

- Bu radyo dün tamir edildi. (This radio was repaired yesterday.)

Agent passives are used for some reasons. The following are the reasons and examples

for agent passive constructions:

1. The agent is expressed when it is a proper name indicating an artist, an inventor, a

discoverer, or an innovator.

a. The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

b. The Americas were discovered by Christopher Columbus.

Boran

211

2. The agent is expressed when it is an indefinite noun phrase conveying new

information that the speaker/writer thinks is important enough to mention.

a. These works of art were all produced by a woman.

b. The corner store was robbed by a masked gunman.

3. The agent is expressed when it is an unexpected inanimate noun.

a. Thirteen people were injured by a tornado in Florida.

b. All the lights in this building are controlled by computers. (R-I-T Rochester

Institute of Technology SEA Supporting English Acquisition, 2015)

5.5. Word order

As Finegan and Besnier (1989) point out, “Many languages use the sequential order of

noun phrases to mark differences in information structure. English cannot use the full

resources of word order for this purpose because it uses word order to mark subjects and

direct objects. In the following English sentence, the word order indicates who is doing the

chasing and who is being chased” (p. 233).

- The cat is chasing the dog. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 234)

If the noun phrases in the above sentence are inverted, the semantics of the sentence

changes. Examine the following sentence.

- The dog is chasing the cat. (Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 234)

However, in Turkish the word order does not mark the object or the subject. Although

the word order changes in each version of “Köpeği kedi kovaladı”, the meaning

(semantically) does not change because inflections on the noun define the noun either as

the object or subject of the sentence but various word orders of the same proposition in

Turkish have pragmatic functions. Turkish marks information structure through word

order. In (a), (b) and (c), the introduction of focus and topic changes. Examine the

following sentences in Turkish.

(a) Köpeği kedi kovaladı. (The cat chased the dog.) (The dog is emphasized.)

(b) Kedi kovaladı köpeği. (The cat chased the dog.) (The cat is emphasized.)

emphasized.)

Batman-Ratyosyan and Stromswold (2002) give the following examples and they state

that “...in (2a) the constituents of the sentence are in the canonical position. In (2b)

constituents have been moved to different positions to convey pragmatic information and

Mektup is the topic, Ali is focused, and Hasan is backgrounded” (p. 794).

(2) a. Hasan Ali'ye mektub-u ver-di.

Hasan Ali-DAT letter-ACC give-PAST

'Hasan gave the letter to Ali'

b. Mektub-u Ali-ye verdi Hasan. '(Speaking of) the letter, it was Ali (that) Hasan

gave (it) to.' (Batman-Ratyosyan & Stromswold, 2002, p. 794)

5.6. Restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses

Finegan and Besnier (1989) state that in many other languages as well as in English

there are two types of relative clauses: restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses.

International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2015, 2(3), 199-214.

212

Sentence (a) has a noun phrase modified by a restrictive relative clause, and sentence (b)

contains a noun phrase modified by a non-restrictive relative clause. Finegan and Besnier

(1989) also point out that “A restrictive relative clause enables the hearer to identify the

particular referent of the head of the relative clause (the tree in example (a)” (p. 235).

(a) The tree that had been blocking the view was struck by lightning.

(b) The tree, which had been blocking the view, was struck by lightning.

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 235)

Finegan and Besnier (1989), in their further explanation, state that non-restrictive

relative clauses give additional information (description, modification, or explanation)

about the referent of the head noun, information that is not essential for the hearer to

identify the referent of the head noun. Besides, they point out that “Non-restrictive relative

clauses are usually set off from the rest of the sentence by short pauses, represented in

writing with commas” (p. 235). Finegan and Besnier (1989) give the following example.

(a) A man who had been standing around suddenly darted inside the store.
(indefinite, restrictive)

(b) A man, who had been standing around, suddenly darted inside the store.
(indefinite, non-restrictive)

(Finegan & Besnier, 1989, p. 235)

6. Information structure in EFL classes

In EFL classes, information structure should not be neglected. When dealing with

grammar or writing skills, students should be taught how to highlight new information and

background given information through different syntax structures such as fronting, clefting

and pseudoclefting, left-dislocating, passive structures and active structures. When

students learn how to formulate these syntactic constructions, they should also learn their

functional effects on information structure in discourse. For instance, students should

know that passive constructions are not only syntactic varieties but also very functional in

highlighting new information and deemphasizing given information. Finegan and Besnier

(1989) want to draw our attention to beginning writers’ misconception about passive

construction: “What makes a sentence like ‘A good time was had by all’ humorous is the

fact that it is passive without a reason. Such unmotivated passives occur frequently among

beginning writers, who appear to labor under the misapprehension that passive structures

are more literary than active ones.” (p. 232).

EFL teachers should bring necessary language materials to their classrooms and get

their learners to practise these syntactic variations in contexts so that they can use

information structure strategies with these syntactic constructions in their written or

spoken discourses successfully. Practice with authentic language materials is more useful

than practice with non-authentic, simplified and graded ones because learners will have a

chance to experience how information structure strategies are used with various sentence

structures in authentic language materials.

Besides, the issue of information structure should also be emphasised when teaching

pronunciation. Turkish learners of English, under the influence of their native language,

usually cannot make the necessary stress on the correct sentence element and fail in

emphasising new information and deemphasising given information in their spoken

Boran

213

discourses in English because Turkish is a syllable-timed language but English is a stress-

timed language. Turkish EFL learners unnecessarily stress even function words such as

prepositions, articles, auxiliaries, pronouns when they speak English. They speak English

with flat or monotonous intonation and for this reason their speeches are usually

incomprehensible and boring to native speakers of English. In order to fill this efficiency,

EFL teachers should integrate grammar with pronunciation and when teaching grammar

they should also teach their students how to stress the necessary sentence element in their

sentences so that they can successfully convey the message by highlighting new

information and backgounding old information.

EFL teachers should attach due importance to the issue of information structure and

enable their EFL learners to communicate successfully and convey the necessary

information to their interlocutors in their conversations in English by utilizing information

structure strategies in their pronunciations and construction of sentences.

7. Conclusion

We cannot assume that syntax and semantics are the only regulators of sentence

structure. A sentence may be grammatically and semantically well-formed but still be

problematic when used in a particular context (Finegan, 2008, p. 249). For particular

contexts certain elements need to be highlighted and the rest of the elements may require

to be deemphasized for better comprehension.

In English, not only intonation, sentence stress and pitch but also various sentence

constructions are utilized to emphasise given information and deemphasise new

information. Therefore, EFL teachers should be aware of the contrasting differences

between students’ native language and English, because the answer ‘I BOUGHT a new

bag’ to the question ‘What did you buy?” would be odd due to the fact that the emphasis is

on the word ‘bought’, which is a wrong sentence element to stress.

When speaking or writing, second or foreign language users must be able to emphasize

the correct elements of their sentences at the correct time. Therefore, in EFL teaching,

mere grammar and vocabulary teaching is not effective enough to make EFL learners

successful communicators in English. Pragmatic aspects of English should also be

integrated with teaching grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, speaking, listening, reading

and writing.

International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2015, 2(3), 199-214.

214

References

Agents in Passive Voice Sentences | SEA - Supporting English Acquisition. (n.d.). June

02, 2015. Retrieved from:

http://www.rit.edu/ntid/rate/sea/processes/passive/grammatical/agents

Batman-Ratyosyan, N. & Stromswold, K. (2002). Morphosyntax is easy, but discourse

pragmatics is hard. Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual Boston University

Conference on Language Development, Volume 2, 793-804. Somerville, MA:

Cascillida Press. Retrieved from:

http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/~karin/KStromChildTurkish.pdf

Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Cook, G. (1989). Discourse. Language Teaching: A scheme for Teacher Education.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Crystal, D. (1992). An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Language and Languages. Cambridge.

Blackwell.

Crystal, D. (1989). The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Finegan, E. (2008). Language: Its Structure and Use (5th Ed). Boston: Wadsworth.

Finegan, E. & Besnier, N. (1989). Language: Its Structure and Use. Philadelphia: Harcourt

Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.

Frascarelli, M and Ramaglia, F (2008). (Pseudo) cleft constructions at the Interfaces,

relazione selezionata come “alternate paper” al Workshop on Clefts, ZAS, Berlino.

Retrieved from: http://ling.auf. net/lingbuzz/000841/current.pdf

Lee, K. (2013). Sentence stress in information structure. Oeneohag J. Korean Linguistic

Society, 66, 3-30. Retrieved from: http://www.kentlee7.com/pub/sent.

stress.info.str.kl.eoneohag. 2013.pdf

Manetta, E. (2007). Unexpected left dislocation: An English Corpus Study. Journal of

Pragmatics, 39 1029-1035 Retrieved from:

https://www.uvm.edu/~emanetta/UnexpectedLeftDislocation.pdf

http://www.rit.edu/ntid/rate/sea/processes
http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/~karin/KStromChildTurkish.pdf
http://www.kentlee7.com/pub/sent.stress.info.str.kl.eoneohag.2013.pdf
http://www.kentlee7.com/pub/sent.%20stress.info.str.kl.eoneohag.%202013.pdf
http://www.kentlee7.com/pub/sent.%20stress.info.str.kl.eoneohag.%202013.pdf
https://www.uvm.edu/~emanetta/Unexpected%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20LeftDislocation.pdf