2019 RI promo P1A paper

1 RI_ELL/Y5_2019/P1/AUDREY TAN my teacher gave us the papers but none of the answer guides RAFFLES INSTITUTION (Y5-6) ELL Y5 PROMOTION EXAM 2019 – DEBRIEF NOTES TEXT A (Spoken) TEXT B (Written) FIELD Learning driving → how to use the clutch FIELD Personal driving learner’s experiences TENOR Trainer and client (slight asymmetry of power and status) Professional but friendly TENOR Blogger and reader - peer-to-peer (symmetrical) Friendly, casual, MODE Spoken – spontaneous cooperative conversation MODE Written – blogpost (online) Situational & Cultural Context  Driving lesson conducted in student’s car  2 interlocutors – driving instructor (JT) & learner driver (C)  Learner drivers can engage their own licensed instructors to give practical driving lessons. In many countries in the West, the minimum age for a driving licence is 18 years. Hence, many start taking driving instructions in their teens.  [Although the exact location (country) is not known, it is not likely to be Singapore.]  A personal blog post by a British writer on her driving lessons experiences  At 31 years of age, she is not the typical teenage learner. There is pressure to learn driving as it is considered an essential life skill in some countries, particularly in the West. Purpose Instructional (informative for hands-on learning)  As it is a one-on-one lesson, it can be relational to a certain extent (customer service) but the main purpose is still to teach/instruct so there is much practical activity taking place simultaneously.  Ancillary language use → language use to facilitate action  Not merely phatic Personal sharing for readers’ recreation (informative for entertainment)  Help readers relate to the driving experience by entertaining them with a recount of her personal experiences/anecdotes Audience  Driving instructor and student learner → Private conversation → mutual audience  Target audience: (Presumably) Regular readers of the blog in the UK → non-specific in terms of actual identities  But not restricted to only these readers (after all increased readership is much sought after)

2 RI_ELL/Y5_2019/P1/AUDREY TAN Differences between spoken and written language Dysfluency features:  Micropauses, pauses, repetitions (L22-23), overlaps (L20-21), echo utterances (L25-26), fillers (like L2, um L35)  Speech overlaps rather than interruptions because C is merely acknowledging JT’s questions or statements with a one-word answer ‘yeah’. She is not adding new info. Smooth transition between JT and C. Discourse management:  Adjacency pairs e.g. question-answer pairs that seek info (L 35-36), agreement/confirmation (L 20- 21), clarification (L 1-2)  Turn-taking – equal number of turns though generally JT has longer turns as he is the instructor so he holds the floor longer when giving directions, checking on C, etc. C does not cede the floor but rather her turns are mostly back-channelling responses e.g. yeah (about 14 times throughout the conversation) → co-operative overlaps ➢ Quite equal in terms of status even though JT has greater authority and knowledge, as the instructor. C is the paying customer though she is younger. So the relationship is not too formal – just professionally respectful and cordial.  Standard features of a blog: Title in bold capital letters and bigger font size; by line and date stamp; standard paragraphing with no sub- headers. Standard punctuation generally except the use of capital letters to signify loudness for emphasis and italics as well as bolding for heavy stress.  Sounds almost like a monologue – simulation of speech features e.g. filler (uh in L30), ellipsis (L30 & L43) and parentheses (possibly two pairs, to be sure in L39 and already gritted in L41) ➢ Attempt to be conversational → building rapport with readers (important for a blogger) Lexis Lexical/semantic field of driving a car:  Some specialised lexis e.g. clutch, biting point, spring gear, first gear, neutral second, windscreen wiper  Not overly technical, just the relevant lexemes → not a highly specialized field as driving is quite a common activity. Not C’s first lesson so she is familiar with the terms. ➢ Professional yet quite casual → reflects a friendly tenor. Use of some basic specialized terms but yet not highly technical as the focus is on the action of driving or at least clutch engagement and not the  Lexis is less specialized as the focus is more on the writer’s emotional experience → lexis reflects her frustrations and annoyance, e.g. bleeding obvious (intensifier), frigging cakewalk (euphemistic expression and slang), cut up (colloquial expression for overtaken), speed- bumped residential road (conversion of noun to adjective via compounding). Similar examples: brain fogged, bone-tired, panic-sweat (noun to verb)  Use of expletives/vulgarities: shit, S**T  Use of colloquialisms: dude, gawd (God); big girl pants

3 RI_ELL/Y5_2019/P1/AUDREY TAN technical details of the whole car. Too much technical detail might alienate the learner.  Local variety – howlers (mistakes), knickers (underpants), tooling around (driving around without any specific directions), kerbs (British spelling)  Rhetorical devices - A tonne of metal – metonym for a car; (L)earning to drive at the age of 31 is like going for a smear test – simile; not killing anyone for two hours - hyperbole  Use of contractions and first person singular pronouns (I, my) → informality in order to be more engaging ➢ An attempt by the blogger to engage with the readers by using vivid descriptions and colloquialisms which the readers can relate to. Sounds like a personal anecdote → to maintain friendly relations and sustain the readership for her blog ➢ A greater variety of lexemes is employed by the writer → to sustain reader’s interest Grammar  JT’s utterances are mostly imperative (e.g. L9-10, L37-38), with one clearly declarative (L 20) and a few that are interrogative (L1, L22-23)→ greater prominence as his role is to instruct, direct, check and assess.  However, many of JT’s declarative statements serve to instruct C e.g. “but you need to know where all the controls are so” (L40).  One tag question in L27 “is this a bit hard isn’t it” serves to affirm C’s effort to locate or differentiate the various gears.  C’s utterances are mostly short – other than lines 2- 3, 5-6 – like minor utterances, mono-syllabic replies → she is the one doing the driving, so she is focussing on the practical aspect like steering while JT gives directions. ➢ Tenor: Professional relationship (instructor & learner) that is friendly and amiable. JT tries to be encouraging and empathetic. C might possibly be a little nervous or anxious (understandably so) but she is being encouraged by JT. ➢ Power: See point on discourse management.  Mostly declarative statements as the blogger is sharing her experiences and feelings e.g. L20-21  One interrogative statement (L33-34 DID I MENTION THAT I HATE IT?) – rhetorical function  3 imperative statements in the last paragraph (L42-43) – e.g. Please remember, do be kind, give them plenty of space.  One imperative statement in parenthesis (L28- 29) e.g. …spare me the manual/automatic lecture)  Only a few minor sentences (Thanks, dude L13; Yeah L30; Seriously L43)  Sentence type – mainly compound sentences with the use of coordination (use of coordinating conjunction ‘and’). E.g. L31-34 compound sentence consisting of a string of 6 simple sentences → reflecting her sense of frustration and annoyance. ➢ Congruent with the purpose and appropriate for the audience → not too informal yet not too casual. Quite low syntactic complexity → easy to read.

4 RI_ELL/Y5_2019/P1/AUDREY TAN Phonology