National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences
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| 3.3 The New The new information is the rest of the clause It is called New because it is actually what is new to the hearer or reader. For instance in the sentence above, travelled to the USA yesterday is the new information. It is what the speaker actually wants the hearer to know. In writing the writer usually engages in a carefully thought-out exercise, because he wants to be understood. So the nature of information structure in writing differs from that of speaking. In informative texts, sometimes questions are used to elicit the required information. For example 8.2. What is Linguistics 46 Linguistics is the scientific study of the nature of language The Given element is put before the New information, because there is an area of mutual knowledge the writer wants to share with the readers (see Bloor and Bloor (1995; Taiwo, 2003). Sometimes, authors may not necessarily use question heading. They may just use an ordinary heading. It is also possible that the whole information in the clause is new, for example 8.3. It is my belief that you are coming tonight. Since the word it is a dummy or an empty subject, it caries no information, the whole stretch can be regarded as New information. Writers may also use ellipsis as a style in writing. Ellipsis is the omission of a word or a chunk from a sentence in such away that only the given information is left. This does not render the text incomprehensible in anyway, as the reader can still makeup the omitted part. For example 8.4. (a) Bola got up form the bed (b) rushed to the bathroom (c) and took her bath. In (band (c) above, all the information are new, because the Given information has been omitted, but the hearer can still link it to the subject of (a. In spoken texts, there are more assumptions, since the situation helps the interlocutors to interpret the message. For instance, in the sentence 8.5. Please get me my slippers. the entire information is new. This is because the speaker shares some information with the hearer, which include the fact that the hearer knows he/she is the one being addressed and that the hearer knows where the speaker’s slippers are, and so forth. Download 0.49 Mb. Share with your friends:
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