Real Grammar - Susan Conrad, Douglas Biber 2009

Transitions
Unit 29 Finally, on the negative side…

What have you learned from your grammar textbook?

Ideas in sentences can be connected with (1) coordinating conjunctions such as and and but, (2) subordinating conjunctions such as although and because, or (3) transitions (or “connectives”) such as therefore.

1. It’s raining today, but we will still have a picnic.

2. Although it’s raining, we will still have a picnic.

3. It’s raining. Therefore, the picnic is cancelled.

What does the corpus show?

A

Transitions are more common in academic writing than in other types of writing and conversation. The transitions express the relationships between ideas.

B

Five functions of transitions are common in academic writing Although each function category includes many possible expressions, only a few are very common.

C

Be careful! Although transitions are very useful in academic writing and can make writing clearer, they distract readers if they are used too often. Do NOT use transitions in every sentence.

Activities

1 Notice in context: Read these two paragraphs from different academic texts. Circle the transitions.

1. From a report on improving health.

It will take a complete re-education of the public before “health” regains its proper meaning. There seems little likelihood of more money becoming available. Therefore, improvements in health can be achieved only if existing money is put into policies that are more supportive of health. Such policies would aim, for example, to provide health education, eliminate poverty, create safety in the work place, and improve diet. Finally, these policies must ensure that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy these aspects of health.

2. From a report on a training program for farmers.

The farmers’ extremely small interest in learning through computer programs was perhaps predictable. A number said that they would find self-motivation and discipline difficult and would never see these forms of learning as substitutes for classroom training. On the other hand, the response to the use of video was astonishing. In all areas visited, video was acknowledged to be an extremely useful teaching aid, particularly for the more isolated farmers.

2 Analyze discourse: The following sentences contain transitions (or conjunctions) that are not listed in Section B, but they have the same functions. Can you find them? Circle each transition, and write its function on the line. Then find in Section В a transition that could replace the one you have circled and write it above the circled one.

1. Linguistics and psychology have made significant progress in recent decades, and, furthermore, both draw on centuries of careful thought and study.

2. An alien woman does not assume British citizenship automatically on marriage to a British citizen.

Conversely, a woman who is a British citizen does not lose her citizenship if she marries a non-citizen.

3. Nationwide, there was only one full secondary farm school. Consequently, many farm children have never been to school.

4. Marx’s and Engels’s “general” stages often read like a generalized history of western Europe. But

Eurocentrism seems much less excusable in the work of modern historians.

3 Practice writing: This paragraph contains too many transitions. Cross out the transitions that decrease the effectiveness of the writing. Rewrite the paragraph on a separate piece of paper.

There are advantages and disadvantages to living in my hometown, Nantes. First, one advantage of living in Nantes lies in the possibility of using quick transport. For example, many buses are provided. As a bus comes every ten minutes to each bus stop, people don’t lose their time waiting for a bus.

Thus, these buses facilitate the lives of people living in Nantes. Second, Nantes also has many leisure facilities such as tennis and water sport activities, and also theatres and cinemas. For example, each of the six theatres offers at least six choices of different films. As a result, everyone can find a film that he/she likes.

4 Practice writing: The following sentences are related and appear in order, but they contain no transitions. Find three places where you could insert (1) a transition that expresses a result; (2) a transition that expresses a contrast; (3) a transition that precedes an example. Rewrite the sentences in paragraph form, including the three transitions, on a separate piece of paper.

• In many African nations before independence, mass education for black people, particularly beyond primary school, was not encouraged.

• While white settlers and colonial civil servants were provided with both government and private schools, many of them regarded education for the black population as politically dangerous.

• Educational structures were weak at independence, with very limited coverage above primary level for the majority of the population.

• Zimbabwe, achieving independence in the 1980s, faced leaner economic times than had Zambia in the 1960s.

• It embarked on an even larger program of educational expansion.

• After independence, the curriculum was altered by changing the content of some subjects—history and geography—and by introducing new subjects such as political education and sociology.