Page 149 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

PRONOUNS 135
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time. The second this refers to a plural noun costs that is not located in the
immediate proximity to the pronoun. In both cases, the use of demonstratives makes the text appear confusing and somewhat obscure.
In general terms, the use of demonstratives requires adherence to largely rigid noun-pronoun agreement in number (i.e., singular pronouns this and that cannot refer to plural nouns). In most cases, this and these can "point" to nouns in their close proximity (or a close proximity to the speaker, as in This is a great computer, when one is looking or pointing to a computer). However, that and those are markers of a more distant reference. However, neither type of demonstratives can refer to a sizable portion of text, as can often be en- countered in students' texts (Hinkel, 200la) .
REFERRING TO EARLIER AND FOLLOWING TEXT: NOUNS TO ENUMERATE
In addition to demonstratives, various lexical means of establishing text co- hesion have been identified and can be used with greater positive effect and sophistication for the text (Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Tadros, 1994). In Eng- lish, a number of lexically simple nouns can refer to several textual points or entire classes of nouns at one time. For example,
(1) Until now, we have not considered social change. Our emphasis has been on or- der and stability in organization. But social organization also changes. Change is easily asimportantatopicinorganizationasorderandstability.Withallthe/actors defending order in organization, how is change possible? (Charon, 1999, pp. 181-182)
(2) How does economics relate to the problems discussed in the previous chapters? (Schumacher, 1999, p. 26)
Such nouns asfactor and problem have a cohesive property of catch-alls be- cause they have enumerative meanings and usually refer to a fewpoints pre- viously mentioned or those that follow. Although not particularlylexically sophisticated, they appear to be more advanced than, for example, demon- strative pronouns (Partington, 1996).
Many highly useful and flexible enumerative nouns are presented next (Tadros, 1994). It is important to note that fewof these can be found in con- versational register because their functions in text are lexically and semanti- cally complex. However, the explicit teaching of enumerative catch-all
'In some contexts, this can refer to several points provided that a restatement/paraphrase noun is used to apply to all points covered by this. For example, Senator Smith called members of his partyuselesscivilservants,andthisgaff islikelytocausehisresignation(thistipwassuggestedby Mar-
cella Frank, New York University).
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