Page 166 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

152 CHAPTER 7
When markets don't work well, the government will try to fix them, but they will fail becausethemarketcannotbefixed bythegovernment.Themarketwillsolveitsown problems,anditwillbenefit thepeopleandcreateastableeconomy.Inturn,thestable economy will lead the country to political stability, and the political order will give the
people peacefor a long time.
In excerpt (a), the uses of the future tense project a high degree of defi- niteness in the success of the implementation of a market economy without government interference. In this text, the writer appears to be certain about the outcomes of the market policies, which in reality may not be nearly as certain. The same excerpt can be slightly reworded, as in (b), where the defi- nite future tense is avoided and replaced by modal verbs with less definite meanings, as is the convention in academic writing (Swales, 1990).
b) In countries like Costa Rica, political decisions are based on the economic model. Under this model, the market competition may increase, and the market economy can solve most problems in an efficient way without any interruption of the government. When markets don't work well, the government may try to fix them, but they may/are likely tofail because the market cannot be fixed by the government. The market may/can
solve its own problems, and it may/is likely to benefit the people and create a stable econ- omy. In turn, the stable economy can lead the country topolitical stability, and the politi- cal order may give the people peace for a long time.
The text in (b) rephrases the same text without the uses of the future tense; in combination, the employment of modal verbs can and may, as well as the hedge tobe likely to,help make the text pivot on possibility rather than certainty.
(For "future in the past" constructions—e.g., Sam Walton predicted that Wal-Mart would turn into the largest discount chain in the U.S.—see chap. 10, Subordinate Clauses.)
ASPECT
The time of an activity or a state is denoted by means of a tense. On the other hand, the verb aspect marks actions and events for progression or continuity during a particular marked period of time (the progressive as- pect) or occurrence during the time period leading up to or prior to an- other specific time marker, activity, or event (the perfect aspect). Thus, the activity or state expressed by the verb can be marked for tense (and time) and aspect (progressive and/or perfect) to denote the progression of an ac- tivity during a period of time, which is always overtly or implicitly marked or up to a particular specific time/event. For example,
• Television socializes its viewers to become mass consumers—the (general) present tense, zero aspect (i.e., neither progression nor completion of the activity is marked).
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