Page 208 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

194
CHAPTER 8
tionale behind such inconsistency.
It isat thispoint that the concept of moral worthplays a role in his [Sorley 's] theory. It is throughphysical and mental adversity that happiness orpleasureare not properly to be construed at the end of our conduct. (All citations from Schoedinger, 2000, pp. 280-283)
In teaching, a small chart may be helpful to explain the syntactic regular- ities of the structure and uses of linking verbs.
Common Structureswith LinkingVerbs
It is important to note, however, that the structures with linking verb + adjective are often overused in L2 academic discourse. As a result, a text that relies too much on linking verb + adjective constructions may appear sim- plistic and overly descriptive.
The use of predicative adjectives with linking verbs (be wealthy, be impor- tant) limits the amount and type of information that a sentence can convey (i.e., predicative adjectives can only refer to states or particular properties of the subject; Chafe, 1994). For example,
In history, science grows more complex, and it grows from general to specific. When science is_still new, scientists do not have to have a special kind of knowledge. They work
TLFeBOOK