Page 259 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

SUBORDINATE CLAUSES 245
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earth'ssurface, thelargestamountofwaterenterstheatmospherebyevapo- rationfrom the ocean surfaces).
Contrast clauses, also called concessive or concession clauses, iden- tified by subordinating conjunctions such as although, even though, or though (e.g., Although water evaporates from lakes and rivers, large amounts of water enter the atmosphere by transpiration from plants). Condition clauses, in most cases marked by conjunctions if, some- times unless, and rarely even if or whether or not (e.g., If a river is di- verted, ecological impacts may be difficult to predict).
What is important for L2 writers to know is that structurally adverb clauses of all types are conjoined with (or attached to) the main clauses, and the meaning of the subordinate clause is always external to the meaning of the main. From this perspective, constructing adverb clauses is always op- tional because simple sentences can be conjoined in a variety of ways.
Syntactically, adverbial clauses are peripheral to the structure of the independent clause, but they play an important role in marking primary and secondary information in text (Quirk et al., 1985). In general terms, adverbial clauses are used to frame discourse for time and/or place, for example, and present background information relevant to that in the in- dependent clause.
Because adverb clauses represent optional constructions (not integral to the syntacticstructure of the main clause), combined with the fact that there can be numerous ways to conjoin simple sentences in the flow of text (see also chap. 4), various types of syntactic sentence errors with these construc- tions, such as fragments, can be encountered in L2 academic writing (see the following section on Common Errors in Adverbial Clauses).
Essentially, when working with adverbial clauses, L2 writers need to decide what information is important in their sentences: The most important information goes into the main clause, and second- ary/background information goes into the adverbial clause (Quirk et al., 1985).
In academic writing, the most common adverb clause varieties can have various meanings, but their prevalence differs a great deal. In teaching, particularly when time is a concern, the teacher needs to determine what structures are more useful for students to become familiar with and which are less fruitful. For example, adverb clauses of place or purpose are not very common even in the academic writing of native speakers, but clauses of time and condition are worthwhile to address in instruction (Hinkel, 2002a, 2003a).
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