Language in Use 55-56
This unit is concerned with the interdependence of a message and its setting.
It looks at the language of brief public notices, and explores the degree to
which the information conveyed by the notices is likely to be heavily dependent
for its interpretation on information which the reader derives from its immediate
source.
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[1] For this session, the class must each write a brief public notice of the kind they have seen on the way to school. Take a number of these examples in turn, put the text on the board without giving the context, and ask the class to decide what information the reader of the notice is expected to supply in order to be able to understand it. Discuss which of the notices relies most heavily upon information which its setting provides. For the next session, ask the class to collect public notices that rely upon setting in the same way.
[2] Make the collection available to the class, and ask them to arrange
the notices in order, from those that depend most heavily upon setting to those
that can be understood from the wording alone. Ask the class to supply a setting
that would make sense of those notices which cannot be interpreted without one.
Then ask the class to consider if differences in the degree to which notices
depend upon setting can be related to the type of message that they convey.
The following list of types of notice may be useful:
(a) boast/ invitation-(Bath's Best Buns)
(b) advice-(Patrons are recommended to ...)
(c) conditional-(Immediate service for early arrivals)
(d) information-(Bathing is dangerous when ...)
(e) request-(Please do not . . .)
(f) warning-(Radar Control in Operation)
(g) threat-(Trespassers will be ...)
(h) command-(Keep off)
[3] Using the Highway Code signs as an example, ask the class to work out signs for as many as possible of the notices that they have already discussed. Let them explore the advantages and limitations of signs as a substitute for written notices.
A related topic is explored in E4.