Steven Pinker: 'Many of the alleged rules of writing are actually superstitions' Questions&Discussion
Discussing the text: 'Many of the alleged rules of writing are actually superstitions' 1. What is the text about? 2. Who is it intended for? Which type of audience? 3. What is the prevailing tone of the text? 4. How would you illustrate that tone with an example from the text? 5. How is the text structured? 6. What is the purpose of the opening sentence?
Discuss the “mistakes” below: • It's also a topic in linguistics. Is it an error to write: No citizen should be under a cloud of suspicion because of what they look like? What about 'to boldly go where no man has gone before', or 'it's you she's thinking of', or 'entering the room, it was nice to see so many old friends'? Various purists, snobs, snoots, sticklers, traditionalists, and language police will declare that all of these are unconscionable insults to standards of excellence. But when pressed to explain why these errors are errors, all they can offer is the not-so-excellent response: They just are.
Explain the following words from the text: deplorable umbrage solecism egregious ubiquitous imminent slovenly turgid
flout crabby scath proffer venerated ponderous hoary assiduous panache
Which idea(s) from TA is highlited by this passage: • The real problem is that writing, unlike speaking, is an unnatural act. In the absence of a conversational partner who shares the writer's background and who can furrow her brows or break in and ask for clarification when he stops making sense, good writing depends on an ability to imagine a generic reader and empathise about what she already knows and how she interprets the flow of words in real time. Writing, above all, is a topic in cognitive psychology.
• Look for elements of coherence in the text; • Lexical? • Grammatical?
Written assignment: Write a short summary (up to 150 words) of the text.