Languages & Linguistics
Punctuation
Punctuation refers to the marks used in writing to clarify meaning and indicate pauses or breaks in a sentence. These marks include commas, periods, question marks, exclamation points, and more. Punctuation is essential for conveying the intended tone, structure, and clarity of written language.
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8 Key excerpts on "Punctuation"
eBook - ePub- Gunther Kress(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
I take it for granted that speech and writing are modally distinct. However, the relation between speech and writing is constantly present, is constantly active, and can constantly be activated in particular ways in relation to specific purposes. The new environments for writing, in which multimodality and the new dominance of the screen on the one hand and changes in social power on the other are pressing in on the organisation of writing as a mode, have as one consequence that the interrelations of speech and writing are newly put into flux. We need to understand what the principles of that relation are in order to focus on those which remain as constants. This will allow us to understand in what ways the principles are used now.One significant dimension of Punctuation is as the marker of the relations of speech and writing, whether as a translation, transformation or transduction from the one to the other. For those writers—I include myself among them — who have it as a social aim to write in a more speech-like manner, Punctuation has a crucial place in translating from one system of framing, that of speech (through pacing, intonation, accent), to another system of framing, that of writing (through word-order, embedding, Punctuation); this applies equally to those writers who write with the cadences of speech in mind while they are writing.The shift from speech to writing involves a shift in ‘logic’: a shift from the logic of sequence in time to the logic of arrangements in (conceptual, visual and other) space. This necessarily involves a change in the resources of framing. I can also express this as a move from frames that rely predominantly on the use of the voice — as stress or rhythm, and as pitch or intonation — to frames that use the affordances of sequence — syntax. It is a move from clearly discrete linked clause-elements to (clauses in) highly integrated sentence structures. It is a move from the overt lexical (and, so, then, therefore
eBook - PDFLinguistics for Everyone
An Introduction
- Kristin Denham, Anne Lobeck(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
452 • CHAPTER 13 Representing Language: The Written Word The Development of English Punctuation As any child in the U.S. school system knows, writing involves much more than learning the alphabet and the spellings of words. Along with learning how to spell, English-speaking children also learn how to arrange words on the page—from left to right with spaces between words. Sentences begin with a capital letter and end with a period, and shifts in topic are indicated by indenting the first word of a new paragraph. Though this system may seem completely logical to those of us who are familiar with it, it has been in use in English writing only since about the seventeenth century. Here, we will explore a bit of the history of Punctuation. We will also see that some features of written English reflect features of oral language (helping us read written language out loud), but others perform a different purpose, and rather than reflecting grammatical features of oral language, they are part of the “grammar” of writing. Early Punctuation Early Punctuation was related more closely to speaking than to reading. Latin texts were originally written without spaces between words. Punc-tuation marks began as a guide to reading texts aloud, and word spaces were finally introduced around the eighth century bce. Early Old English texts needed marks to indicate when the speaker should pause to give emphasis or indications or to breathe. In elementary school, Punctuation is still often taught by asking students to think of how a sentence is spo-ken; children are taught, for example, to put commas where they would pause (though this can also lead to what are considered “errors,” such as separating two clauses with a comma rather than a period). Because Old English texts were handwritten and because there were not yet standards for Punctuation, it is not surprising that there is great variability in the Punctuation used; some used no Punctuation at all.
eBook - PDFPunctuation as a Means of Medium-Dependent Presentation Structure in English
Exploring the Guide Functions of Punctuation
- Sebastian Patt(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Narr Francke Attempto(Publisher)
As mentioned in chap-ter 6 above, the principles, by and large, do not apply to the use of individu-al marks but are wider in scope, pertaining to the general practice of punc-tuating written text. 7.1.1 Punctuation as a style marker 7.1.1.1 Indicating dimensions of linguistic variation Since Punctuational uniformity is an idealised conception, it appears more useful to assume that the application and interpretation of Punctuation marks are determined by different factors of the communication situation and the referential content. Esser (1993) gives a comprehensive account of the dimensions of linguistic variation, which form a framework for stylistic de-scription and for which he distinguishes those that pertain to the language user and those that refer to language use, cf. Esser (ib.: 9–32) and the litera-ture cited there. In turn, Punctuation should have the potential to be indic-ative of these parameters. It may function and may be employed as a style marker. To give some random examples: the Punctuation of a text may di-vulge, i.e. signal, information about (i) the time in which the text was pro-duced, cf. e.g. ch. 3 above, and probably also about (ii) its region of origin, considering, as a case in point, the differing sequentialisation of quotation marks and other Punctuation characters in American and British English, cf. e.g. <…,” he said.> (AmE) vs <…”, he said.> (BrE). Beyond, the refer-ence to legal English in chapter 6 above has shown that Punctuation (or ra-ther its absence) may also hint at (iii) the field of discourse a text is situated in. On the other hand, Huddleston/Pullum (2002) argue that there appears to exist (iv) no social variation in the use of Punctuation: there is no dis-tinction possible between a standard and a non-standard Punctuation style. General Punctuation principles 127 Similarly, (v) “[…] the style contrast between formal and informal is of rela-tively limited relevance to Punctuation” (ib.: 1727).
eBook - ePub- Vivian J Cook(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
written by linguists well-known in other areas. Even NASA feels it has to provide its own on-line Grammar, Punctuation, and Capitalization: A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors (McCaskill 1998). Publishers want their names to be associated with Punctuation as conferring some seal of respectability and authority: there do not seem to be similar titles in other genres, say, correct pronunciation or proper driving. These manuals arise partly out of the tradition of publishing houses providing printer’s guides, say Hart’s Rules (1983) or Collins Authors’ and Printers’ Dictionary (1973). While it may be legitimate for publishers to maintain a consistent style in their own books, there is no reason why their opinion should count for other publications, let alone for ‘amateurs’ not aiming at print. Cameron (1995) provides an illuminating discussion of the ideology of such attempts to impose a ‘standard’ on English. 4.1 GRAMMATICAL AND CORRESPONDENCE Punctuation Focusing questions Why do you think Punctuation matters? What difficulties have you yourself had with English Punctuation? Is Punctuation primarily to do with reading aloud or is it something of its own? Key words Punctuation: ‘the rules for graphically structuring written language by means of a set of conventional marks’ (Coulmas 1996: 421). grammatical Punctuation: relates the written text to the grammar of the written language. correspondence Punctuation: relates the written text to the spoken language, as in reading aloud. Punctuation consists of the use of additional marks to the letters of the alphabet, such as the full stop <.>, the comma <,> and so on. Modern English uses more or less the same set of Punctuation marks as other languages. Nunberg (1990: 10) goes so far as to say that ‘there is only one system of Punctuation … which is used in all developed Western, alphabetic languages, subject to the fixing of a few parameters and the establishment of various local conventions and constraints’
eBook - PDF- Jürgen Klein, Vanderbeke Dirk, Jürgen Klein, Vanderbeke Dirk(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
That is, texts may display different type-faces or have marks such as bold-face stops to signal changes in the text content or square dots to signal text A Text-Based Approach to the Study of English Punctuation 473 ends. They may also be organised in columns, and otherwise show features that have an important place in a structural description. However, most prescriptive approaches concentrate on the basic forms only, starting with the hyphen as word-level mark and ending with a description of the full stop. But even the basic forms may have equivalents, as Klockow (1980: 10) convincingly demonstrates. He describes, for example, 10 equivalents of quotation marks, including italics, underlining, and space. A wider approach, which starts from the assumption that the marks form an open list, makes it even more difficult to give a clear definition of Punctuation. A starting-point could be to contrast Punctuation marks to other elements of the written text. Their special status is characterised by the fact that they are not independent from their reference units and that they can thus not build up sequences of their own. Their use presupposes the existence of grapheme sequences, and their potential and actual value can only be described with regard to these sequences. Semantically, it would perhaps not be overstating the case to compare them to conjunctions or prepositions. They have a certain meaning potential which is made explicit by the concrete context in which they occur. The basic function of the major marks of Punctuation is to separate grapheme sequences, and doing so they not only signal the degree of separation, but also determine or help to determine the relation between the parts set off from one another. It is especially the latter aspect which can only be described with regard to the text in which the mark is used.
eBook - PDF- Roger Beard, Debra Myhill, Jeni Riley, Martin Nystrand, Roger Beard, Debra Myhill, Jeni Riley, Martin Nystrand(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Thus, when children look for models of Punctuation, they are offered considerably more than the conventional marks of tradi-tional Punctuation. Thirdly, beginning writers are faced with a formidable challenge. They have to control the creation of the meaning, the graphic and grammatical representation of this meaning, its conversion into a set of phoneme/grapheme relationships and represent all this neatly on a piece of paper using an awkward writing instrument that needs to be held in a particular way [for further discussion of the challenge that writing presents for individuals, see this volume, Chapter 33]. However, there is some carry over of knowledge from what they know about oral language. It is relatively easy for a learner to recognize that writing uses mostly the same words as spoken language, that they are organized in generally similar ways, and that they need to make sense just as they do in spoken language. Nevertheless, one thing for which there is no carry over is Punctuation. Punctuation marks are not normally present in speech; they are a very distinctive property of written language. Thus, when Punctuation is introduced to children, usually by teachers, they are shown some very small physical marks (indeed, the most important are close to being invisible), but these marks cannot be easily fitted into children’s existing schemas of what language is about. As a result, Punctuation can seem abstract, arbitrary, imposed, and generally meaningless to young learners. Finally, the ways in which Punctuation has been taught for the last five hundred years have been highly formal (Michael, 1987). Punctuation as an object in schooling derives from a discourse that locates it as a system bounded by a set of rules controlling correct usage.
eBook - PDFScientific English
A Guide for Scientists and Other Professionals
- Robert A. Day, Nancy Sakaduski(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Greenwood(Publisher)
19 Punctuation For most of us, Punctuation is not an aesthetic challenge but a practical housekeeping problem: We engage it only long enough to keep things straight. And yet, deployed carefully and sensitively, commas, colons, and semicolons can make our sentences not only clear but even a bit stylish. Good Punctuation won’t turn a monotone into the Hallelujah Chorus, but a bit of care can produce gratifying results. —Joseph M. Williams THE MARKS AND THEIR MEANING Punctuation is easy. Compared with grammar and its profusion of rules, most of them outmoded if not outright wrong, Punctuation has a number of clear, simple rules. They work, and they are easy to learn if you try. (These suggested rules are briefly listed in Appendix 1.) Professor Williams (quoted in the epigraph) says that Punctuation is “house- keeping.” Here’s a different metaphor, although it doesn’t have a Hallelujah Chorus: Think of words as an almost endless movement of automobiles along roads, through intersections, entering into hospital and school zones, and need- ing a great many signals to avoid collisions, traffic jams, and potential mishaps of many kinds. Now think of Punctuation marks as a set of traffic lights and road signs, which, if well designed and well placed, will keep traffic moving smoothly along the highway of writing. Some signs will say “stop.” Others will say “slow down.” Still others will indicate, in a variety of ways, how to drive safely through the sentences of our writing. English has only 13 Punctuation marks. If you try, you can learn the rules for using each. If you then apply these rules, your words and sentences will flow smoothly and deliver your passengers (readers) safely to their destination: the meaning of what you are writing. PERIODS A period is to let the writer know he has finished his thought, and he should stop there if he will only take the hint. —Art Linkletter A period is used to indicate the end of every sentence that is not a question or an exclamation.
- Ann Raimes, Susan Miller-Cochran(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
213 Punctuation and Mechanics © 2018 Cengage Learning ® 7 214 How Punctuation Shows Readers Your Intentions 26 How Punctuation Shows Readers Your Intentions Why do Punctuation and mechanics matter? They mat-ter because they chunk words into meaningful groups for readers and make proper nouns stand out. Try reading the following without the benefit of the signals that a reader usually expects. When active viruses especially those transmitted by contact can spread easily within the world health organization hard working doctors are continually collaborating to find treatments for several infectious diseases Ebola avian flu and hepatitis. Conventional Punctuation and mechanics clarify the meaning: When active, viruses—especially those transmitted by contact—can spread easily; within the world health organization, hard-working doctors are continually collaborating to find treatments for several infectious diseases: ebola, avian flu, and hepatitis. Punctuation: Signals for Your Readers What Do You Want to Do? Options To end a sentence: To indicate the end of a sentence Period, question mark, or exclamation point (. ? !) 30a To make a close connection to the next sentence Semicolon (;) 30b To separate: To separate independent clauses only when a connecting word ( and, but, or, nor, so, for, or yet ) is used Comma (,) 27a, item 1 To separate an introductory word(s), a phrase, or a clause from an independent clause Comma (,) 27a, item 2 To separate coordinate adjectives (where and can be used) Comma (,) 27a, item 6 26 26
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