Non-structured Essay vs. Formal Essay Writing

In general, non-structured essay does not follow the systematic presentation of ideas like introduction, key statement, supporting discussions and rationalization or conclusion.

The reason behind this can be traced to the origin of the word essay itself that it is a personal discourse of certain subject matter or the author’s ‘take’ on the issue bordering on commentary and the recollection of a certain issue or event.

In general, though formal essay writing exercises guard consistency, structure and order of the presentation of thoughts and non-structured essay focuses on variety of thoughts and point of view, both approaches remain faithful on the objective of interpreting an account, issues and stand point of the author.

Definition and Purpose of Essay

Lexical definition of essay pertains to an interpretative literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view.

As to its usage, essay can be defined as a personal stand expressed in writing expressing criticism, manifesto, learned arguments, recounting or recollection of events and reflection of the author.

Based on the origin of the word, essay remains as an attempt to express the author’s thought and with the dawn of technology, essay can already be expressed in numerous media.

In the modern times, essay is being utilized as a tool in language learning. Through structured writing exercises, students are being asked to write literary compositions with introductory paragraph, supporting statements or paragraph and conclusion – the structured format of an essay, to enhance there writing skills.

Essay is also being used in selective processes particularly in admitting applicants for a certain position in the company or for students enrolling in universities to pursuit higher learning.

Brief History of Essay

Michel de Montaigne (1500’s) coined the word “essay” referring to his works as an “attempt” to put his thoughts into writing. The word was derived from the French word “essayer” meaning “to try” or “to attempt.” His works focused on social commentary, literature and philosophy.

Plutarch, a known moralist, was inspired by the style of personal point of view and commentarism writing of Montaigne.

Taking the stylistics of Montaigne and Plutarch, Francis Bacon published literary works that he established as essays in 1600.

                                    Essay writers were then called essayists by Benjamin Johnson, a

well-known renaissance dramatist of the 1600. This event signaled the formation of a new school of thought - free-thinkers or non-conformist of literature.

ENG: 04 Essay and Biography Syllabus

I.                     Essay: An Overview

A.      Brief History

B.      Purpose and Definition

C.      Non-structured vs Formal Writing

II.                   Intro to Biographical Approach

A.      Definition of Biography

B.      Brief History: An Evolution Review

C.      Types and Media Format

D.      Forms and Styles

E.      Biographer’s Role

III.                  Biographical Essay Writing

A.  General Elements

B.      Data Gathering Process

C.      Documentary and Graphical Insertions

D.      Order and Chronology

E.      Counterchecking

F.      Inferring and referencing

G.     Commentary vs Recording

IV.                Essay Biography Evaluation

A.      Significance

B.      Consistency and Flow

C.      Structure

                                                      D.   Conclusion Evaluation

Defining Stylistics

Stylistics is the study of devices in language that are considered to produce expressive or literary style. This discipline of Linguistics is closely related to Literary Criticism but encompasses liturgical, contemporary, modern and even pop culture domain of literature and goes beyond classical, formal and rhetorical literatures (high literatures).


While literary criticism focuses on style as the proper adornment of thought, Stylistics approaches literature with formal linguistic analysis to evaluate printed texts, explaining the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language.


Generally, Stylistics also discusses which type of language is appropriate or inappropriate base on the various circumstantial elements like time, purpose or intention, style, recipient, etc. – in modern times, this addresses what is considered to be 'politically correct' in writing. 


Since language is distinctive to its user, Stylistics discusses form and meaning in reference to its ‘register’ (style) particular to a certain variety of language, thus, providing an insight to the process within the language used.


Source: 


Stylistics; en.wikipedia.org; 2010


Stylistics, Linguistics; britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/570324/stylistics; 2010


Dela Cruz, Edna M.; Advanced Speech Communications
Rex Bookstore, Inc., 2010


International Conference on Language Education
http://www.pixel-online.org

Branches of Linguistics

A. Theoretical Linguistics

            Theoretical Linguistics is a a branch of Linguistics that deals with the study and development of paradigm of language knowledge. Essential elements of this branch are syntax that deals with the general rules of sentence construction, phonology that deals with sound production to produce meaning, morphology that focuses on the smallest component of word and other units in a sentence and semantics that studies the composition of all elements in reference to its relationship to each other that results to a meaning.

            There are sub-disciplines of Linguistics that can be categorized under Theoretical Linguistics, these are:

            Cognitive Linguistics - interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms.

            Generative Linguistics - the study and application of grammar in a fully explicit way, with a range of different, overlapping meanings by different people.

            Quantitative Linguistics - deals with language learning, language change, and application as well as structure of natural languages based on statistical methods.

            Phonology - the study of sounds (or signs) as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning

            Morphology - the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified

            Syntax -  the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences

            Lexis - the total word-stock or vocabulary having items of lexical rather than grammatical, meaning.

            Pragmatics - studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning

B. Descriptive Linguistics

            Descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is spoken (or how it was spoken in the past) by a group of people in a speech community. All scholarly research in linguistics is descriptive; like all other sciences, its aim is to observe the linguistic world as it is, without the bias of preconceived ideas about how it ought to be.

            

            Anthropological Linguistics - the study of the relations between language and culture and the relations between human biology, cognition and language.

           Comparative Linguistics - concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.

           Historical Linguistics - the study of language change

           Etymology - the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.

            Phonetics - the study of the physical properties of speech (or signed) production and perception

            Sociolinguistics - the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society.

C. Applied Linguistics

         

            Computational Linguistics -  interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical and/or rule-based modeling of natural languagefrom a computational perspective.

            Forensic Linguistics - is the application of linguistic knowledge, methods and insights to the forensic context of law, crime investigation, trial, and judicial procedure.

            Internet Linguistics - It studies new language styles and forms that have arisen under the influence of the Internet and other New Media, such as Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging.

            Language Acquisition - the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate.

            Language Assessment - focuses on the assessment of first, second or other language in the school, college, or university context; assessment of language use in the workplace; and assessment of language in the immigration, citizenship, and asylum contexts.

           Language Development - a process starting early in human life, when a person begins to acquire language by learning it as it is spoken and by mimicry. 

            Language Education - is the teaching and learning of a language. It can include improving a learner's mastery of her or his native language, but the term is more commonly used with regard to second language acquisition, which means the learning of a foreign or second language.

            Language Prescription - normative practices on such aspects of language use as spelling, grammar, and syntax. It includes judgments on what usages are socially proper and politically correct.

            Linguistic Anthropology -  an interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life.

            Neurolinguistics - he study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.

            Psycholinguistics - the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language.

Fromkin, Victoria; Bruce Hayes; Susan Curtiss, Anna Szabolcsi, Tim Stowell, Donca Steriade (2000). Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell

McMahon, A. M. S. (1994). Understanding Language Change. Cambridge University Press

"Linguist". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2000.

Center for Applied Linguistics

http://www.appliedlinguistics.org

Dela Cruz, Edna M.; Advanced Speech Communications

Rex Bookstore, Inc., 2010

International Conference on Language Education

http://www.pixel-online.org

General Linguistics

Generally, Linguistics refers to the study of human language that focuses on two general disciplines namely form or structure (grammar) and meaning or non-structure (semantics and pragmatics). 

For the purpose of this course, grammatical rules will focus on generalizations about acceptable phrases and sentences and hypotheses about the process by which these phrases and sentences are generated and understood. Thus, learning grammar is not just following the rules, but rather, using the forms and rules for the precise meaning one wants to communicate.

Also, for the purpose of discussion we will define ‘discipline’ as a branch/s of knowledge or system of rules of conduct or method simply put.

Linguistics can also be defined as a scientific approach to the study of language that emanates, co-relates and works with other branches of sciences like psychology, speech-language biology, human anthropology, anatomy, pathology, informatics, computer science, philosophy,  neuroscience, sociology,  and acoustics. 

Theorists see Linguistics in different approaches. Two general approaches can be defined as semiotics which focuses on signs and symbols while literary approach focus on artistic representation of the texts. 

Fundamentally, Linguistics describes and explains the nature, origin, variation and acquisition of human language with consideration to the non-linguistic factors that affects it.

Sub-disciplines of structure-base studies are:

Phonetics, the study of the physical properties of speech (or signed) production and perception

Phonology, the study of sounds (or signs) as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning

Morphology, the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified

Syntax, the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences

Semantics, the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences

Pragmatics, the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts, and the role played by context and nonlinguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning

Discourse analysis, the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written, or signed)

Sub-disciplines of non-structure-base studies are:

Applied linguistics, the study of language-related issues applied in everyday life, notably language policies, planning, and education. (Constructed language fits under Applied linguistics.)

Biolinguistics, the study of natural as well as human-taught communication systems in animals, compared to human language.

Clinical linguistics, the application of linguistic theory to the field of Speech-Language Pathology.

Computational linguistics, the study of computational implementations of linguistic structures.

Developmental linguistics, the study of the development of linguistic ability in individuals, particularly the acquisition of language in childhood.

Evolutionary linguistics, the study of the origin and subsequent development of language by the human species.

Historical linguistics or diachronic linguistics, the study of language change over time.

Language geography, the study of the geographical distribution of languages and linguistic features.

Linguistic typology, the study of the common properties of diverse unrelated languages, properties that may, given sufficient attestation, be assumed to be innate to human language capacity.

Neurolinguistics, the study of the structures in the human brain that underlie grammar and communication.

Psycholinguistics, the study of the cognitive processes and representations underlying language use.

Sociolinguistics, the study of variation in language and its relationship with social factors.

Stylistics, the study of linguistic factors that place a discourse in context.

sources: 

Fromkin, Victoria; Bruce Hayes; Susan Curtiss, Anna Szabolcsi, Tim Stowell, Donca Steriade (2000). Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell

McMahon, A. M. S. (1994). Understanding Language Change. Cambridge University Press

"Linguist". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2000.

Center for Applied Linguistics

http://www.appliedlinguistics.org

Dela Cruz, Edna M.; Advanced Speech Communications

Rex Bookstore, Inc., 2010

International Conference on Language Education

http://www.pixel-online.org