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Language Structure: Syntax, Semantics, And Pragmatics

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Language Structure: Syntax, Semantics, And Pragmatics

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Syntax, semantics, and pragmatics are vital aspects of language learning. The syntax is what individuals use to do their best to communicate on the most basic level. Semantics help individuals establish if there is any meaning to be found, while pragmatics allows them to apply the correct sense to the right situation (Ellis, 2001). This paper discusses syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and how they apply to English language learning.

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What is Linguistics? | The Five Branches Explained

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Relevance to English Language Learners (Syntax)

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Relevance to English Language Learners (Syntax)

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Syntax is a linguistic definition of rules and patterns governing how words are arranged to produce correctly worded sentences in the language.

Relevance to English Language Learners: The comprehension of syntax is critical for ESL learners because it helps them comprehend and construct grammatically correct sentences (Cummins, 2001). It allows them to express their ideas in a way that is understandable and efficient while also allowing them to understand the structure of research texts.

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What is syntax?

When you preview text with your students, do you point out different sentence structures or patterns, to help get them ready to read and access the material? Well, you are helping them with learning about syntax- the grammatical and structural basics of English.

Syntax helps us to make clear sentences that "sound right," where words, phrases, and clauses each serve their function and are correctly ordered to form and communicate a complete sentence with meaning.

The parts of speech are groups of words that make up the grammar of the English language, which include open-class words (changeable and accepts new words, such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs) and closed-class words (function words and rarely accepts new words, such as prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, complementizers, determiners, and auxiliary verbs). In these categories, words can be described by their morphological forms and typical position in a sentence. The following website "Parts of Speech" by Heather MacFadyen offers a detailed explanation and review of the different parts of speech and how they are used in sentences:http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/partsp.html.

Next, we must look at grammar at the phrase, clause, and sentence level. Constituents are groups of words that go together and fit into larger units, which are then built into sentences. Let's look at the following sentence:

The happy boy jumped swiftly overthe rock by the pond.

The smaller constituents (i.e. the happy boy, the pond, the rock- all noun phrases) fit into larger constituents (i.e. by the pond- prepositional phrase), and even larger constituents (the rock by the pond- bigger noun phrase). These constituents follow a hierarchical structure:

Word --> Phrase --> Clause --> Sentence

In English, the 5 types of phrases include: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, and prepositional phrases. Clauses are composed of noun phrases as the subject and verb phrases as the predicate. Some clauses can stand independently as a sentence, and others are dependent or subordinate. Compound sentences can be formed by joining two independent clauses, joined by a conjunction or punctuation (semicolon or colon). To learn more about phrases, clauses, and sentence structure rules, you can look at this section on MacFayden's website on parts of a sentence:http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/partse.html

In the classroom

Tips for Applying Syntax:

Teach Grammar without hindering communication: Encourage students to listen to and engage in English as much as possible, carefully selecting grammar rules and corrections that will support social and academic language development and effective communication, without significantly hindering it. Activities involving more self-inquiry and problem-solving/word sorting are helpful to encourage ELLs to find patterns on their own and develop a sense of the grammar rules and structures. Teaching grammar in context of student's own writing and in read-alouds is a powerful way to make learning about syntax more meaningful, giving them more opportunities to learn what "sounds right."

Explicit teaching of grammar rules and structures may be necessary for students, especially for ELLs gaining academic language. Here is a great resource, from North Carolina Public Schools, of grammar tips for teaching and numerous lessons to tackle those common grammar challenges, including concept of a sentence, run-on sentences, verb tenses:

Standard usage of prepositions and pronouns are challenging concepts that younger students are actively learning, in learning sight words and across content areas. For prepositions, teachers can make these more concrete for students, teaching prepositional words as everywhere a squirrel can go with respect to a tree (i.e. A squirrel is by the tree. A squirrel is in the tree.) For older students, teaching of prepositional words should also include their meaning in respect to time, duration, manner, and other more abstract concepts (It will take about an hour. He did it in a hurry.) For pronouns, ELLs take much longer to develop correct pronoun usage, but modeling and appropriate correction as necessary can help to support correct usage, without hindering communication.

Explore the grammatical patterns of ethnic and community dialects - through literature, film, and audio-tapes, for example - and contrast these with the corresponding features of the Standard English. Students can make such comparisons by translating a well-known or well-liked text into a particular dialect or by writing original poems, stories, and plays in one or more ethnic and community dialects as well as in the Standard English. Such language study and writing can help students appreciate each others' dialects as well as consider which dialects are most appropriate for what kinds of writing and under what circumstances. (from Teaching Grammar & Minilessons - www.usi.edu)

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Tips for Applying Syntax: Teach Grammar without hindering communication: Encourage students to listen to and engage in English as much as possible, carefully selecting grammar rules and corrections...

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Sentence Building Game: Provide sentence cards with words on them and have students work in pairs or small groups to construct grammatically correct sentences. Create a differentiation by creating different sentence patterns for lower proficiency students and allowing those with higher proficiency to write more complex sentences.

Sentence Analysis: Pick appropriate academic material for students and have them analyze its sentence structures. Recognizing the parts of each sentence, like subject, verb, object, and modifier, is something that students can do. By providing lower proficiency students with sentence structure charts or frames, their ability to differentiate can be improved.

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At-Home Activity and Website Link (Syntax)

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At-Home Activity and Website Link (Syntax)

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At-Home Activity: Activity: For an engaging at-home activity, encourage your students to develop their own stories using various sentence structures and tell the stories to their families, which can occur orally or through written communication. The practice of syntax is possible for ELLs with various language abilities by using appropriate sentence structures that match their proficiency.

Website Link: Storybird Explanation: The Storybird website allows students to craft compelling digital stories with varied sentence structures and choose from existing sentence templates provided by the website or craft one's original sentences that cater well to ELLs at various stages in learning. Providing a visually engaging and interactive platform for practicing syntax helps ELLs with language development. Link: https://storybird.com/

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Storybird - Read, write, discover, and share the books you'll always remember.

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Become a better writer with Storybird's creativity tools. Online courses, challenges, and reader feedback will help you improve your writing.

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Relevance to English Language Learners (Semantics)

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Relevance to English Language Learners (Semantics)

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Semantics involves exploring how language conveys meaning by analyzing words and sentences that fall under the purview of semantics.

Relevance to English Language Learners: With a solid understanding of semantics by ELLs, they may be able to comprehend language and use vocabulary with accuracy (Alsayed, 2020). Academic learning and effective communication require understanding the meaning of words within their contexts.

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Teaching Semantics to English Language Learners - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Semantics is concerned with the meanings, context, and interpretations of a certain language. Learn techniques for teaching semantics to English…

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Role-Play Scenarios: To help students practice appropriate language and behavior in a realistic setting, providing a range of role-play scenarios is helpful. Additionally, by giving lower proficiency students sentence starters or scripts, you can help them succeed in the classroom.

Discussion Circles: Engage pupils in structured group conversations on different themes while directing them towards employing appropriate language and considering the social context. Additionally, providing sentence frames and visual prompts can support the learning of lower-proficiency students.

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Sentences Frames : Sentence frames are simple sentences that have words missing where students will fill in the words to complete the sentence, in order to communicate their idea (i.e. I like ____.…

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Relevance to English Language Learners (Pragmatics)

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Relevance to English Language Learners (Pragmatics)

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Pragmatics explores how people interpret and use language during social interactions under different contexts.

Relevance to English Language Learners: Understanding pragmatics plays a significant role in developing practical communication skills and social cue recognition for ELLs (Firas, 2015). Being able to interpret and produce language fittingly according to the context helps advance one's capacity for academic learning and linguistic development.

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Vocabulary Word Maps: Creating word maps is an effective way for students to learn and remember new vocabulary words. Put the selected term together with a clear interpretation and related or opposing expressions. Offering an instance sentence to differentiate for lower proficiency students is recommended. Consider providing them with either bilingual or picture dictionaries.

Semantic Mapping: Students will develop better learning comprehension by building a semantic map based on their content area topic selection. Additionally, it may be necessary to simplify differentiation for less proficient students by offering them sentence frames or word banks.

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At-Home Activity and Website Link (Pragmatics)

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At-Home Activity and Website Link (Pragmatics)

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At-Home Activity: Activity: Cultural Norms Exploration: One possible at-home activity is researching and discussing the different cultural norms and communication styles in other countries or communities. Their families may be informed of their findings, and a discussion may take place regarding how such norms influence the use of language. This activity encourages ELLs with different proficiency levels to learn about pragmatics by exploring cultural context.

Website Link: Culture Crossing Explanation: The Culture Crossing site is where you can find details about navigating different cultures' communication practices and social norms, and by exploring this website's content, ELLs can discover the influence of cultural context on linguistic patterns. This activity aims to aid ELLs in grasping the importance of using pragmatics to communicate effectively. Link: https://www.onestopenglish.com/methodology-the-world-of-elt/crossing-cultures/155771.article

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Resource: "Teaching Syntax: A Handbook for Teaching English Language Learners" by Louise C. Wilkinson

Resource: "Vocabulary, Semantics and Language Education" by Evelyn Hatch and Cheryl Brown

Resource: "Pragmatics in Language Teaching" by Kenneth R. Rose

Resource: "Developing Academic Literacy Skills in ELLs" (video) by Colorín Colorado

Resource: "Supporting ELLs in the Mainstream Classroom: Reading Instruction" by Portland Public Schools.

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At-Home Activity and Website Link (Semantics)

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At-Home Activity and Website Link (Semantics)

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At-Home Activity: Activity: To keep things interesting, why not suggest the at-home activity of word association? Ask students to jot down related vocabulary words for a given term, and families can be informed about their associations by them. ELLs of various language levels can practice semantics by exploring word meanings and establishing connections.

Website Link: Sentence Shift: With the help of the Sentence Shift page, students can investigate word meanings and their relationships; entering a word or text enables the website to generate a visual display of related words, which supports semantic understanding. Facilitating the association of words and expanding vocabularies are ways in which this activity supports ELLs. Link: https://magoosh.com/toefl/sentence-shift-for-esl-students-part-3-shifts-in-meaning/#:~:text=Sentence%20shift%20happens%20when%20there,to%20the%20GRE%20Verbal%20section.

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This is my third post on the complicated but important idea of shift in sentences. Sentence shift happens when there is a significant change in the tone or meaning of the words in a sentence. A shift sentence first says one thing, and then says something else that is almost completely opposite. This idea of English shift is central to the GRE Verbal section. Understanding sentence shift also useful in the academic reading and listening on the TOEFL.

For a full, detailed explanation of sentence shift, see the first post in this series. For a look at the shift in the connotation of a sentence, see my second post on shift.

As I mentioned in Part 2, some sentences show a shift in connotation. In connotation shifts, the emotional "mood" associated with the words at the beginning of the sentence is different from the emotional mood at the end. But there are other shift sentences that contrast the definitions of words, not the suggested tone. Let's look at an example of this kind of "definition-shift":

Despite the fact that he was born into luxurious wealth, Edward chose to live very simply, even uncomfortably.

Here, there is a change in ​meaning​ rather than a change in connotation. The phrase "luxurious wealth" in the first clause suggests a lifestyle that is fancy-complicated in a way-yet very comfortable. In the second clause, we see words that have the opposite meaning to this: "simply" and "uncomfortably." This​shift​ in meaning is used to describe a reversal of Edward's circumstances.

Note that the shift sentence above contains an important word indicating that a shift will occur in the sentence. This word is despite, and it's a very common shift signal word. (See the Magoosh GRE blog's list of common shift words for more examples)

Whether a sentence has shift or doesn't is an important distinction. So it's important to notice the differences between shift and no-shift sentences. Below, I will modify the shift example you just read, changing it to a no-shift sentence:

​SHIFT: Despite the fact that he was born into luxurious wealth, he chose to live very simply, even uncomfortably.​

​NO SHIFT: He was born into luxurious wealth, and he chose to continue his opulent and expensive lifestyle as an adult.

In the no-shift example, "luxurious wealth" and the words "opulent" and "expensive" have the same meanings and the same connotations. Together, the two clauses indicate that the rich man never had a reversal of circumstance. You can also see that the shift signal word despite gets removed when the sentence becomes no-shift. Putting a shift signaler in front of a no-shift sentence makes the sentence incorrect... and confusing.

No-shift sentences must have the same meaning and the same connotation in both clauses. Shift sentences are more flexible. They can have a change in connotation, a change in meaning, or a change in both! Be sure to read this post and the previous two posts in the series carefully. Shift is an important concept, very useful on many English language exams. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments, or in messages to me through my Google Plus.

David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. David has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His work at Magoosh has been cited in many scholarly articles, his Master's Thesis is featured on the Reading with Pictures website, and he's presented at the WITESOL (link to PDF) and NAFSA conferences. David has taught K-12 ESL in South Korea as well as undergraduate English and MBA-level business English at American universities. He has also trained English teachers in America, Italy, and Peru. Come join David and the Magoosh team on Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram, or connect with him via LinkedIn!

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Sentence Shift for ESL Students, Part 3: Shifts in Meaning

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This is my third post on the complicated but important idea of shift in sentences. Sentence shift happens when there is a significant change in the tone or meaning of the words in a sentence. A shift sentence first says one thing, and then says something else that is almost completely opposite.