Critical Reading: The Steps
This site focuses on understanding how the written language works to convey meaning. Such a discussion should not, however, downplay the need for good study habits, motivation, and purpose. Critical reading begins before you open a book. What you are reading and why you are reading it greatly influence how you read.
Critical Reading: The Steps
This site focuses on understanding how the written language works to convey meaning. Such a
discussion should not, however, downplay the need for good study habits, motivation, and
purpose. Critical reading begins before you open a book. What you are reading and why you are
reading it greatly influence how you read.
The Nature Of The Text: What Are You Reading?
The Working Environment: Where Will You Read?
The Goal or Assignment: How Will You Read?
Three Formats For Discussion: A Quick Reminder
Finally, we can outline steps in the process of critical reading itself.
Steps in Critical Reading
The Nature Of The Text: What Are You Reading?
The more you know about the text and the topic, the better prepared you are to follow references,
anticipate arguments, and understand the discussion.
What book or article are you reading?
• What is the title? In other words, what does the author claim it is about?
• What kind of information or discussion do you anticipate?
• What do you know about the topic? What might you want to know?
• What background reading might you do first?
You can often get a good idea of these matters by scanning the preface or table of contents of a
book, or the subheadings of a chapter or article. Remember that most discussions involve a
number of interrelated issues
Who cares?
• Who has a stake in the issue?
• Who controls the outcome of the issue?
• Who is affected by the issue?
The more you know about the issue before reading, the better prepared you will be to recognize
bias.
Who wrote the text?
• What do you know of the author's goal or purpose?
The text in question may not be consistant with concerns or biases of an author's earlier works or
mirror the author's public statements-- but it might.
• When was it published? Where? By whom?
Information such as this may help you follow references and associations and possibly suggest a
bias. The date of publication can also indicates how up-to-date the information and claims may
be.
See: The Spoken Word: The Base For Writing and Reading
The Working Environment: Where Will You Read?
Where will you work? To concentrate, you must be comfortable. Some students work best when
free of distractions; others work well with distractions.
• Will you read sitting in a chair, at a desk, or elsewhere?
• Does your chair offer good support, your desk sufficient room to work?
• Is the lighting strong enough to illuminate your work, indirect enough to avoid glare, and
adjusted to avoid shadows?
• Are you safe from distractions, whether the telephone, television, roommates, or the
temptations of a full refrigerator.
• What tools and supporting materials will you need to have at hand?
o dictionary or other reference material
o lab or class notes
o pencils, pens, highlighters
o note paper and/or computer.
Finally, note that diet and exercise can be as important to good study habits as efficient time
management and discipline. Energy and a sense of physical well-being are essential for working
effectively and efficiently.
The Goal or Assignment: How Will You Read?
We read differently for different purposes and different forms of accountability. [See: Three Ways
to Read and Discuss Texts]
To know what to look for, you have to know what you want to find. Your reading should therefore
be purposeful: you should know what you are doing, what you want to come away with, and how
you intend to achieve that goal.
How much are you going to read?
• Will you read a specific portion or simply read until you want to stop?
• How many pages are involved? You need to know how far you are going to pace
yourself.
Is there a specific assignment?
• Are you reading for entertainment, to memorize formulas and definitions, to gain a broad
understanding of ideas, to answer questions, or to do exercises?
• Do you need to prepare notes for a paper, memorize terms for a test, or achieve a
general understanding for class discussion?
How will you be held accountable, by yourself and/or by others?
• How will you test your understanding?
• How will someone else test your understanding?
What schedule will you follow?
• When will you work?
• When will you take a break?
• How will you divide the work to fit the allotted time?
• How will you reward yourself along the way?
It is often hard to find time for even short assignments. Reading that you find difficult or boring
may best be divided into a number of shorter periods. The amount of time available, or allotted,
and how you pace yourself will influence the depth of your analysis.
What study techniques will you utilize?
How will you go about the reading process?
• Will you underline, highlight, or make marginal notes?
• Will you take notes, summarize, make diagrams, or do exercises?
Traditional study plans such as SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) and PQ4R
(Preview, Question, Read, Reflect, Recite, Review) involve activities such as
• scanning the Introductions and Prefaces
• examining the Table of Contents or headings,
• previewing sections,
• reading abstracts or summaries first,
• asking yourself questions,
• reciting important passages, and
• rereading or reviewing sections.
Activities to force or reinforce understanding include
• preview/survey: scan the overall text to see the nature of the discussion and where it start
and ends
• restate main ideas
• recite
• write a synopsis
Study behaviors such as these alone will not enable you to read more critically, but they can help
maximize your reading efforts. [See A Linguistic Approach To Reading and Writing]
Three Formats For Discussion: A Quick Reminder
For a quick reminder of the differences between a restatement, description, and interpretation [
Three Ways to Read and Discuss Texts ], consider the following nursery rhyme .
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
and everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.
A restatement [ Restatement: Reading What A Text Says ] talks about the topic of the original
text, Mary and the lamb.
Mary had a lamb that followed here everywhere.
A description [ Description: Describing What A Text Does ] talks about the story.
The nursery rhyme describes a pet that followed its mistress everywhere.
The interpretation [ Interpretation: Analyzing What a Text Means ] talks about meaning within the
story, here the idea of innocent devotion.
An image of innocent devotion is conveyed by the story of a lamb's devotion to its mistress. The
devotion is emphasized by repetition that emphasizes the constancy of the lamb's actions
("everywhere"…"sure to go.") The notion of innocence is conveyed by the image of a young
lamb, "white as snow." By making it seem that this is natural and good, the nursery rhyme asserts
innocent devotion as a positive relationship.
Three Ways to Read and Discuss Texts
How we discuss a text is directly related to how we read that text. More to the point here, how we read a text is shaped by
how weexpectto discuss it. While you may not be asked to write about texts at school, and probably will not be asked to
write about texts in your job, you must learn how to talk about texts to discover what makes them work.
Reading and Discussion
The follow excerpt (from the sample text ) serves as an example to define three forms of reading and discussion.
In his social history of venereal disease,No Magic Bullet, Allan M. Brandt describes the controversy in the US military
about preventing venereal disease among soldiers during World War I. Should there be a disease prevention effort that
recognized that many young American men would succumb to the charms of French prostitutes, or should there be a
more punitive approach to discourage sexual contact? Unlike the New Zealand Expeditionary forces, which gave
condoms to their soldiers, the United States decided to give American soldiers after-the-fact, and largely ineffective,
chemical prophylaxis. American soldiers also were subject to court martial if they contracted a venereal disease. These
measures failed. More than 383,000 soldiers were diagnosed with venereal diseases between April 1917 and December
1919 and lost seven million days of active duty. Only influenza, which struck in an epidemic, was a more common illness
among servicemen.
You have read this passage, and someone asks you "to write about it." What should you say?
What you write will vary, of course, You might write any of the following:
1. American soldiers in World War contracted venereal disease in far greater number than soldiers of the New
Zealand Expeditionary force, who had condoms.
2. The passage compares the prevention techniques and disease outcomes of American and New Zealand
soldiers in World War I, noting that American soldiers contracted venereal disease in far greater numbers than
soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary force, who had condoms.
3. By examining the outcome of various approaches to condom use during World War I, the text argues the need
for honest and realistic approaches to health prevention in the future.
Each of these responses reflects a different type of reading, resulting in a different form of discussion.
The major difference in the discussions above is in what is being discussed.
1. American soldiers in World War Icontracted venereal disease in far greater number than soldiers of the New
Zealand Expeditionary force, who had condoms.
2. The passage comparesthe prevention techniques and diseases of American and New Zealand soldiers in
World War I. It notes that American soldiers contracted venereal disease in far greater numbers than soldiers of
the New Zealand Expeditionary force, who had condoms.
3. By examining the outcomes of various approaches to condom use during World War I, the text makes a case
for the need for honest and realistic approaches to health prevention in the future.
Only the first response is about the topic of the original text: American soldiers. The next two discussions are in some way
about the text. More specifically, the three modes of response mirror our earlier distinction between what a text says,
does, and means.
1. The first discusses the behavior of soldiers, the same topic as the original text. It restates the original
information.
2. The second indicates how ideas or information are introduced and developed. It describes the presentation.
3. The third attempts to find a deeper meaning in the discussion. It interprets the overall meaning of the
presentation.
In each of the responses above, a reader gains, and is accountable for, a different kind of understanding.
• Restatement restating what the text says talks about the original topic
• Description describing what a text does identifies aspects of
• Interpretation analyze what a text means asserts an overall meaning
We can tell which type of discussion we have before us by examining what it talks about.
Example: A Statement
Your doctor tells you to eat less chocolate and drink less beer. A restatement would repeat the statement,
The doctor said I should eat less chocolate and drink less beer.
A description would describe the remark:
The doctor advised me to change my diet.
An interpretation would find underlying meaning in the remark:
The doctor warned me to reduce my calories for the sake of my health.
Only this final discussion attempts to find significance in the examples, that the foods mentioned are high calorie.
Example: Nursery Rhyme
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
and everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.
A restatement would talk about Mary and the lamb.
Mary had a lamb that followed her everywhere.
A description would talk about the story within the fairy tale.
The nursery rhyme describes a pet that followed its mistress everywhere.
The interpretation talks about meaning within the story, here the idea of innocent devotion.
An image of innocent devotion is conveyed by the story of a lamb’s devotion to its mistress. The devotion is emphasized
by repetition that emphasizes the constancy of the lamb’s actions (“everywhere”…”sure to go.”) The notion of innocence is
conveyed by the image of a young lamb, “white as snow.” By making it seem that this is natural and good, the nursery
rhyme asserts innocent devotion as a positive relationship.
Note the effort here to offer as much evidence from the text as possible. The discussion includes references to the content
(the specific actions referred to), the language (the specific terms used), and the structure (the relationship between
characters). Try another nursery rhyme yourself.
These ways of reading and discussion, ---restatement,description, andinterpretation---are is discussed in greater detail
elsewhere.
Different Ways Of Reading For Different Occasions
Readers read in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes. They can read for information, sentence by sentence, taking
each assertion as a discrete fact. They can read for meaning, following an argument and weighing its logical and
persuasive effects. They can read critically, evaluating unstated assumptions and biases, consciously identifying patterns
of language and content and their interrelationships.
We can read any text, whether a nursery rhyme or complicated treatise on the origins of the American political system, in
various ways. On the simplest level, Cinderella is a story about a girl who marries a prince. On another level, it is about
inner goodness triumphing over deceit and pettiness.
On occasion, we might read the same text differently for different purposes. We can read a newspaper editorial backing a
tax proposal
• to learn the content of the proposal,
• to see why that newspaper supports the proposal,
• to identify the newspaper's political leanings,
• to learn facts, to discover opinions, or
• to determine an underlying meaning.
We can read a newspaper article on a driveby shooting as an account of the death of an individual or as a symptom of a
broader disintegration of civility in contemporary society. We can even look at the names in a telephone book to find the
phone number we want or to assess the ethnic diversity of the community. No single way of reading a text is necessarily
better. They are simply different.
Which Way to Read
How we choose to read a particular text will depend on the nature of the text and our specific goals at the time. When we
assume a factual presentation, we might read for what a text says. When we assume personal bias, we look deeper to
interpret underlying meanings and perspectives.
Recall the opening paragraph of the health care article at the beginning of the chapter. To answer the question, How did
the New Zealand army prevent its soldiers from contracting venereal disease during World War I? we read to see what
the essay says.
To answer the question, What issues does the text discuss? we read to see what the essay does.
To answer the question, What concerns underlie the essay’s analysis of history? we read to see what the essay means.
As a reader, you must know what you intended to do, and whether or not you have accomplished it. You must adjust how
you read to the nature of the reading material, the nature of the reading assignment, and the manner in which you will be
held accountable for your reading.
Restatement: Reading What a Text Says
Reading what a text says is more notable for what it does not include than for what it does.
Reading what a text says is concerned with basic comprehension, with simply following the thought of a discussion. We
focus on understanding each sentence, sentence by sentence, and on following the thought from sentence to sentence
and paragraph to paragraph. There is no attempt to assess the nature of the discussion and no concern for an overall
motive or intent. Reading what a text says is involved with rote learning.
Restatement generally takes the form of a summary, paraphrase, or précis. Restatements should avoid the same
language as much as possible to avoid plagiarism and to show understanding. Reading what a text says is common
under a variety of circumstances:
• when learning the definitions and concepts of a new discipline,
• when there is agreement on the facts of a situation and their interpretation,
• when a text is taken to offer a complete and objective presentation, or
• when the word of a specific author or source is accepted as authoritative.
Readers simply accept what a text states.
When first studying any academic topic, your initial goal will be to understand what others have discovered before you.
Introductory courses ask students to learn terms, concepts, and data of the particular area of study. You are expected to
use your imagination and your critical faculties to understand the concepts; you are not expected to question the
assertions. The goal is to learn the commonly accepted paradigm for discussing topics in that field of study.
Finally, remember that repeating the assertions of a text need not suggest a denial of critical thinking, merely a postponing
of, or preparation for, critical thinking.
Description: Describing What a Text Does
Read an essay about AIDS, and you think about AIDS. But you can also think about the essay. Does it discuss preventive
strategies or medical treatments? Or both? Does it describe AIDS symptoms or offer statistics? Is the disease presented
as a contagious disease, a Biblical scourge, or an individual experience? What evidence is relied on? Does it quote
medical authorities or offer anecdotes from everyday people? Does it appeal to reason or emotions? These are not
questions about what a textsays, but about what the textdoes.They are not about AIDS, but aboutthe discussionof AIDS.
This second level of reading is concerned not only with understanding individual remarks, but also with recognizing the
structure of a discussion. We examine what a text does to convey ideas. We might read this way to understand how an
editorial justifies a particular conclusion, or how a history text supports a particular interpretation of events.
At the previous level of reading, restatement, we demonstrated comprehension by repeating the thought of the text. Here
we are concerned with describing the discussion:
• what topics are discussed?
• what examples and evidence are used?
• what conclusions are reached?
We want to recognize and describe how evidence is marshaled to reach a final position, rather than simply follow remarks
from sentence to sentence.
This level of reading looks at broad portions of the text to identify the structure of the discussion as a whole. On
completion, we can not only repeat what the text says, but can also describe what the text does. We can identify how
evidence is used and how the final points are reached.
Interpretation: Analyzing What a Text Means
This final level of reading infers an overall meaning. We examine features running throughout the text to see how the
discussion shapes our perception of reality. We examine what a text does to convey meaning: how patterns of content
and language shape the portrayal of the topic and how relationships between those patterns conveys underlying meaning.
Repeating v. Analyzing: Making The Leap
Rightly or wrongly, much of any student's career is spent reading and restating texts. For many, the shift to description
and interpretation is particularly hard. They are reluctant to trade the safety of repeating an author's remarks for
responsibility fortheir ownassertions. They will freely infer the purpose of an action, the essence of a behavior, or the
intent of a political decision. But they will hesitate to go beyond what they take a text to "say" on its own. They are afraid to
take responsibility for their own understanding. Others are so attuned to accepting the written word that they fail to see the
text as a viable topic of conversation.
Look at Leonardo da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa, and you see a woman smiling. But you
are also aware of a painting. You see different color paint (well, not in this illustration!) and you see how the paint was
applied to the wood. You recognize how aspects of the painting are highlighted by their placement or by the lighting.
When examining a painting, you are aware that you are examining a work created by someone. You are aware of an
intention behind the work, an attempt to portray something a particular way. Since the painting does not come out and
actively state a meaning, you are consciously aware of your own efforts to find meaning in the painting: Is she smiling?
Self-conscious? Alluring? Aloof?
Looking at the Mona Lisa, you know that you are not looking at Mona Lisa, a person, but The Mona Lisa, a painting. You
can talk not only about the meaning of the picture, but also about how it was crafted. What is the significance of the dream
landscape in the background? Why, when we focus on the left side of the picture, does the woman looks somehow taller
or more erect than if we focus on the right side? The more features of the painting that you recognize, the more powerful
your interpretation will be.
When reading texts, as when reading paintings, we increase understanding by recognizing the craftsmanship of the
creation, the choices that the artist/author made to portray the topic a certain way. And yet there is still that feeling that
texts are somehow different. Texts do differ from art insofar as they actually seem to come out and say something. There
are assertions "in black and white" to fall back on. We can restate a text; we cannot restate a painting or action. Yet a text
is simply symbols on a page. Readers bring to their reading recognition of those symbols, an understanding of what the
words mean within the given social and historical context, and an understanding of the remarks within their own
framework of what might make sense, or what they might imagine an author to have intended.
There is no escape; one way or another we are responsible for the meaning we find in our reading. When a text says that
someone burned their textbooks, that is all that is there: an assertion that someone burned their textbooks. We can agree
on how to interpret sentence structure enough to agree on what is stated in a literal sense. But any sense that that
person committed an irresponsible, impulsive, or inspired act is in our own heads. It is not stated as such on the page
(unless the author says so!). Stories present actions; readers infer personalities, motives, and intents. When we go
beyond the words, we are reading meaning.
Readers infer as much, if not more, than they are told. Readers go beyond the literal meaning of the words to find
significance and unstated meanings—and authors rely on their readers' ability to do so! The reader's eye may scan the
page, but the reader's mind ranges up, down, and sideways, piecing together evidence to make sense of the presentation
as a whole.
Additional Observations
A number of observations should be made lest there be misunderstanding.
All Three Modes of Reading and Discussion Are Legitimate
The models are designed to identify varying levels of sophistication and insight in reading and discussion. While one
approach may be more complex than another, no one way of reading a text is necessarily better than another. They are
simply different, and involve different observations and reasoning. The key thing is to know which style of reading you
want to do at any time, how to do it, and how to tell whether you are actually doing it successfully.
All Reading Involves More Than One Form of Reading
The divisions between the three modes of reading are, to some extent, artificial. Dividing reading into reading what a text
says, does, and means is somewhat like dividing bicycle riding into concern for balance, speed, and direction. They are
all necessary and affect one another. Speed and direction both affect balance; we will fall off, or crash, without all three.
And yet we may focus on one or another at any particular time. We can parse each out for analysis.
While the modes of reading and discussing texts can be separated out for purposes of discussion, and it is relatively easy
to distinguish between the resulting forms of discussion, in practice these reading techniques overlap. Any particular text
can, and will, be read at various levels of understanding at once. We cannot understand what a text says without
recognizing relationships between sentences. We cannot even understand sentences without drawing inferences that
extend beyond the words on the page. Observations and realizations at any one level of reading invariably support and
spark observations at another. Observations characteristic of all three forms of response can be included in an
interpretation.
Finally, while it is relatively easy to distinguish between forms of discussion.—restatement, description, and interpretation
—a description might include restatement for the purposes of illustration, and an interpretation may be supported with
descriptions of various portions of the text and even restatement of key points (see the example above). In the end, the
"highest" level of remark characterizes the discussion a whole.
These Are Not the Only Ways To Respond To a Text
Restatement, description and interpretation are not the only ways one can respond to a text. But they are the ones of
interest here, if only because they are the responses that must precede most other forms of response. Readers can
obviously offer their own ideas on a topic—but that does not fall under the topic of discussing a text. Readers can criticize
an author's handling of a topic based on their own knowledge or views, evaluate the writing style, or attack the honesty of
the author. These too are legitimate forms of response, but they require a critical reading of the text first if they are to be
meaningful. The first order of business is to make sense of the text, and it is with that task that our efforts are concerned
here.
Finally, we might note that book reports or reviews often contain additional elements, such as a feeling for the writing
style, comparison to other works, the reviewer's emotional response to the reading experience, or the circumstances of
publication. And book reviewers often use the book under reviews as a taking-off point for a discussion of the topic itself
—all elements that go beyond, but depend on, a careful reading of the text in question. ·
How the Language Really Works:
The Fundamentals of Critical Reading and Effective Writing
The Assassination of Malcolm X
On February 21, 1965, the black leader Malcolm X was assassinated as he started to address a rally in New York City.
Malcolm X was a controversial figure. He had spent time in jail as a street criminal. As spokesman for Elijah Mohammed's
Nation of Islam, he articulated a virulently antiwhite program of black self-help. After a trip to Mecca, he broke with Elijah
Mohammed and his antiwhite policies to form an independent political group expressing both national and international
concerns.
A: from The New York Times
Malcolm X, the 39-year-old leader of a militant black nationalist movement, was shot to death yesterday afternoon at a
rally of his followers in a ballroom in Washington Heights.
Shortly before midnight, a 22-year-old Negro, Thomas Hagan, was charged with the killing. The police rescued him from
the ballroom crowd after he has been shot and beaten.
Malcolm, a bearded extremist, had said only a few words of greeting when a fusillade rang out. The bullets knocked him
over backward.
Pandemonium broke out among the 400 Negroes in the Audubon Ballroom at 166th Street and Broadway. As men,
women and children ducked under tables and flattened themselves on the floor, more shots were fired. Some witnesses
said 30 shots had been fired.
The police said seven bullets had struck Malcolm. Three other Negroes were shot.
About two hours later the police said the shooting had apparently been a result of a feud between followers of Malcolm
and members of the extremist group he broke with last year, the Black Muslims. However, the police declined to say
whether Hagan is a Muslim.
The Medical Examiner's office said early this morning that a preliminary autopsy showed Malcolm had died of “multiple
gunshot wounds.” The office said that bullets of two different calibers as well as shotgun pellets had been removed from
his body.
One police theory was that as many as five conspirators might have been involved, two creating a diversionary
disturbance.
Hagan was shot in the left thigh and his left leg was broken, apparently by kicks. He was under treatment in the Bellevue
Hospital prison ward last night; perhaps a dozen policemen were guarding him, according to the hospital's night
erintendent. The police said they had found a cartridge case with four unused .45-caliber shells in his pocket.
Two other Negroes, described as “apparent spectators” by Assistant Chief Inspector Harry Taylor, in command of
Manhattan North uniformed police, also were shot. They were identified as William Harris, wounded seriously in the
abdomen, and William Parker, shot in a foot. Both were taken to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, which is close to
the ballroom.
Capt. Paul Glaser of the Police Department's Community Relations Bureau said early today that Hagan, using a double-
barrelled shotgun with shortened barrels and stock, had killed Malcolm X.
Malcolm, a slim, reddish-haired six-footer with a gift for bitter eloquence against what he considered white exploitation of
Negroes, broke in March, 1964, with the Black Muslim movement called the Nation of Islam, headed by Elijah Muhammad
. . . .1
B: from Newsweek
He was born Malcolm Little, an Omaha Negro preacher's son. Before he was out of his teens, he was Big Red, a Harlem
hipster trafficking in numbers, narcotics, sex, and petty crime. He was buried as Al Hajj Malik Shabazz, a spiritual
desperado lost between the peace of Islam and the pain of blackness. His whole life was a series of provisional identities,
and he was still looking for the last when, as Malcolm X, 39, apostate Black Muslim and mercurial black nationalist, he
was gunned to death by black men last week in a dingy uptown New York ballroom.
He had seen the end coming?predicted it, in fact, so long and so loudly that people had stopped listening. Malcolm X had
always been an extravagant talker, a demagogue who titillated slum Negroes and frightened whites with his blazing racist
attacks on the “white devils” and his calls for an armed American Mau Mau. His own flamboyant past made it easy to
disregard his dire warnings that he had been marked for murder by the Muslims, the anti-white, anti- integrationist Negro
sect he had served so devoutly for a dozen years and fought so bitterly since his defection a year ago.
His assassination turned out to be one of his few entirely accurate prophecies. Its fulfillment triggered an ominous
vendetta between the Malcolmites and the Muslims?ominous in its intensity even though it was isolated on the outermost
extremist fringe of American Negro life.
Death came moments after Malcolm stepped up to a flimsy plywood lectern in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, just north
of Harlem, to address 400 of the faithful and the curious at a Sunday afternoon rally of his fledgling Organization of Afro-
American Unity. The extermination plot was clever in conception, swift and smooth in execution. Two men popped to their
feet in the front rows of wooden folding chairs, one yelling at the other: “Get your hands off my pockets, don't be messing
with my pockets.” Four of Malcolm's six bodyguards moved toward the pair; Malcolm himself chided, “Let's cool it.”
Volley: Then came a second diversion: a man's sock, soaked in lighter fluid and set ablaze, flared in the rear. Heads
swiveled, and as they did, a dark, muscular man moved toward the lectern in a crouch, a sawed-off shotgun wrapped in
his coat. Blam-blam! A double-barreled charge ripped up through the lectern and into Malcolm's chest. From the left, near
the spot where the two men had been squabbling, came a back-up volley of pistol fire.
Malcolm tumbled backward, his lean body rent by a dozen wounds, his heels hooked over a fallen chair. The hall was
bedlam. Malcolm's pregnant wife, Betty, rushed on stage screaming, “They're killing my husband!” His retainers fired
wildly through the crowd at the fleeing killers. Four assailants made it to side doors and disappeared.
The man with the shotgun, identified by police as 22-year-old Talmadge Hayer of Paterson, N.J., dashed down a side
aisle to the stairway exit from the second floor ballroom. From the landing, one of Malcolm's bodyguards winged him in
the thigh with a .45-caliber slug. Howling in pursuit (“Kill the bastard!”), the ballroom crowd caught Hayer on the sidewalk,
mauled him, and broke his ankle before police rescued him.
Hayer was charged with homicide. Five days later, police picked up a karate-trained Muslim “enforcer,” Norman 3X Butler,
26, as suspect No. 2.
The arrest of a Muslim surprised almost no one. For all his many enemies, Malcolm himself had insisted to the end that it
was the Muslims who wanted him dead. They seemed to dog him everywhere he went; a bare week before his death, he
was firebombed out of his Queens home, the ownership of which he had been disputing with the Muslims. Increasingly
edgy, he moved with his wife and four children first to Harlem's Hotel Theresa, finally?the night before his death?to the
New York Hilton in the alien world downtown. When he died, Manhattan police assumed that Muslims were involved . . . .2
C: from New York Post
They came early to the Audubon Ballroom, perhaps drawn by the expectation that Malcolm X would name the men who
firebombed his home last Sunday, streaming from the bright afternoon sunlight into the darkness of the hall.
The crowd was larger than usual for Malcolm's recent meetings, the 400 filling three-quarters of the wooden folding seats,
feet scuffling the worn floor as they waited impatiently, docilely obeying the orders of Malcolm's guards as they were
directed to their seats.
I sat at the left in the 12th row and, as we waited, the man next to me spoke of Malcolm and his followers:
“Malcolm is our only hope,” he said. “You can depend on him to tell it like it is and to give Whitey hell.”
Then a man was on the stage, saying:
“. . . I now give you Brother Malcolm. I hope you will listen, hear, and understand.”
There was a prolonged ovation as Malcolm walked to the rostrum past a piano and a set of drums waiting for an evening
dance and stood in front of a mural of a landscape as dingy as the rest of the ballroom.
When, after more than a minute the crowd quieted, Malcolm looked up and said, “A salaam aleikum (Peace be unto you)”
and the audience replied “Wa aleikum salaam (And unto you, peace).”
Bespectacled and dapper in a dark suit, his sandy hair glinting in the light, Malcolm said: “Brothers and sisters . . .” He
was interrupted by two men in the center of the ballroom, about four rows in front and to the right of me, who rose and,
arguing with each other, moved forward. Then there was a scuffle in the back of the room and, as I turned my head to see
what was happening, I heard Malcolm X say his last words: “Now, now brothers, break it up,” he said softly. “Be cool, be
calm.”
Then all hell broke loose. There was a muffled sound of shots and Malcolm, blood on his face and chest, fell limply back
over the chairs behind him. The two men who had approached him ran to the exit on my side of the room shooting wildly
behind them as they ran.
I fell to the floor, got up, tried to find a way out of the bedlam.
Malcolm's wife, Betty, was near the stage, screaming in a frenzy. “They're killing my husband,” she cried. “They're killing
my husband.”
Groping my way through the first frightened, then enraged crowd, I heard people screaming, “Don't let them kill him.” “Kill
those bastards.” “Don't let him get away.” “Get him.”
At an exit I saw some of Malcolm's men beating with all their strength on two men. Police were trying to fight their way
toward the two. The press of the crowd forced me back inside.
I saw a half-dozen of Malcolm's followers bending over his inert body on the stage, their clothes stained with their leader's
blood. Then they put him on a litter while guards kept everyone off the platform. A woman bending over him said: “He's
still alive. His heart's beating.”
Four policemen took the stretcher and carried Malcolm through the crowd and some of the women came out of their
shock long enough to moan and one said: “I don't think he's going to make it. I hope he doesn't die, but I don't think he's
going to make it.”
I spotted a phone booth in the rear of the hall, fumbled for a dime, and called a photographer. Then I sat there, the
surprise wearing off a bit, and tried desperately to remember what had happened. One of my first thoughts was
that this was the first day of National Brotherhood Week.3
Descriptive Formats: Ways to Describe a Discussion
Beginning, Middle And End Model: Changes In Topic
The simplest way to describe a text is in terms of a beginning, middle, and an end. In writing class, teachers often speak
of texts having an introduction, body, and conclusion.
The parts of a text do not have to be of the same length, and may not necessarily coincide with paragraph divisions. You
can determine a beginning, middle and end only after having read the complete text. Many shifts that you note in your
initial reading will seem minor once you get further into the text. What you take as the main idea in the early paragraphs
you may come to see later as merely the catalyst for the discussion, or as a viewpoint refuted later in the discussion.
Section headings may guide you, but critical readers verify that such headings adequately describe the text.
How should you distinguish between parts in deciding on a beginning, middle and end? The most obvious shifts are
changes in topic. The discussion might shift in terms of discussing
• parts of a whole, one after another
• steps in a sequence, such as large to small, major to minor
• different time periods (chronological order)
• steps in a logical argument
• alternative conditions or circumstances
• shifts in viewpoint or perspective
Note that parts need not be equal in length. One part may include a single sentence, another part five paragraphs. The
point is not to divide the whole equally, but to divide it into units that recognize major features of the presentation as a
whole.
Finally, note that this model can be expanded to lower levels of analysis:
• beginning of discussion
• middle: main argument
• beginning of main argument
• middle of main argument
• end of main argument
• end of discussion
The act of isolating a beginning, middle, and end of a discussion, by itself, doesn't tell us very much. But the effort can
help you see the content more clearly. The activity of trying to divide the text into major parts may be the first step in
seeing the content in detail.
The Relationship Model
As we saw in the previous chapter, statements, and hence ideas, are usually related to each other in one of the following
ways:
• sequence or series
a listing of similar items, often in a distinct order, whether in terms of location, size, importance, etc.
• time order/chronology : a series of events in order of occurrence
• general/specific relationship: examples and generalizations
• comparison
similarity
difference (contrast)
• logical relationships
reason/conclusion,
cause/effect,
conditional relationship between factors
These relationships are usually signaled by an appropriate term, such as one of the following:
• sequence or series:
next, also, finally, lastly, then, secondly, furthermore, moreover
• time order/chronology :
before, after, then, since, soon, until, when, finally
• general/specific relationship:
examples, such as, overall, for instance, in particular
• comparison
o similarities
similarly, like, in the same way, likewise
o differences (contrast):
however, unlike, otherwise, whereas, although, however, nevertheless, still, yet
logical relationships
o indicating reason/conclusion, cause/effect, and/or a conditional relationship between factors:
hence, because, if, therefore, so, since, as a consequence, in conclusion
These relationship concepts and terms can be used to discuss connections between paragraphs or larger sections of a
text, as well as the relationship of patterns of content or language throughout a text. A particular fact may serve as a
reason for a certain conclusion, a cause for a given effect, or an example for a generalization. An assertion isn't a reason,
after all, until it is used as the basis for reaching a conclusion. An assertion doesn't necessarily specify a cause until you
assert an effect resulting from it. And any single sentence can be, at once, both a conclusion for the preceding discussion
and an assumption for the following one.
The Rhetorical Model
An alternative model looks at the rhetorical nature of remarks. This model uses categories such as the following:
• definition : indicating what a term means
• explanation : discussing what an idea means
• description : indicating qualities, ingredients, or appearance
• narration : recounting events
• elaboration : offering details
• argumentation : reasoning, or otherwise defending an idea
• evaluation : judging or rating
In very general terms, we argue and evaluate positions, define and explain concepts, describe objects, and narrate
events. Aspects of any or all may appear anywhere in a discussion.
Recall in the previous chapter the observation that relatively specific remarks tend to support other remarks by offering
description, reasons, or examples. This model describes that process.
The Role Model
A text can also be examined according to the roles different portions play within the discussion. Roles might include:
• Raise an initial idea, topic, or question
• Shape the scope or direction of the discussion
• Discuss and/or explain an idea
• Conclude the idea or otherwise draw elements together
• Add material for emphasis, clarification, or purposes of persuasion,
Remarks carrying out these roles can be found throughout a discussion, at all levels of analysis.
The Task Model
The final model presented here reflects tasks that different elements fulfill within a discussion.
What has to be shown to reach a particular conclusion? What evidence is required? What authorities would be
applicable? What assumptions must be made? Whether we are trying to shape our own thoughts or evaluate the
effectiveness of a presentation, we can attempt to determine the ingredients necessary to make a certain point.
To show a lie, for instance, we have to indicate a statement that contradicts the speaker's beliefs, and that the speaker
intended to deceive. Without these specific elements, we might simply have someone misspeaking, more a case of
ignorance than deceit.
We might think of this model somewhat in the way we think of recipes. Recipes indicate not only the ingredients, but also
how they are mixed, not only what to include, but also what to do. Recipes indicate steps to be accomplished and the
ingredients with which each step is executed.
A Variety of Descriptive Formats
Here we look at various models for describing the development of thought within a discussion as a whole. We shift from a
focus on the trees, if you will, to the forest.
Recognizing Structure: An Analogy
The previous section used the analogy of a relay race to suggest the connections between remarks. Here we introduce
another sports analogy to suggest the complexity of the overall discussion.
To a casual observer, a tennis match consists of one person serving the ball, another returning it….over and over again.
To someone who sees no structure, the game is simply a series of disconnected events. To someone who understands a
tennis game, play is divided into games, games into sets, and sets into matches. The game has a structure. We make
sense of the game as a whole by understanding each action within the overall structure of the match as a whole. Winning
a point, for instance, has different implications at different parts of the game. Winning a point may be a minor occurrence
early in the game, or match point at the end of the game.
Just as a tennis match involves more than exchanging serves, a text consists of more than simply a series of assertions.
The notion of discussion, itself, suggests a starting point and a journey to other ideas. Let's say an essay starts:
We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all people are created equal.
Where could the discussion go from here?
it could
• explain or explicateone of the topics mentioned:
do we mean by “created equal”? Equal how?
• offer reasons or evidencefor the assertion:
self-evident? Why equal?
• draw a conclusion or inference
does this imply for how people should be treated, or how government should be formed?
• look at related thoughts
other statements may or may not be truths, or may be truths but may not be self-evident.
• examine historical examples
what role does this idea play in the French Revolution? The Russian Revolution? The American Revolution?
A text could do any, all, or none of the above. It all depends on where the author wants to go. Different authors will choose
to follow different lines of argument and different paths for the discussion to different conclusions. To fully understand the
discussion as a whole, to understand the remarks within the context and in relationship to each other, we must be aware
of the direction the discussion takes. Whatever a text may say, however a text may be organized, readers assume that
the material upon the page is the realization of a plan. If a text is well written, there is a logical structure to the argument.
There is a clear beginning and end, a clear starting point on which reader and writer can agree, and a clear conclusion
developed and supported by the earlier material. There is a clear intent and purpose to the remarks and the overall
organization. We know where the author is going, and can watch as the text progresses to a seemingly inevitable
conclusion.
As when on a trip, readers want to know the ultimate destination and how long it will take to get there. As they travel/read,
they want to be able to recognize the route or plan. We want to know whether a story or article is one page or seventeen
so that we might allocate our time and attention effectively. The shorter the piece, the longer we might dwell on each
argument. The longer the piece, the more we might continue on when confused to see if the later material makes things
clearer. We want to have a sense of where a text or argument ends so that we can see our progress in perspective.
To recognize a plan we must possess a double awareness:
• what the essay asserts about people and the world—what the text says
• how the discussion within the essay is structured—what the text does
We want to recognize an underlying strategy to the remarks, a sequence by which remarks play different roles in the
development of the final thought. As with the tennis match, we anticipate a conclusion and try to recognize where we are
at any step along the way.
A Variety Of Descriptive Formats
What a text "does" can be described in a variety of ways. Different models and terminologies view the structure of texts
differently. Some models overlap one another, and aspects of a variety of models can be brought to bear to capture
insights about any single text. All of the models that follow, however, have a common purpose: to describe the flow of
discussion and/or indicate how arguments are advanced. In practice, you should draw on as many models as you can to
describe the structure of a presentation.
The ideas here should be familiar to most readers. The point is not that you must use all of these models in a discussion
of a text, but that models and terminologysuch as thiscan be used to recognize and discuss what a text does at any point
in the discussion.
NOTE: Before presenting the models, we should note one additional factor. We can often describe one remark in a variety
of ways. Just as a person may, at the same time, be a son, father, and brother to different people, or a politician may hold
views to the right of one politician and to the left of another politician, so a single sentence can be described in a variety of
ways. A sentence may be a reason, an explanation, or a description in relationship to different remarks. This is one
reason for having a number of descriptive models. To truly describe something we often have to describe if from a variety
of perspectives and in a variety of different relationships to other things.
• Beginning, Middle And End Model: Changes In Topic
• The Relationship Model
• The Rhetorical Model
• The Role Model
• The Task Model
Example: A Solution
The following passage is from a chemistry textbook.
A SOLUTION is a mixture of two or more substances dispersed as molecules, atoms or ions rather than as larger
aggregates. If we mix sand and water, the sand grains are dispersed in the water; since the grains are much larger than
molecules, we call this mixture a suspension, not a solution. After a while, the sand will settle to the bottom by gravity.
Imagine doing this experiment with finer and finer grains. When the grains are small enough, they will not sink to the
bottom, not matter how long you wait. We now have a colloidal dispersion. Though we cannot see the individual grains,
the mixture appears cloudy in a strong beam of light (Tyndall effect). If, however, we stir sugar with water, the grains
disappear and the result is a liquid that does not scatter light any more than water itself. This is a true solution, with
individual sugar molecules dispersed among the water molecules.
Let's think now about what we have here.
A SOLUTION is a mixture of two or more substances dispersed as molecules, atoms or ions rather than as larger
aggregates.
The passage opens with a definition of “solution.” Note that a solution is not simply a mixture of
two or more substances
but of
two or more substances dispersed as molecules, atoms or ions
We must note the complete noun phrase.
The passage continues:
If we mix sand and water,
We recognize the beginning of a hypothetical experiment, presumably as part of an explanation
the sand grains are dispersed in the water;
further description of experiment.
since the grains are much larger than molecules,
reason
we call this mixture a suspension, not a solution.
An alternative situation and alternative definition of a suspension
After a while, the sand will settle to the bottom by gravity.
continuing description of hypothetical experiment
Imagine doing this experiment with finer and finer grains.
continuing description of hypothetical experiment
When the grains are small enough, they will not sink to the bottom, not matter how long you wait.
same experiment, different size particles.
We now have a colloidal dispersion.
and third definition: colloidal dispersion.
Though we cannot see the individual grains, the mixture appears cloudy in a strong beam of light (Tyndall effect).
further description of colloidal dispersion.
If, however, we stir sugar with water,
additional change in experiment
the grains disappear and the result is a liquid that does not scatter light any more than water itself. This is a true solution,
with individual sugar molecules dispersed among the water molecules.
final explication of a solution, emphasizing the size of the dispersed material as molecules.
A critical, self-aware reader thus reads on two dimensions: both what the text says and what it does. Indeed, each feeds
the other recognition. Each is impossible without the other.
Implications For Reading
A description of a presentation might draw on any or all of the previous models at various levels of discussion. Differing
perspectives might be employed at different levels of analysis.
The goal of each is the same: to isolate elements that shape how ideas are portrayed within the discussion. We can ask
why a statement is included in a text— which is like asking why a speaker would bother saying it. What does it help
accomplish? What purpose does it serve? How does it lead into or follow from other remarks? How are the ideas
connected?
Implications for Writing
"What to say...what to say." It's the traditional writer's lament. "Where do I start?" "What should I say?" But writing is more
than saying. Writing a text--producing a completed text, not just writing sentence after sentence--involves constructing a
discussion. To "make a case” does not mean to simply say certain things. To make a case a writer must construct an
argument, piece together examples and illustrations and justifications and explanations and conclusions. It's not only what
we say, it's also what we do. As we've seen above, many ideas are conveyed not by stating them so much as by the
reader inferring them from the relationships of ideas within the discussion.
When we know exactly what we want to say, we simply go out and say it. Other times, we have to assemble our evidence
and our thoughts. We weigh which remarks should come first, and what additional evidence and arguments are essential
to our conclusion. However we start, after some initial writing all writers must become readers. We must realize not only
what we have said, but what we have done. And we must evaluate how what we have done will get us where we want to
go. What additional ingredients are required? What other aspects must be considered? What misunderstandings must be
prevented? This process is facilitated by two concepts: the notion of structure, and the notion of doing as well as saying.
The models described in this chapter suggest other ways of outlining a text. We can outline not only shifts in topic, but
also shifts in tactics, as when we shift from introduction to explanation to argument as with the rhetorical model. We can
outline in terms of tactics of enticing, addressing, and convincing the reader as with the role model. We can outline in
terms of similarities, differences, and logical implications as with the relationships model. And we can mix the various
models.
Finally, we can outline not only from beginning to end, but also in terms of patterns running throughout a text. We can
outline the various viewpoints to be evaluated or the various participants to be discussed to make sure we hit all the
required bases throughout the discussion.
The better the writing, the more the sentences clearly follow from, and lead, to one another. Writers can lead their reader
and assure their own structure by making sure to include transition and relationship words. A sign of poorer writing is
independent, disconnected thoughts—and with that assertions that are not supported by details, reasons or examples.
Steps in Critical Reading
Critical reading is presented here in discrete steps
to isolate and highlight individual elements.
In actual practice, many steps are accomplished at the same time,
each step reinforcing and facilitating others as you go along.
Read for literal meaning
Read sentence by sentence to decode meaning.
• recognize word meaning.
See Words , Inference: Denotation , and Inference: Reading and Writing
Ideas as Well as Words
• recognize sentence structure and sentence meaning.
See A Grammar for Reading and Writing
• infer meaning from references, associations, and figurative language.
See Inference: Association and Reference and Inference: Figurative
Language
Analyze and Describe
Isolate and classify patterns of elements and their relationships
Content: recognize the major topics amd subtopics under discussion.
• who or what is talked about
• how are those groups or subtopics portrayed?
See: Choices: The Choice of Content and Recognizing What
Examples Are Examples Of
Language: be alert to the choice of terms
• what kind of language is applied to what topics
• to what purpose or affect? How is each subtopic portrayed?
See: Choices: The Choice of Language
Structure
• recognize the relationship of each sentence to the others within paragraphs, and
of one paragraph to the next within larger sections
See: The Choice of Structure
o idenitify examples and conclusion
o identify how description, narration. and argumentations are employed to
reach a position
See Descriptive Formats: Ways to Describe a Discussion and A Variety
of Descriptive Formats
• recognize relationships between patterns of content throughout the text as a
whole. [See Controlling Patterns of Content and Patterns of Content: An
Example--PoliceMagazine]
Interpret an overall meaning
What meaning and understanding is implied by presenting these ideas in this manner?
• Infer meaning from the way in which elements are portrayed and related
• Account for all of the elements being as they are within the relationships within
which they are presented.
See Inference: Inference Equations and Interpretation: Analyzing What A
Text Means
The Spoken Word: The Base For Writing and Reading
Our early experiences with the spoken language provide many important lessons about the language.
Consciously or unconsciously, we recognize that language has rules and infer those rules. We learn rules of sentence
structure, such as how to use pronouns to replace noun phrases or the order or adjectives before a noun.
For examples of how we learn unwritten rules, see Unconscious and
Unwritten Rules
We learn social aspects of language usage. such as when to use slang and when not to. We learn the need to apply prior
knowledge and experience when trying to make sense of utterances. We learn that the goal is not to understand
words,per se, so much as to understand theideasbehind the words.
For examples of non-verbal aspects of language , see Non-Verbal and
Social Aspects of Language
Finally, our model of spoken communication serves as a tool for understanding the written language. x
Reading and the Spoken Language
The language we learned first, the spoken language, remains our base throughout life. We use the model of spoken
communication as the basis for much of our inferences when we read.
As readers, we imagine the written language to be a transcription of speech. We draw on this model when we imagine
ourselves talking to someone as we write, or when we talk about what an author “has to say” in an article. When we run
into trouble reading, we sound out words and read sentences aloud. When discussing the spoken word, we refer to a
speaker's tone of voice. Is he or she angry? Ironic? Or perhaps serious? If the language is jarring, we say the tone is
harsh. In doing so, we infer emotions on the part of the author.
Ultimately, the underlying reason for relying on speech as a model for writing may actually lie in the nature of human
understanding.
The core of psychological understanding revolves around the notion of motive—desire, want, wish, reason. We
understand an action when we know what motivated it. The motives for action are usually clear, since action itself usually
indicates the motive that prompts it. Why am I paying money to the cashier in a supermarket? So that I can buy food and
eventually eat it. We generally act in order to fulfill our manifest wishes. Sometimes the motives for action can be obscure,
as when you see me searching frantically in a drawer and don't know that I left a lot of money in there and now can't find
it. Motives are internal mental states that cause action and that make sense of actions; action is seen as rational in the
light of motives that lead to it. We apply this reasoning to both the motivation for the ideas of a text as well as to the
author's motive for writing that text.
(Colin McGinn, “Freud Under Analysis,”The New York Review, November 4, 1999, p. 20.)
Readers, just as listeners, infer intent, motive, purpose, tone, mood, and point of view as a way of making sense of a text.
We claim to understand a text when we can identify a clear purpose and intent. We think beyond the words of the text to
what might make sense in terms of a communication between specific people in a specific situation.
Writing to an Audience
Writing, like speaking, is concerned with communicating specific thoughts or information to a specified audience. To be
understood, we must take into account the prior knowledge of our audience. To be effective, we must recognize issues of
power or prestige that our readers have at stake and why they might not initially accept our arguments. We should look at
writing not only as a matter of what to say, but also as a matter of what to do.
• how to interest our readers,
• how to educate them, and
• how to convince them.
Just as our readers will image an author behind our text, so we as writers must imagine an audience and be sensitive to
the same needs and social conventions that we would consider in face-to-face speech.
What Did the Author Really Mean?
Viewing texts within the model of spoken language is a useful technique, but it is not without its dangers. On the face of it,
the author of a text is a figment of the reader's imagination, a mental image constructed from prior knowledge of the real-
life author (accurate or not) and the remarks on the page.
Questions about the real author and his or her purpose in writing a particular text can be answered only by talking with the
living author. Racists can write non-racist texts and vice versa. Even then we cannot be entirely sure what an author truly
intended. An author might not be forthcoming about his or her purpose. And whatever the author's intentions, he or she
may not have successfully communicated that intended meaning within the text.
When we ask what an author meant, our reference to “the author” is really a metaphor for the text: what might the text
mean? Inferring an author can be a useful tool for making sense of remarks within a text, but we must not make the jump
from analysis of evidence within the text to speculation about a person who is not present. While we cannot know what an
author intended, we can try to figure out what meaning makes the most sense given all we know from the evidence of the
text, about the author and the situation at the time, and the social context.
Readers must exert the same caution when discussing the audience of a text as they do when discussing the author.
Readers may infer an audience to whom they imagine a text might appeal. As with the notion of the author above, the
notion of an audience for a text is essentially a tool for describing and explaining features of a text. It may or may not
actually indicate people for whom the text might have been, intended.
Unconscious and Unwritten Rules
Speakers of a language know much about the language without quite knowing how, or even that, they know it. Most rules
we learned not from grammar books, but from our experience with the language itself. Indeed, many And, as we shall see,
many rules are not even written down – anywhere!
If the notion that you know rules you do not know you know still seems odd, consider the following. No native speaker of
English would write, or say,
* He bought Spanish purple large seven onions.
The word order is wrong. Native speakers know to write or say:
He bought seven large purple Spanish onions.
How do we know to put the words in this order? We follow a rule for the placement of modifiers before a noun:
number / size / color / type / NOUN
No one has taught you this rule. You have inferred it on your own. You know the rule, even if you do not know you know it
—or even know that it exists. With a little thought and experimentation, you can extend the rule to include other qualities,
such as age and texture.
Learning a second-language involves learning new and different rules. While adjectives come before a noun in English,
white house,
they come after in French,
maison blanche,
or Spanish,
casa blanca.
One never loses the rules of their first language; rules of the second language must be added on.
A similar problem is encountered when shifting from one dialect of a language to another, or from rules of informal speech
to rules of formal speech. We may not all be bilingual, but most of us are bi-dialectical.
Finally, note that rules such as those described above aredescriptive, notprescriptive. They describe the way native
speakers use the language, not how they should use the language. Indeed, descriptive and prescriptive rules often
conflict. We are told to never split an infinitive — as this author just did. [We are told not to say "to never split an infinitive,"
but rather "never to split an infinitive.") In fact, the option of splitting infinitives allows us to distinguish between "to
suddenly fire" (to fire without warning) and "to fire suddenly" (to shoot many bullets in a short time).
Many prescriptive rules were written to mirror Latin usage, where the infinitive is a single word (to praise:laudare) and
therefore cannot be split; English infinitives are two words (to praise) and can easily be split.
Much of this discussion is not designed to teach you new concepts so much as to help you recognize how much you
already know. The more you are consciously aware of how the spoken language works, the better you can apply that
understanding to texts, whether when confronting increasingly complex texts or desiring a deeper understanding.
Non-Verbal and Social Aspects Of Language
Non-Verbal Aspects Of Language
Spoken language is based on a face-to-face encounter. One person directly addresses another or others. (The electronic
media, such as radio and television are, of course, exceptions, but even there we can envision someone at a microphone
imagining an audience to whom they direct their remarks.)
Within the face-to-face encounter of speech, communication is not limited to words. Speakers use a wide variety of extra-
verbal devices, from emphasis and dramatic pauses to changes in tone or tempo. Speakers also use a broad range of
non-verbal clues. They “talk” with their eyes and their bodies. They use hand gestures and facial expressions to convey
ideas. And speakers respond to similar cues from their listeners—the nods and grunts that say, in effect, "I hear you," or
the quizzical looks that say, "I don't understand."
As we learn a language, we also learn the non-verbal conventions of that language—the meaning of a shrug, a pout, or a
smile. Speech thus often includes not only a face-to-face meeting, but also a meeting of the minds. "Conversation,"
Steven Pinker notes, "requires cooperation.
Listeners assume speakers are conveying information relevant to what they already know and what they want to know.
That allows them to hear between the lines in order to pin down the meanings of vague and ambiguous words and to fill in
the unsaid logical steps.
Speaker and listener are aware of each other's knowledge, interests, and biases. They can interpret remarks within the
common social setting in which they find themselves. This mutual understanding, being "on the same page" as it were, is
frequently absent with written communication. Information an author would like to assume the reader knows must be
included with a text. Writers must make their biases explicit to assure full understanding by the critical reader, and
readers, unable to read body language, must subject texts to close scrutiny to "read" attitudes or biases underlying a text.
Using Language In A Social Context
Speech is a tool of social communication. We understand spoken remarks within the context of an exchange of ideas
between rational and emotional beings in a social situation. We become aware not only of what one says, but what ones
does by uttering such a remark, and the effect they might bring about by such a remark.
Remarks may serve as expressions of feelings or ideas.
Don't give it another thought.
This is more than a command not to think about something. It is a promise meaning "I'll take care of it."
People not only state ideas, they can also threaten, inquire, and dare. They can be ironic or sarcastic.
Can you pass the ketchup?
This remark may have the form of a question, but functions as a request. If someone says
I can't find the ketchup.
they are probably not just announcing their inability to locate a condiment. They are asking for help.
Language can be used to request, persuade, convince, scare, promise, insult, order, and, as above, elicit action. Remarks
often convey ideas that extend beyond their literal meaning. Listeners must infer unstated meaning. If someone says
The government once classified ketchup as a vegetable in the school lunch program.
they are probably not simply providing a lesson about the school lunch program. They are offering an example of
bureaucratic stupidity.
We assume common rules for the use of language, and infer meaning accordingly. Thus is someone says:
The robber appeared to have a beard.
we assume that they are not sure, not that they are commenting on the mechanics of sight.
Listeners infer meaning within the context of social roles and settings. The meaning of an utterance can thus vary with the
occasion, the relationship of speaker and listener (or writer and reader) or the listener's expectations of the speaker's
purpose.
Do you have the time to help me?
This question carries different meaning when uttered by an employer or an employee. When uttered by an employer, the
remark is a strong request for assistance; one would not generally answer "no." When spoken by an employee, it is more
a respectful request for help.
An assertion that there is racism in the United States Army takes on different meaning and significance if asserted by a
black soldier (an allegation), a white General (an admission), an Army Task Force report (official recognition), or a Moslem
priest in Iran (a condemnation). The same comments takes on different significance when asserted in a bar, a Senate
hearing room, or an elementary school classroom.
When learning to speak, we learn degrees of courtesy and "turn-yielding" cues that function somewhat like “over” in a
walkie-talkie conversation. We learn social communication strategies—like how to appeal to someone's vanity (Anyone
who buys this cream can look better in days!), or how to imply a fact (Do you still beat your wife?). The late Lord Denning,
often referred to either as the best known or the most colorful English judge of the 20 century, observed:
When a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps. When he says perhaps, he means no. When he says no, he is not a
diplomat. When a lady says no, she means perhaps. When she says perhaps, she means yes. But when she says yes,
she is no lady
While this may be an obviously sexist and politically incorrect statement, the remark nonetheless demonstrates ways in
which language is a complex social tool for communication.
What We Say, Do, and Mean
In the examples above we can distinguish between what is said, , what is done, and what is meant.
I left my watch home.
This remarksaysthat I left my watch home. By making that statement, Idosomething: I describe where my watch is, or that
I am without it. Finally, themeaningconveyed (or inferred) is that I don't know what time it is.
• says: that I left me watch home
• does: describes where my watch is
• means: I want to know the time
