Without concrete examples, it is sometimes very difficult to understand
Craig's positions.

Craig writes:

And I don't think most people on the
list would have trouble with the idea that much technical writing
(much
writing in academic disciplines) is badly written.

***************
It would have been nice had he given us examples instead of asserting
it.
It is interesting he cites a made up example from Orwell:

 Orwell takes on the
issue in Politics and The English Language. "Objective consideration
of
contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that..." is the opening
of his rewrite of Ecclesiastes. "I looked around and I saw..." 

*************
Remember in the last exchange Craig used Halliday to assert that
science writing is "dysfunctional."
Here, at last, we get an example.

   There is a certain kind of self-importance that comes from
imitating
the forms of technical discourse, and sometimes it seems highly
dysfunctional.Here's a quick example from a journal I just found close
at hand: "Another reason that students' critical thinking might be
unwittinlgly limited through oral discussion without written
translation might be the passion and eloquence with which the
instructor's theoretical position is communicated." "Might be" is main
verb. Everything before it is a single noun phrase subject, everything
after it a single noun phrase complement. All the processes are buried
within the noun phrases. It's the kind of language we would not expect
in speech, and it is much more difficult to understand than it needs
to
be, even in context.
   Bad writing is easy to come by. I'm surprised by the request.

OK, let's look at this sentence again to understand Craig's claim it is
bad writing.

[Another reason that students' critical thinking might be unwittinlgly
limited through oral discussion without written
translation] might be [the passion and eloquence with which the
instructor's theoretical position is communicated.]

I don't pretend to be a stylist, but I find the sentence
understandable. The two might be's, one in the appositive (I never knew
that we would describe a structure with an appositive as a simple noun
phrase) and then one as the predicate of the main clause is a little
jarring.  I would have changed one.  It is unclear to me how such
sentences push the language to be "dysfunctional."  I know I would not
duplicate the two "might be's" deliberately.

The sentence does have a "heavy subject."  The grammatical subject has
an appositive that defines the next reason why students' critical
thinking might be limited.  These structures, according to Perera, come
late in kid writing.

It would have been nice if Craig could have provided us with his
rewrite. How would he have unpacked all of those "processes" buried in
the noun phrases?  If I recall correctly, he has proposed that we should
aid our colleagues in other disciplines because THEIR discourse has
become "dysfunctional."  This "might be" an occasion for him to show us
what his proposal means in practice.

Finally, I wonder what "science" this example is taken from.  Biology? 
Psychology?  Psycholinguistics? 

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
 

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