Journal of English Language Teaching

Parataxis, Hypotaxis, Conjunctions and the Writing Style

Priyanka Dey

Dept. of Applied Science and Humanities, Haldia Institute of Technology, Haldia, E. Midnapore, West Bengal, India.

Keywords: Clause, Conjunction, Parataxis, Hypotaxis, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), Writing style

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Abstract

Syntax is defined as the way words combine with one another to form phrases, clauses and sentences. It is observed that every text type having a particular genre and style of its own depicts a distinguished arrangement of clauses. Language is a social semiotic system that acts as a resource to making meaning which resides in the systemic patterns of choice. If this be so, then every clausal arrangement joined by conjunctions giving rise to paratactic and hypotactic constructions foreground certain thoughts, thereby bringing stylistic variation in the text. Practical examples show that writers do exploit these clausal patterns to achieve their aim. Hence, in this paper an attempt is made to show through the analysis of some practical examples how parataxis and hypotaxis are used in real world and how conjunctions play their cohesive role in it. The paper also explains how necessary its knowledge is for students so that they, along with developing insight into this type of text designing, also develop a unique writing style.

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