Understanding and recording spoken definitions
What words did Professor Gardner define?
You should have heard:
- linguist
- genre
- disciplines
- literature
- source
- scholarship
How did you know these words were being defined?
Lecturers will often introduce new terms in lectures and they will define these new terms for you. It is important that you are able to recognise these definitions and record them in a way that will help you use them correctly in the future.
Being able to define key ideas in your subject area is an important part of university study. This is something you will need to do in your written and spoken assignments but it is also something you will need to do whilst taking notes to make sure that you fully understand the content of your lectures, seminars and reading.
How to record a spoken definition
Professor Gardner defined the word genre:
The word genre is an interesting word because it comes from the French, so it doesn’t sound very English. It’s got a French /ʒ/ sound in /ˈʒɒnrə/ and it means “type”. So, a genre that I’m interested in are text types. They could be lectures, they could be seminars, they could be textbooks, but I’m particularly interested in genres of assessed student writing; so the genres that students have to write as part of their assessment. Obviously, very important for students studying at universities in Britain.
| ‘it means’ | This usually tells us that we are being given a short definition or a synonym. |
| ‘so’ | This can be used before giving an explanation, an example, or introducing important information. |
| ‘they could be’ | This tells us that this is an example but that there are lots more examples and that this is not a definitive list. |
Almost every assignment is a different genre, is a different text type, so they might have to do design specifications, they might have to do lab reports, they might have to do an essay, but most of their assignments will not be essays, they’ll be reports and proposals and exercises and explanations and all kinds of different text types.
A genre is a type of text such as assessed student writing, eg an essay, that has certain features.
An essay is a genre of assessed student writing that has certain typical features.
An essay is a genre of assessed student writing that has certain typical features such as an introduction, a thesis statement and a conclusion.
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