Language Analysis
Lyu Zhangjing G01050083 In this essay, I will try to analyze the language of the article ‘Ethnic Diversity Management In Theory And Practice’ by Aigner (2014). The outline of this article is listed below. 1) Level of formality / informality 2) Dependent/Independent Clauses 3) Verb tense (finite / non-finite) 4) Summary Regarding the level of formality/informality of language, overall, this article has high formality. Since the author never use words like “we” and “I”, the writer tried to use formal language in this article. For example, she never use the words such as contractions, etc., and so forth, and so on, which may damage the article’s quality by showing the uncomplete(incomplete) concept. In addition, the author interviewed some people to collect data. So, in the findings part, she cited several people’s words in her paper. In these words, the interviewees used “we” and “I”, which indicated that the ideas they say are(which) come from their mind. Then, the data will be objective and convinced (convinceing). By doing so, readers will trust the author’s findings. For instance, she cited A18’s words: “I am thinking of …” (p. 115) to show personal thinking of A18. Moreover, the author used active voice and passive voice in the article, and did not used the (use) wordy sentence, which make (makes) this article clear and understandable. Then, the author used many Dependent and Independent Clauses in her article. For example, in this sentence “Training courses for…can take time, which is seen as a short-to medium-term disadvantage” (p. 111), the second sentence can not stand alone. So, it is a dependent clause. By using it, the author provided a clear fact that ‘take time’ is a disadvantage. For another example, in this sentence, “Further empirical findings argue that conflicts arise from misunderstandings due to cultural, religious or linguistic differences between minorities and the majority workforce”. Since the underline sentence can stand alone, it is an independent clause. This independent clause decorates ‘findings’. ( It is a dependent clause.) After that, Aigner used finite and non-finite verbs in her article. For example, in this sentence, “Companies identified definite benefits of EDM, such as low staff turnover, satisfied employees, reduced absenteeism, and retention of staff and as a result, increased productivity, resulting in an increased competitive advantage, which corresponds strongly with the theoretical literature discussed”, the ‘identified’ and ‘corresponds’ are the finite verbs. These two verbs show the tents (tenses) and agreement with the subject of the sentence, so they are finite verbs. Since the words ‘resulting’ do not carry information about time and agreement about the subject of the sentence, it is a non-finite verb. As seen in the article, non-finite verbs were used to reduce wordiness such as from ‘what (which) is resulting’ to ‘resulting’. In the end, the authors used very clear and formal words to convey the findings of her research on ‘Ethnic Diversity Management In Theory And Practice’. In this article, the words be used was (were) accurate and formal. Without using ‘we’, ‘I’ and ‘you’ pronoun and ‘etc.’, ‘and so on’ and ‘what’s more’ pronoun (imprecise expression), this article looks more official ( formal) and scholarly. This article provides an in-depth discussion about diversity management in real world. Thus, in this article, I can learn many things that can not be learned in school.
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