Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zhaishang Jiedao? Are you interested in teaching English in Tianjin? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.
Common linguistic problemsThere are several linguistic expressions of causation. A causative situation entails ?two component situations, the cause and its effect (result)?. (Comrie 1989: 165) For instance: The car broke down; Sean missed the lesson. In this case, the breakdown of the car acts as cause, and Sean?s failure to attend the lesson serves as effect. Therefore, these two micro-situations can be combined into a macro-situation, using conjunctions such as because, so, as etc.: As the car broke down, Sean missed the lesson. Abbreviations of one of the micro-situations are very frequent, e.g. Rico made Miriam upset. In this example, the result is that Miriam was upset, but what exactly Rico did in order to upset Miriam was left unexpressed. Causality requires at least two events and one observer. The observer, by connecting those two events in their mind, recognizes the relationship between cause (event 1) and effect (event 2). Creating this causal relation is a cognitive process, which is already acquired by infants. (Cf. Vandepitte 2000: 1) 1.2 Types of Causal Expressions Various forms of causal relations can be distinguished. There are asyndetic constructions that do not have any marker of causality: She wrote the paper. Her shoulders hurt. If the implied causality will be understood depends on the ?receivers? knowledge of causal relations.? (Vandepitte 2000: 4) Moreover, a very important feature of biclausal causativity is that it represents a temporal order, so the cause precedes the result, or effect: Peter had an accident. Somebody called the police. Changing the order: Somebody called the police. Peter had an accident would be logically incorrect. Periphrastic/analytical causatives are formed by a combination of words rather than by inflection, containing verbs like let, get, have, make, e.g. Peter makes Mary repeat the question. Furthermore, often there are separate predicates expressing cause and effect, for instance: Tom caused the dog to catch the bone. In this sentence, the predicate cause expresses cause, and catch indicates effect. (Cf. Comrie 1989: 167) In contrast to the previous types of causal expressions, morphological causatives have only one predicate. For instance verbs like lay, set, kill, deepen etc. demonstrate the action of causal power influencing an object, e.g. (Cf. Vandepitte 2000: 6) Morphological causatives are often formed by morphological derivation or affixation, for example: The sun reddens the house. The difference between periphrastic/analytical and synthetic causatives is ?a continuum rather than a clear-cut construction.? (Comrie 1989: 169) Causative constructions differ regarding the reduction of the two separate predicates into one predicate: Lisa makes the car start. / Lisa starts the car. / The car starts. Causality can also be expressed by prepositional phrases providing a casual link such as thanks to, considering, in front of etc., e.g. It is thanks to him that she is in this mess. (Cf. Vandepitte 2006: 8) Also conjuncts as well as conjunctions are used to form causal constructions, e.g. hence, thereby, somehow, since etc.. 1.3 Direct Causation vs. Indirect Causation A direct causation exists when the causer and the causee are linked, which means the causing event immediately precedes the caused event: John kicked the ball. The window broke. On the contrary, an indirect causation happens when the caused event does not follow immediately the causing event: CO2 emission is increasing. Global warming occurs. (Comrie 1989: 177ff) 1.4 Conclusion The manifoldness and complexity of causal expressions demonstrate the interaction of various linguistic components, including syntax, morphology and semantics. Therefore, the relationship between cause and effect should be part of any TEFL course as language learners need a basic knowledge of causal relations to comprehend the correct meaning of the sentences. Bibliography Comrie, B. (1989). Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. (2nd edition) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Vandepitte, Sonia (2003). ?Causality.? In: Handbook of Pragmatics 2000. ?
