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00:04

I'm going to be talking about paraphrasing um a little bit related to exams but also not you know as a as a general skill a very very useful uh skill and we're going to be looking at bits of music and video a little bit of AI as well to help us explore this wonderful capacity rather unique human capacity of saying things in similar ways but never quite quite identical. So exploring the the differences sometimes very subtle differences between two different expressions is as challenging as thinking that they are um synonymous in

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in in some way. Um there's a Q&A box apart from the chat which I may find it a bit difficult to be looking at all the time. I will try and I might ask you to write something in the chat throughout the talk but there's also a separate Q&A box. So, if you've got questions throughout the talk, you can write them as I speak there in the Q&A and then Will or I will take a look at the questions and I'll be happy to address any questions or comments that you've got um at the end. So, a quick definition of

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paraphrase is interesting to me because of the second part rather than the first. It's not just repeating something written or spoken. There's often another layer of a communicative intention, whether that that be humorous or whether that's to simplify or to clarify and not simply a repetition. This is an interesting resource that I found um on the McMillan website. It happens to be by Roy Roy Loris, one of the authors in the Ready for um series, which didn't make me feel very original, let me tell you, because

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look at the subtitle or to put it another way. And if you look at my own title, which I swear I wrote before I found that article to put it differently, which to me validates that well, there's nothing new under. And it validates precisely the skill of paraphrasing because everything we do professionally and maybe more generally is a paraphrased version of things that were done before. We keep it our own touch but a paraphrased version in profession and I think in a profession and I think in life in general later on

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I believe you're going to be getting the link for this article but it's quite easy to Google it like this um and you can find um an interesting article that complements what we're going to be looking at right now. So thinking about exams, maybe this is what comes to mind, doesn't it? When you think of paraphrasing international exams in which there is a sentence, then a key word and then a second sentence that students need to complete with two, three, four, five words. So that the second sentence means something as

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similar as possible to the first sentence. So if you take the first one there, it's been over six months since I last saw Dan. From sentence to context means let's ask students to invent a little story to invent a little scenario behind that sentence. I have often used a wh framework for this which simply means you put on the board the wh word. You know what happened to Dan? Who are who are the two people there? For example, I last saw Dan. Are we friends, me and Dan? Is Dan a student of mine? Is

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Dan a family member? Where and when and why? All of the questions that you can answer about this. You can't be doing this all the time for every sentence you analyze. But in my experience, once the students have done it a few times, then they start doing it without noticing it. Um, importantly also the evaluative development in language. Am I happy that I haven't seen Dan for six months or am I sad about that? And and why? and only then look at the key word and the second sentence after you've taken the sentence

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onto a bigger a bigger context. So the the wet weather and the match you know when and where and am I happy? Does the sentence show you if the writer or speaker was happy or was not happy about that? You took the last piece of chocolate. Hannah said to poor happy not happy can you even draw? or the students can become a little multimodal. The artistic ones even maybe drawing up a little scenario and interestingly to work on the key word before the second sentence accused is a very strong speech act

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isn't it? So what do we think about accusations? So this wh analysis that the students can do in groups and then they can report back is I think an interesting way to train them to see that behind cold isolated mechanical looking sentences there is a whole context. A slightly more complex way to do this would be if you follow Hines speaking model which we're not going to look into because it's a little technical and you can look this up yourselves if you're not familiar with it. It could be another way possibly a

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bit more complex to approach the analysis. Instead of or as a complement to the wh analysis, you can do this other analysis which can also be in your head. You don't necessarily have to share the speaking acronym with um your students. So from sentence to context, but also vice versa, from context, for example, you're working with reading to sentence Here I looked at the B1 level of ready for because an international exam like Cambridge B1 doesn't have a use of English paper yet. So the sentence transformations do not appear

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yet as a formal component which for me does not mean that we shouldn't work on sentence transformations from early on and to show students this uh power of language from very very low levels. Uh a little later I will show you how maybe we tend to say two things um the same thing in two with two different expressions one after the other. So you can say thank you. I really appreciate it. So I really appreciate it only reinforces and extends the thank you that I said first. You don't really need the I really appreciate it. But it's a

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common thing for us to do in certain speech acts in particular to have pairs of phrases like that and then you say no problem, you're welcome. Sure. Anytime. So that duplication of speech acts is another way to think of the power of paraphrasing in this case in spoken skills if you're preparing students for oral examination for example. So because I'm a traveler I love to travel. I was actually just in Brazil this past weekend and by chance there was Lady Gaga singing there in Rio de Janeiro. Did you see that? I was there and I went

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to see her unplanned and it it was a wonderful event. So I thought let's see if Away we go is about traveling unit six in this book and it is about traveling. So if you take a few seconds to look at this uh short text from the workbook I sometimes choose to look at course books by looking at workbooks and other alternative materials and and only then the actual uh course book. I don't know it's just a a bit of a thing I've got. And if you look at the question that students have to answer with respect to this little

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text, why is the tour cancelled? If you want to write what you think the right answer is in the chat, A, B, or C, that shows you that she's got a paraphrase there. You see, this is skills. This is not grammar. It's not the pure mechanical sentence transformation, but you need to understand the paraphrase in order to see that our tour guide is unwell would correspond to somebody is ill. And then if you want you talk about differences there because unwell and ill are not exactly the same. You know that in CR of

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language study, we don't accept the concept of exact synonyms. there's al there's always at least a bit of a difference between lexical items and phrases. So use skills work and just like from the sentence you try to talk about the bigger context for example with a wh word this is the opposite students can take a text you can put them in groups and say now you pick a sentence from the text and transform it into something else and maybe the rest of the class need to guess which original sentence in the text the

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students were looking at in order to generate that paraphrase. So in this sketch you've got here for example only two people paid in advance and the students can write something like um many of you still have not made any payment so we don't need to give you anything back or something like that. Well then the trip to the castle is still happening if it stays warm and dry. But the word weather which will be like the superordinate for warm and dry is not mentioned there. So you could make a sentence paraphrase about the

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weather. If the weather doesn't change, one visit will still be carried out or something like that. We all like music, don't we? Most of us anyway and our students typically as well. So, why not use musical context for paraphrasing? I hope I'm sharing my sound. Tell me if I'm [Music] not. Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should have. You can sing a little. Maybe I didn't love you. Turn on the flashlight quite as often as I could have. Little things I should have said and [Music] done. I just never took the time.

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Are you singing? I want to hear you sing. You were always on my mind. Always on my mind. You were always on my mind. [Music] an old song. Of course, I'm sure you use a combination of older and newer songs. Um, so this one is one that comes to mind when I need to work on regret. You know, what I should have done, what I could have done, mixed conditional, third conditional, if I had told you everything that I felt with you, etc. I wish I had done something. If only, etc. Can you see how the the song has it's

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like a big paraphrase of this idea of everything that I could have done in order to keep you um with me? And what I like to do is then I like to ask students to transform the song into some other genre. Can you turn it into a poem? Can you write a text message summarizing and or paraphrasing it? A blog entry, an Instagram post? The list is endless. a letter maybe of complaint. Can you change the tone quite abruptly? But an interesting um um app AI apps that allow you to choose tone and purpose and have a bit of fun altering a

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text into something um quite different, maintaining the content but altering a number of um the other elements. And then if you use songs like this that have different versions. Maybe I didn't love you quite as often as I could have. Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should have. If I made you feel second best, girl, I'm sorry I was blind, but you were always on my mind. Did you notice many changes? Some of them linguistic. For some reason, the lines are in a different in a different order. The pronunciation is different.

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Did you notice the could have and the should have become should have? So a number of things you can do by looking at different at different um versions. Many songs have different versions. [Music] [Music] [Music] Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should. [Music] oldies with oldies for me. Yes, I'm a romantic. What can I do? And I like to mix the two. I like to use new songs and songs that are my students like but also songs that help them to get to know me. I say, well, this is what I used to

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listen to when I was your age. So, if you use different versions like this, Christopher Bird, another version, Brenda Lee, I think is the original singer. I'm not really familiar with that version, I think, but I read that that's the the original one can help you to maybe build a chart like this where the students can appreciate music as a bit of a paraphrase both linguistic and non-llinguistic and also express their opinion on a scale of 1 to 10. How much did you like each of these versions and

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and why? In fact, I went and I asked Chat CPT, "What features of music could students compare when analyzing two or more versions of the same song?" So, here you've got some of the the variables that you can put on on on those chance to develop students broader paraphrasing, if you will, that's not only linguistic, but a little bit more artistic as well. If you think I'm pushing the concept of paraphrasing a bit too far with this, look at the Oxford English dictionary showing us that the word develop the word paraphrase has

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developed meanings throughout history, not only in litigative texts but also in musical and religious and visual arts context. Back to music. However, a simple activity you can do is to give students song titles. Another oldie, another romantic. Um, I will always love you and ask them to manipulate tone and style. Can you rewrite the song title in a formal way, in a sarcastic way, in a way that it sounds like muse? So, they might come up with my feelings for you will persist indefinitely. if that's formal or

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apparently I'm doomed to adore you forever if it's sarcastic. Sources confirm enduring emotional attachments. I need to put on a BBC voice for the news delivery. So then I could give you for example three different and if you want to put something in the chat go ahead. Can you pick one of these three title and adapt it and change it with a formal style, with a sarcastic style or in a news sort of style? And as you see, I've selected quite random but three songs that have the present perfect in their

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title. So you can kill several language birds with the same task because you can look at how the students interpret the present perfect. you know, what do they go on to do in terms of paraphrase plus adding the the awareness of the formal, the sarcastic, the news, uh, and looking at the grammar point of your choice. It's present perfect here, but it could be anything else. And if you're writing something in the chat, I hope you're having fun doing it and looking looking at everybody rewriting formally. Have you ever seen

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the rain sarcastically? Since you've been gone, I've been very happy or something. Um, and then I still haven't found what I'm looking for maybe as a headline. Turn this into a headline. You know how chat CPP and other bots bots keep evolving and now they give you additional ideas. You look up something and they give you like bonus tracks. I haven't checked really these songs are great. Well, they are great at songs, but I haven't checked for paraphrasing practice, but this is what chat GPT has

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to say as far as using powerful songs from a paraphrasing perspective. If you give them a try, get in touch. You'll have my email and my academic Instagram at the end sent me a quick a quick message if you try out any of this. There's shows and films as well recommended by chat to work on paraphrasing. Let's work with video. We've done a bit of work with music. Let's do a bit of work with video. Observe the dialogue, not a true dialogue really, but the dialogic effect that takes place here and how one of the

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um participants, if you will, paraphrases with humor. Remember the paraphrasing typically has other effects and in this case with humor uh the video that this TV host is um reporting on. This was happened last month and I found it while preparing for this talk and I was like, "Yeah, social media reads you quite well, right? The algorithms know what you're doing and what you're interested in. So, take a look at this and think about how it connects to the idea of paraphrasing with a twist. Recently, one mysterious word has been

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stuck in Trump's uh brain. I went on the border and I went on groceries. It's very simple word groceries. Like almost, you know, who uses the word? I started using the word the groceries. Yeah. Yeah. Groceries. I mean, who uses that word except everybody all the time? So now I'm wondering, does Donald Trump know what groceries are? groceries. It sort of says a bag with different things in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're on the right track. Not all bags with things in them are groceries. Can you ask your brain to

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narrow it down a little bit? The word grocery, you know, it's sort of simple word, but it sort of means like everything you eat. Ah, everything you eat. So simple. So almost correct. It says everything yet absolutely nothing. Let's keep digging. You know, such a basic term, groceries. The groceries, they mean every single item of grocery. Every every single item of grocery. I have to say, I never thought of it like that. I thought groceries were merely some items of grocery. But every item of grocery

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There's nothing political behind this for me. It was just a video just like you can pick anybody else generating this pingpong uh in terms of analyzing anybody else's words. It just happens to be current news if you will. So, I'll yeah, I'll let the video run for a second time while I share some of the things that I believe can be interesting about this video from a purely grammatical perspective. Have you noticed the use of grocery in the singular, groceries in the plural, then an item of groceries, articles, you

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know, without an article, with the groceries, a grocery. So the paraphrase comes and goes between all these uses of the key word here including some item every item and even the emphasis the stress that you need to put on words when you make contrast can be something interesting to work on. Then the container content relationship, you know, the bag that contains the groceries and the relationship of meatonomy that this would belong to if you um if you will like this metaphorical uses of saying you know the

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crown to refer to to to royals etc. the spokenness of uh the declarations with uh discourse markers like like sort of you know that can make spoken English quite natural but if you use them a bit too much then perhaps they can show that you're not too articulate if you're filling your speech too much with you know you know sort of sort of like like like and very interesting for me the the the paraphrase that the TV host provides feedback as the pingpong that he generates as he picks on the other

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person's words and reformulates them and extends them with the twist of humor. So here there is an attempt to clarify an attempt to make things shorter the humor of it. So what I think we shouldn't forget is that paraphrasing has sociopragmatic layers included in them and as I said today when you say thanks I appreciate it sure anytime and the idea that these speech act flock together like that like birds with a feather and this can be another way in which to do paraphrase because in real discourse people will use two neosm near

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synonymous expressions together like Uh remember to keep putting questions in the Q&A box if you want and we'll answer them in a in a minute. Before that uh I've just put together a few grammar points to illustrate how we can add these sociopragmatic bits of information. Even when we explain to students for example how relative clauses work and we say defining or non-defining for essential and non-essential information but do we ever point out that the non-defining kind is typically quite formal. The defining kind cuts across

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registers. It's used, you know, everywhere defining, but non-defining. For example, in conversation, we don't normally use information like that that doesn't really help the listener understand what or who you're referring to to identify, you know, non-identifying clauses. So, I think that's something important to add when we work on the two types of relative clauses. Three related examples to the passage. The passage is not just a matter of subject verb being inverted in terms of word order. What can be hidden

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behind the use of the passage? CDA there stands for critical discourse analysis. Can we make our students critical of phrases like something was broken? Why not I broke it or she broke it or they broke it? So what can be hidden behind the use of passive constructions is as important if not more than the mechanical change of word order. Similarly have or get something done. We typically say that somebody else does it for you like to have your hair cut. But look at that other use of get. This is typically not have but get your room

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cleaned. Imagine a mother getting to a child. Does the mother imply that the child should hire somebody else to clean the room for them? Well, maybe. Who knows? The focus of that construction is elsewhere. It is on the end product. I want the room cleaned. I don't I don't care who cleans it. The mother would would seem to have in in in her mind. But I think that needs to be added because it's really quite different from somebody else doing it from you. And the last two examples have this question of

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speaker choice or writer's choice embedded in them. When people say I got invited rather than I was invited, the get passive has been discovered to have this extra layer of something that the speaker perceives as problematic. Hey Leo, but what can be problematic about being invited to a party? Well, maybe it's a party that you don't want to go to. Maybe your boss is organizing that party and you don't really want to go. So, you say, "Oh, can you believe I I got invited to that boring party and I'm afraid I'm going to

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have to go. I was invited." It's perfectly grammatical, but I got invited. Is a choice that adds that layer of problematicity. And the notion of think you know if it's a face saving or a phrase threatening act uh that you are producing when you speak similarly will I'm going to look at the clouds it's going to rain well but that can be our choice as Peters as well to present something as if we have the evidence and that's also critical discourse analysis because you because you can even manipulate what

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you're saying by sounding as if you have evidence. No one tells you if there is evidence or not. It can be your decision to make that grammar choice. So to conclude before we see what questions or comments you've got, I have tried to show you ways in which the single sentence of sentence transformations can be taken to a larger context by using for example whed and who when did it happen? Why, the how, how long, how far, etc. And then the opposites from context to sentence. In other words, you're doing

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skilled work. Can you isolate sentences in the reading or in the listening? But the students can paraphrase maybe with a twist of for more informal, more sarcastic, more technical, etc., etc., because we need to think beyond synonyomy and the additional communicative layers that begin to appear when we change one word for another. Language is not an innocent vehicle of communication. How about then using video and tone to explore tone and style? Music and video to explore tone and style nuances of

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paraphrasing. And finally, and possibly more important, the sociopragmatic features pragmatic features of grammar and language and if they're present or if not they're not present, if we need to mention them. including humorous uses of language the six function of language Jacobson would say the poetic function not just in poetry but the human capacity apparently other animal species are very sophisticated communication systems but I as far as I know they cannot play on the language that's rather unique to humans so let's do not

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leave that simply to a quick break in between more important sessions let's work in a big way on the creative functions of language to have fun but sometimes not. Sometimes actual fights can take place with um punning or linguistic creativity. So that's the end of the presentation. I hope that if at least one or two of the ideas that I've shared in the past help you to think about paraphrasing and help you to think about today, tomorrow, I hope you can go into the classroom and actually apply some of

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these ideas. Well, if that's the case, then my job is done. Thank you very much.