The language of moving
Almost everybody in any room has somebody in their family who moved — between countries, or between a small place and a large one.
Hold one of them in mind. First, eight words the subject is discussed in.
Eight terms. Match each to what it actually describes.
The same argument, packed two ways
Version one
Internal migration, it is much larger than international migration in most countries. However, the public debate, it focuses almost entirely on people crossing borders. Furthermore, in Brazil, it has a long history of movement from the Northeast to the Southeast. Moreover, these people, they are often described as migrants in their own country. Nevertheless, the word migrant, in international contexts it means something different.
Version two
In most countries, far more people move within their borders than across them. That movement, however, is almost absent from public debate, which concentrates on the smaller number who arrive from outside. Brazil is a useful case: the long movement from the Northeast to the Southeast has shaped its cities for a century, and the people who made it are often called migrants in their own country. The word does a different job internationally, and the difference is worth holding on to.
Five questions. The two versions make the same four claims, in the same order.
1. How many connectives does version one use?
2. How many does version two use?
3. Which one is easier to follow?
4. In version one, several sentences name a topic and then repeat it as a pronoun — Internal migration, it is…. What is that doing to the sentence?
5. How does version two connect its sentences?
Old first, new last
How an English sentence is packed
| Position | Carries | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The beginning | Something the reader already has | It links this sentence to the last one |
| The end | What is new | English readers weight the end of a sentence heavily |
| The next sentence | Starts from that new thing | Which is how a paragraph becomes a chain |
And the rule that follows from it. In English the grammatical subject is what the sentence is about. There is no separate slot for a topic, so you cannot announce one and then start again.
Migration, it is a complex issue. The people who leave, they usually return. In my country, it has many problems.
Portuguese has that slot — Esse livro, eu já li — and uses it in writing as well as in speech. English puts the topic in the subject position and leaves it there.
Six sentences of a paragraph, out of order. Put them in the order that makes each sentence start from something the one before it introduced.
- Funding then produces the services that make one destination easier than another.
- That movement is largely invisible in public argument, which concentrates on arrivals from outside.
- And ease, more than distance, is what most people are actually choosing between.
- Most movement in the world happens inside national borders rather than across them.
- Counting, in turn, decides what gets funded, because a budget needs a number.
- Arrivals from outside are easier to count, and much easier to photograph.
Repacking
Six gaps. Choose the opening that starts from something the previous sentence has already given you.
More people move within their own countries than between them. is almost absent from public debate. concentrates instead on arrivals from outside, which are easier to count. matters, because budgets need numbers. produce the services that make one city easier to arrive in than another, and — more than distance — is what most people are choosing between. is why a debate about borders often misses the question people are actually answering.
Seven sentences. One packaging error each.
1. Migration, it is a very complex subject.
2. The people who leave, they usually send money home.
3. In my city it has a lot of new arrivals.
4. Nowadays the technology, it changed everything about staying in touch.
5. Because of the crisis, it made many people leave.
6. About the remittances, they are larger than foreign investment in some countries.
7. The reason why people move, it is usually work.
Somebody in your family who moved
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 3 minutes each, twice
Tell your partner about somebody who moved — where from, where to, why, and what it changed.
Three minutes. Then your partner gives you a number, and you do it again.
- Round one: say it however comes out.
- Listener: for each sentence, mark whether it began with something you already knew, or with something new.
- Round two: same story, and every sentence must open with something already introduced.
- Listener: mark again, and say which version was easier to follow.
What the number means. A turn in which most sentences open with new information is a turn the listener is reassembling as they go. It is not a vocabulary problem and it is not a grammar problem; every sentence may be correct. It is a packing problem, and it is invisible to the speaker, who already knows what is coming.
What round two produced
Five sentences of the kind this task produces. Repack each.
1. My grandmother, she came to São Paulo in 1971.
2. In that time, it was very common to move for work.
3. The house where they lived, it had no running water for two years.
4. About her brothers, two of them stayed and one followed her.
5. Because she never went back, that is why I have never seen the town.
The subject is the topic
Three questions. Thirty seconds.
1. Where does an English sentence put what the reader already knows?
2. Why can you not announce a topic and then start the sentence again?
3. Why did version one feel harder to follow despite all its connectives?
Next. Four writers on mobility — and what holds their paragraphs together, which is usually not the word you would expect.