Organizational Competence Page

Organizational Competence is one's ability to organize (set up) one's writing in a logical and socially acceptable way.  What I mean is that one's writing needs to follow the norms or conventions that have been established by society.

I.  Grammatical Competence

    A.  Vocabulary  (you know what that is!)

    B.  Morphology (study of morphemes and how they come together to form words

             1.  For Example:  The word "organizational" has four morphemes...

                     a.  organ = instrument

                     b.  ize = make or do

                     c.  tion = process

                     d.  al = like (adj. suffix)  

    C.  Syntax (a complicated system of rules regarding word order in a sentence)

                1.  simply, and generally, English is a SVO language (Subject Verb Object); but it's not so simple.  Sometimes we break the rules, and it is okay to break the rules sometimes.  AND there are a lot more components to a language than subjects verbs and objects.  For instance, adverbs.  Probably one of the most complex part of English syntax is the placement of adverbs.  I will teach you later... (coming soon).

    D.  Phonology (study of intonation, i.e., supra-segmental features of a language).  Whole books have been written on this subject and haven't even dented the surface.  This is such a vast field.

                1.  Supra-segmental features

                a.  paralinguistic features
                            1. whispery voice
                            2. husky voice
                            3. creaky voice
                            4. falsetto voice
                            5. resonant voice
                            6. giggly voice
                            7. sobbing voice

                          b.  prosodic features
                                     1. pitch
                                   2. pitch movement
                                   3. loudness
                                   4. length

                        c.  other terms
                                   1.  tone... falling tone and rising tone
                                   2.  key = relative pitch (is the pitch higher or lower than surrounding pitches)

    E.  Graphology (study of the written part of a language)

II.  Textual Competence

    A.  Cohesion (the logical and semantic connectedness of a linguistic composition)

            1.  I was taught by my speech and debate teacher in high school the following model of excellent cohesion:

                    a.  tell your audience what you are going to tell them (main topics)
                    b.  then, tell them (in logical order, with support for each topic)
                    c.  then, tell them what you just told them (summarize)

            2.  That is the Western mind on cohesiveness.

    B.  Rhetorical organization (the ability to use language for the purpose of persuading one's audience)

            1.  Example:  Socratic method (look it up, ^^ )j

See examples of Leon's writing.

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