Humans Need Less Sleep Than Any Other Primate Summary
The article “Why humans need less sleep than any other primate” published on the Earth section of the BBC website explains how the human brain has developed to need a little amount of sleep compared to the one of other primates (monkeys and apes). We sleep less, but we have more quality sleep and this may be the cause of our success as a species. In this essay, I will focus on some aspects of the language used by the writer.
Both elements of formal and informal writing converge in the text. Firstly, the author prefers to use full forms rather than contractions, but sometimes she also uses the latter, as in “what’s more” and “isn’t that why we are all so sleep-deprived?”. Full forms are typical of formal language.
Secondly, sentences are usually
brief, being no longer than one or two lines each. Nevertheless, sentence length and structure vary. To link them, the writer uses both coordination (e.g. “Homo erectus spent its life on the ground, and may have been the first hominin to make beds there.”) and subordination (e.g. “If that is true, we have been sleeping on the ground for a long time.”) but the former is prevalent. Many sentences begin with the coordinating conjunction “but” lowering the register of the whole text since coordination is a feature of informal writing. As I mentioned before, however, subordinate clauses are present: most of them are relative clauses introduced by the words “which” and “who”.
For what concerns the grammatical usage, a feature of informal writing is the prevalence of verb phrases with respect to noun phrases, meaning that there are more verbs than nouns in the sentences. Nevertheless, verb structure does not vary: the author does not include passive forms or impersonal constructions in the text, with a couple of exceptions (e.g. “Meanwhile opossums, which are not noted for their deep thinking, need over six hours.”).
Though the verb structure does not change, the sentence structure does. For example, the use of adverbial construction at the beginning of sentences is wide. We also notice a number of connectors used to link the different parts of the article. To mention some of them, we find “what’s more” various times, but the writer also uses “for example” and “in particular”. These features are typical of formal language. Such structures are used to fulfill many functions, as adding new information, listing and explaining.
For what concerns the lexis, the terms used to discuss this topic are not particularly difficult to understand. They are not formal nor informal, but common core. The author mostly uses words with Anglo-Saxon or Nordic roots which are usually less formal than words of French, Greek or Latin origin. The latter are used when referring in particular to the scientific explanation of the topic since the international scientific vocabulary is composed for the vast majority by words with Latin and Greek roots. Besides, in the text we find some phrasal verbs, such as “point out”, “fade away” and “stand out”. This kind of verbs lowers the register of the article since one-word verbs are more formal and therefore used in formal writing. Furthermore, another characteristic of informal language is the repetition of the same words throughout the article: there is no wide choice of terms, synonyms are not used.
To conclude, as I mentioned before, this article is neither completely formal nor informal since it includes features of both languages. In my opinion, that is because the text is not addressed to a specific audience. Even if the topic is scientific, the article is conceived for everybody to understand, which is why the sentences construction and the lexicon used are simple.
Both elements of formal and informal writing converge in the text. Firstly, the author prefers to use full forms rather than contractions, but sometimes she also uses the latter, as in “what’s more” and “isn’t that why we are all so sleep-deprived?”. Full forms are typical of formal language.
Secondly, sentences are usually
brief, being no longer than one or two lines each. Nevertheless, sentence length and structure vary. To link them, the writer uses both coordination (e.g. “Homo erectus spent its life on the ground, and may have been the first hominin to make beds there.”) and subordination (e.g. “If that is true, we have been sleeping on the ground for a long time.”) but the former is prevalent. Many sentences begin with the coordinating conjunction “but” lowering the register of the whole text since coordination is a feature of informal writing. As I mentioned before, however, subordinate clauses are present: most of them are relative clauses introduced by the words “which” and “who”.
For what concerns the grammatical usage, a feature of informal writing is the prevalence of verb phrases with respect to noun phrases, meaning that there are more verbs than nouns in the sentences. Nevertheless, verb structure does not vary: the author does not include passive forms or impersonal constructions in the text, with a couple of exceptions (e.g. “Meanwhile opossums, which are not noted for their deep thinking, need over six hours.”).
Though the verb structure does not change, the sentence structure does. For example, the use of adverbial construction at the beginning of sentences is wide. We also notice a number of connectors used to link the different parts of the article. To mention some of them, we find “what’s more” various times, but the writer also uses “for example” and “in particular”. These features are typical of formal language. Such structures are used to fulfill many functions, as adding new information, listing and explaining.
For what concerns the lexis, the terms used to discuss this topic are not particularly difficult to understand. They are not formal nor informal, but common core. The author mostly uses words with Anglo-Saxon or Nordic roots which are usually less formal than words of French, Greek or Latin origin. The latter are used when referring in particular to the scientific explanation of the topic since the international scientific vocabulary is composed for the vast majority by words with Latin and Greek roots. Besides, in the text we find some phrasal verbs, such as “point out”, “fade away” and “stand out”. This kind of verbs lowers the register of the article since one-word verbs are more formal and therefore used in formal writing. Furthermore, another characteristic of informal language is the repetition of the same words throughout the article: there is no wide choice of terms, synonyms are not used.
To conclude, as I mentioned before, this article is neither completely formal nor informal since it includes features of both languages. In my opinion, that is because the text is not addressed to a specific audience. Even if the topic is scientific, the article is conceived for everybody to understand, which is why the sentences construction and the lexicon used are simple.