The Use of Punctuation in the Writing of Libyan Students Essay

Punctuation in EnglishParkes (1992), in his invaluable study of the history of punctuation, statesPunctuation was develop by stages which coincided with changing patterns of literacy, whereby new generations of readers in different historical situations oblige new demands on the written medium itself (p. 2).Punctuation is not a static model and even if we confine the discussion to early y go forthhful and modern English, it has changed quite considerably across time (Numberg, 1999). The uses of punctuation are conventional they change over time and vary from language to language. in that location micturate been to be conventions or rules, for without these, punctuation would be wholly individual and the possibilities of using it to facilitate publicationive communication would be either wooly of severely hindered (Beard & et al., 2009). Some rules of punctuation are mandatory if we violate them, we have made mistakes in punctuation. Others are optional our choice is bas ing on the effect and emphasis we desire to deliver. To that extent, Greenbaum and Nelson (2002 183) say punctuation is an art. There was a ample debate between two schools ace believed punctuation should be base on elocution (how a sentence is spoken when it is read out aloud) and the some other believed punctuation should be establish on the grammar (Petit 2003 Curtis, 2007 Hall and Robinson, 1996 Parkes, 1992). The latter (the syntactic-based approach) is the one we use today, which means the debate was won by grammar school. Recently, Dawkins (2003 and 1995) has come out with a new believe teaching punctuation should be based on the meaning (the semantic- based approach). Dawkins (2003) assumes that writers have an intuitive sense of the case-by-case claus... ..., p. 349). Moreover, Chiang (1999) claims that in EFL writing, the sentence(s) may appear to be appropriate order, moreover in incongruent places due to inappropriate use or non use of punctuation. apply the pr emise that students often have weak language skills, Warner (1979) surveyed 431 postsecondary students using iv tools students scores on an objective test, an in-class writing sample, an redact exercise, and a questionnaire about background in English and attitude toward grammar and writing. She implant that the largest number of wrongdoings in the writing occurred in punctuation. She came out with The high error rate in punctuation resulted from 1) the students not knowing the rules of punctuation, 2) knowing the rules but not being able to apply them to their own writing, or 3) constructing such(prenominal) poor sentences that correct punctuation was impossible (p.18).