Topicalisation

The first words of most sentences tell you ‘what the sentence is about’. Sometimes to make the message clearer, the speaker highlights or stresses some information by putting it at the end of the:

Everyone was dressed in a very amusing way. (-ing adjective)What amused me was the way everyone was dressed. (verb)I was amused by the way everyone was dressed. (-ed adjective)

Task 1. Do the same with the following sentences:

1. The price surprised me.

___________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

2. The acting impressed me.

___________________________________________________________________________

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3. Their lack of consideration annoyed me. ___________________________________________________________________________

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4. The fantastic sports facilities interested me.

___________________________________________________________________________

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5. The way they treated the children shocked me.

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

6. Nobody apologised, which was disappointing.

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Contributed by Al Rip

© The British Council 2011

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.

Topicalisation

Questions can be given greater focus by changing them in a similar way:How much did it cost?What I want to know is how much it cost.How long was it going to take?What I was interested in was how long it was going to take.

Task 2. The semi-fixed patterns below can be used by to stress or highlight the information at the end of the sentence. Complete the sentences with your own ideas so that that they convey clear ideas.

What I really liked about ____________________ was the way _______________________________

What I found really ________________________ was how ___________________________________

What I found absolutely _____________________ was the fact that ___________________________

Task 3. Another situation where the speaker may want to highlight some information is when talking about problems and solutions. Complete the following sentences so that they convey clear ideas:

a. How to signal a problem:

One ________________________ difficulty is that __________________________________________

The trouble with ___________________________ is that _____________________________________

The worrying thing about _______________________ is the way ______________________________

Other options are:What worries me is that/ the way ________________________________________________________What I find really worrying is that/ the way ________________________________________________What I find inconvenient is that/ the way _________________________________________________An inconvenience is that ______________________________________________________________The __________________ disadvantage is that ____________________________________________

b. How to offer solutions:

What we could do is ________________________________________________________________One way out would be to ____________________________________________________________The best thing (to do) is ____________________________________________________________One possibility could/ might be ______________________________________________________The answer could be _______________________________________________________________A viable/ possible solution could be __________________________________________________

Contributed by Al Rip

© The British Council 2011

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.