THE ABILITY OF PARAGRAPHING ATTHE UNIVERSITY LEVEL

The linguistic theory is no more confined to the recognition of the sentence as the largest unit that can be explored by what is called a sentential grammar. Linguistics can not proceed very far without a realization of units above the sentence (Cook, 1995:25). The difficulty of creating linguistic models from which a kind of grammar of units beyond the sentence could be worked out may be the main reason why little work has been done in this concern (Chapman, 2002:104). However, recently much attention has been given to know enough about how sentences build up into larger units (see Dijk, 2003:76). Many approaches have been suggested, especially, in text-linguistics to go through this point. Yet, every one is accustomed to recognize and name units beyond the sentence: the paragraph in prose, the stanza in verse, such divisions are often marked graphologically. Beyond these we have more divisions such as: chapters, scenes, and acts, cantos and books, depending upon the different literary kinds (Chapman, 2002:107).This paper is concerned at first hand with the structural building of the paragraph as a macro-sentence or meta-sentence. Second, it is concerned with the English Department/ third stage students recognition of the paragraph as a structural unit and their ability of setting off what they read into paragraphs.