Corso di Laurea in
Lingue, Letterature e Comunicazione Interculturale
LINGUISTICA E TRADUZIONE DELLA LINGUA
INGLESE 2 (MODULO A)
Dispensa
Text and text types
Prof. Elisa Mattiello
A.A. 2025-2026
Prepara i tuoi esami
Studia grazie alle numerose risorse presenti su Docsity
Ottieni i punti per scaricare
Guadagna punti aiutando altri studenti oppure acquistali con un piano Premium
Guide e consigli
Prepara i tuoi esami
Studia grazie alle numerose risorse presenti su Docsity
Cerca documenti
Prepara i tuoi esami con i documenti condivisi da studenti come te su Docsity
Cerca la tua università
Trova i documenti specifici per gli esami della tua università
Video Corsi
Preparati con lezioni e prove svolte basate sui programmi universitari!
Quiz
Rispondi a reali domande d’esame e scopri la tua preparazione
Docsity AINEW
Riassumi i tuoi documenti, fagli domande, convertili in quiz e mappe concettuali
Maturità 2026
Studia con prove svolte, tesine e consigli utili
Esplora domande
Togliti ogni dubbio leggendo le risposte alle domande fatte da altri studenti come te
Argomenti di studio
Esplora i documenti più scaricati per gli argomenti di studio più popolari
Ottieni i punti per scaricare
Guadagna punti aiutando altri studenti oppure acquistali con un piano Premium
dispense di inglese e metodi corretti di traduzione ed adattamento all'italiano di termini, Dispense di Lingua Inglese
dispense di inglese e metodi corretti di traduzione ed adattamento all'italiano di termini specifici
Tipologia: Dispense
2022/2023
1 / 23
Questa pagina non è visibile nell’anteprima
Non perderti parti importanti!
Documenti correlati
Anteprima parziale del testo
Scarica dispense di inglese e metodi corretti di traduzione ed adattamento all'italiano di termini e più Dispense in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity!
Corso di Laurea in
Lingue, Letterature e Comunicazione Interculturale
LINGUISTICA E TRADUZIONE DELLA LINGUA
INGLESE 2 (MODULO A)
Dispensa
Text and text types
Prof. Elisa Mattiello
A.A. 202 5 - 2026
Table of contents
- Text and Textual Principles
- 1.1 What is a “text”?
- 1.2 Constitutive and Regulative Principles
- Cohesive devices
- 2.1 Reference
- 2.2 Substitution and ellipsis
- 2.3 Junctions
- 2.4 Repetition
- 2.5 Lexical cohesion
- 2.6 Collocation
- Text Types
- 3.1 Descriptive text type
- 3.2 Narrative text type
- 3.3 Expository text type
- 3.4 Argumentative text type
- 3.5 Instructional text type
- Bibliography ……………………………………………………………....
Exercise: Which types of cohesion can you find in the following texts? (a) (b) (c)
2. Coherence : connectedness among the components of the textual world. It concerns the ways in which the components of the textual world are mutually accessible and relevant.
- Jack fell down… and broke his leg. vs 1'. Jack broke his leg… and fell down. Cohesion vs Coherence
- Arrived in the Galapagos at night. Everything’s OK. Wishing you were here. Hugs and kisses, Louise
- She hid Bob then cooked it, whose sister rose prices, which liked itself very much, however Sheila wanted. The electric appliances, including the Kangaroo and the astronaut, notwithstanding, snow- boarded up the slope sadly, swam in the road gladly, flew under the sea madly. 3. Intentionality : the text producer’s attitude that the product should constitute a coherent text fulfilling his/her communicative intentions. A: Smith doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend these days. B: He has been paying a lot of visits to New York lately. 4. Acceptability : the text receiver’s attitude that the producer’s utterance should constitute a coherent and relevant text. A: I’m out of petrol.
B: There’s a gas station round the corner.
5. Informativity : the extent to which the occurrences of the text are new to the receiver.
- Women are enchanting beings.
- Women are women. 6. Situationality : the factors that make a text relevant to a situation of occurrence. SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY 7. Intertextuality : reliance on other texts, i.e. text types with typical patterns of characteristics of prior versions with which the receiver will need some familiarity. There are also three Regulative Principles of textuality which control textual communication: 1. Efficiency : communication with a minimum expenditure of effort by the participants. ONE WAY Staff meeting. Boardroom. 10: 2. Effectiveness : leaving a strong impression on the text receiver and creating conditions for attaining the goal of the text producer. EXCLUSIVELY FOR EVERYBODY The Sound of Silence 3. Appropriateness : the way a text is suited to the communicative situation. HELP! Cohesion and Coherence Can a text be cohesive, but not coherent? I am a teacher. The teacher is late for class. Class rhymes with grass. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. We need to invest in greener energy. Can a text be coherent, but not cohesive? A: The phone’s ringing. B: I’m in the bath. A: OK. Exercise: Re-elaborate the following sentences to make them a more cohesive and/or more coherent text.
- At dinner last night, Rachel burnt her mouth. The soup was far too hot.
- Oil is the principal source of energy. We should invest more in green energy sources.
Exercise: Are the following sequences of sentences a text? Why? Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank. Banks are very useful institutions. His institute is not far from here. He is the ideal candidate. Peel the apples and discard the core. Cut them into thin slices. Mix the eggs, sugar and salt together. Melt the butter and stir it into the egg mixture together with the apples, flour and baking powder. Add the milk, stir well and pour the mixture into a pan. Bake for about half an hour. When cool, remove from the pan.
Exercise: Identify personal reference and distinguish the type (exophoric, endophoric/cataphoric, endophoric/anaphoric).
- A: Did you go to the cinema last Sunday? B: No, I didn’t. I was too busy. A: What did you have to do? B: I had to clean my room.
- Look. There is a note from Jane. She says: “I’ve already bought some food for dinner”.
- HONEY: William’s just turned down Anna Scott. SPIKE: (to William) You, daft prick.
- A: Have you been to London? B: Yes, it was very crowded.
- I would never believe it. They’ve accepted the whole scheme.
- Edna: God, is he excellent? Ariel: The new kid? Ah, he’s all right. Edna: Are you blind? He is gorgeous! Demonstrative reference is reference by means of location on a scale of proximity, space or time. It can be: exophoric : e.g. Look at those flowers! The bus is coming. What’s going on now? Come here. endophoric/anaphoric : e.g. There were ten different cheeses on the cheeseboard. This huge selection made it very difficult for Louise to choose what she wanted. endophoric/cataphoric : e.g. This is what I want you to do: go to the shop, buy a turkey, come home and cook it. Exercise: Identify demonstrative reference and distinguish the type (exophoric, endophoric/cataphoric, endophoric/anaphoric).
- Amy: If you ask me, Ren is a total fox. Lulu: Amy! Wes: Where did you hear that?
- The largest city in the world is Tokyo. Indefinite and definite articles indicate whether something has been referred to before or is assumed to be known. A man in a dark suit walked up to the bar. Mary watched him apprehensively. After a few seconds, the man said, “Hello, darling”. The street was dark. The curtains were drawn across the windows. Mary walked cautiously along the pavement.
2.2 Substitution and ellipsis
Substitution entails repeating a structure and its content but substituting some of the surface expression, often using ‘dummy’ words like one(s) , do , it.
- These towels are dirty; we need some clean ones.
- Have you written that essay? I haven’t done it yet.
- Is the meeting still going on tomorrow? It sounds like it. Substitution can be:
- nominal : One doesn’t replace a legend. One creates a new one. The new 911 Porsche.
- verbal : Miss Hardcastle: I understand you perfectly, sir. Marlow (aside): Egad! And that’s more than I do myself.
- clausal : A: You’re beautiful. B: Really? Really? Do you think so? Because I always feel like I have really elfish ears. Ellipsis entails repeating a structure and its content but omitting some of the surface expression. It is substitution by zero.
- John won a clock and Mary a TV set.
- The books on the table are from the library, but those are mine.
- Jane went to the lecture, but Harry didn’t. Ellipsis can be:
- nominal : I felt a hand on my neck, and it was John’s [ø].
- verbal : The book explained why globalization has not benefited as many people as it should [ø].
- clausal : A: Have you ever visited the Great Wall of China? B: Yes, [ø] twice. Exercise: Distinguish between substitution and ellipsis. Mrs. Birling: I think we’ve just about come to an end of this wretched business. Gerald: I don’t think so. Excuse me. [he goes out] Sheila [to Inspector]: You know, you never showed him that photograph of her. Inspector: No. It wasn’t necessary. I thought it better not to. Mrs. Birling: You have a photograph of this girl? Inspector: Yes. I think you’d better look at it. Mrs. Birling: Very well. [she looks at the photograph] Inspector: Do you recognize her? Mrs. Birling: No. Why should I? Inspector: Of course, she might have changed lately, but I can’t believe she could have changed so much. Mrs. Birling: I don’t understand you, Inspector. Inspector: You mean you don’t choose to do, Mrs. Birling. Mrs. Birling: I mean what I said. Inspector: You’re not telling me the truth. Mrs. Birling: I beg your pardon! Mr. Birling: Look here, I’m not going to have this, Inspector. You’ll apologize at once. Inspector: Apologize for what - doing my duty?
He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. (Tennyson, The Eagle ) Graphosymbolic cohesion is produced by the use of graphic symbols to convey meaning: l(a le af fa ll s) one l iness (E.E. Cummings, l(a ) Morphological cohesion is the repetition of the same bound or free morphs: Dance to your Daddy, My little babby, Dance to your Daddy, My little lamb. You shall have a fishy In a little dishy, You shall have a fishy When the boat comes in.
2. 5 Lexical cohesion
Recurrence is the straightforward repetition of elements or patterns: e.g. There’s water through many homes – I would say almost all of them have water in them. It’s just completely under water. Partial recurrence entails using the same basic word components but shifting them to a different word class (morphological variant): e.g. Wittnauer makes the watches people watch. Exercise: Identify recurrence and partial recurrence in the following text. ENZYMATIC CATALYSIS. Nearly all chemical reactions in biological systems are catalysed by specific macromolecules called enzymes. Some of these reactions, such as the hydration of carbon dioxide, are quite simple. Others, such as the replication of an entire chromosome, are highly intricate. Nearly all enzymes exhibit enormous catalytic power. Enzymes usually enhance reaction rates by at least a millionfold. Indeed, chemical transformations rarely occur at perceptible rates in vivo in the absence of enzymes. More than a thousand enzymes have been characterized, and many more have been crystallized. The striking fact is that all known enzymes are proteins. Thus proteins play the unique role of determining the pattern of chemical transformation in biological systems.
Nominalization is the process via which a prototypical verbal clause is converted into a Noun Phrase: e.g. She knew him → Her knowledge of him
She was ill → Her illness
Nominalization is typically used in specialized texts: In some parts of the world sulphur deposits lie too deep to be mined in the ordinary way. However, in about 1900 an American engineer called Herman Frasch developed a process for the extraction of this deep-lying sulphur. The Frasch process depends on the fact that the boiling point of sulphur is only a little above the boiling point of water. The process consists of three basic operations. First, large amounts of water are super-heated; in other words, the water is heated under pressure to above its normal boiling point. Secondly, this super-heated water is pumped down the well so that it melts the sulphur. Finally, this molten sulphur is pumped to the surface. Exercise: Identify nominalization in the following text. Acer warrants any Acer computer hardware product first sold to an end-user in a country of the European Economic Area, to be free from defects in materials or workmanship under normal use for the duration of the warranty period as stated on the Limited Warranty card supplied with your System. The warranty period commences on the date of purchase. Your original purchase invoice, showing the date of purchase of the System, is your proof of the date of purchase. This Limited Warranty extends beyond the original purchaser to any lawful successor in interest, provided, however, that anyone claiming under this warranty must, upon request, produce the original purchase invoice to be entitled to warranty services. Parallelism entails re-using surface formats but filling them with different expressions. I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I’m introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun! (Sir Walter A. Raleigh, Wishes of an Elderly Man at a Garden Party ) Exercise: Identify parallelism and ellipsis in the following text: Black people are more likely than their white counterparts to be stopped by the police. If stopped, they are more likely to be arrested. If arrested, they are more likely to be charged. If charged, they are more likely to be remanded in custody; and if convicted, more likely to receive a sentence of imprisonment. (Stephen Shaw, Director of Prison Reform Trust) Chiasmus is the reversal of form which may stress the reversal of content: e.g. We must hold them Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. ( Declaration of Independence ) Paraphrase entails repeating content but conveying it with different expressions: e.g. I had never seen a murderer […] the decent symbol which indemnifies the taker of a life. (Beerbohm, Selected Essays )
Exercise: Identify hypernym and co-hyponyms in the following text: Three successive Presidents of America were keen gardeners. George Washington created a marvelous retreat at Mt. Vernon on the banks of the Potomac river. It was typically English, with lawns, shrubberies and flower beds. He had a particular interest in trees and shrubs and planted species such as cedar, dogwood, poplar, laurel, and weeping willow. An orangery and a small botanic garden were also made. […] The plants were arranged in careful masses of colour: lavender, grey, red, and purple. (Ruth Shaw Ernst, The Naturalist’s Garden ) Antonymy denotes opposition in meaning (X is the opposite of Y). It is a binary relationship between two mutually exclusive words: simple or complementary antonyms : e.g., dead / alive gradable antonyms : e.g., tall / short reversives or directional opposites : e.g., up / down converses or relational antonyms : e.g., parent / child. Exercise: Identify antonyms in the following text: As he sat there, living over his life with her and evoking alternately the two images in which he now conceived her, he realised that she was dead, that she had ceased to exist, that she had become a memory. He began to feel ill at ease. He asked himself what else could he have done. He could not have carried on a comedy of deception with her; he could not have lived with her openly. He had done what seemed to him best. How was he to blame? Now that she was gone he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting night after night alone in that room. His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ceased to exist, became a memory – if anyone remembered him. (James Joyce, A Painful case ) Exercise: Identify cohesive devices in the following text: Thank you, thank you, my fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans. I accept your nomination. I do not envy the drowsy harmony of the Republican Party. They squelch debate; we welcome it. They deny differences; we bridge them. They are uniform; we are united. They are a portrait of privilege; and we are a mirror of America. Just - just look at us tonight: black and white, Asian and Hispanic, native and immigrant, young and old, urban and rural, male and female – from yuppy to lunchpail, from sea to shining sea we are all here tonight in this convention, speaking for America. (Former Vice-President Mondale)
3. Text Types
Texts not only depend on the weaving together of lexical and grammatical strands, but also have a “ superstructure ” (or “macrostructure”), i.e. global level of organization. The superstructure of a text has recognizable parts that are organized according to conventional patterns.
3.1 Descriptive text type
The text producer of descriptive texts intends to represent and convey a mental picture of a scene to the receiver (with objects, people, situations) as perceived in space. Descriptive texts vary depending on: Quality of the description : general vs detailed Point of view : objective (technical description) vs subjective (impressionistic description). The typical features of descriptive text surface structures are: use of the verb to be or positional verbs to describe states of affairs use of quality attributing adjectives and spatial prepositions and adverbs use of comparisons/superlatives/figurative language to help us picture the scene use of our five senses - how sth. feels, smells, looks, sounds and tastes (esp. in subjective description) Examples Gregory is my beautiful gray Persian cat. He walks with pride and grace, with the delicacy of a ballet dancer. He spends most of his time indoors on top of his pillow, watching television and growing fat. He enjoys TV commercials, especially those for Meow Mix and 9 Lives. He does not like generic brands of cat food, but prefers only the most expensive ones. Gregory is as fussy about visitors as he is about what he eats, immediately liking some but staying far away from others under the bed. After my visitors have left, I look at him snoozing and smiling to himself as he sits in front of the television set, and I always forgive him for his obnoxious, but endearing, habits. There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and the war monument. There were big palms and green benches in the public garden. In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain. The motor cars were gone from the square by the war monument. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe a waiter stood looking out of the empty square. (Ernest Hemingway, “Cat in the Rain”) In the foreground, Christ is represented half-figure as He is raising from the grave; death is vividly depicted through the pale tone of the skin. In the background the landscape is framed by two walls of rocks that define the perspective. The walkway on the right, which crosses the river and the wood and reaches the lake at the bottom of the composition, renders the painting extraordinarily deep. On the top of the right hand side rocks we find a dead tree, while flourishing vegetation dominates the left side of the landscape. (Giovanni Bellini, Imago Pietatis )
Exercise: Identify the features of the following descriptive text. The Tuscan seaside is well-known not only for its long beaches, but also for its age-old pinewoods, the beautiful mountains Apuan Alps, the very famous marble quarries, and most of all for its night life. Besides that, Versilia is near other well-known tourist towns, like Pisa and Lucca, which are 20 km away, or Firenze at about 90 km. Along its coast you will also find small cultural towns like Torre del Lago, where Giacomo Puccini was born, or glamorous towns like Pietrasanta or Viareggio, with its famous Carnival, and Forte dei Marmi.
3.2 Narrative text type
The text producer of narrative texts intends to convey to the receiver knowledge about events (factual or conceptual phenomena) as they happen in time. Thus, narrative texts are related to the mental process of perception in time. Distinctions can be drawn on the basis of: Structure : chronological ordering of events, order of importance, cause-to-effect sequences, general to particular, etc. Point of view : subjective or objective (also called ‘report’). The typical features of narrative text surface structures are: action verbs (e.g., flow , went , etc.) or verbs of change of state (e.g., broke ) in the past; temporal conjunctions (e.g., when ) and adverbs (e.g., already , now , soon ); sequencing expressions (e.g., first , second , third ). Use of temporal expressions: reference to a fixed point of time: two years ago , tomorrow reference to an indefinite point of time: first , then , next reference to a brief moment of time: at once , in a minute reference to a time span: in the morning , in May reference to frequency: three times a day , daily indefinite frequency: constantly , regularly Example I can still remember how afraid I was the first time I flew on an airplane. I had always wondered what it would be like. Finally, last year, I boarded my first flight. It was a Boeing 727 jet. There were three seats on each side of the aisle. First of all, it was crowded, and this only made me more nervous. Then, every time we hit a little turbulence, my hands turned white. I was so nervous during the entire flight that I did not eat the meal they gave me. When the plane finally landed at our destination, I was so relieved. Since then, I have been on many flights, but I can still remember many small details of my first one. Exercise: Identify the features of the following narrative text. I was part of a crew that was sent on a mission into outer space. The mission was carried out successfully and I was on my way back to earth with my friends. Suddenly, an unidentified flying object appeared and it somehow forced our spacecraft to land on another planet. On the planet, a very strange looking creature met us. This creature took my crew and me to see its master. I saw another alien sitting on a very high throne. That must be their master. It wore a crown and looked like all the strange looking creatures in the room but its head was very much bigger. All the aliens had four eyes, two heads and six legs. They had a white body and no hair.
Bats are the only flying mammals. Bats’ forelimbs are greatly modified and form wings very different from those of birds. Bats have limited eyesight. In flight their ears form part of a unique system for locating and avoiding objects. Bats emit a sound, too high-pitched for us to hear, which is echoed back like a radar beam. Picked up by the bat’s sensitive ears, this echo indicates the direction and distance of obstacles to be avoided and of flying insects that may be sized for food. Grown bats and their kind are a group of common small bats with long, narrow ears and simple faces. Over a dozen species occur in North America. Thousands have been found in larger caves – sometimes in clusters, sometimes forming a layer over the cave walls. They also live in deserted buildings. (Mammals) Cf. “The story of Billy Bat”… Once there was a little brown bat named Billy. Billy had soft, brown fur, tiny, pointy ears, and lovely, graceful wings. Billy lived in the belfry high up in the rafters of the First Church, which was located on the corner of Maple and Main Streets. Every night Billy flew out of the belfry and, with his strong wings, would soar and glide and dip around the street light by the church. As you probably know, bats can’t see very well, so Billy had to hear extremely well. His favourite pastime was squeaking and then listening to all the echoes coming back to his sensitive ears. Each echo had a different sound, and Billy learned to identify everything on his block by its echo. He especially liked to hear the echoes of whining, buzzing mosquitoes, his favourite food, and some nights, when he was really hungry, he ate thousands of mosquitoes. Exercise: Identify the features of the following expository text. Cannabis is widely known for its medicinal ability to ease a host of serious conditions such as:
_- Cancer: cannabis can suppress nausea brought on by chemotherapy
- AIDS: it can increase appetite and prevent weight-loss
- Glaucoma (an eye condition): cannabis can relieve eye pressure
- Muscular pain: it can ease muscle spasms and period pains. In the 19th century cannabis was widely used to relieve muscle spasms and rheumatisms. Even Queen Victoria was given it by her doctor to ease her period pains. It was the invention of the syringe towards the end of the century that marked an end to its widespread medicinal use. Injecting drugs meant that they could take effect a lot faster. Cannabis cannot be dissolved in water, so it can’t be injected._
3.4 Argumentative text type
Argumentative texts focus on the evaluation of relations between concepts. The text producer expresses an opinion or thesis and investigates its relation to opposing opinions. Judging is the related mental process. The main purpose is to persuade the receiver of the validity of the upheld opinion. Argumentative texts vary depending on: Point of view : objective (scientific argumentation) vs subjective (comments). The typical features of argumentative text surface structures are: Expression of evaluation of pros and cons: esp. through
- adjectives such as in-correct , good / bad ;
- nouns and verbs such as advantages / disadvantages , improve / worsen , etc.;
- comparisons ( better than , the worst );
Concessive sequences introduced by connectives such as in spite of , nevertheless Contrastive sequences introduced by antithetic connectives such as but , conversely , instead , by contrast Illustrative cause-effect sequences introduced by because , in that , etc. Examples: Supporters of medical treatment argue that medicine should be trusted since it is effective and scientifically proven. Because traditional medicines can often make us feel better, these supporters say that there is no need for spiritual methods such as Yoga or Tai Chi. However, there are some “every day complaints” such as back pains, headaches, insomnia, which are treated currently with traditional medicine, but people do not necessarily get better. You should try a safer and more economical treatment like Reiki. This method was discovered in Japan in the early 1900s. In contrast to medicines, Reiki depends on the energy within our bodies. It is a simple and effective way of restoring the energy flow. This paper investigates the phenomenon of English reduplicatives - of the type chit-chat and nitty- gritty , which appear significant on various aspects, e.g. 1) as instances of extra-grammatical (or expressive) morphology, 2) as complex cases in terms of naturalness/iconicity, 3) as current processes for slangy formations, 4) as lexical devices for covering areas of morphopragmatic meanings and 5) as cases of likely difficulty in the process of translation. The topic deserves attention in linguistics, because English widely and productively exploits reduplication as a word formation mechanism. Although difficult to describe in terms of rules, and for that highly neglected by grammarians, reduplicatives are by no means out of ordinary: they are lively, productive and widely-spread, and they have been so for quite a number of centuries. (L. Merlini Barbaresi, Extra-grammatical morphology: English reduplicatives ) The issue of childcare and working mothers has been the subject of dispute for some time. Many argue that the best place for children is always in their homes with their own parents. However, it is my contention that there are many advantages to be had from using childcare centres and the government should provide more financial assistance to parents who do so. It has been argued that children who attend childcare centres at an early age miss out on important early learning that occurs in parent-child interaction. These children, so this argument goes, may be educationally disadvantaged later in life. Yet, childcare centres may actually assist children in their early learning. They give children an opportunity to mix with other children and to develop social skills at an early age. Indeed, a whole range of learning occurs in childcare centres. Another argument against the use of childcare facilities is that children can be emotionally deprived in these facilities compared to the home. This argument assumes that the best place for children is to be at their parents’, especially mothers’, side for twenty-four hours a day. Of course, children’s emotional development can be damaged if they spend too much time in childcare facilities. Nevertheless, parents and children need to spend some time apart. Moreover, children become less dependent on their parents and parents themselves are less stressed and more effective care-givers when there are periods of separation. Also, recent studies indicate that the parent-child relationship can be improved by the use of high-quality childcare facilities. It could also be asserted that the government and the economy as a whole cannot afford the enormous cost involved in supporting childcare for working parents. In fact working parents actually contribute to the national economy. They are able to utilise their productive skills and pay income tax, while non-working parents can become a drain on the tax system through a dependent spouse. In conclusion, government support for childcare services assists individual families and is important for the economic well-being of the whole nation. (The funding of childcare provision in the UK)