Compare Text 1 to Text 7.<\/p>\n
\nText 7<\/h4>\n
Baked Apples. Time\u2014\u00bd hour.<\/strong><\/p>\n
1 lb. apples, 2 oz. brown sugar, ground cinnamon, 1 tablespoonful cold water, rind and juice of a lemon.<\/p>\n
Wash the apples (if an apple corer be handy core them), notch them across the top, place them in a Yorkshire pudding tin, with the sugar, lemon-rind, lemon-juice, water, and cinnamon. Bake till tender; serve hot or cold. For Apple Snow, pass through a sieve and beat in lightly whites of 2 eggs and 3 oz. castor sugar, then pile roughly on a dish, and decorate to taste.<\/p>\n
May Henry, Edith B. Cohen, The Economical Jewish Cook<\/a>. London, 1897<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The two texts are related topically in that they both mention apple corers and the ways in which they can be used (for example, when making baked apples).<\/p>\n
But they are very different both in their overall structure and in the vocabulary and the grammatical structures they use. Both have a heading describing their general topic, but in Text 1, the text begins straight away, while in Text 7, there is a list of food items before the actual text starts. Text 1 exclusively uses the declarative mood, while Text 7 exclusively uses the imperative mood (with one exception, the subjunctive mood in if an apple corer be handy<\/em>). Text 1 does not seem to make any assumptions about where the hearer is and what they are doing while reading the text; Text 7 seems to assume the hearer is in a kitchen where utensils such as a pudding tin and a sieve are present.<\/p>\n
To some extent, these differences are due to the different functions of these two texts: The first text is an encyclopedia entry meant to inform the hearer, and this is naturally done using declarative clauses, whose basic function is making statement; the second text is a recipe meant to instruct the hearer, and this is naturally done using imperative clauses, whose basic function is to request actions.<\/p>\n
A tour guide informing a group of tourists about the history of the Brandenburg gate, for example, would also use mostly declarative clauses, and if she then wanted to instruct the group to follow her to the Reichstag building, she would switch to imperative clauses \u2014 yet her speech would not constitute an encyclopedia article or a recipe.<\/p>\n
However, there is often more to a text than can be predicted based on its communicative function. Let us take a closer look at Text 7. While it is natural to use imperatives for giving instructions, there are many other ways of doing so. For example, we frequently use interrogative clauses of the form Can\/could you<\/em>\u2026, will\/would you<\/em>\u2026, would you mind<\/em>\u2026, etc. Yet, these never occur in recipes (not even very polite ones). We also often use declarative sentences to give instructions \u2014 even cooking instructions.<\/p>\n
If Aylin were to tell Zoe how to make baked apples, she would probably say something like You wash the apples and notch them across the top, and then you place them in a Yorkshire pudding tin\u2026<\/em> If she were to share the recipe in her food blog, she might even use a first-person narration using declarative sentences, as shown in Text 8.<\/p>\n
\nText 8<\/h4>\n
My favorite winter treat: Baked Apples<\/strong><\/p>\n
This week, I\u2019m going to share my grandmother\u2019s recipe for delicious baked apples that will sweeten your long winter nights. She always insisted on using Grimes Golden, but most stores don\u2019t carry them so I use whatever sweet apples I can get. I use an apple corer to core the apples, notch them across the top and place them in a baking tin with 2 oz. of sugar, ground cinnamon and the rind and juice of one lemon. Then I bake them until they are tender. I promise, you will love this old-timey dessert, which my grandma always served hot but which is also delicious if you serve it cold!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Thus, the use of imperatives in recipes is motivated<\/em> by their function, but not determined by it. Instead, it is determined by the practice of recipe writing in the English-speaking world. In other speech communities, other practices have evolved. In Germany, for example, we find declarative constructions (often in the passive form or with an impersonal pronoun), as in Text 9 from around the same time as Text 7, or subjectless infinitival clauses as in the more recent Text 10.<\/p>\n
\nText 9<\/h4>\n
499. Brat\u00e4pfel<\/strong><\/p>\n
Weinsauere \u00c4pfel werden im Ganzen gesch\u00e4lt. Dann sticht man das Kernhaus mit einem \u00c4pfelstecher heraus und f\u00fcllt die H\u00f6hlung mit Zucker, auf welchen man obenauf ein Schnittchen Butter legt. Im Bratofen in einer kleinen Pfanne l\u00e4sst man sie braten.<\/p>\n
Rebekka Wolf, Kochbuch f\u00fcr israelitische Frauen<\/a>. Frankfurt, 1896.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nText 10<\/h4>\n
Bratapfel<\/strong>
\n[\u2026]
\nZubereitung<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u2022 Das Backrohr auf 200 \u00b0C vorheizen.
\n\u2022 Die \u00c4pfel unter Hei\u00dfwasser abwaschen, mit Papier gut abtrocknen und das Kerngeh\u00e4use mit dem Ausstecher entfernen.
\n\u2022 Die Zutaten der F\u00fcllung miteinander vermischen.
\n\u2022 Die \u00c4pfel f\u00fcllen und sobald der Ofen seine Temperatur erreicht hat die Butter in der Form schmelzen lassen.
\n\u2022 Die \u00c4pfel in die die Form setzen und f\u00fcr 20 Minuten auf der mittleren Schiene braten lassen.<\/p>\n