General English Level 4 Version 2.1 © 2004 acl Pty Ltd GELEV4 Unit 05 Topic 04.doc LANGUAGE FOCUS 04 Relative clauses Relative clauses are a way to give more information in a sentence. Our history of pop music says: Pop music is any music that is popular. Ninety-five per cent of the music that people listen to today is pop … Elvis' music, which was called rockabilly, was a mixture of country music and rhythm and blues. Young people, who were called teenagers for the first time, were looking for something new and more exciting to listen to. Other singers, who combined sweet pop tunes with cute looks, created teen- idol music. Sony introduced the Walkman, which was the first portable stereo. Rap, which is rhyme spoken over music, began. Madonna and Pop King Michael Jackson, who were seen for the first time, did dance pop. Michael Jackson, who was born on August 29, 1958, was the seventh of nine children. Michael left the group and released "Thriller", which became the best-selling album of all time, with 50 million copies sold worldwide. The 1990s saw the introduction of many kinds of different music which had developed from rock and roll. The clauses beginning with who, which and that are called relative clauses. When the relative clause is about a person we use who or that. When the relative clause is about a thing we use which or that. There are two kinds of relative clauses. 1. Defining relative clauses When we need to say exactly which person or thing we are talking about we use a defining relative clause. The information in the defining relative clause identifies the person or thing we are talking about in the main clause. We always put the defining clause immediately after the word it is defining in the main clause. There is never a comma with a defining relative clause. Examples Read the examples. 1. Pop music is any music that is popular. 2. Ninety-five percent of the music that people listen to today is pop. 179