Text, textuality, text types

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Text, textuality, text types

• Paola Catenaccio
• Lingua Inglese I (LIN)
• 2009-2010

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Podcast Londons art scene

• http//www.guardian.co.uk/travel/audio/2009/sep/29
  /london-art
• How would you define what you have just been
  listening to? Why? On the basis of what criteria?

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What is a text?

• An extended structure of syntactic units (W)
• A communicative occurrence (dB-D)
• The larger units in terms of which utterances
  (i.e. sequences of sentences) should be
  constructed "Utterances should be constructed in
  terms of a larger unit, viz that of text." The
  term is used "to denote the abstract theoretical
  construct underlying what is usually called a
  discourse (vD 3)

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• H-H "The word text is used in linguistics to
  refer to any passage, spoken or written, of
  whatever length, that does form a unified whole.
  A text is a unit of language in use.

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What makes a text a text?

• "The concept of texture is entirely appropriate
  to express the property of 'being a text'. A text
  has texture and this is what distinguishes it
  from something that is not a text". (HH)
• For Werlich the standards to be met for a
  sequence of linguistic units to qualify as a text
  are coherence and completion (W 23-25)
• For De Beaugrande-Dressler the standards to be
  met are seven and they serve as constitutive
  principles of textual communication, the most
  important of them being cohesion and coherence.
  It is to be noted that the two elements of this
  conceptual distinction taken together correspond
  broadly to Werlich's coherence.

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• Also vD (93) defines only coherence he sees it
  as "a semantic property of discourses, based on
  the interpretation of each individual sentence
  relative to the interpretation of other
  sentences".

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Cohesion and coherence (cf. dB-D and H-H)

• cohesion "concerns the way in which the
  components of the surface text, i.e. the actual
  words we hear or see, are mutually connected
  within a sequence (authors' italics) (dB-D 3)
• coherence "concerns the way in which the
  components of the textual world, i.e. the
  configuration of concepts and relations which
  underlie the surface text, are mutually
  accessible and relevant." (dB-D 4)

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• "Writing must have not only coherence, an
  effective design, but cohesion, an explicit set
  of 'hooks' and 'ties' that ensure a reader's
  interest and comprehension. Coherence is the kind
  of 'holding together' that a good design will
  give any discourse, whether written or spoken.
  Cohesion is the result of giving readers the
  right kind of explicit help in figuring out the
  design. Cohesion gives readers the clues for
  discovering coherence."
• (Wayne C. Booth and Marshall W. Gregory, The
  Harper Row Rhetoric Writing as
  Thinking/Thinking as Writing, 1987)

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• cohesion connectivity of the surface
• coherence connectivity of underlying content

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Coherence / cohesion (1)

• I went to a concert yesterday. It was a
  performance by a violinist called Janine Jansen.
  She is one of the most promising young talents in
  todays classical scenario, and last night she
  certainly proved that her reputation is well
  deserved.

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Coherence / cohesion (2)

• I am a teacher. The teacher was late for class.
  Class rhymes with grass. The grass is always
  greener on the other side of the fence. But it
  wasn't.

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Coherence / Cohesion (3)

• A         There's the phone.
• B         I'm in the bath.
• A         OK.

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the other five standards of textuality

• intentionality
• acceptability
• informativity
• situationality
• intertextuality
• W adds completion "completion is created in
  linguistic communication whenever the encoder
  introduces signals which indicate both the
  beginning and the end of one or more of the
  sequences that have established coherence.
  Completion in linguistic communication can be
  indicated both by linguistic and referential
  suggestions of initiation and termination in a
  text (24).

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Texts and context of situation

• Warning. Customers are advised that videoscan
  closed circuit television is in operation with
  video-recording.
• I'll need a 19 gauge needle, IV tubing and a
  preptic swab.
• SKYE lounger. Grey lacquered tubular steel frame.
  Light brown buffalo leather cover padded with
  foam and fibres. W68, L160, H98 cm, seat height
  35 cm 295 Take it home today. See page 218 for
  details.
• E 180This VHS videocassette isdesigned
  exclusively for usewith video recorders
  bearingthe VHS mark.
• Williams cleared over Senna death

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• Werlich E. (1979), A Text Grammar of English,
  Heidelberg, Quelle Meyer 17-26.
• De Beaugrande R.A., Dressler W.U. (1981), An
  Introduction to Text Linguistics, London New
  York, Longman 1-13 (una sintesi disponibile
  allindirizzo http//www.beaugrande.bizland.com/i
  ntroduction_to_text_linguistics.htm).
• Van Dijk T.A. (1977), Text and Context.
  Explorations in the Semantics and Pragmatics of
  Discourse, London New York, Longman 1-15
  93-129.
• Halliday M.A.K., Hasan R. (1976), Cohesion in
  English, London New York, Longman 1-30.