TEXT PROCESSING

We have typified text- processing as being concerned with three problems-the discovery
of content, purpose and context and would see the process as skilled problem-solving. We shall
end the chapter with a model of the stages which the reader and writer goes through when
processing text and extend the model by focusing first on synthesis (writing) and then on
analysis (reading).
1. Text-typologies
One of the characteristics of text which we noted in the previous chapter was that
individual texts and it is this resemblance which is drawn upon by the text-processor in making
sense of the text. This knowledge is, clearly, of crucial importance to the language user any
attempt to explain how texts are created and used must include an answer to the question How is
it, given that each text is unique, that some texts are treated as the same?
1.1 Formal Typologies
There is, clearly, a substantial degree of overlap which suggests that content is inadequate
as a discriminator. Poetry, for example, can presumably be about anything. It is how the poet
treats the topic which marks it as poetic. Perhaps, then, it is the formal characteristics (the
linguistic structures) which are the defining characteristic. Such an approach will work with
some highly ritualized genre (some types of poetry, for example) but not in the case of the
majority of texts where again, and now at the formal level, there is overlap.
1.2 Functional Typologies
A number of functional typologies have been suggested, a few based on the notion of
degrees of trans latability but the majority organized on a three-way distinction (which derives
from Biihlers organon theory of language ;language as a tool depending on whether the major
focus of the text is on : (1) the producer (emotive), (2) the subject-matter (referential) or (3) the
receiver (conative).

1.3 Text types, forms, and samples

The first major category-text type-is arrived at by assigning to it a particular rhetorical
purpose (alternatively, the type possesses a particular communicative focus) exposition,
argumentation and instruction.
2. Text-processing; knowledge
There is a well-known distinction between two kinds of knowledge: procedural knowledge
(knowing how to do something) and factual knowledge (knowing that something is the case). In
this section and the next, we propose to treat text-processing as an instance of procedural
knowledge and skill in applying that knowledge; a particular aspect, that is, of communicative
competence.
2.1 Syntactic knowledge
Knowledge at this level is limited to the means for creating clauses; ordered sequences consisting
of the units and structures (e.g. clause: SPCA)
2.2 Semantic knowledge
In this case, the competent reader recognizes the syntactic structure; ASPO and within the
object the relative clause acting as qualifier to the NP with hundred as its head.
2.3 Pragmatic Knowledge
We are now in the domain of pragmatics which involves plans and goals and the textual
characteristics of intentionality, acceptability and situationality-the attitudes of the producer and
receiver of the text and its relevance to its context of use- all matters which take us well beyond
the code (the syntax and semantics) and into the area of the use of the code for communication.
3. Text-processing skills
In the previous section, we outlined the nature of the knowledge which must underlie the
ability we all possess to process texts. It must have become clear, in the course of that
discussion,that it is difficult to keep knowledge and the use of knowledge separate end, indeed,

they are only so distinguished in analysis and certainly not in action; the point we have reached
in our discussion of text processing.
There is far more involved than a simple ballistic model of the type

Writer

TEXT

Reader

Problem-Solving and Text-Processing

We suggest at the beginning of this chapter that text-processing might usefully be
considered within the larger context of problem-solving and intend to take the point up in a
moment but, first , we need to provide an initial and rather simple model of the process,

SURFACE TEXT
Linear sequences
Grammatical structures

Propositions

Sequencing

Main ideas

Plans and goals

Processing The Text

We can begin by noticing markers of cohesive relations which will allow us to decide
whether a sentence could be the first in the text.
1. The user of English instantly recognizes it, despite the shared content, as
something else: an apology.
2. This , as a speech act, is one of simple reference: the content is the burning of the
toast and my attitude to that event is merely that of a reporter.
3. For example, I can refer, in a completely neutral way, to a past action of my own and
say I burned the toast this morning.
4. In simple terms, a speech act consist of its content and these together give the speech
act its social meaning.
5. This, clearly, is more than neutral reporting of the event.
6. each speech act is thought of a consisting of two elements (a) the proportional
content-what is being referred to; what is about- and (b) the illocutionary force; the
meaning the act is intended to convey or the emphasis given to it by the speaker.
7. However, I could take the same content and say Im sorry I burned the toast this
morning.

Synthesis Writing
At the beginning of this section, we proposed a model of text-processing which contained
five stages and was intended to cover both reception and interpretation (reading) and production
(writing).
Let us remind ourselves, to begin with, that we imagine the process to be one which is,
1. Both bottom-up and top-down in which we work out the meanings of the words
and structure of the sentence [and] at the same time, we are predicting, on the basis
of content plus the composite meaning of the sentence already processed, what the
next sentence is most likely to mean.

2. cascaded , i.e. it is possible to move from one stage to the next before earlier stage
has completed its work, i.e. we are able to continue to process on the basis incomplete
analysis or synthesis, come to that) and
3. Interactive, i.e. constructed with feedback loops which allow the revision of earlier
decisions on the basis of the result of later processing.

Three regulative principles for texts have been suggested.

a. efficiency : the minimum expenditure of effort is required of the participants,
b. effectiveness : success in creating the conditions for attaining a goal and
c.

appropriateness : providing a balance between (a) and (b), i.e. between the
conventional and the unconventional.

We can now begin to work through to process stage by stage from planning to, actual
writing.
Stage 1-Planning
Stage 2-Ideation
Stage 3-Development
Stage 4-Expression

Analysis Reading
Even without a title and in the context of an unclear initial paragraph, the reader has a
number of problem-solving strategies available.
1. To work steadily through the clauses in the order in which they are presented in the
text, holding unresolved problems from later resolution (a breadth-first approach) or
2. To read right through at high speed (skimming), extracting what appear to be the
main points (a depth-first approach), or

3. To combine the two and thereby avoiding the slowness of the cautious first approach
and the danger of understanding getting hold of the wrong stick of the second.

TRANSLATION 2
TEXT PROCESSING

GROUP V

Muhammad Aris

: 10535 3011 08

Diana Novita

: 10535 3008 08

Ikawati Umar

: 10535 3009 08

St. Sahariah

: 10535 3007 08

Herfina

: 10535 3012 08

ENGLISH EDUCATION AND TRAINING FACULTY

MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY
MAKASSAR
2011