Categorizing written language

There are different types of written texts that have certain features and
characteristics. However, it is not easy to decide what kind of writing a particular text
is. Features of different kinds of writing may overlap. One type of text might have a
certain characteristic that overlaps with another type. Still, we can distinguish between
the different types by dividing texts into groups with similar characteristics. These
categories are as follows:
1. fiction or non-fiction
2. narrative or non-narrative
3. chronological or non-chronological
4. literary or non-literary
Fiction or non-fiction
One way of describing texts is to divide them into those which describe
imaginary events or happenings, called fiction, and those which describe actual events
or happenings, called fact, or non-fiction. Under the category of fiction would come all
novels, short stories, poems, stage play scripts, television and radio drama scripts and
film scripts. Non-fiction would include texts such as news articles, adverts, letters,
documentaries, travel writing and biography. The categories, though, are not as clear
cut as they may first appear to be. Drama-documentaries, for example, imaginatively
re-create real events, as may some biographies or autobiographies. Creating fiction out
of facts is called factional writing. News reports may also select events and quotations
which are true, but which stress one particular point of view over another, resulting in
a biased presentation of actual events.
Narrative and non-narrative
Texts which tell a story, in the traditional sense of recounting a plot with events
that happened over a period of time, in space and involving characters, in the way
described above, can also be called narrative, while any other kind is non-narrative.
This may seem similar to the distinction between fiction and non-fiction, and in many
ways it is, but there are stories in real life as well as in fiction. Narrative texts usually
have a plot with a definite beginning and end. The beginning starts a series of events
connected with the plot, which the ending brings to a close. Often this ending sees a
return to order. Narrative involves characters, and the story is told from a particular

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point of view; like fiction, it generally incorporates the elements of a story listed
above. Under this definition, films as well as novels can be classified as narratives.
Certain kinds of factual writing, such as autobiography or biography and drama-
documentary, are also narratives. Texts traditionally classified as non-narrative,
however, may use a narrative form. Adverts are a good example of this. Sometimes,
adverts interweave a story containing all the classic elements of a narrative - plot,
action, and characters - with information about the product. A television advert for a
particular brand of coffee did just this, telling a boy-meets-girl story with a plot that
continued over a series of adverts. Non-narrative texts do not have a plot in the same
way as narrative writing. They refer to states of things rather than to series of events.
Examples might be instructions and legal documents.
Chronological and non-chronological
A further classification of texts can be made on the basis of whether their writing
is chronological or non-chronological. These terms describe different ways of ordering
content within texts. Chronological writing, as the term implies, is to do with time, and
describes writing whose order and sequence is dependent on time. In chronological
writing, events follow one another forwards - or backwards - through time. Time
connects the events to one another, so that their sequence depends to a great extent on
what has happened before. This in turn determines what is happening now and in the
future. Novels, for example, as well as short stories and plays, are usually examples of
chronological writing, although not always. Chronological writing is often associated
with narrative since they both share the common feature of being linked to time. Non-
narrative texts, however, can also be chronological. Reports of science experiments
and cookery recipes, for example, follow a chronological sequence of events, recorded
in a particular time-dependent order. Non-chronological texts are those which are not
dependent upon time for the ordering of their content. Instead, a different ordering
principle applies, for instance alphabetical order in encyclopedia entries, telephone
books and address lists. How content in non-chronological texts is ordered depends on
an entirely different set of conventions, within which various options are available to
the writer. Even history books, for example, may be ordered according to the themes
of a period: they are not themselves dependent on time, although they are describing

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events which happened in time. Poems may be either chronological or non-

chronological, depending upon what they are about. A ballad, for example, which tells
a story, would be classed as chronological, whereas a poem which describes a state,
such as Burns' My Love is like a Red Red Rose, would be classed as non-chronological.
Literary and non-literary
Literary texts are usually defined as those which have been written for an artistic
purpose, to give pleasure or to provoke thought. They tend to deal with thoughts and
emotions which make the text 'worthy' in some way, as well as, or instead of,
characters and events. Deciding whether a text is literary or non-literary, therefore, is a
matter of judgement which relates more closely to the message of a piece of writing
than to whether it describes real or imaginary events. Until fairly recently, the study of
literature was mainly concerned with explaining why some texts were more 'worthy' of
study than others, and with making sure that their worth was interpreted in a particular
way. The texts chosen for study made up what is called a literary 'canon', where those
included were deemed worthy of study and by implication those not included were
'unworthy'. This canon included novels by established writers such as Jane Austen, the
Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Charles Dickens and William Thackeray; poems by poets
such as Dryden, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning and T.S. Eliot;
plays by playwrights such as William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Sheridan, Oscar Wilde
and Arthur Miller. It also included writing which has survived from Old and Middle
English, such as Pearl and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, non¬ fiction such as
diaries and letters, including Samuel Pepys' diary, and historical and philosophical
writing, such as that of Francis Bacon and Edmund Burke. The decision as to whether
a text merits the label of 'literary' or not is largely a cultural one, and as such is
influenced by social changes, which may challenge an established position. For
example, feminists have questioned the inclusion of a disproportionate number of male
writers, who are generally also white and dead. Similarly, the existence of English-
speaking communities outside the British Isles has broadened the range of writing in
English: newer works have backgrounds in widely different geographical locations and
lifestyles. As literacy has become established amongst sections of society which
hitherto did not have access to it, such as males from a working-class background and

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women from most classes, and as both men and women have become more highly
educated, so writing is beginning to reflect the ideas and concerns of a much wider
cross-section of society than ever before. All these various changes in modern life have
challenged a single concept of literariness'. For these reasons, categorising texts as
non¬ literary or literary is not a useful distinction. Another claim made for 'literary'
writing has been that its use of language is somehow special, and that its surface
meaning hides a deeper, less obvious meaning. But texts recognised as 'literary' are not
the only ones that do this: analysis of a diverse range of texts, such as political
speeches, newspaper articles and television reports, not usually recognised for their
literariness, can also reveal meanings below the surface. Similarly, the use of devices
such as metaphor and simile, most often associated with literature, occurs in every
type of text, not just in literary texts. That 'literary' language is different from other
kinds is not really in dispute. It generally displays a particular style of narrative
patterning and an interaction between a variety of linguistic levels, producing a more
complex message and a more intellectually demanding experience for the reader. Its
difference lies, however, in its 'function', rather than its 'worth'. In other words, it
should be judged on whether it succeeds in achieving what it set out to do: to give
pleasure, to provoke thought or to achieve an artistic effect. The means of approaching
the study of written texts adopted by this book is to think in terms of text and textuality
rather than literature and literariness. Such an approach involves analysing the way a
text is constructed from language, including coherence (see 4.2 below), and the degree
to which the writer makes language an issue in itself rather than just a tool. Evaluating
the quality or worth of a text would then depend on its success in conveying its
particular message.
Conclusion
Whether a piece of writing can be classed as narrative or non-narrative, fiction,
or non-fiction, chronological or non-chronological depends largely upon the way in
which an individual text, such as a novel, advert, letter or poem, is written, rather than
being a defining characteristic of the form itself. It is true that a novel, for example, is
more likely to be fictional, narrative, and chronological and an information leaflet non-
fiction, non-narrative and non-chronological, but it does not have to be.

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Exercises:
Describe the type of the following text, then categorize it explaining the reasons: