Linguistic analysis of the text

Lecture 4
Theme:
Seven Standards of Textuality. Cohesion and
Coherence.
Subthemes:
1) Intentionality, 6) Cohesion, Coherence
2) Acceptability,
3) Informativity,
4) Situationality,
5) Intertextuality.
 Seven Standards of Textuality as the
Constitutive Principles of Communication
• . R.-A. de Beaugrande and W. Dressler (1981)
define text as a ‘communicative occurrence’
which meets seven criteria of textuality (the
constitutive principles of textual
communication): cohesion, coherence,
intentionality, acceptability, informativity,
situationality and intertextuality, and three
regulative principles of textual communication:
efficiency, effectiveness and appropriateness.
Text-Centred and User-Centred Standards of Textuality

Text-centred: cohesion
coherence
Constitutive
principles
which define
and create
communication User-centred: intentionality,
(De acceptability ,informativity,
Beaugrande situationality, intertextuality
and Dressler)
 Intentionality
• Intentionality designates all the ways in which
text producers utilize texts to pursue and fulfill
their intentions: to inform, to apologize, to ask,
to accuse, etc.
• Customer: When is the Windsor train?
(←ambiguity [ which sense is actually
intended?])
• Official: To Windsor ?
• Customer: Yes.
• Official: 3:15
 Acceptability
• In a wider sense of the term, “acceptability” would
subsume ACCEPTANCE as the active willingness to
participate in a discourse and share a goal.
Acceptance is thus an action in its own right (van Dijk,
1977), and entails entering into discourse interaction,
with all attendant consequences. Refusing
acceptance is conventionally accomplished by explicit
signals, e.g.:
• I’m too busy for talking just now.
• I don’t care to talk about it.
• Otherwise, participation in discourse would, as
a default, be assumed to imply acceptance.
 Informativity

• Informativity concerns the extent to

which the occurrences of the present
text are expected vs. unexpected,
probable vs. improbable or known vs.
unknown/ certain.
 First – order informativity

This level focuses on only important content

words to make the text informativity.
Therefore, the function words such as
articles, prepositions, conjunctions etc. are
generally omitted. This type of informativity
can be found in such text types as telegrams,
road signs, warning signs, and advertisements.

For example: “Slow Children”, “Resume Speed”,

“Warning! Deep water”
 Second – order informativity

The second – order informativity is another type of

information which occurs as an unexpected alternative
but a possible one. The attention is reserved for
higher-order occurrences (de Beaugrande & Dressler,
1981: 143).

For example: Koala and Panda are ____________.

From the sentence above, some alternatives which

are related to Koala and Panda
such as animals, bears or mammals occur in mentality.
Therefore, this sentence can be
completed with any of those.
 Third – order informativity

The information in the third – order informativity occurs when the

text producer accounts for unexpected or unknown alternatives to
the target receiver by using general words, loan words with
modification to make clearer explanations. Besides, this third -level
informativity can be used to upgrade the degree of information.

For example: Lemon grass is a grass. (X)

.
The above example cannot give any new idea to the receiver because
the
explanation has low informativity. This text can be upgraded by giving
more sensible information as follows:

Lemon grass is a type of grass with lemon flavor

that grows in hot countries and is used especially in Asian cooking.

(Oxford Dictionary, 2000: 767)

 Theme-Rheme Distinction according to
Halliday
• The Prague School of Linguistics introduced the
notions of theme and rheme (theory of
Functional Sentence Perspective).
• According to Halliday, the theme provides the
“point of departure of the message.” In other
words, the theme provides the framework for
interpreting what follows. What follows is the
rheme, the remainder of the message in the
clause.
• Another means for making the theme-rheme
distinction is topic – comment.
 Theme / Rheme
• A) The Cub Scouts (T1) - held the carwash
despite the rain. (R1)
• B) The carwash (T2) - was held by the CUB
scouts despite the rain. (R2)
• C) Despite the rain (T3), the Cub Scouts held
the carwash. (R3)
• What is the difference among these three
word orders? The sentences appear to have
the same propositional content, or core
meaning, so what purpose does word order
variation serve?
 Theme / Rheme

Task 1: Read the given text extract, analyse the theme-

rheme relations in the text, make a scheme according to the
Model of a linear thematic progression of text.

The general population needs to be made fully

aware of the risks to health by eating foods high in
fat and sugar. An excessive intake of these foods
leads to obesity or overweight. This in turn is a
risk factor for heart disease, high blood pressure,
high cholesterol levels and some forms of cancer.
 Theme / Rheme
Task 2: Read the given text extract, analyse the theme-rheme relations in the
text, make a scheme according to the Model of a through theme of text.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. But one
hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by
the manacles of segregation and the chains of descrimination. But
one hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of
poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. But one
hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of
American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And
so we’ve come today to dramatize a shameful condition. (Dr.
Martin Luther King:”I have a dream”, 1963)
 Criteria of Informativity

1) Models of communicative progression of

text information from known to unknown
(according to O.I. Moskalskaja);

2) Types of information: factual, conceptual,

undercurrent information, their
combinations (according to I.R.Galperin).
Models of Communicative Progression of Text Information
(according to Moskalskaja O.I.)

Model Model
Model
of a of a linear
of a
through thematic
hyper- theme
theme progression

T1 R1 T1 R1 (T)

T1 R2 T2(= R1) R2 T1 → R1 T2 → R1 T3 → R1

T1 R3 T3(= R2) R3
 Model of a Through Theme of a Text

A boy entered the room. He was dressed poorly but neatly.

He was thin and pale and looked very tired.
It was obvious that he had not eaten for days as he was very weak.
He was standing in the doorway ready to faint.

T1 ( a boy) → R1 (entered the room);

T1 (he) → R2 (was dressed poorly but neatly);
T1 ( he) → R3 ( was thin and pale and looked very tired);
T1 ( he) → R4 (had not eaten for days…);
T1 (he) → R5 (was very weak);
T1 (he) → R6 (was standing in the doorway ready to faint).

This model creates a Vertical context of information .

 Model of a Linear Thematic Progression
• Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak dropped out of
college and got jobs in Silicon Valley, where they
founded the Apple Computer company in 1976, the
name based on Job’s favourite fruit.
• T1 (Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak) →R1 ( dropped
out and got jobs in Silicon Valley),
• T2 ( where)→R2 (they founded the
Apple computer company in 1976),
• T3(the name) →R3 (based on Job’s favourite
fruit).
• This model creates a Horizontal context of
information.
 Model of a Hyper-Theme Progression
Childhood - the best time of your life
• Some people say that childhood is the best time of
your life. However, being a child has both
advantages and disadvantages.
• T (Childhood)→R (the best time of your life)

• T1 (Advantages) T2 (Disadvantages)
 Situationality
Situationality concerns the factors which
make a text relevant to a situation of
occurrence.

Slow A traffic sign has to be

economical with words, because
Children drivers
speeding by do not have the
time to read elaborate passages.
 Situationality
A text is relevant to a particular social or
pragmatic context. Situationality is related to
real time, place, social context, sphere of
communication, interpersonal relations, etc.
Communicative partners as well as their
attitudinal state are important for the text's
meaning, purpose and intended effect.
Scientific texts share a common
situationality, while ideological texts have
different situationalities across languages and
cultures.
Intertextuality according to R.-A. de Beaugrand and
W. Dressler

• INTERTEXTUALITY is the relationship between texts, i.e., books,

movies, plays, songs, games, etc. In other words, it's anytime one text
is referenced in another text. Intertextuality works best when it's
explained explicitly, then later alluded to implicitly. Almost every text
is interrelated with another text.
Examples of Intertextuality (by means of Allusions)
1) This is surely one of the Ten Commandments
of Englishness: when in doubt, joke ( K. Fox.
Watching the English) –source: biblical;
2) Let it beet (the name of an article about
usefulness of beet) – (Let it be – Beatles);
3) Kill Adolf? Tarantino on Naziflick row ( Film
of K.Tarantino Kill Bill);
4) A few mugs of coffee a day keep the doctor
away (advertisment) - ( proverb: an apple a
day keeps the doctor away);
 Definition of Cohesion
The major work on cohesion in English is by Halliday
and Hasan (1976), but Jacobson’s (1960) stress on
textual parallelism created by patterning and
repetition in text (see Stylistics) is the earliest detailed
development of the idea of cohesion.
According to R.-A. de Beaugrande and W. Dressler,
cohesion concerns the way in which the linguistic
items of which a text is composed are meaningfully
connected to each other in a sequence on the basis of
the grammatical rules of the language.
In other words, cohesion is the grammatical and
lexical relationship between different elements of a
text which hold it together.
 Devices of Cohesion According to Halliday
+╬ Replacement of words and expressions with
Grammatical cohesion :
pro-forms.
Reference→ Replacement of words and expressions with
e.g pronouns,
pro-forms, pro-moifiers.
e.g . pronouns, pro-modifiers.
Ellipsis (including substitution)→ Leaving out something
mentioned earlier, as Help yourself (for instance to some
apples mentioned earlier);
Substitution→Substituting a ’holding device’ in the place of a
lexical item Help yourself to one.
Conjunction→Devices which constitute cohesive bonds
between sections of text.

Lexical cohesion is created by repetition, synonymy and

collocation
Cohesion and Coherence as Devices of Structural-Semantic
Integrity of Text
Cohesion: the surface structure of a text. It concerns the ways in which the
components of a text are mutually connected within a sequence.
Recurrence, partial recurrence, parallelism;
Paraphrase;
Substitution: nominal, verbal, clausal; Reference: anaphora, cataphora;
Omission: ellipsis;
Signalling relationship: Conjunction (and); Disjunction(or, either-or);
Contrajunction (but, however, jet, nevertheless); Subordination (because, since,
as, thus, while, therefore)

Coherence: the deep structure of a text. It concerns the ways 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.
Conceptual structure of a text; Logical relations (problem-solution; cause-
effect; concrete-abstract; part- integrity; individual-universal; contrast,
contradiction, implication, identity ,etc); Presuppositions (inner cognitive
additional information); Topical lines.
 Cohesion Structure of the Text “ Yesterday”(McCartney)

Yesterday
All my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay –
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly
I’m not half the man I used to be,
There’s a shadow hanging over me –
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
 Means of Cohesion, Realizing a Structural Integrity of
the Text
• Repetition: Yesterday→yesterday→yesterday;
• Suddenly→suddenly; Oh→Oh;
• Antonyms: Yesterday ↔now; far↔here;
away↔stay;
• Reference (pronoun): troubles→they;
• Paraphrase (metaphorical) : troubles→a shadow
hanging over me;
• Grammatical parallelism: Yesterday…Oh,…yesterday.
• Suddenly… Oh,…suddenly.
• Recurrence: Why she had to go…(twice);
• Yesterday…Love was such an easy game to play
(twice).
 Definition of Coherence
• Coherence concerns the way in which the
things that the text is about, called the textual
world, are mutually accessible and relevant.
The textual world is considered to consist of
concepts and relations. A concept is defined as
a ῾configuration of knowledge (cognitive
content) which can be recovered or activated
with more or less unity and consistency in the
mind῾, and relations as the links between the
concepts, ῾which appear together in a textual
world῾ (de Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981).
Classification of the Most Common Relations
Two types of the most common
relations

Causality
Cause: David hit the ball so
hard that it flew over the hedge;
Enablement: Tabitha lay
quietly in the sun and Thomas
crept over and pulled her tail;
Reason: Because I have been
working all day I deserve a rest
this evening;
Purpose: You are reading this
to find out about text linguistics.
Time
Forward
directionality :cause,
enablement, reason (an
earlier event causes,
enables, or provides the
reason for a later one).
Backward directionality :
purpose ( since a later
event is the purpose for
an earlier event).
Winter῾s Classification of Clause Relations
• 1) Logical Sequence relations ῾are relations
between successive events or ideas, whether actual or
potential. They include:
• (a) Condition-Consequence, signalled by, e.g., if (then);
• (b) Instrument-Achievement, signalled by, e.g., by (means of);
• (c) Cause-Consequence, signalled by, e.g., because, so.
• 2) Matching relations ῾are relations where statements are
“matched” against each other in terms of identicality of
description῾. They include:
• (a) Contrast, signalled by, e.g., however;
• (b) Compatibility, signalled by, e.g., (and), (similarly).
 Hoey῾s Metastructural Organization of a Text
• Hoey discusses 3 types of patterns, where by
pattern he means ῾combination of relations
organising (part of) a discourse῾:
• 1) Matching patterns;
• 2) General-Particular patterns: Generalization-
Example relation and Preview-Detail relation;
• 3) Problem-Solution pattern.
• These patterns, in combination with each other may
organize whole texts, or long passages of them. The
most typical discourse pattern is, however, the
Problem-Solution pattern.
 The Problem-Solution Pattern
• Many texts can be treated as conforming to the pattern
Situation-Problem-Response-Evaluation/ Result:
Situation : I was on sentry duty.

Problem: I saw the enemy approaching.

Response: Inner problem: I tried to open fire. The gun῾s bolt

jammed.
Inner response: Staying calm, I applied a drop of oil.
Inner Evaluation: That did the trick.
Inner Basis: I opened fire.

Evaluation /Result: I beat off the attack.

 William Blake: “ Auguries of Innocence”
(an extract)

• To see a World in a grain of sand,

• And a Heaven in a wild flower,
• Hold Infinity in the palm of your
hand,
• And Eternity in an hour.
 Conceptual Structure of the Text

•
World a grain of sand
Nature

Heaven a wild flower

Infinity in the palm of your A human

hand

Eternity an hour Time

• Message:
• Dialectic of Universal -Individual; Abstract- Concrete ;
• Ascension of a human soul from the earth →to Eternity ; from the material
world→ to the ideal;
• Finiteness of a human’s life in the context of eternity of Nature and Time.
•
Devices of Semantic-Structural Integrity of Text
Cohesion
1) Reference ( pronouns: personal,
demonstratives, comparatives;
pro-modifyers) : anaphora,
cataphora;
2) Ellipsis (omitting);
3) Substitution ( one/ones);
4) Recurrence, partial recurrence;
Parallelism (reuse of a grammar
structure);
5) Conjunction, Disjunction,
Contrajunction, Subordination;
6) Lexical cohesion: exact repetition,
partial repetition, synonymes,
antonymes, collocation, hyperonymes
(words with general meaning),
hyponymes (words with specific
meaning), paraphrase; use of words
from the same thematic field, etc.
Coherence
1) Main concepts of a text, relations
between concepts, configuration of
concepts;
2) Logical relations: Problem-Solution,
Cause-Consequence, Condition-
Consequence, Instrument-
Achievement, Concrete-Abstract,
General-Particular, Individual-
Universal, Part-Integrity, Contrast,
Contradiction, Implication,
Compatibility, Identity, etc.;
3) Presuppositions: inner cognitive
additional information;
4) Topical lines
What are Conceptual Structures of Hemingway῾s
Short Stories?
1.Imagined adulthood. Gained adulthood. Los
t Imagination.
2.Sorry soldier, shoes sold in pairs.
3.New start. New you. Not you.
4.She loved cigarettes… more than life…
5.Disputes between nations. Sorrow among fa
milies.
6.Tripped over luck. Stumbled upon tragedy.
7.It cost too much, staying human.
 The list of recommended literature

• Basic literature
• 1. Beaugrande R., Dressler W. Introduction to Text Linguistics. London: Longman, 1981.
• 2. Валгина Н.С. Теория текста.- М.: Логос. 2004 г.
• 3. Гальперин И.Р. Текст как объект лингвистического исследования. М., 1981.
• 4. Москальская О.И. Грамматика текста. – М.: Высшая школа, 1981.
• 5. Тураева З.Я. Лингвистика текста: Структура и семантика. М.: УРСС, 2009.
• 6. Филиппов К.А. Лингвистика текста. – СПб.: Изд-во С.-Петербург. ун-та, 2007.
• 7. Brian Paltridge. Discourse Analysis. London. 2010
• 8. Barbara Johnstone. Discourse Analysis. USA. 2002
• 9. Salkie, R. (1995). Text and Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.
• 10. Trappes-Lomax, Hugh (2004) "Discourse analysis", in The Handbook of Applied Linguistics ed. by A. Davies & C. Elder. Oxford:
Blackwell, pp. 133–64.
• Additional literature
• 1. Арнольд И.В. Семантика. Стилистика. Интертекстуальность: сб. статей. – СПб: СПбГУ, 1999.
• 2. Бабенко Л.Г., Казарин Ю.В. Лингвистический анализ художественного текста. Практикум: для студентов, аспирантов,
преподавателей-филологов. М.: Флинта. 2009.
• 3. Бондарко А.В. Лингвистика текста в системе функциональной грамматики // Текст. Структура и семантика. Т.1.- М., 2001. –
С.4-13.
• 4. Болотнова Н.С. Филологический анализ текста. Учебное пособие. М.: Флинта. Наука. 2009.
• 5. Левицкий Ю.А. Лингвистика текста. М.: Высшая школа, 2006.
• 6. Маслова В.А. Современные направления в лингвистике. М.:Академия, 2008.
• 7. Одинцов В.В. Стилистика текста. М.: URSS, 2007.
• 8. Прохоров Ю.Е. Действительность. Текст. Дискурс. М.: Флинта. Наука, 2009.
• 9. Фатеева Н.А. Интертекст в мире текстов: Контрапункт интертекстуальности. М.: URSS, 2006.
• 10. Чернявская В.Е. Лингвистика текста: Поликодовость, интертекстуальность , интердискурсивность. М.:УРСС, 2009.
• 11. Чернявская В.Е. Лингвистика текста. Лингвистика дискурса. М.:Флинта. 2013.
• 12. Щирова И.А., Гончарова Е.А. Текст в парадигмах современного гуманитарного знания. СПб: Книжный Дом, 2006.