Tema 31: Texto y contexto. Tipos de texto. Criterios para la clasificación textual. El registro.

Topic 31: Text and Context. Types of texts. Criteria for the classification of texts. Register.

1. INTRODUCTION.

FEATURES OF A TEXT: (see topic 29)

- Cohesion.
- Texture within the sentence
- Texture of discourse

2. TEXTUALITY IN WRITTEN AND ORAL TEXTS.

3. TEXT AND CONTEXT

4. CRITERIA FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OF TEXT TYPES.

5. TYPES OF TEXTS. (Topic 6).

5.1 Narrative.
5.2 Descriptive.
5.3 Expository.
5.4 Argumentative.
5.5 Instructional.
5.6 Other types of texts: Dialogic.
5.7 Non-Fictional.
5.8 Fictional.

6. REGISTER.
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Topic 31: Text and Context. Types of Texts. Registers. Page 2 of 13

Introduction
We can define a text as linguistic communication (either spoken or written) seen simply as a
message coded in its auditory or visual medium. Thus in speech, a “text” or utterance is a linear
pattern of sound waves; in writing, a text is a linear sequence of visible marks on paper. But it is not
a random sequence of noises or marks, it is coded in a certain language. Although a written text
consists physically only of marks on paper, it has implicit linguistic properties such as graphological
and syntactic form, by virtue of which it can be decoded.
A text may be anything from a single proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry to an all-
day discussion on a committee.

A distinction may be drawn between communication as DISCOURSE and as TEXT. Discourse

is linguistic communication seen as a transaction between speaker and hearer. As an interpersonal
activity its form is determined by its social purpose.

But, in general we can regard a text as a medium of discourse. We may represent text and
discourse as follows:

The addresser initiates a message encoded into a text which is decoded into a similar
message and therefore hopefully understood by the addressee.
( FEATURES OF A TEXT: See below)

2. TEXTUALITY IN WRITTEN AND ORAL

In the approach to text linguistics by de Beaugrande & Dressler (1981), text, oral or printed, is
established as a communicative occurrence, which has to meet seven standards of textuality. If
any of these standards are not satisfied, the text is considered not to have fulfilled its function and
not to be communicative.
COHESION AND COHERENCE are text-centred notions, designating operations directed at the
text materials.

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 COHESION concerns the ways in which the components of the surface text (the actual words we
hear or see) are mutually connected within a sequence.
 COHERENCE on the other hand concerns the ways in which the components of the textual world,
i.e. the concepts and relations which underlie the surface text are mutually accessible and
relevant.
The remaining standards of textuality are user-centred, concerning the activity of textual
communication by the producers and receivers of texts:
 INTENTIONALITY concerns the text producer’s attitude that the set of occurrences should
constitute a cohesive and coherent text instrumental in fulfilling the producer’s intentions.
 ACCEPTABILITY concerns the receiver’s attitude that the set of occurrences should constitute a
cohesive and coherent text having some use or relevance for the receiver.
 INFORMATIVITY concerns the extent to which the occurrences of the text are expected vs.
unexpected or known vs. unknown/uncertain.
 SITUATIONALITY concerns the factors which make a text relevant to a situation of occurrence.
 INTERTEXTUALITY concerns the factors which make the utilisation of one text dependent upon
knowledge of one or more previously encountered texts.

2. TEXT AND CONTEXTS

Context refers to the intentions, assumptions, and presuppositions of speakers and hearers,
which guarantee that their discourse is perceived as coherent and therefore makes sense for the
participants.

Meanings depend on the external context of communication, or situational context of the

speech event. The most well-known definitions of the situational context are those by Roman
Jakobson (1960) and Dell Hymes (1974). Among the six factors that Jakobson sees as constituting the
speech event (addresser, addressee, context, message, contact, code), context is that which the
message refers to, ‘sizable by the addressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbalized ’ ; it is,
in other words, the topic or propositional content of utterance.

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FEATURES OF A TEXT
The features that distinguish a text from a disconnected sequence of sentences are especially three: cohesion, texture within
the sentence and texture of discourse.
- COHESION TYPES OF COHESION: (see topic 29)
- TEXTURE WITHIN THE SENTENCE
According to Halliday the main components of texture within the sentence in English are the THEME systems and the
INFORMATION systems. The Theme systems are those concerned with the organization of the clause as a message and which is
expressed through the normal mechanism of clause structure: in terms of a theme and a remainder (known as rheme) and the
thematic variations associated with its structure.
Theme Rheme
John’s aunt left him the piano.
What John’s aunt left him was the piano.
Theme: identified rheme: identifier
The Information systems are those concerned with the organization of the text into units of information. This is expressed in
English by the intonation patterns, and it is a feature only of spoken English. In written English, punctuation can be used to show
information structure, although it cannot express it fully.
- TEXTURE OF DISCOURSE.
The third and final component of texture is the structure of discourse. By this we mean the larger structure that is a property
of the forms of discourse themselves: the structure that is inherent in such concept as narrative, prayer, formal correspondence,
sonnet, operating instructions, etc.
Text and context are aspects of the same process. A text involves two kinds of evidence, the
external as well as the internal. There is text and there is other text that goes with it, namely the

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context. The term "situation" meaning context of situation refers to all those extra-linguistic factors
which have some bearings on the text itself.
This concept was first elaborated by Malinowski in 1923, and subsequently elaborated by
Firth, who distinguished four elements in a context of situation:

 The participants in the situation.

 The action of the participants (including verbal and non-verbal actions).
 The relevant features that affect the act of communication, i.e. the surrounding objects
and events.
 The effects of the verbal action.

The improvement of our way of viewing context has been well described recently by
sociolinguists ( Wardaugh 1986, Preston 1989, Berns 1990 etc.).

Firth, as we have said inspired by Malinowski, was the first to include in the context “not only
spoken words, but facial expression, gestures, bodily activities, the whole group of people
present during an exchange of utterances, and the part of the environment in which these
people are engaged”, and to call the totality of these factors ‘context of situation’ (Berns 1990). Hymes
(1974),
picking up on Malinowski and Firth, and expanding Jakobson’s notion of context, devised his
own set of factors to describe the situational context of the speech event. He lists these under the
acronym SPEAKING. Applied to a classroom situation it would be as follows:

Setting refers to the time and place - that is, the physical set-up of the class.
Participants include combinations of speakers and listeners in various roles, that are either given to
them or taken on during communication.
Ends refers to the purposes of the activities and what participants seek to accomplish.
Act sequence refers both to the form and the content of utterances, both to what is said and what
is meant by the way it is said.
Key refers to the tone, manner, or spirit in which a particular message is conveyed: serious or
ironical, matter-of-fact or playful. The key can be conveyed verbally and non-verbally.
Instrumentalities refers to the choice of channel (oral or written), and of code (mother tongue,
foreign language, or a mix of codes or code-switching).
Norms of interaction and interpretation refers to the way participants in the lesson interact and
interpret what is said or what they are reading.
Genre refers to the type of oral or written activity students and teacher are engaged in: role-play,
grammar exercise, written summary, etc.

Halliday also states that individual choices in the creation of texts are constrained by yet
two other larger kinds of context.
One is the context of culture, a term originally coined by Malinowski to describe the
institutional and ideological background knowledge shared by participants in speech events. This
context, called by Fowler “the community’s store of established knowledge”, consists of ‘structures
of expectation’ that allow people to make sense of the world around them. (See below)

Beyond the context of culture Halliday introduces yet another kind of context that arises from
the friction between the texts that people generate and the contexts that are thereby shaped by
them: the intertextual context, that is, the relation of a text with other texts, assumptions, and
expectations. Halliday writes: “Every lesson is built on the assumption of earlier lessons in
which topics have been explored, concepts agreed upon and defined . . . At a deeper level,

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the entire school learning experience is linked by a pervading ‘intertextuality’ that

embodies the theory and practice of education as institutionalised in our culture.”

A more abstract interpretation has been offered by Hallyday and Hassan. They have proposed
three headings: FIELD, MODE, and TENOR for describing how the situation determines the meanings
that are expressed.

 The FIELD includes the message and the purpose of the speaker.
 The MODE is the function of the text in the event, including the channel (spoken, written), the
genre or rhetorical mode (narrative, didactic, persuasive)
 The TENOR refers to the participants interaction (social relations, roles played by participants).
e.g.

FIeld FIeld Mode Tenor

“30, please.” transaction fare client / conductor
“Four hearts win.” cards game players

We can say that text comprehension relies on the correct interpretation of the elements that
form the context of situation. Any piece of text, long or short, carries with it indications of its
context, and they let participants make predictions about what the text is about.

3. CRITERIA FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OF TEXT

TYPES
For the classification of text types we should take into consideration both the strictly textual
aspects which may appear in a text (structure, connection between its elements, linguistic features)
and also the contextual elements in which the text unfolds (participants, functions, purpose).
In general, texts do not appear as belonging to a discrete type, so we could use the term
"sequence" instead of "text type". A text would be a unity made up by a number of sequences
inserted one into another (in the same text it is possible to find descriptive, expository or narrative
sequences, for instance). There is always a sequence which exerts a dominant role and texts are
classified according to the sequence which dominates the text. We can establish the types of main
textual sequences related to the classification of speech acts (utter, convince, order, predict, ask).
Seven types of sequences can be derived from them:

 Narrative Descriptive
 Expository Argumentative
 Instructional Conversational
 Poetic
Texts are realized by one or more than one different sequences (which present a series of
characteristic syntactic and semantic features) and are regarded as structures of sequences. Poetic
texts can be assimilated to others.

4. TYPES OF TEXTS

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A text type is an idealized norm of a distinctive text structure which serves as a matrix of
rules and elements for the encoder when responding linguistically to specific aspects of his
experience. The encoder can choose between five text types: description, narration, exposition,
argumentation, and instruction.

 5.1 NARRATIVE.

Narration is the type of textual communication in which the encoder more or less selectively
deals with factual and/or conceptual phenomena in time. It is the text type related to the cognitive
process of perception in time. The text base of a narrative text can be reduced to the length and
structural constituents of the (non-continuous) sentences used to record simple actions: “The
passengers landed in London at midnight.”
The text idiom (style) of narrative texts is constituted by action-recording sentences (and their
variants) in sequence.
A narrative text tells a story. As narration is intimately connected with time, the elements of
this type of text cohere by means of temporal conjunctions.

 5.2 DESCRIPTIVE.

Description is the type of textual communication in which the encoder more or less selectively
deals with factual phenomena in space. It is the text type related to the cognitive process of
perception in space. The text base of a descriptive text can be reduced to the length and structural
constituents of the sentences used to register simple phenomena: “Thousands of glasses were on
the tables.”
The text idiom (style) in which descriptive texts manifest themselves is constituted by
phenomenon-registering sentences (and their variants) in sequence.
A descriptive text is designed to give a mental picture of a scene, person, thing, and situation.
It is usually inserted in narrative or expository texts.

 5.3 EXPOSITORY.
Exposition is the type of textual communication which the encoder chooses for presenting
either constituent elements (components) which can be synthesized into a composite concept or
a mental construct, or those constituent elements (components) into which concepts or mental
constructs of phenomena can be analysed. The encoder thus explains how the component
elements interrelate in a meaningful whole. This is the text type related to the cognitive process of
comprehension. The text base of an expository text can be reduced to the length and structural
constituents of one or two sentence types:

(1) Sentences used to identify simple phenomena: “One part of the brain is the cortex or rind.”
(2) Sentences used to link simple phenomena: The brain has ten million neurons.”

The text idiom (style) of expository texts is constituted by phenomenon-identifying and

phenomenon-linking sentences (and their variants) in sequence.
Its object is to explain, to clarify. Definitions, textbooks, newspapers articles… are expository
texts.

 5.4 ARGUMENTATIVE.
Argumentation is the type of textual communication in which the encoder proposes relations
between concepts of phenomena. The encoder makes his propositions in explicit or implicit
opposition to deviant or alternative propositions. Argumentation is the text type related to

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the cognitive process of judging in answer to a problem. The text base of an argumentative
text can be reduced to the length and structural constituents of the sentences used to
attribute some quality: “The obsession with durability in the arts is not permanent.”
The text idiom (style) of argumentative texts is constituted by quality-attributing sentences
(and their variants) in sequence.
Argumentative texts support or weaken statements whose validity is questionable.

 5.5 INSTRUCTIONAL.

Instruction is the type of textual communication in which the encoder tells himself or others
what to do. He uses linguistic communication to plan the future behaviour of himself or
others. Instruction is the text type related to the cognitive process of planning. The text
base of an instructive text can be reduced to the length and structural constituents of
sentences used to demand some action. “ Stop! Don’t move”.
The text idiom (style) of instructive texts is constituted by action-demanding sentences in
sequence.

 5.6 OTHER TYPES OF TEXTS.

We may say that one of the most frequent and important global structure is that which occurs
in conversations, these are termed as “Dialogic texts”. They are not texts on their own but an
organization of a textual sequence of several speakers in a conversation frame. A conversational
text is made up by an exchange or a series of verbal exchanges between speakers.
But there are other types of global textual structures which are not only conventional but
institutional. They are based on rules and norms of certain social institutions, such as the school,
the church, the government, etc. In these cases the structures can be almost completely fixed and
even described in scheme, as in the typical cases of documents and forms to be filled. This
institutionalisation of global structures is not only referred to the text but also to the textual
sequence, dialogue, interaction, etc.

In actual communication processes, all texts are marked by how the encoder chooses to link
his text with the context, that is with text-external fields of reference: those of public time, locations
in space, individual persons, fields of subject-matter, etc. Accordingly, a text is marked as a specimen
of one of two all- inclusive text groups: the non-fictional text group and the fictional.

 5.7 NON-FICTIONAL TEXTS.

Nonfictional prose, any literary work that is
based mainly on fact, even though it may contain
fictional elements. Examples are newspaper stories,
editorials, personal accounts, journal articles,
textbooks, legal documents, the essay and biography.
Non-fictional texts are marked by signals (e.g. types
of title and headline, including references to text
form, and dates, place names, kind of publication,
typography, layout) which indicate that a specific
addressee is expected to refer all the linguistic signs
directly to contextual factors and circumstances.
The encoder presupposes that his addressee will be

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able to share with him the knowledge of relevant aspects of their general sociocultural context.
The decoder is expected to share the encoder's referential presuppositions.
Since a non-fictional text is situationally bound, its information dates quickly with the
progression of time. Its information is accepted only as historically valid and true.

 5.8 FICTIONAL TEXTS.

Fiction texts are created from the

imagination, not presented as fact, though it may
be based on a true story or situation. Types of
literature in the fiction genre include the novel,
short story, sonnets, plays. Fictional texts are
marked by signals (e. g. types of title and
headline, place names, kind of publication,
typography, layout) which indicate that all the
linguistic signs used in the communication
process are not meant to be referred directly to
past or present contextual factors and
circumstances by the addressee. Fictional texts
are situationally autonomous in that they are
independent of references to public time, locations in space, individual persons, etc. The addressee
imagined by the encoder of a fictional text is not a specific one and he is not expected to share the
communication situation (that of the author sitting at his desk in a particular place at a particular
time) with the encoder. The encoder presupposes the addressee to understand the fictional text
within its own internal fields of reference, which create fields of fictitious contextual reference. The
decoder's understanding of the text, which is both historically and culturally determined, depends
on how he is able to link the text-internal model of the world with his own model of the world of the
past (before now) and now (i. e. when he is decoding the text).
Since fictional text is situationally autonomous, its information does not date as quickly as
that of a non-fictional text. Part of the information of a fictional text is accepted as valid as long as
it stirs, and links up with, a decoder’s model of the world, despite changed historical and cultural
circumstances.

5. REGISTER

A register can be defined as a variety of language according to use. In other words, register is
what an individual is speaking at the time, depending on what he is doing and the nature of the
activity in which the language is functioning. It is a semantic concept, defined as a configuration of
meanings that are typically associated with a particular situational configuration of field, mode,
tenor and the role of discourse.

Register now accounts for the contextual dimensions of social meaning. It represents the
socio-contextual or semiotic resources from a socio-cultural system which apply in a given
situation, determining the choice of meaning options in the semantic system of the language. In
other words, for any given register a selection of the semiotic features available characterises the
situational context and governs the choice of semantic options.

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It must include the expressions, the lexicon, grammatical and phonological features,
together with indexical features (such as language signals) that typically accompany these
meanings. The phrase "Once upon a time", for example, is an indexical feature that indicates that
we are embarking on a traditional tale. Registers can be classified according to the number of
meanings they can take.

In addition to language varieties defined in terms of social groups, there are language varieties
called registers that are defined by social situation. In a formal situation, for example, a person
might say, "You are requested to leave," whereas in an informal situation the same person might
say, "Get out!" Register differences can affect pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

The category of register will vary, from something that is closed and limited to something
that is relatively free and open ended. That is, there are certain registers with a fixed and finite
number of possible meanings; in others, the range of discourse is less constrained.
Police language for example can be so fixed that there is no need for the message, or better
the message is just a number (indexical feature) that indicates a whole previously fixed message.
Most registers are not like that, but there are some that we meet with in daily life that are near that
end of the scale.
Some more examples moving on to more open registers can be: International Language of
the Air; language used in many games; the register of musical scores (expressed in Italian because
it was the language through which musical culture spread around Europe); the language of menus
(French); documents like tickets, forms, verses on greeting cards, headlines, recipes, technical
instructions, legal documents etc.
More open registers would be professional registers as classroom language, everyday
interaction with other people when we are trying to persuade them or to entertain them, etc.
The most open-ended are the registers of informal narrative and spontaneous conversation.
Yet even these are never totally open-ended. Even the most informal spontaneous conversation
has its strategies and styles of meaning. We are never selecting with complete freedom from all the
resources of our linguistic system. If we were, there would be no communication; we understand
each only because we are able to make predictions, subconscious guesses, about what the other
person is going to say.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY

BEAUGRANDE,R. de & DRESSLER, W. “Introduction to Text Linguistics.” Longman 81

COOK, G. “Discourse” OUP 1990
COULTHARD, M. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. Longman ‘85
HALLIDAY, M.A.K. & HASSAN R. Language, context and text: Aspect of Language in a Social
Semiotic Perspective. OUP 1991
KRAMSCH, C. : Context and culture in LT. OUP 1993
VAN DIJK, Teun A.. Text and context: explorations in the semantics and pragmatics of discourse.
London: Longman. 1977
VAN DIJK, Teun A. Some Aspects of Text Grammars (The Hague: Mouton, 1972)
( VAN DIJK, Teun A Major books/translations in Spanish:
- Texto y contexto. (Madrid: Catedra, 1980).
- La ciencia del texto. (Barcelona/Buenos Aires: Paidos, 1983).
-Las estructuras y funciones del discurso. (Méjico: Siglo XXI, 1981). (7ª Edición,

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1993)

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