TEXTUAL LINGUISTICS

Text Linguistics

Text linguistics is the study of text as a product (text grammar) or as a process (theory of text). The text-as-a-product approach is focused on the text cohesion, coherence, topical organization, illocutionary structure and communicative functions; the text-as-a-process perspective studies the text production, reception and interpretation (cf. Dolnk and Bajzkov 1998). Text can be understood as an instance of (spoken or written) language use (an act of parole), a relatively self-contained unit of communication. As a communicative occurrence it 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 (cf. de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, Malmjaer 1991). 5.1 Constitutive Principles of Textual Communication 5.1.1 Cohesion (see esp. Halliday and Hasan 1976) is the way in which linguistic items of which texts are constituted are meaningfully interconnected in sequences. Cohesion may be of four types: reference, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical organization. Reference (realized by nouns, determiners, personal and demonstrative pronouns or adverbs) either points out of the text to a real world item (i.e., to its denotate), hence exophoric reference (deixis: Can you see that?), or refers to an item within the text, hence endophoric reference. The two possible directions of endophoric reference are backward (anaphoric r.; direct anaphora: I met a man. He was wearing ..., indirect anaphora: It is a solid house. The walls are thick ...) or forward (cataphoric r.: ... the house whose walls are thick); in the case of a reference to an item of which there is (in the given situation) only one instance, we talk about homophora (e.g. Place the books on the table please). The relationship between two items in which both refer to the same person or thing and one stands as a linguistic antecedent of the other is called coreference (compare He saw himself in the mirror with He saw him in the mirror). Ellipsis, i.e., omission of something referred to earlier, is an instance of textual anaphora (e.g., Have some more). Conjunction, enhanced esp. by syntactic (adverbials subjuncts, conjuncts, disjuncts; pronouns, metalingual connectors, etc.) and grammatical (concord, sequence of tenses) connectors, creates intricate systems of intratextual bonds. Lexical cohesion establishes semantic (through lexical devices, such as repetition, equivalence - synonymy, hyponymy, hyperonymy, paraphrase, collocation) and pragmatic (presupposition) connectedness; in contrast with the previous types of cohesion, it operates over larger stretches of text since it establishes chains of related references. 5.1.2 Coherence, the sub-surface feature of a text, concerns the ways in which the meanings within a text (concepts, relations among them and their relations to the external world) are established and developed. Some of the major relations of coherence are logical sequences, such as cause-consequence (and so), condition-consequence (if), instrumentachievement (by), contrast (however), compatibility (and), etc. Moreover, it is the general aboutness, i.e., the topic development which provides a text with necessary integrity; even in the absence of overt links, a text may be perceived as coherent (i.e., as making sense), as in various lists, charts, timetables, menus. Contrarily, other types of texts are characterized by explicit cohesive structure signalling intricate logico-semantic relationships (scientific reports, legal texts); in literary works, cohesion may be

programmatically suppressed in order to enhance readers enjoyment while discovering these links for themselves. 5.1.3 Intentionality relates to the intention on the part of a sender to produce a cohesive/coherent text aimed at attaining an identifiable goal (cf. teleological, i.e., goaloriented nature of the function of language means, ermk 2001). Acceptability concerns the receivers expectation that the text should be coherent/cohesive and of some relevance to them (see also Maxim of relevance, 10.3). Informativity touches upon the (im)probability or (un)expectedness of a text in the given situation; in case a text is improbable (hence unexpected), a motivation search is performed by a receiver (cf. the Relevance theory based on the basic feature of human cognition, viz. the expectation that a message be relevant, Sperber and Wilson 1986). Situationality concerns the problem of making a text relevant to a situation. Intertextuality is concerned with the ways in which uses of texts depend on the knowledge of other (preceding or following) texts. 5.2 Regulative Principles of Textual Communication The principle of efficiency requires that a text should be used with a minimum effort hence the use of plain (stereotyped and unimaginative) language which, however boring and unimpressive, is easy to produce and comprehend. In contrast, effectiveness presumes leaving a strong impression and the creation of favourable conditions for attaining a communicative goal; this presupposes the use of creative (original, imaginative) language which, however effective, may lead to communicative breakdown. The principle of appropriateness attempts to balance off the two above principles by seeking an accord between the text setting and standards of textuality. As it is obvious from the list of the features on the text level, they provide stylistically motivated explorations with almost unconstrained possibilities of variation leaving an important imprint on the style of the language output. For example, the degree of modification of the basic syntactic patterns tends to vary according to individual users (e.g., fragmentary individual style as a signal of aversion and distrust, long-windedness of a tedious politician, see Individuality, 3.2.2), momentary situation (urgency), medium, communicative goal (an emotional sermon by a preacher) and purpose/genre (essayistic and literary style where stereotypy is avoided). Generally speaking, unwelcome repetition can be prevented by making use of resources provided by the textual level of language.

Text linguistics is a branch of linguistics that deals with texts as communication systems. Its original aims lay in uncovering and describing text grammars. The application of text linguistics has, however, evolved from this approach to a point in which text is viewed in much broader terms that go beyond a mere extension of traditional grammar towards an entire text. Text linguistics takes into account the form of a text, but also its setting, i.e. the way in which it is situated in an interactional, communicative context. Both the author of a (written or spoken) text as well as its addressee are taken into consideration in their respective (social and/or institutional) roles in the specific communicative context. In general it is an application of discourse analysis[1] at the much broader level of text, rather than just a sentence or word.

Introduction to Text Linguistics

Text Linguistics is the branch of linguistics primarily concerned with the analysis of written texts. It is concerned with understanding how texts function both as internally coherent

systems, but also how certain kinds of texts function in relation to their larger sociological contexts. Recently, text linguistics has expanded to include many diverse systems of communication. It is closely allied with other fields such as discourse analysis and literary criticism.

1. Cohesion and Coherence

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Text linguistics is largely concerned with cohesion, understanding how texts are put together, and coherence, which is how the construction of a text develops and affects meaning and interpretation. In general, an analysis of cohesion will consider the kinds of phrase structures, references, tropes, and other linguistic devices that make up the "surface" elements of a text. An analysis for coherence will attempt to understand how these elements are put together to develop a text's meaning. Together, these can largely be thought of as the internal mechanics of a text.

Intertextuality
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Your reception and understanding of a particular text is largely dependent upon your experience of other texts you have encountered. This includes making sense of analogies, identifying genres or forms, and recognizable social conventions. This notion can be reasonably extended to include your prior experience with language itself.

Context and Situation

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Your interpretation of a text may largely depend upon your knowledge of the text's historical or social context. Additionally, the way you interact with a text may differ depending upon the situation in which you experience it. For example, you will interact differently with a satirical essay from the 18th century, which you will read deeply in order to understand the speaker's use of irony, than when you interact with a web page, which you will probably only scan to retrieve needed information.

Author and Audience

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The analysis of any text will need to consider pertinent information about who wrote it, for what purpose, and for what kind of audience. For example, a speech delivered to Parliament by the Prime Minister will have a different set of intentions and be received differently than when the same speech is delivered by a comedic actor in a parody sketch.

Authorial Intent vs. Intentionality

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For a text to exist it must be both intended and accepted as such; in other words, it must be recognizable as something which you are meant to read. This is a text's intentionality, or its purposive "aboutness." Some textual analysts distinguish between intentionality and an author's intentions, which is her specific intended meaning. You can read and interpret a text successfully without ever being told what the author intended to mean; indeed, it may be that a text's exact meaning is radically unknowable by anyone but the author. Some textual analysts argue that it is not necessary to consider an author's intentions at all; the text can be read in a variety of different ways regardless of how the author intended it to be read, and each of these readings will yield its own valid insights and observations

Applications

Text linguistics is utilized primarily by academics across a variety of disciplines. For example, anthropologists may use it to help them better understand the role of texts in a given culture, such as what kinds of texts are used for rituals and what those rituals mean. Linguists may use it to better understand the structures of languages. Sociologists use text linguistics to understand how people relate through their language and how they make use of particular kinds of written texts in their social interactions. Finally, literary critics use text linguistics to understand how texts create meaning, and how those meanings can provide insights into other aspects of culture and society.

The Development of Textual Linguistics and Its Supporting Theories

E. M. Forster once wrote, "How do I know what I think til I see what I say?" It is essentially this question that has puzzled linguists for decades. The relationship between language, thought, and writing has remained elusive largely because there is no set qualitative value for judging writing systems, just as there is no one pure race, or one pure language. For this reason, interest in textual linguists was nearly abandoned in the late fifties because the only standards for judging the constructs of a writing system were the competency and individual performances of varying writers, which could yield no conclusive theories (Jordan, 29). However, there has since been a renewed interest in the topic on the bases that language can best be understood by analyzing actual instances within a context rather than made-up instances. This realization has come about though largely in the past decade through the efforts of textual linguists who have sought to prove the distinctions of the written language as worthy of study in relationship to spoken language. It should first be noted that the move from what rules govern language to how our brain interprets these rules in thought and writing is an inherently complex task that has required assistance from psycholinguists as well textual linguists. Together, these fields of study have sought to analyze the topic in the descriptive tradition, which seeks to identify and describe the structures of written communication without the use of intuitive judgments (Jordan, 30). However, the field of linguistics has grown to accept the study of a text as it exists, and not as it should exist, after more than a century of growing pains that fought to delay the final spurt it has recently received. Linguists before the eighteenth century were mainly concerned with the written language, but only in regard to the correction of linguistic errors as they appeared in text. It was not until the beginning of the twenty-first century that even the study of synchronic linguistics fought to emerge and flourish as the dominant form of study (Sampson, 12). Thus, the relapse back to an in depth study of written communication seemed a digression, which linguist Ruth Weir noted when she wrote, "It was a difficult enough task to free ourselves from looking at language only through its written representation....The victory of accepting the primacy of a spoken language has in fact been won so hard that any concession to writing savored of retreat (Sampson, 13). This statement describes one of the reasons why linguists overlooked textual linguistics for so many years. The move to spoken language was in fact so drastic that linguists saw little or no redeeming value in the study of texts. In the 1960's and 1970's language came to be studied largely as a biological phenomenon that had enormous implications for the study of the brain and language acquisition. Writing, however, was viewed as secondary largely because it is a social construct that is unique to each culture, and therefore scientific findings would be representative of comparatively much smaller groups of people (Sampson, 14). Furthermore, psycholinguists trying to determine the principle that organizes language in the mind of the writer would have to sift through virtually infinite writing performances to find the lowest common denominator by

which all writing is divisible (Nystrand, 27). Linguist M. Hichmann noted the futility of such a task when he wrote concerning the subject, "It then becomes unclear how such a model would be theoretically consistent and would not lead to the postulation of a number of additions and qualifications which appear to be extraneous or ad hoc considering the very rationale motivating the use of a competence model." However, as studies in spoken language continued into the mid-eighties it was discovered that a significant portion of spoken language is also socially determined. This leveled the playing field enough to give text the chance to reemerge as a field of study, but textual linguists first had to establish the qualifying merits of writing by showing its communicative and linguistic differences from spoken language. Textual linguistics can be studied within three major concentrations- typology, history, and psychology (Sampson, 17). However, it is the latter of these three fields that has created the greatest controversy, and also the most relevancy concerning our understanding of how linguistics is practiced by the writer and reader. The main interest of psycholinguists concerning a text is the mental processes by which the reader decodes the meaning in a text, and similarly, how the writer encodes meaning into a text from his or her understanding of the spoken form of the language. One means of studying this phenomenon is to divide the process into two exemplars, the Composing Process Exemplar and the Writer's Thoughts Exemplar (Nystrand, 23). The Composing Process Exemplar can be described as a set of 'automatized routines, subroutines, and discourse scripts' that reoccur in specific writing forms. The Writer's Thoughts Exemplar is 'an underlying semantic representation' or 'cognitive map' 'organized hierarchically in terms of prepositions' and 'networks of goals' that reoccur in specific writing forms (Nystrand, 23). In the past, writing has been thought of as nothing more than the transcription of a spoken language, but this definition speaks entirely of the composing process and gives no account for the reasons why a writer uses certain linguistic conventions in varying ways and at varying times. Writers do not make meaning by using a composing process; they make meaning by managing their knowledge of a language. The Writer's Thoughts Exemplar seeks to specifically describe what writers know, and how they implement what they know within a context, and it is in this exemplar that psycholinguists have placed their energies (Nystrand, 26). It is widely accepted that there is some underlying principle that organizes a writer's cognitive abilities, but the fact that these abilities are themselves language complicates identification of the managing principle. For instance, written language differs only slightly from spoken language in syntax and lexical resources, but it differs greatly in how these features of language are organized and employed, making it difficult to define the production of written language with existing terms and linguistic rules (Nystrand, 26). Moreover, the generation of both written and spoken language is not necessarily subordinate to the generation of ideas. It is true that the writer must organize and encode his or her thoughts before transcription, but the act of transcribing can also generate further thought. In this way, writing can often act in a cyclical fashion in the production of thought and transcription (Nystrand, 28). However, the queues that prompt the thoughts of the writer to further syntactical or lexical development do not alter the language itself after the "ideational fact." That is, even writing that is prompted by recursive thought requires the thought before the expression. This may make it seem like spoken language is just a different format that can be achieved by withholding the constant revisions, but it is just this notion that fails to see the fundamental difference that makes writing a language of thought in itself. Martin Nystrand responds concerning the subject, "Regarding speech and writing as identical in their metacomponents and fundamentally different only in format fails to grasp the functional significance of elements of text, in effect trivializing these conventions rather than understanding them as essential elements in a very complicated psychosocial equation (Nystrand, 29)."

These findings and the extrapolation of the Writer's Thoughts Exemplar have been very influential in establishing the significance of the written language as distinct in its production of meaning, but studies as recent as a few years back have gone even further to suggest that writing is also distinct in its grammar. Just as writing has recursive properties in regard to the generation of syntactical and lexical developments, it also has recursive properties in regard to perception and orthographic representation- the basis for grammar. The underlying principle that linguist Robert Scholes uses for this claim is the fact that, "people's consciousness of the constructs of speech and their experience with orthographic representation evolve in a cyclical fashion- the permanence of writing allows the speaker to discover constructs previously unperceived (Scholes, 78)." It has been generally assumed for some time that the grammar used in writing and speech is essentially the same, however, a speaker's auditory comprehension of a morpheme can differ from a writer's grammatical comprehension of the same morpheme. To illustrate this point, Schole uses the "pseudo-phonemic transcription"- "sheedah" (i.e. she would have). Literate English speakers may utter this phrase in the context of a sentence with competency and assurance of the syntactical meaning, but when asked to write its grammatical equivalency the auxiliary 'have' is replaced by the preposition 'of.' Other examples taken from papers by college students included, 'threw out his life,' 'There not very smart,' Its a good thing,' and 'Your a good teacher (Scholes 80).' These errors represent more than the inadequate tutelage of an elementary school English teacher; they give insight into the linguistic consciousness of the writer. The occurrence of such writing errors implies that the languages represented by orthography and speech are not the same (Scholes, 80). For instance, literate and non-literate users of English will identify the morphology of regular past tense words differently. Literate users understand that the "ed" suffix makes the word bi-morphemic and does not change though it has three possible morphophonemic representations. Illiterate users however do not know that the three morphophonemic presentations share one suffix and thus view them to be mono-morphemic. This shows that the morphology of writers and speakers differ to some degree, and so also do their grammars as a result. Scholes also goes on to note how the permanence of writing and linguistic awareness works in a cyclical fashion in the same way for syntax and phonemic segments. Textual linguists are constantly discovering other similarly unique characteristics of writing, and such discoveries continue to aid in the momentum of text as a rewarding field of study. The Writer's Thoughts Exemplar and studies in the recursive properties of language are just a few of the developments that have come to fruition through the efforts of textual linguists in the later half of the twentieth century. These minute distinctions that textual linguistics studies will hopefully continue to provide a more complete understanding of actual language use for years to come.