To describe a written text

as connected discourse

EN11/12RWS-IIIa-1
Text
Text – are any passage-spoken or written, of whatever length, that
does form a unified whole. Text in general are self-contained, well-
formed, hang together (cohesive), make sense (coherent), have a
clear communicative purpose, recognizable text types,
appropriate to their context of use.

Fowler (1991) maintained that a text is up of sentences, but there

exist separate principles of text-construction that is beyond the
rules for making sentences
Connected speech

Connected speech – also known as ‘connected discourse’ is

spoken language that is used in continuous sequence of sounds,
just like in normal conversations.

Written text – is formed from spontaneous discreteness that

predetermined its connectedness.
Brown (1994) presented the inexhaustive list of written
text
• Non-fiction
- report
- editorials
- essays, articles
- References (Dictionaries, encyclopedias)
• Fiction
- novels
- Short stories
- Jokes
- Dramas
- poetry
• Letters
- personal
- business
• Greeting cards
• Diaries, journals
• Memos (e.g. interoffice memos)
• Messages (e.g. phone messages)
• Announcements
• Newspaper “journalese”
• Academic writing
- Short answer test response
- Reports
- Essays, papers
- Theses, books
• Forms, applications
• Questionnaires
• Directions
• Labels
• Signs
• Recipes
• Bills
• Maps
• Manuals
• Menus
• Schedules (e.g. transportation information)
• Advertisements
- Commercial
- Personal (“want ads”)
• Invitations
• Directories
• Comic strips, cartoons
Super sentence

Super sentence – text is extremely significant

in all aspects of communication because we
communicate not only by means of individual
words or fragments of sentences, but by
means of texts that are recognized as
extended structure of syntactic units
Surface text and Deep text
Surface text – refers to the set of expressions actually used in making
some knowledge explicit.

Deep text – occurs during processing, leaving other knowledge

implicit.

Texture – an element that makes a text understandable.

Crane (1994) described texture as the basis for unity and
semantic interdependence within text. He added that any
written text that lacks texture would simply be a bunch of
isolated sentences that have no relationship to each other.

‘sequential implicativeness’ a feature of texture that denotes

connectionism – each line in a text is connected from or
connected to the previous line. Each succeeding line is quit
upon the preceding line/s; henceforth, language contains a
linear sequence. The linear progression of text creates a
context of meaning – the “with” the text.
Word recognition in Connected Speech

Attempting to count the number of words in even a few sound of

a conversation or radio broadcast in an unfamiliar language will
quickly demonstrate how difficult that task is because words run
together in an utterance of any language.

Example:

Ifwordswereprintedwithoutspacebetweenthemtheywouldbepre
ttytoughtoread.
Pronouns and Discourse
Situation:
The 911 operator, trying to get a descriptive of the gunman, asked,
“What kinds of clothes does he have on?”

Mrs. Morawske; thinking that the question pertained to Mr.

McClure (the victim who lay dying of a gunshot wound),
answered, “He has a bloody shirt with blue jeans, purple striped t-
shirt.”

The 911 operator then gave the police that the description of a
gunman when in fact it was the description of the victim.
See prepared Written Works and
Performance Task