Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Definition of text-type
a set of correlations between linguistic
features and communicative purpose.
this set of correlations can be established on
either a linguistic basis (Biber 1989) or a
functional basis (Longacre 1976, Beaugrande
and Dressler 1981, Werlich 1983)
Text typologies
Each author had used different parameters in his way of categorizing texts.
Jakobsons communication functions were used often as parameters:
One of the six functions is always the dominant function in a text and usually
related to the type of text.
Text Forms
proposed by Martinez-Cabeza(2002: 70)
provide guidelines that help to establish
specific correlations between purpose and
extra-linguistic context.
1. Descriptive forms
- based on the representation of phenomena in
space.
- impressionistic
descriptions
(subjective):
functional coherence is often achieved by the
first person singular point of view, while the
topical coherence is determined by the
impressions of phenomena in space.
- technical descriptions.(objective): composed in
third person and topicalization focuses on the
elements of a whole.
Narratives
constitutes the most representative form of the
recording of actions and events, usually from the
point of view of subjective impressions in time.
functional coherence is established by means of a
personal point of view, either in first or third
person singular, together with past tense verbal
forms.
topical coherence is developed through the focus
on persons and events in time.
Reports
characterized by an objective frame or
reference determined by a non-personal third
person point of view.
topical coherence is achieved by the focus on
the various situational factors of events: time,
place, agents, objects, and relations.
News stories
devised to provide information that enables
the addressee to form an opinion.
range in their references to the reporters own
views: news stories focused on facts and
actions avoid them while comments, for
example, leading articles, focus on the
authors opinions
Expository essays
- the encoder presents an explanation of
concepts, usually from a subjective point of
view.
- functional coherence is achieved through the
first person singular or plural point of view, or
the non-personal third person point of view.
- topical coherence depends on the particular
field of knowledge where the object of the
essay is included.
Advertisements: a combination of
expository and argumentative text
forms
Conclusions
Text forms are posited as intermediate between
types and genres: text type -> text form -> genre
e.g. the instructive text type includes the form
instructions which in turn, has variants such as
recipes.
Combinations of forms: very frequent and
necessary to account for the fact that actual texts
rarely display the whole set of features
established for the abstract category.
References (I)
Beaugrande, Robert de and WolfgangDressler,.
1981. Introduction to text linguistics. London
and New York : Longman.
Biber, D. 1989. A typology of English texts. In
Linguistics, 27: 3-43 (pages3-11)
Hatim Basil and Ian Mason. 1990. Discourse
and the Translator. London and New York:
Longman.
References (II)
Longacre, R.E. 1976. An Anatomy of Speech
Notions. Lisser: de Ridder.
Martin-Cabeza, M.A. 2002. The study of
language beyond sentence. From text
grammar to discourse analysis. Granada:
Comares.
Werlich, Egon. 1983. A Text Grammar of
English. Heidelberg: Quelle and Meyer.