Review…part 2

So now, on to what kind of

meanings?
 Textual meanings
 1 sentence is not enough to say much about these,
as their primary function is to work ACROSS the
text, but
 What are ‘textual’ meanings?
 Those that ‘enable’ the other meanings, ie, without
which the others would not ‘be’, as there would be no
‘text’!
 the textual function = the enabling function
 But what do we focus on in the ‘text’, at the level of
Clause as Message, to understand these? What
systems, what devices?
see process of text creation again… next slide
 PROCESS OF TEXT CREATION
activates are realised in + by

Context of Situation Semantics (meanings) Lexicogrammar (wordings)

I Field Ideational Clause as Representation

“What’s going Speaker as Observer
on?” Experiential meanings Transitivity Structure
Logical meanings Clause Interdependency (taxis)
Logico-semantic relations
II Tenor Interpersonal
“Who is taking Clause as Exchange
Speaker as Participant/ Mood, Modality, Appraisal
part?” Intruder in the text Systems

III Mode Clause as Message

Textual
Thematic + Info Structure,
“How are the Speaker as Text-
grammatical parallelism/
meanings being Maker non- structural cohesive
exchanged?”
devices/ discourse structure
Textual meanings (cont.)
Structural Cohesive Devices: Recall thematic &
info structure within the clause
Theme  Rheme……………………………
 (Topical) Theme = what I, speaker, choose as
my point of departure
 Rheme = the rest of the clause
Given  ___________________New
 Given = what you, hearer, already know about,
or have access to, from the text
 New = what I, speaker, am asking you, hearer,
to pay attention to now
Textual Meanings (cont.)
 NB: what we’re really interested in re textual
meanings is
 the Thematic & Information Structures being
constructed across the text, whereby
 THEME - represents textual ‘method of
development’/ the thematic progression in a text
(parallel/ linear/ split)
 NEW - represents the ‘rhetorical main point(s)’
being made
 info structure being a question of intonation… ie, of
spoken language – not treated in our course
Remember our ‘mini-text’:

“Her tone betrays the fear [[that

linguists may invade and ravage
precious literary territory]].”
Textual meanings (cont.)

 What is the Topical Theme (TT) of our mini-‘text’?

 “Her tone” = the speaker’s point of departure
 [But the interpretation of Proc: rel: int: id gives us…?
 a kind of Thematic equative, X = Y]

 So…?
 a T  R structure in which R ≈ (approximately =) T

 Information Structure (Given  New)

 unmarked info structure always sees New located towards
the end of the clause, in environment of Rheme, and Given
as located within the Theme, and
 Without spoken prosodic info, we can only assume that this
is the structure: so, New = ??
Information structure, cont.
 Any or all of: “… betrays the fear that linguists
may invade and ravage precious literary territory”
 BUT
 one can easily imagine the speaker putting the tonic accent
(and so signalling the ‘++New’) on more isolated
elements,
 eg? on 1 or more of the following…
 invade and ravage
 precious literary territory
 Or even on… linguists!
 You try reading it aloud!
 Textual meanings (cont.)
Another structural cohesive device: Grammatical
Parallelism (GP)
 We’ll be ‘refining’ this notion in great detail
 = structural reiteration of ‘equivalent units’, meaning
 any unit along the rank scale:
 eg, of morphemes/ phonemes, words, groups, phrases, clauses…
 also representable as repeated functional structures:
 eg, Carrier^Proc:rel:att^Attribute
 but what evidence of GP do we have here?
 Only the 2 material Processes, paratactically linked: invade and
ravage, whose –ve appraisal value is thus intensified
 NB: GP, for its theorist, Jakobson, is also & contemporaneously
semantic parallelism at work
 But more of all this to come...
 Textual meanings (cont.)
Now to Non-structural cohesive devices:
 What are these?
 reference;
 ellipsis/substitution;
 lexical relations: which include?
 (quasi)synonymy; (quasi)antonymy; meronymy (whole-
part); hyponymy (general-specific), collocation…
 conjunction - inter-sentential… ie, beyond the intra-
sentential linkage of ‘logical meanings’ (taxis),
 So, not a question of taxis, nor even of projection, but
only of the expansion of logico-semantic relations – and,
again, as these work across texts
Non-structural cohesive devices: cont.
 Reference: TIME OUT: what is it?
 is a relationship in meaning: a semantic relationship
(which is recoverable from the environment: textual
or extratextual/ situational)
 It has no grammatical constraints:
 in the sense that the grammatical class and
function of a reference item can be different
from that of its referent - eg
 He spoke to Mrs Smith (referent =NG/ Receiver of
message)… she told him…(reference item=pronoun/
Sayer)
 Reference can also reach back a long way, or extend
forward over a long segment of text
Reference, cont.
 the relationship between referring word and
its referent is one of co-reference, ie, it
signals ‘the same member’
 So that typically, if you want to refer to the
same thing, you use reference
 What is there, HERE, in our mini-text?
 ‘her’ (possessive deictic): referring,
anaphorically, to some preceding textual
&/or co-textual environment where the
preceding ‘speaker’ is identified
Non-structural cohesive devices: cont.
 Ellipsis/substitution?

TIME OUT:
 The notion of ellipsis is easy - something is
elided/ taken out/ deleted
 Much trickier are the differences between
 reference &
 substitution

 to make a systematic comparison 

Substitution (vs Reference)
 is a relationship in wording: a lexico-grammatical
relationship
 not one of meaning/ semantics, like reference
 To ‘substitute’ means “to go back and retrieve the
missing words” in the text
 substitution items must be grammatically ‘appropriate’,
ie, their function must be identical to the function of
what they substitute,
 not like referring items, which can have a different
function from their referent
 is also largely limited to an immediately preceding
clause
 ie, not able to range far back/ forward, like reference
Substitution (vs Reference), cont.
 the relationship is one of co-classification
 not one of co-reference, as with reference,
 ie, it signals ‘another member’ of the same class
 not the same member, as with reference
 (a bit like the difference between identifying and
attributing relationships)
 Typically, if you want to refer to a somehow
different thing, you use substitution
 So, are there any instances of substitution here in
our text?...
 NO. But to illustrate 
To illustrate
Imagine a dialogue:
 That woman worries that we linguists are a
danger for literary studies!
 Oh no, surely she doesn’t really?
 But she does! And so do a lot of lit crits!
 Elements in green = ?
 Reference: pronoun she refers to…?
 In red?
 Substitution: what do doesn’t, does and so do
‘substitute’?
 PS: might these also be the ‘New’ of their clauses?
Non-structural cohesive devices: cont.
Lexical relations: here in our text?
 Invade & ravage – remember: from same
semantic field of war, and similarly violent war-
like actions
 so quasi-synonyms, even extratextually, ie
outside this text…and
 also collocates – ie, have a strong tendency to
co-occur in same environment (one ‘tests’
collocation with large electronically stored and
interrogate-able corpora)
lexical relations (cont.)
 Remember: invade and ravage also evaluate
negatively, are ‘graduated’ & are examples of GP: 2
material processes
 Function here? = lexical relations further intensify their
overall significance
 *ie, the more strata that features function at, the
more important for text’s meaning(s) they are
 what about tone & fear – any relation between these
here?
 quasi-synonyms here: but, relation is only textually
created (recall Proc: rel: id transitivity reading)
 but only textually-created relations can be even more
important that extra-textual ones
Non-structural cohesive devices: cont.
Other lexical relations?
 any antonymy?...or quasi-?… here in our
text?
 yes:
 linguists vs literary
 again, it is the text alone that creates the
opposition – vital one here!
 though on basis of an academic context in
which they are (often, alas!) in conflict
Non-structural cohesive devices: cont.
 meronymy? the whole-part relation – any here?
 no, but to review
 ex: the USA as ‘whole’: each single state of the 50
(= co-meronyms)
 hyponymy? general-specific relation – any here?
 no, but typical relation in Constitutions
 ex: Constitution of the USA, functioning to define
institutions
 Art. 1, section 1: “All legislative Powers …shall be
vested in a Congress…”
 Art. 1, section 8: “The Congress shall have the power
to lay and collect taxes…” (specific powers
enumerated)
Non-structural cohesive devices: cont.
Finally, Conjunction
 As said already, in terms of textual meanings we
focus on:
 inter-sentential conjunction, going beyond the intra-
sentential of ‘logical meanings’
 This means conjunction, at this level of
meaning, is:
 not a question of taxis, or even of projection,
 but only of the expansion of logico-semantic relations
working between sentences, ie co-textually, ie across texts
 the options for the ways they work are, as always:
elaboration (=), extension (+) and enhancement (x)…
 none here, as we have only one sentence, but 
Conjunction (cont.). An ex.
Her tone betrayed that fear. However, it was not
simply a question of ‘tone’. That is to say that her
lexicogrammatical representation of linguistics itself
was clearly a negative one. And this could be seen
both in the Doer roles she gave it and in the epithets
she chose to describe it.
 However?
 Enhancement: adversative (despite X, nevertheless Y)
 That is to say…?
 Elaboration: apposition/ clarification
 And?
 Extension: addition
Textual meanings (cont.)
 Discourse (or rhetorical) structure (or staging)
 = the communicative (or speech) acts by which the text
is being discursively/rhetorically organized (a significant
aspect of Mode as how the meanings are being exchanged…)
 Here?
 1 clause: wrt clause as exchange: 1 ‘proposition’ only (ie an
exchange of info, vs ‘proposal’, an exchange of goods &
services)
 but just one part of a sequence/ chain of communicative
acts (invisible here), making up the argument(s) /debate
 actually only a very small part of a ‘rebuttal’ to a (‘her’)
negative critique of speaker-Fowler’s book
 could call it a ‘statement’/ an ‘affirmation’ etc…
 staging labelling is NOT an exact science!
Discourse structure/ staging as linked to
conjunction
(1) Her tone betrayed that fear. (2) However, it was
not simply a question of ‘tone’. (3) That is to say that
her lexicogrammatical representation of linguistics
itself was clearly a negative one. (4) And this could
be seen both in the Doer roles she gave it and in the
epithets she chose to describe it.
1) Statement ^ (followed by)?
2) Counter-statement ^?
3) Clarification ^?
4) Additional info…. which is offered in corroboration/as more
evidence of Clarification in (3)
So clearly there’s a very strong link between logical
connection – the expansions identified before - and
rhetorical structure!!
Further observations on the Mode
 Channel? ie, graphic or phonic?
 graphic: comes from a published hardcopy
academic journal
 Medium? (ie +’written’ or +’spoken’??)
 Hard to say with 1 clause, but,
 one sign of written-ness is?
 high lexical density –
 calculated per ranking clause

 but first, what IS a ranking clause?

 TIME OUT: ‘ranking’ clause?
 Includes independent & dependent finite & non-finite
clauses… but
 NOT embedded ones (having been ‘downranked’ from
status of clause)
 Our clause is thus only ONE clause:
“Her tone betrays the fear [[that linguists may
invade and ravage precious literary territory]].”
 To calculate Lexical Density:
 # of lexical words (vs grammatical ones)  number of
ranking clauses:
 so, 9  1…
 lexical density of 9 is very high, so ++ ‘written’, ie
++‘packaged’
Back to our dialogue version
 “That woman is afraid we linguists are a danger
for literary studies!”
 How many clauses?
 2
 and the relationship between them?
 Projection (reported idea; hypotaxis)
That woman is afraid ll we linguists are a
danger for literary studies!
 Lexical density?
 In Clause 1 = 2 (low)
 In Clause 2 = 4 (mid)
 Lower density = proof its medium is more ‘spoken’ than
the graphic channel original!
 but be careful: graphic ≠ written; phonic ≠ spoken
Further observations on the Mode (2)
 Monologue or dialogue?
 One speaker here in our text,
 no ‘sharing’ of process of text creation
 BUT the ‘full text’ it is taken from/ is part of a
multiple-text academic debate
 which we can now say is the nature of the
ongoing social activity – an ‘ingredient’ of the
field, together with ‘subject matter’,
remember?
 ultimately, 3 speakers cooperate in ‘full multiple-text’
creation
Further observations on the Mode (3)
 Primary ‘rhetorical aim’?
 We’ll be using Jakobson’s model of the
overlapping Factors + Functions of language to
talk about this, but, for now:
 What is the typical aim of ‘debate discourse’?
 persuasion (or convincing!), done by
 effectively arguing, meaning
 contending/disputing/rebutting/ refuting
(quasi-synonyms) and, just generally…
 making your point(s), and doing it better
than the other guy!
That’s all folks!
Re our review of text creation process anyway!
 As said, a Text Analysis ‘Checklist’ is
provided in your course-book…
 find it
 read it
 use it
 It gets reviewed in workshops too

 And now, on to more reviewing/

refining – but of theory