Dimensions in Discourse: Elementary to Essentials

By Thameemul Ansari

The book Dimensions in Discourse: Elementary to Essentials is a brilliant academic work which aims at helping the teachers and scholars who are interested in the recent developments in the field of Discourse Studies. The author, with his profound insight into the subject, has made this book not only enjoyable but also elegant. The book traces the very origin of the discipline called Discourse Analysis and brings to light various theories and methods related to this field and finally explains the scope and the reach of this field. The unique aspect of this book is that it attempts to investigate the core concepts of Discourse Studies from structural and linguistic perspectives to thematic elevation by drawing instances from representative literary texts. This work is expected to be a great resource for the university students, research scholars and teachers who are interested in exploring this ever charming territory called Discourse Analysis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Dec 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493131891

Thameemul Ansari

Prof. S.A. Thameemul  Ansari ,  a scholar of Interpretative and Linguistics Studies has gained enormous experience in Teaching and Research activities for more than 17 years. He has obtained his M.A.,(English) from Manonmaniam  Sundarnar University, Tirunelveli , Tamil Nadu  and M.A.,(Linguistics) from Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, India.  Besides this, he has an M.Phil., (English) and LL.B., with a specialization in Legal Language and Writing. He has done his Doctoral Research in Discourse Studies touching upon the contentious issues involved in interpretation of freedom concepts.   He has travelled across different parts of the world and worked in prestigious international universities. He headed the Department of English, Nalanda College, Vijayawada,  Andra Pradesh, India from 2000-07. Later, he served in the Department of English Studies and Linguistics, University of Sirte, Libya for three years from 2008-11. He writes extensively on the subjects such as Education policy, Teacher Training, Issues in Interpretation, Dialogue Studies, Civil Rights and English Language Education. The books he has authored include An Interpretative Discourse on the Concept of Freedom and A Study on ‘the Language’  of Resistance and Rebellion.  He is presently serving in the Department of English, University of Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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Rev. date: 12/10/2013

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgement

Unit 1

Chapter 1: Introduction to Discourse Studies

1.1. Towards Understanding Discourse

1.2. The concept of ‘Text’

1.3. Lexical and Grammatical Cohesion

1.4. Kinds of Discourse

Chapter 2: Dimensions

2.1. Approaches to Discourse Analysis

2.2. Cohesive Devices

2.3. Pragmatics

2.4. Speech Acts

Chapter 3: Principles in Discourse

3.1 Cooperative Principles

3.2. Politeness Maxims.

3.3. Discourse in Use

3.4. The Scope of Discourse

Chapter 4: Discourse in Application

4.1 Practical Discourse

4.2. Exercises in Discourse Analysis

4.3. Summary

Unit 2

Chapter 1: Interpretative Discourse

1.1. A Dialectical Discourse on Freedom Concepts

1.2. Interpretation of Freedom in world literatures

1.3. Historical Interpretation

1.4. Interpreting Stowe’s Writings

Chapter 2: Interpretation of Classical Texts

2.1. Interpreting Anti-Slavery Texts

2.2. Discourse on Reform Tradition

2.3. Interpreting Protest Novels

2.4. Interpreting Freedom Literature

Chapter 3: Interpreting Modern Texts

3.1. An Analysis of Toni Morrison’s Writings

3.2. A Thematic Study on The Bluest Eye

3.3. Interpretation of the forces of oppression

3.4. A Semantic Study on Beloved

3.5. Interpreting Black Identity

Chapter 4: Postcolonial Interpretations

4.1. Postcolonial Perspectives

4.2. Political interpretation of Freedom

4.3. Postcolonial Discourse on Freedom

4.4. Conclusion

References

Dedication

In the loving memory of my grandmother Veeyanna Samu Fathima who has first initiated me into the world of words.

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my gratitude to all my teachers, friends, colleagues and my beloved students who have guided and encouraged me time and again to give a shape to my ideas and thoughts.

Also, I fondly remember the members of my family, my beloved wife, Ayesha and lovable children, Mahir, Ihlas and Rabia for their love, care and patience and for making my life meaningful.

The responsibility of this work is wholly mine, but any credit, I shall happily share with my friends and colleagues.

Unit 1

Chapter 1

Introduction to Discourse Studies

1.1.   Towards Understanding Discourse

Discourse Analysis is an art of analyzing anything that is written or spoken in order to put the piece of communication in proper perspective. It involves an honest application of mind, exercise of sense and involvement of cultural ethos. It is deeply contextualized in a sense that anything written or spoken emerges out of a context and while analyzing such a speech event the practitioner of discourse is expected to bear in mind the ‘the actual’ situations which might have forced such a speech event to emerge. If there is any devoid of principles related to context, the analysis faces the risk of being perceived to be prejudiced.

Before we move on to discuss further on this line, it is essential, for the purpose of clarity to explain in simple terms what is generally understood to be ‘discourse’. The term ‘discourse’ is used in the academic circle today more as a term of convenience to refer to anything that is written or spoken. The written or spoken matter or material could be in printed form or spoken form or either of which could be even in digital form. The size or length of the discourse is not at all a matter of concern. But, the yardstick on which a discourse is evaluated is the principle of meaning. In other words ‘if anything that is written or spoken lends itself to interpretation of meaning by adhering to the norms of cultural exposition of meaning then that written part or spoken material could be rightfully called ‘discourse’. This is a qualified statement in a sense that it expects a piece of communication of situation to ‘adhere’ to some common standards of commonsense test.

But, in loose and liberal sense, a discourse could be anything which is written or spoken irrespective of it being perceived as a contribution to meaning. As most of us agree meaning is relational and conditional. Meaning making process is arguably located in culture. Hence in liberal sense, expectation of meaning should be an implied condition to assert if a piece is a discourse or not.

Discourse is an intellectual participation in dissemination of ideas, assimilation of common principles and negotiation of meanings. The level of discourse varies from context to context being deeply influenced by cultural and social norms. Having discussed ‘discourse’ from common man’s perspective let us move a step forward to understand this essentially contested discipline from different linguists’ perspectives.

Originally the word ‘discourse’ comes from the Latin ‘discursus’ which denotes ‘conversation, speech’. It is generally seen as ‘language in use’. Johnstone (2002:2). According to him discourse refers to ‘actual instances of communication in the medium lf language.’ It can also be seen as a continuous stretch of spoken or written language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit. (Prstejovsky 2006). It is also commonly referred to as connected speech or writing.

Hence, the term ‘discourse’ has multiple definitions. But in the study of language this term often refers to the speech patterns and usage of language, dialects, and acceptable statements, within a community. This study has several dimensions and features. Hence it is very difficult to limit this field of study to a specific context or situation. Johnson defines discourse as an institutionalized way of speaking that determines not only what we say and how we say it, but also what we do not say which can be inferred from what we say. Though initially this term refers to ‘speech’ later, as stated before, it extends itself to cover meanings beyond speech and every instance of language use.

Sociologists and philosophers tend to use the term discourse to describe the conversations and meaning behind them for a group of people who hold certain ideas in common. These are the definitions by philosopher Michel Foucault who holds discourse to be the acceptable statements made by a certain type of discourse community. For linguists, discourse is an extended stretch of language, such as we find in the conversations, narratives, polemical statements, political speeches etc., is not just a string of sentences, one following the other but rather it exhibits properties which reflect its organization, coherence, rhetorical force and thematic focus.

According to Zelling Harris discourse analysis is an art of looking beyond the boundaries of language to bring out the hidden motivation behind the texts. Language in a discourse is a gateway to the text which includes both substance and content. The written words, phrases and sentences contribute to the concept of cohesion and ultimately make sense. In other words, analyzing a discourse is a journey through with the destination of meaning is reached. Hence it is rightfully called a meaning making process.

Meaning is arrived at through relative interpretation. It is essential to know how each word in a sentence is connected to other words within the same boundary of sentence to appreciate and understand the contributory meaning. This kind of relative interpretation of the meanings of words is what is essentially called ‘analysis of discourse’. In this attempt to bring the meaning out of the written words it is to be borne in mind the contexts where the words are located. Quite often understandably the contexts where the words appear contribute to the existing meaning of the words. Sometimes the meanings implied in words are in contrast with the meaning offered by context. In such apparently conflicting situations the contextual meaning presides over the implied meaning.

Discourse is generally viewed as language above the sentence and clause. It is the aspect of linguistics that is concerned with how we build up meaning in larger communicative rather than grammatical units. It studies meaning in text, paragraph and conversation, rather than in a single sentence. Stubb (1983:1) describes Discourse Analysis as follows:

The term ‘discourse analysis’ is very ambiguous. I will use it in this book to refer mainly to the linguistic analysis of naturally occurring connected speech or written discourse. Rightly speaking, it refers to attempts to study the organization of language above the sentence or above the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written texts. It follows that discourse analysis is also concerned with language use in social contexts, and in particular with interaction or dialogue between speakers.

Brown and Yule (1983) observe that Discourse Analysis examines ‘how addressers construct linguistic messages for addressees and how addresses work on linguistic messages in order to interpret them’.

If we observe the recent trends in the field of social sciences, it is very encouraging to see that there is a marked departure from the previously set ‘beaten track’. The scholars of the field are excited today much more than any time before to study ‘the role’ of language in shaping perceptions, ideas, values and way of life. In short, language in its own pace, tries to create some sort of reality of the world which surrounds us at least in our mental map. This reality may be a faithful reflection of the actual world that we live in or an idealistic vision of it. This unique role which our language plays today arouses a significant interest for many a scholars of interdisciplinary studies and more particularly those who are involved in discourse studies. This interest has been accompanied by the development of new theories and methods for the study of language use and its indispensable role in our world.

Discourse Analysis is often understood to be or at least presumed to be a branch of linguistics. But the recent studies in this filed reveal a convincing fact that it does not belong to any branch of study as such exclusively as it cuts across different disciplines of human interest. Hence it is seen more an interdisciplinary field which comes as a result of cross fertilization of ideas of society and language. To say that it is a field of ‘study’ itself is debatable as it never stops as a subject. It keeps on investigating what is self-contained or expressed in a language. Hence it is a field of investigative study which concerns itself with facets of language and dynamics of society. Though it has been often construed to be an analysis of linguistic behavior either written or spoken, it also proposes to look beyond the constructs of language to appreciate ‘the space’ of communication which cannot be defined or limited in term of written or spoken language.

To conclude, interpretation of text is often motivated by factors related to social, political, geographical and cultural issues. Hence the truth behind a text is often the facts of truth perceived by the reader rather than what the text is presumed to have conceived. It is the interpretation which contributes to the content and substance of the text. Before the issues of interpretation are widely discussed it is advisable to have a proper understanding of what ‘is’ a text and what ‘constitutes’ it.

1.2.   The concept of ‘Text’

A text is often quoted as a body of language which is composed of several desperate units. It is a channel through which entry to the world of meaning is possible. A text always has a context of its own. It is subjected to the dictates of time and space. As time changes the text too changes and continues to assume significance and relevance. A text is sometimes called a statement of contemporary world. The contemporariness gives greater degree of relevance to a text. If a text refuses to grow in relation with evolutionary process of the word of ideas then it ceases to exist.

A text may be called a ‘mirror’ as it reflects (or at least expected to reflect) the current of ideas which sweeps across the world of civilization. It is a link between the present and the future. The strength of the text lies in its deep rootedness in the past as the relevance of its is linked to the future. Through the reading of a text a reader gives expression to her/his interpretation in way ‘the schema’ of the reader fits in. In this connection a text provides a context the reader to confirm her/his impressions of the text and contribute to the already existing meaning or confronts the meaning demonstrated. In either way a text engages a reader a faithful companion in the journey of exploration of truth.

Every text has a context. This context is defined as contemporary text. As it is stated earlier the link between contemporariness and the text is the link of logic or reason and through which relevance is established. Several units which are present in the text have to be organized and arranged in a way which defines the soundness of logic.

In an attempt to understand a text it is recommended to have a wider look at what really constitutes it. A text is expected to have a well defined structure. It should have a purpose of its own. It stands on the foundation of character. Though a text is composed of several linguist units all those desperate units should collectively contribute to the wholesomeness of the text.

A text is identified not only by its substance but also by its structure. Substance and structure cannot be separated from each other. Structure is what is visible at the surface level in terms of its appeal and significance and substance is what remains after having ‘read’ the text. A structure may relate to both technical and thematic level. On technical level a text should be organized with a strong logic of linguistic connections. Logic runs as a connecting thread between units of expression.

The idea of text is closely connected to the field of communication. People who engage in the process of communication tend to ignore the fact that their ends of communication are met mainly due to the factors related to the ‘text’ which provides the background. Communication is not just an arrangement of words or phrases that grammarians would want us to believe. It is much deeper than mere application of grammar. It is a world of context interlinked with purpose, participants, tools, signs and symbols. Though texts are always used as a tool in our analysis of a discourse, it is to be underlined that this tool reveals considerably the tool-user in bringing meaning to the text.

According to a noted linguist Werlich a text ‘is an extended structure of syntactic units such as words, groups, and clauses and textual units that is marked by both coherence among the elements and completion whereas a non-text consists of random sequences of linguistic units such as sentence, paragraphs or sections in any temporal and/ or spatial extension. (1976:23). Fowler who holds puritanical perspective in terms of language use seems to hold a slightly different view point regarding the concept of text. He defines it as something which is ‘made up of sentences, but there exist separate principles of text-construction, beyond the rules for making sentences’. (1991: 59) But, Beaugrande and Dressler are of the notion that a text is a naturally occurring manifestation of language. Text has a part which is visible and another part which so deep. The visible part of the text is called surface text which is actually a set of expressions in use and these expressions make some knowledge explicit whereas some other part of the knowledge implicit. These are multitudes of perspectives defining the function, nature and the changing facts of text.

The concept of text accommodates within its preview the idea of relevance connected to the present. The contemporary relevance is what significantly contributes to the concept of text. Hence it is safe to conclude that contemporaneous is an essential condition to give certain degree of relevance to the text. Hence is text implicitly indicates contemporary context. Though it is made up of a series of sentences a close examination will bring to light that it is a set of mutually relevant communicative fun as observed by Hatim and Mason. It is structured in such a way to achieve an overall rhetorical purpose. Does it mean that text is what is does? It could be. But, it is difficult to arrive a single convincing definition of what constitutes a text.

Text and Cohesion

There is a close connection between text and cohesion. Though the term ‘text’ is at least used as a point of reference to talk about a unit of language, cohesion is what contributes to basic composition of unity. The word ‘unity’ is used here in a very liberal sense. It includes all such parts and segments of a language structure which contribute the making of an idea which supports the structure of language to function its role in a context. In other words, unity is achieved through establishing a link of logic in terms of semantic elements and thereby relating each word of a sentence to the whole part of the body of sentence in a holistic way. The interconnection or the link of harmony between several units of a given sentence is what gives strength, support and relevance to a sentence. The grammatical coherence between words within a sentence and the same between sentences are to be examined in order to understand the role of unity between words to contribute to meaning and linguistic legitimacy.

According to Halliday and Hasan ‘text’ is a semantic unit which is linked in many ways to the society’s ever pulsating life. A text is a context where in language as a tool is employed to analyze or interpret different social interactions among the members of a community who have common interest, aspirations and hope. Through this participation a text becomes a living entity. A text stands on the foundation of a context. The context is the social reality which defines and defends the very existence of the text.

A text has been for long defined as a communicative occurrence which constantly engages itself with the changing contexts of interpretation. The process of interpretation is the condition of context which imposes its will upon what has been well-determined within the boundaries of a text. A text has to meet certain standards of expectation which includes standards connected to historicity.

Halliday believes that text is not only a semantic unit but also an instance of social interaction. In its social-semantic perspective, text is an object of social exchange of meanings. In this connection, Halliday attempts to merge semiotics with both sociology and linguistics. In other words, text is a sign representation of a socio-cultural event embedded in a context of situation. Context of situation is the semio-socio-cultural environment in which the text unfolds. Text and context are so intimately related that neither concept can be comprehended in the absence of the other.

Context and text

In the considered opinion of Halliday and Hassan texts can’t be approached without referring to the situation as the context ‘in which texts unfold and in which they are to be interpreted’. There are three situational parameters that help the participants of the communication activity make prediction about the ever-growing meanings that are being exchanged. These include: field, tenor and mode of discourse.

Field of discourse refers to what is happening, to the nature of the social action that is taking place. It indicates what that that the participants are engaged in, in which the language figures as essential components. The tenor of discourse refers to ‘who is taking part, to the nature of participants, their statuses and roles’. It also refers to the kinds of role relationship which is obtained among participants, including permanent and temporary relationships of one kind or the other. Tenor of discourse indicates the relationship between discourse participants as manifested in language use. Mode of discourse is s term which refers to ‘what part the language is playing, what it is the participants are expecting the language to do for them in that situation, they symbolic organization of the text.

Text context of culture is another important factor which merits our attention here. Like context of situation, context of culture is an essential element through which one comprehends texts. Halliday and Hassan (1985:46) point out that:

The context of situation, however, is only the immediate environment. There is also a broader background against which the text has to be interpreted: its context of culture. Any actual context of situation, the particular configuration of field, tenor, and mode that has brought a text into being, is not just a random jumble of features but a totality—a package, so to speak, of things that typically go together in the culture. People do these things on these occasions and attach these meanings and values to them; this is what culture is.

The most direct study of the definition of text was carried out by Beaugrande (1980). In defining the notion of ‘text’, Beaugrande (1980:11) asserts that the multi-level entity of language must be TEXT, composed of FRAGMENTS which may not be formatted as sentence. In this statement the author asserts that some essential distinctions between text and sentences as a start point. The following passage illustrates these distinctions:

The text is an ACTUAL SYSTEM, while sentences are elements of VIRTUAL SYSTEMS. The sentence is a purely grammatical entity to be defined only the level of syntax. The text, on the other hand, must be defined according to the complete standards of textuality. A text must be relevant to a situation of occurrence, in which a constellation of strategies, expectations and knowledge is active. A text cannot be fully treated as a configuration of morphemes and symbols. It is a manifestation of a human action in which a person intends to create a text and instruct the text receiver to build relationships of various kinds. Texts also serve to monitor, manage, or change a situation. Whereas sentence is not action, and hence, has limited role in human situations; it is used to instruct people about building syntactic relationships. A text is a progression between states… the knowledge state, emotional state, social state etc., of the text users are subject to change by means of the text. Social conventions apply more directly to texts than to sentences. Psychological features are more relevant to texts than to sentences. (1980:12-14)

According to Beaugrande believes that the above-mentioned fundamental differences between the text and the sentence have implications for the evaluation of linguistics of the text. Also he differentiates between the two notions—text and sentence as follows: A sentence is either ‘grammatical’ or ‘ungrammatical’ in the sense that it conform to the traditional forms of grammar or departs from it. A text, on the other hand, is either ‘acceptable’ or ‘unacceptable’ according to a complex gradation, not a binary opposition, and contextual motivations are always relevant. The drawing of distinction between text and sentence has brought into the notion of context into full prominence. While Halliday (1985:12) refers to ‘conext of situation’ Beaugradne describes context as ‘a situation of occurrence in which a constellation of strategies, expectations, and knowledge are active.’ The two definitions are not significantly different; in fact they are almost identical except that Beaugrande’s may seem a bit more empirical.

In addition, Beaugrande and Dressier (1981) give thought to the notion of text. They try to determine what makes the text a unified meaningful whole rather than a mere string of unrelated words and sentences. In this particular work they work they set up seven standards of textuality. A text may be considered a text unless it meets these seven standards. They believe that these standards of textuality enable text analysis to be applicable to a wide variety of areas of practical concern. The textuality of the text depends on the communicative features it contains. They are as follows: cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability informativity, situationality, and intertextuality.

In short, context and text and can never be separated from each other. Context is what determines the relevance of the text by standards of textuality. In other words, Discourse Analysis itself is according to Stubbs ‘is an attempt to study the organization of language above the sentence, or above the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchange or written texts’.

Standards of Textuality

Cohesion is the first standard of textuality. It is the network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations that provide links between various parts of a text. These relations or ties organize a text by requiring the reader to interpret words and expressions by reference to other words and expression in the surrounding sentences and paragraphs. Moreover, it is seen as a non-structural semantic relation, as for example, between a pronoun and its antecedent in a preceding sentence, expressing at each stage in the discourse the point of context with what has gone before. A cohesive devise is the interpretative link between, for example, a pronoun and its antecedent and or two lexically linked NPs, and a series of such times is referred to as a ‘cohesive chain’.

Halliday and Hasan (1976) establish five cohesion categories. They are namely reference, substation, ellipsis, conjunctions and lexical links. Halliday and Hasan (1976:1) present the following examples:

a.   Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a fireproof dish.

b.   My axe is blunt. I have to get a sharper one.

c.   Did you see John?—yes ______ (omitted)

d.   They fought a battle. Afterwards it snowed.

In the above examples each sentence is linked to the other by a cohesive link. In each cohesive instance a different cohesive item is implemented. For example, in the first example the two sentences are liked by the pronoun ‘them’, in the second sentence ‘one’ refers anaphorically the noun phrase ‘six cooking apples’, in the first sentence. In (B) this relation is established by the presence of the substitute ‘one’ in the second sentence, which is a counter of the noun ‘axe’ in the first sentence of the same example; in (C) the cohesive relation is achieved by the omission of some element in the second sentence that presupposes the first sentence. In example (D) none of the above relations exist; the conjunction or conjunctive adjunct ‘afterwards’ is not an anaphoric relation like the previous one; it does not instruct the reader to search for the meaning of the element to interpret it as in reference, or the replacement of some linguistic element by a counter or by a bank, as are substitution and ellipsis, ‘but a specification of the way in which what is to follow is systematically connected to what has gone before’ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 227)

As for the main cohesion category called lexical cohesion, Halliday and Hasan present the following examples:

‘There is a boy climbing the tree’

a.   The boy’s going to fall if he doesn’t not take care

b.   The lad’s going to fall if he does not take care

c.   The child’s going to fall if he does not take care

d.   The idiot’s going to fall if he does not take care.

In example (a) there is a repetition of the same lexical item ‘boy’ in (b) the reiteration takes the form of a synonym or near synonym ‘lad’; in (c), of the superordinate the term ‘child’; and in (d), of a general word ‘idiot’.

All these instances have something in common. The commonality is that one lexical item refers back to another, to which it is related by having a common referent.

Intentionality

While cohesion and coherence are to a large extent text-centered, intentionality is user-centered. A text producer normally seeks to achieve a purpose or goal such as persuasion, instruction, request or information based on a given plan. Obviously, cohesion and coherence are taken into consideration while planning and executing one’s plan. Speakers or writers vary in the degree of success in planning and achieving their purposes.

Acceptability

The receiver’s attitude is that a text is cohesive and coherent. The reader usually supplies information that is missing or unstated. Acceptability is very much sensitive to the social activity the text is fulfilling. A legal contract does not leave much room for inference. It contains what, otherwise, is called redundancies. Poetic language will be viewed as such because it calls on for inferences.

Acceptability is very much affected by the reader’s social and cultural background. The joke of the priest who, on shaving his beard in the morning cut his chin because he was thinking of the sermon he was about to give, and the advise his fellow priest gave him, ‘cut your sermon short and concentrate on your beard’, was not very much appreciated by some students belonging to different culture.

Informativity

A text has to contain some new information. A text is informative if it transfers new information, or information that was unknown before. Informativity should be seen as a gradable phenomenon. The degree of informativity varies from participant to participant in the communicative event. Situationality contributes to the informativity of the text. A book written in 1950 has in informativity that was high appropriate then.

Situationality

A text is relevant to a particular social or pragmatic context. Situationality is related to real time and place. Communicative partners as well as their attitudinal state are important for the text’s meaning, purpose and intended effect. Scientific texts share a common situationality, while ideological texts have different siutationalities across languages and cultures.

Intertextuality

The seventh standard of textuality is called intertextuality. A text is related to other texts. Intertextuality refers ‘to the relationship between a given text and other relevant texts encountered in prior experience’. (Neubert and Shreve, 1992:117) These include textual conventions and textual expectations. Some text features have become more and more international, e.g. medical texts. They exhibit many features that are English-like, even though, they are written in other language.

Text—typology

For long time in the past there was not enough research done to the field of text-topology. This field has developed phenomenally as great emphasis is given to this area. Text-typology aims at grouping texts into categories and types, and at identifying and describing linguistic and conceptual features that texts belonging to a particular group have in common. The definition of term text-type varies between different linguists, but most follow Hatim’s (1990) in relating this concept to communicative intentions. In such an approach, texts are defined as text purose, text producer’s intentions, writer/reader relationships, and medium of communication.

There are innumerable definitions to the notion of text-type. This is because they have dealt with this concept from different aspects. The following quotations present some of the prominent definitions. Werlich (1983:39) defines this notion as follows:

An idealized norm of distinctive text structuring which serves as deep structural matrix of rules and elements for the encoder when responding linguistically to specific aspects of his experience.

Beaugrande and Dressler (1981: 186) define text—type as:

A set of heuristic for producing, predicting, and processing textual occurrences, and hence acts as a prominent determiner of efficiency, effectiveness, and appropriateness

In another context, Beaugrande (1985: 197)

A text type is a distinctive configuration of relational dominances obtaining between or among elements of: the surface text, the textual world, stored knowledge patterns; and a situation of occurrence.

The following is an overview of a variety of different approaches attempting to classify texts into some major categories and types. Reiss (1976),in her attempt to set up a text typology relevant to translation quality assessment, suggests that texts can be categorized according to their field of discourse, with examples like ‘journalistic’. ‘religious’, ‘poetic’ and so on.

Another fruitful attempt has been made by Schmidt (1977), who proposes two basic possibilities for the study of text types. One can either start out with the traditionally defined types (literary, poetic, scientific, religious, journalistic etc.,) as observable objects, and try to reconstruct them through a consistent text theory; or one can begin with a text theory which sets up theoretical types to be compared with empirical samples.

Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) differentiate text-types along ‘functional lines’. They believe that text-types are supposed to perform specific and intended functions and in doing so contribute to process of human and social communication. They follow this line of thought because they view text-types as linguistic product. Unlike the above-mentioned linguists, Werlich (1976), in his published book, A Text Grammar of English bases his classification of texts on criteria called ‘dominant contextual focus’. He explains this notion by saying:

Texts distinctively correlate with the contextual factors in a communication situation. They conventionally focus the addressee’s attention only on specific factors and circumstances from the whole set of factors. Accordingly, texts can be grouped together and generally classified on the basis of their dominant context focus. (Werlich, 1976: 19) Based on this dominant contextual factor Welrich proposes the following five dominant contextual focus that can be observed in any given text:

1.   The focus is on factual phenomena such as persons, objects and relations. Texts of this group will be referred to as descriptive texts.

2.   The focus is on factual and conceptual phenomena in the temporal context. Texts of this group will be referred to as narrative texts.

3.   The focus is on the de-composition analysis into or the composition (synthesis) from constituent elements of concepts of phenomena that the communicants have. Texts of this group will be referred to as expository texts.

4.   The focus is on the relation between concepts of phenomena that the communicants have. Texts of this group will be referred to as argumentative texts.

5.   The focus is on the composition of observable future behavior, with reference to phenomena, in one of the communicants, that is either in speaker/writer or hearer/ reader. Texts of this group will be referred to as instructive texts.

Hatim (1990, 1997a and 1997b) takes the stand that texts are not most usefully categorized according to their field of discourse, with examples like ‘journalistic’, ‘religious’, ‘poetic’ etc., Here, the assumption is that classification of texts ‘based on criteria such as ‘field of discourse’ alone amounts to little more than a statement of subject matter’. And if defined in this way ‘text type will be so broad as to