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TEXT, DISCOURSE & GENRE
= an actual instance of language in use (Fairclough) or discourse,
or, more generally, any stretch of language, either spoken or written, that
forms a unified whole.
TEXT
has different meanings including:
a linguistic unit longer than a sentence, which is similar in
meaning to text:
a “collection of connected language units – such as sentences
and paragraphs – that together make up a coherent, cohesive
text.” (Trimble)
“Stretches of spoken or written language.” (Taylor)
the use of language in a given context, such as legal discourse,
political discourse, etc. [Functionalist view, SFL]
the way language embraces ways of thinking, being and acting
in the world: so it goes beyond linguistic and situational
elements to also include: language, action, interaction, values,
beliefs, symbols, tools and places (social practice) [Bourdieu,
Foucault, Critical Discourse Analysis]




substitution
ellipsis
conjunction
lexical cohesion
DISCOURSE
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
originally was used in reference to a category of artistic
composition characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.
In Discourse Analysis genres are specific or conventional text categories
associated with particular types of social occasion or communicative
event that are readily distinguished by mature speakers of a language such
as business letter, news report, editorial, recipe, novel, political
speech, political interview, etc. Texts can combine different genres in
various ways – mixing or hybridizing them, combining them in ‘formats’,
etc.
GENRE
COHESION:
the set of resources for constructing relations in discourse
that connect one part of a text to another (backwards, forwards or
outwards in a text). It is often seen as a function of the semantic relations
between sentences and can occur linguistically in the surface structure of
a text through:
 reference
COHERENCE:
a more general notion which refers to the quality of a text
that makes it function as a meaningful whole in its context
 the relation between propositions in a text (e.g. cause
and effect, chronological sequence)
 knowledge of the context in which the text was
produced and beyond that (of relevant extralinguistic
knowledge and cultural practice), which is generally
inferred and not explicitly expressed in text (Hewings
& North)
CONTEXT: the
language used within the text itself (cohesion or structure
of the text) is studied as well as within the situational and social contexts
in which it occurs and is produced. Typically there are three different
types of context (Cutting 2002: 3):
 the situational context (i.e. what speakers know about what they
can see around them)
 the background knowledge context (i.e. what they know about
each other and the world)
 the co-textual context (i.e. what they know about what they
have been saying)
Look at the following two statements and comment:
1. “Understanding a text means that people are able to construct
a mental model for the text”. (van Dijk 2004)
2. “Texts require readers to carefully separate different kinds of
reality and also to ‘tag’ claims about the truth of events and
situations”. (Chilton 2009)
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The linguist or discourse analyst tries to make sense of texts, what it is that
makes parts of texts hang together (or create texture). A text can be seen as
“freezing in time one moment of the on-going dynamic use of language in the
speech community”, i.e. discourse. Texts cannot be understood fully without
understanding their context in that discourse. But it is also important to focus
on the text itself so that we can understand how the linguistic elements that
make up the texts interact with discourse as well as with processes in the
human mind (cognitive processes).
TEXTURE is created through both cohesion, the linguistic elements that
connect sentences (clauses, utterances, phrases) of a text (=cohesive devices),
and coherence, the relation between the conceptual structures (things,
people, activities, etc.) or stored background knowledge, which may be
expressed by the words in the text but may be present in the mind of the text
producer or processor. Cohesive devices often depend on coherence.
FRAMES are the non-linguistic knowledge structures for a particular domain
of human experience (e.g. university, school, law courts, politics). SCRIPTS
are background knowledge about sequences of events, which are often
dependant on frames. Frames and scripts are held in long-term memory and
are activated by the meanings of words when you process texts.
Cohesion Devices
A. (CON)JUNCTIONS
words that relate propositions to one another in various ways
additive
adversative
causal
temporal
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and; in addition
but; however
because; consequentially
then; subsequently
Temporal conjunctions interact with the tense system of verbs, which also
plays an important role in textual cohesion. (see also Halliday and Hasan,
Coherence in English, 1976)
B. REFERENCE
Reference can be deictic, i.e., referring directly to something in the world, or
phoric, which provides an index (indexical) to some part of the discourse.
For example, pronouns can refer and identify, not by describing them or
naming them but by pointing them out.
Third-person pronouns are used to refer to entities, situations or events that
may be mentioned lexically in the co-text or sometimes information outside
of the text. Thus, reference forms may be:
anaphoric: when reference can be inferred by looking back in the
co-text
cataphoric: when reference can be inferred by looking forward in
the co-text
exophoric: reference is from “outside” the text (either in immediate
context or shared world view) [Cf. Intertextuality]
pronouns
demonstratives
articles
other forms
he, she, it, him, they
this, that, these
a(n); the
such a
We can infer the meanings by what we know about English grammar
(number, person, gender), co-textual knowledge and our background
knowledge.
In the case of articles the indefinite article generally introduces a new
referent, while the definite one refers back to an already mentioned referent.
Compare the use of articles in these two examples:
 A man in a dark suit sidled up to the bar. Mary watched him warily.
After a few seconds, the man said, “Hello, darling.”
 The street was dark. The curtains were drawn across the
windows. Mary walked cautiously along the pavement.
C. substitution/ellipsis
structures are only fully realised or repeated when they need to be, so ellipsis
and substitution are a speaker’s choice made on pragmatic assessment of the
situation. Ellipsis is when some element of the grammatical structure is left
out of the sentence
commonly used substitutions/ellipsis
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one(s)
do
so/not
same
–
I offered him a seat, but he didn’t want one.
These towels are dirty; we need some clean ones.
Did she take that? –She might have done.
Do you need this?- If so/if not, then you…
John chose the hamburger. – I chose the same.
Jane went to the lecture, but Harry didn’t [go].
Look at the use of cohesive devices in the texts below:
 If you’d like to give someone a phone for Christmas, there are plenty to
choose from. Whichever you go for, if it’s to be used on the BT network,
make sure it’s approved—look for the label with a green circle to confirm
this. Phones labelled with a red triangle are prohibited.
 Lord Melbourne, who was Prime Minister when Victoria became Queen
in 1837, did not like birdsong and could not distinguish a woodlark from a
nightingale. He preferred the singing of blackbirds anyway; best of all he
liked the cawing of rooks and could watch them for hours as they circled
at sunset. Victoria was surprised by this: she disliked their grating and
insistent calling.
D. lexical cohesion
created by the repetition of words or related words through their reiteration
(repetition) within the text
synonymy
hyponymy
antonymy
lexical (or semantic) field
collocation
An example of hyponymy from the Bully Text (Chilton):

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Ms Ball is in education. She teaches in a primary school.
education is a superordinate term and primary school is the hyponym.
Collocation is the co-occurrence of lexical items in the same environment
(which can also be grammatically related in some way).
1.1. Superstructures
Texts have recognizable parts that are organized according to conventional
patters (Cf. genre)
NESPAPER REPORT= headline + by-line + journalist + (lead) +
body of text
story = the chronological sequence of episodes
plot = the order through which the text presents the events
Even when stories are scrambled, texts retain their cohesion and
coherence by means of the tense system and other markers that indicate the
time at which events take place relative (a) to one another and (b) to the time
of writing or speaking.
1.2. Theme And Rheme
clauses consist of a THEME (or FOCUS), which establishes what the clause
is about, and a RHEME, which says something about it. The THEME is
generally at the beginning of the sentence, while the RHEME is everything
that follows.
 There are various ways to bring things into focus (FRONTING
DEVICES). How does the THEME change what is being implied by the
speaker?
1. John kissed Mary.
2. Mary was kissed by John.
3. It was John who kissed Mary.
4. It was Mary who was kissed by John.
5. What John did was kiss Mary.
6. Who John kissed was Mary.
7. Mary, John kissed her.
Adverb fronting
It-theme
Cleft Sentence
Pseudo-Cleft
Sentence
embedded clause
AdverbThematisation
Passive voice
Sometimes he goes to the beach.
It was Michael who won the prize.
What John did with his playing was encourage the
rest of the team.
That he would finish his dissertation was never in
doubt.
Against all odds, they won the tournament.
Late that afternoon she received a response.
Only the best papers are nominated for the award.
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Chilton, in “Text Linguistics” (available in the LUSPIO library to
photocopy) speaks about the importance of cohesion (and cohesive
devices), coherence (frames, scripts, etc.), superstructures, word
order (theme/rheme) when doing text/discourse analysis.
Specifically you should be interested in certain linguistic means
used in the presentation of people and events and in their evaluation,
which, in some cases, can be used to obscure them. These include:
 use of noun phrases or labelling of news actors to refer to
people and groups: rebels vs. resistance fighters
 use of lexis with a strong evaluative meaning
 use of different types of verbs to refer to actions and events,
dynamic, stative, etc.: protesting vs. rioting
 use of nominalization (i.e. using a noun instead of a verb to
refer to actions and events), which allows the omission of the
main agent: the killing of a Palestinian child
 transitivity (how events are described): who does what to
whom and what happens without intervention from actors.
There are four different process types: verbal (saying),
mental (sensing), relational (being) and material (doing:
the actor is the one that does the deed) (Mautner 2008: 41)
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use of passive voice, which also allows for the omission of
the agent: a Palestinian child was killed
use of modality or the way language shows degrees of
certainty and commitment and/or vagueness (interpersonal
metafunction): modal verbs (can, might, must), modal
adverbs (perhaps, certainly),
use of metaphorical expressions to describe one thing in
terms of another: a flood of immigrants
use of figures to back up claims
use of vagueness and exaggerated expressions
presentation of speech in various ways: narrator,
narrator’s presentation of speech acts, indirect speech,
direct speech, rhetorical questions
use of strategies to avoid identifying with precision the
person or people whose words are being presented:
o passive voice: is said to be
o nominalization: allegations that
o metaphorical: source
o metonymy: Britain for some unspecified members of
the British government
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Determine the genres of the following texts. What are the features that determine the genre?
KABUL, Afghanistan — A car packed with explosives blew up beside the
Indian Embassy on Thursday, leaving more than a dozen dead in what India’s
foreign secretary said was a direct attack on the embassy compound, the second in
two years.
The blast killed 17 people and wounded 63, according to the Afghan Interior
Ministry, whose own building is across the street from the blast site. Indian
authorities said no embassy staff members were hurt, but three guards outside had
been wounded.
“The suicide bomber was directed against the embassy,” India’s foreign
secretary, Nirupama Rao, told reporters in New Delhi.
Treasure trove: The lost glory of Rome
The unhappy story of a Roman helmet found in Cumbria has exposed the
weaknesses of the Treasure Act
Editorial
Who owns our past? For almost 1,000 years, the answer was simple. From the 12th
century until 1997, anyone finding ancient gold or silver objects in the ground was
obliged, under the common law of treasure trove, to report it. Ownership was
determined by an archaic process. The system was flawed: it led to a guessing
game about the intentions of someone hundreds of years into the past. It also failed
to protect properly that great majority of artefacts not made from gold or silver.
Unfortunately, the statute law that replaced it, the 1996 Treasure Act, is no better.
Its weaknesses have been exposed by the unhappy story of a Roman helmet found
this year in Cumbria.
Irving Penn, one of the 20th century’s most prolific and influential photographers
of fashion and the famous, whose signature blend of classical elegance and cool
minimalism was recognizable to magazine readers and museumgoers worldwide,
died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 92.
I, John Smith, a resident of Pittsfield, Massachussetts, being of sound and
disposing mind and memory and over the age of eighteen (18) years or lawfully
married or having been lawfully married or a member of the armed forces of the
United States or a member of an auxiliary of the armed forces of the United States
or a member of the maritime service of the United States, and not being actuated
by any duress, menace, fraud, mistake, or undue influence, do make, publish, and
declare this to be my last Will, hereby expressly revoking all Wills and Codicils
previously made by me.
Landmark clinical trial for stem cell therapy
The world's first clinical trial for stem cell therapy began on Monday. The trial
is still in its very early stages - only 10 people who have suffered recent spinal
cord injuries will be enrolled - but it's still a landmark event.
The world will be watching the results of those trials at as many as seven
centers around the country.
In at least one sense, the trial is already a victory. The political controversy
around stem cells resulted in funding delays for scientific research, and many
scientists were afraid that other countries would beat the United States to the trial
stage.
Instead, a local company - Geron Corp. of Menlo Park - is running the trial,
with American patients and within American borders. It's an encouraging sign, and
it means there's a good chance that the industry will continue to grow here. It's also
a rebuke to those who would happily block science - including the federal judge
who ruled in September that federal funding for stem cell research was illegal.
The trial is also a positive breakthrough in that it shows that the promise of
stem cells is indeed within our reach. We don't know yet whether the trial will be
successful, but at least we know that all of the money that's been invested so far
into basic research will soon have positive manifestations. [...]
Severe Hypoglycemia and Risks of Vascular Events and Death
Sophia Zoungas, M.D., Ph.D., Anushka Patel, M.D., Ph.D., John Chalmers, M.D., Ph.D.
BACKGROUND
Severe hypoglycemia may increase the risk of a poor outcome in patients with type
2 diabetes assigned to an intensive glucose-lowering intervention. We analyzed
data from a large study of intensive glucose lowering to explore the relationship
between severe hypoglycemia and adverse clinical outcomes.
METHODS
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We examined the associations between severe hypoglycemia and the risks of
macrovascular or microvascular events and death among 11,140 patients with type
2 diabetes, using Cox proportional-hazards models with adjustment for covariates
measured at baseline and after randomization.
INGREDIENTS
3 rashers streaky bacon, cut or scissored into 2.5cm strips
1 teaspoon garlic oil
125g chestnut mushrooms, sliced into 5mm pieces
250g chicken thigh fillets cut into 2.5cm pieces
25g flour 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 x 15ml tablespoon butter
300ml hot chicken stock
1 x 15ml tablespoon Marsala
1 x 375g (23 x 40cm) sheet all-butter ready-rolled puff pastry
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7. In a heavy-based frying pan, fry the bacon
strips in the oil until beginning to crisp, then add the sliced mushrooms and soften
them in the pan with the bacon.
Turn the chicken strips in the flour and thyme (you could toss them about in a
freezer bag), and then melt the butter in the bacon-and-mushroom pan before
adding the floury chicken and all the flour left in the bag. Stir around with the
bacon and mushrooms until the chicken begins to colour.
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Pour in the hot stock and Marsala, stirring to form a sauce, and let this bubble
away for about 5 minutes.
Take two 300ml pie-pots (if yours are deeper, don't worry, there will simply be
more space between contents and puff pastry top) and make a pastry rim for each
one - by this I mean an approx. 1cm strip curled around the top of each pot.
Dampen the edges with a little water to make the pastry stick.
Cut a circle bigger than the top of each pie-pot for the lid, and then divide the
chicken filling between the two pots.
Dampen the rim of the pastry again and then pop on the lid of each pie, sealing the
edges with your fingers or the underneath of the prongs of a fork.
Cook the pies for about 20 minutes turning them around halfway through cooking.
Once cooked, they should have puffed up magnificently.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was
raised with the help of a white grandfather ... and a white grandmother .... I am
married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and
slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have
brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue,
scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in
no other country on Earth is my story even possible.