“Text Linguistics”
Text Linguistics investigates and describes the
compositional strategies of texts.
It is an application of discourse analysis, applied
to texts and text types.
It originates in the field of pragamatics, following
that field in including context in linguistic study.
“Text Linguistics”
The classification of texts into typologies requires
the presumption of common features across
different individual texts.
Our textual constellation of text-types will follow
the sociolinguistic functions as desribed in the
Buehler-Jakobsen model.
“Text Linguistics”
Jakobson's model of the functions of language
distinguishes six elements, or
factors of communication
necessary for communication to occur:
(1) context
(2) addresser (sender)
(3) addressee (receiver)
(4) contact
(5) common code
(6) message
“Text Linguistics”
Each factor is the focal point of a relation, or
function,
that operates between the message and the
factor.
Jakobson’s six language functions
FACTOR
addresser
addressee
context
contact
code
message
FUNCTION
emotive/ expressive
conative/directive
referential/informative
phatic
metalinguistic
poetic/aesthetic
TEXT TYPES ACCORDING TO
FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
MAIN FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE (purposes
of using language) (following Buhler)
1) EXPRESSIVE
2) INFORMATIVE
3) VOCATIVE
4) AESTHETIC,
5) PHATIC
6) METALINGUAL
Newmark, Peter, 1988, A Textbook of
Translation, chapter 4 (language functions, text
categories and text types)
Language functions and text types
1. EMOTIVE/EXPRESSIVE FUNCTION
The core of the expressive function is the mind of
the writer/speaker. Language is used by the
writer/speaker to express his/her feelings. Focus
on the w/s. Personal, expression of feelings,
attitudes, opinions.
E.g. of expressive texts: autobiography, personal
correspondence, political speeches.
Language functions and text types
2. REFERENTIAL/INFORMATIVE FUNCTION
The core of the informative function of language
is the external situation, the facts of a topic, the
reality outside language, included reported ideas
or theories.
Informative texts provide information about any
topic of knowledge. They identify and
characterise phenomena. Style: Impersonal,
objective, formal, non-emotive (but it depends on
the genre)
E.g. textbook, technical report, scientific paper,
thesis, minutes or agenda of a meeting,
newspaper article (fields: scientific,
technological, commercial, various areas of
knowledge)
Language functions and text types
3. CONATIVE/VOCATIVE (DIRECTIVE) FUNCTION
The core of the vocative function is the reader/hearer,
the addressee. Language is used to call upon the
readership to act, think or feel, to react in the way
intended by the text. The writer wants to produce a
certain effect on the addressee.
The aim is to convince the readers, persuade them.
E.g. instructions, advertisements, propaganda,
requests, theses, also popular fiction (purpose is to sell
the book/entertain the reader), contracts.
FEATURES: relationship addresser/addressee realised
in forms of address: pronouns, infinitives, imperatives,
etc., must be written in a comprehensible language.
Language functions and text types
“Few texts are purely expressive, informative, or
vocative: most include all 3 functions, with an
emphasis on one of the three.”
(Newmark 1988: 42)
A text can hardly be purely informative, i.e. objective
(there is always some kind of expression of personal
views, and vocative function)
An expressive text will usually carry some information
as well.
Jakobson’s six language functions
FACTOR
addresser
addressee
context
contact
code
message
FUNCTION
emotive/ expressive
conative/directive
referential/informative
phatic
metalinguistic
poetic/aesthetic
“Text Linguistics”
PHATIC / INTERACTIONAL FUNCTION
Language used to establish or maintain contact
between the addresser and the addressee.
Use of ‘phaticisms’ or standard phrases
(spoken code, e.g. Hey, you… May I have your
attention? How are you? Have a good weekend!
See you tomorrow. Did you have a good
Christmas? Isn’t it hot today?)
(written code: of course, naturally, it is important to
note that…)
“Text Linguistics”
METALINGUISTIC FUNCTION
Language is used to explain itself
(questions or explanations of terminology or
phaseology - what do you mean by cleft
structure?, ‘literally’, ‘so-called’, 'sometimes
known as’, etc.)
More generally "metacode" (or "metasemiotic") to
apply it to non-linguistic messages.
Any normed and norming system is a code, not
only the language system
“Text Linguistics”
METALINGUISTIC FUNCTION (three types)
1) the dialect (the language system)
"How do you spell 'surreptitiously'?"
2) the sociolect (the particular usage of a dialect
specific to a differentiated social practice with its
own discourse organized through genres)
"A Sonnet has 14 lines"
3) idiolect (a given author's individual usage of a
language and a sociolect)
"Baudelaire liked antitheses"
“Text Linguistics”
POETIC/AESTHETIC FUNCTION
Language is used in a creative way (rhymes,
similes, metaphors)
'the focus on the message for its own sake'
[(Jakobson, 1960, p. 356)]
Jakobson’s six language functions
FACTOR
addresser
addressee
context
contact
code
message
FUNCTION
emotive/ expressive
conative/vocative
referential/informative
phatic
metalinguistic
poetic/aesthetic
“Text Linguistics”
Primary Functions
Informative, Expressive, Directive
The What of the message: the semantic content
as conveyed by the rules of the given language.
Secondary Functions
Poetic, Metalinguistic, Phatic
The How of the message: the relations between
the speakers, and between them and the code.
“Text Linguistics”
One or more – or even all – of the functions of
language may be absent in short units (such as an
isolated sign). Lengthy units can activate all of them.
Where more than one function is present, establish:
(1) a simple hierarchy, by identifying the dominant
function and not ranking the other functions, or
(2) a complex hierarchy, by specifying the degree of
presence of some or all of the functions.
“Text Linguistics”
"The dominant function answers the question,
'With what intention was this message
transmitted?' and [...] the secondary functions are
there to support it."
The intention can be hidden, the function that is
dominant in terms of overt degree of presence
may not be dominant in terms of intention. There
may be an opposition between actual and overt
functions (Arcand and Bourbeau, 1995).
“Text Linguistics”
There can be direct and indirect manifestations of
intention, which correlate to the opposition between
actual and overt functions.
The directive function is manifested directly in "Go
answer the door" and indirectly in "The doorbell
rang" (which is equivalent to "Go answer the door"),
where the overt function is informative.
(Arcand and Bourbeau, 1995)
“Text Linguistics”
Translators need to attempt to retain the dominant
function of the text.
Informative: render the meaning
Vocative: convince readers
Phatic: establish and maintain communication,
contact, etc.
“Text Linguistics”
For Jakobson, what characterizes poetry and
distinguishes it from other genres (literary and
textual in general) is not so much the presence of
the poetic function as its dominance. p. 357)
“Text Linguistics”
Identifying the functional configuration
Specifying the secondary dominant function
to create a typology.
Jakobson recognizes that epic poetry – focused
on the third person, as opposed to lyric poetry
(first-person) or poetry of the second person –
"strongly involves the referential function of
language" (Jakobson, 1960, p. 357).
“Text Linguistics”
Epic Poetry
Lyric Poetry
Dominant Function:
Poetic
Dominant Function:
Poetic
Secondary Function:
Informative
Secondary Function:
Emotive
Third-Person Narration
First- (or Second-)
Person Narration
“Text Linguistics”
Certain works and certain genres appear to be
based on emphasizing and/or deemphasizing (or
even neutralizing) one or more functions.
For example, in literature, the "destruction" of the
Balzacian universe by Robbe-Grillet and Kafka
are attempts to neutralize the referential function.
“Text Linguistics”
Two kinds of correlations can be shown to exist
between two functions.
The correlation is said to be converse, or direct, if (1)
an intensification of one of the two functions is
accompanied by an intensification of the other and (2)
a decline in one function causes a decline in the other.
The correlation is said to be inverse if an
intensification of one of the two functions is
accompanied by a decline in the other, and vice versa.
“Text Linguistics”
converse correlation
For example, when the poetic function is suddenly
accentuated, the result and/or effect may be to keep
the addressee's attention at a time when it was
beginning to wander (the phatic function).
“Text Linguistics”
Generally speaking, when one function is accentuated,
it tends to diminish the importance of all the others,
and the opposite happens when the function is
deemphasized.
Some functions are generally paired in an even more
definite inverse relation.
“Text Linguistics”
the relation between
the poetic and the referential functions
an inverse correlation
The more the message "talks" about itself and
refers to itself (the poetic function), the less it talks
about the context and refers to it (the referential
function) and vice versa.
“I went to the country with a friend”
vs.
Spontaneous me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am
happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my
shoulder,
The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the
mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn—the hues of red,
yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green...
“Text Linguistics”
"Ambiguity is an intrinsic, inalienable character of
any self-focused message [...] The supremacy of
poetic function over referential function does not
obliterate the reference but makes it ambiguous.
The double-sensed message finds
correspondence in a split addresser, in a split
addressee, and besides in a split reference...[as
with] the Majorca storytellers: 'Axio era y no era'
('It was and it was not')."
(Jakobson, 1960)
“Text Linguistics”
Cry of Pain
Educational Message
Dominant Function:
Expressive
Dominant Function:
Directive
Secondary Function:
Directive (empty)
Secondary Function:
Expressive (empty)
may be "addressed" to
a receiver, it is
associated almost
completely with the
addresser
intended for the
addressee, and
generally entails an
attenuation of the
emotive function
“Text Linguistics”
It can be difficult to draw the line between
interaction and merging of functions.
Are functions actually distinct from one another?
How much is interaction and how much is
commingling?
"Any information – the referential function –
changes the receiver's knowledge stock; we can
thus say that it acts on the receiver: that is the
conative function. Moreover, a lot of so-called
information leads to a behaviour as its final result.
“Text Linguistics”
The sign 'falling rock' is meant not just to convey
information, but most of all to elicit a certain
attitude in the driver"
This interaction involves
an opposition between actual vs. overt function
(Klinkenberg, 1996)
“Text Linguistics”
Road Sign: “Falling Rock”
Actual Function: Directive (to drive with caution)
Overt Function: Referential (there is danger here)
Which is dominant and which is secondary?
“Text Linguistics”
Advertising Message
(1) attract attention (the phatic function)
(2) appeal to reason (the referential function)
or emotion (the emotive function)
(3) get people to act (the conative function)
The third objective is clearly the most important,
and the others are subordinate.
“Text Linguistics”
“Text Linguistics”
Three possible sequences (the referential function) are
open to the addressee (the conative function):
(1) not drinking, then driving
(2) drinking, then not driving
(3) drinking, then driving
The possible sequencings are given a moral value: the
first two scenarios fall under good behaviour, and the
third comes under bad behaviour.
“Text Linguistics”
The advertising message clearly takes aim at the
third scenario with an image showing the possible
consequences – the addressee's death – in a
very striking way (the expressive and poetic
functions).
This is the worst possible death: yours (the
directive function).
This is not a referential third-person death, but an
directive/expressive second-person death.
“Text Linguistics”
This death is presented as being highly avoidable,
since it is reserved for the "bloody idiots" with
whom no addressee would want to be associated
(directive function).
The word "bloody" indicates the level of idiocy
within the class of idiots (referential function), and
it demonstrates the intensity of the addresser's
emotion (expressive function).
“Text Linguistics”
Perhaps the addresser is highly concerned about
what could happen to us (directive function),
or perhaps his utterance merely expresses a
coldly objective truth (referential function)
along with an unsympathetic "too-bad-for-you"
attitude (expressive function).
“Text Linguistics”
In addition to the standard meaning, indicating
intensity (expressive function), possible concern
(expressive function) and familiarity (directive
function), "bloody" happens to be a polysemic
word, and thereby draws attention to itself (poetic
function).
It alludes to blood – the blood we will shed, but
also the blood that shows our blood alcohol level.
Speakers of English no longer make the
connection to blood when they say "bloody" as an
interjection. By re-actualizing the original content,
the slogan draws our attention to an otherwise
innocuous, transparent word.
“Text Linguistics”
Text-types can also be described in reference to
Austin's general categories.
The advertisement above has
illocutionary force - to persuade that drunk driving
is reprehensible and dangerous – and
perlocutionary force - it aims to cause one not to
drink and drive.
“Text Linguistics”
However, Searle's Speech Act categories can not
easily be applied if we maintain they are exclusive
“If you drink, then drive, you're a bloody idiot.”
Assertive?
Directive?
Expressive?
“Text Linguistics”
Even phatic elements can be informative or
expressive:
“Darling,...” vs. “Ms. Lenti”
The former obviously expresses emotional
content absent in the latter although both call for
the listener's attention.
“About that,... I'll keep quiet.”
A pause here can convey various kinds of
information depending on context, such as the
reasons behind one's keeping quiet.
“Text Linguistics”
Which functions of language are activated in the
following text?
"This text you gave me to correct is a bunch of
rubbish! Listen to this, you've got several verbs
with no subject, you state the obvious ('a day lasts
24 hours'!), then – are you still following me? –
you use obscure metaphors ('work is the drop
hammer of life') and stupid malapropisms ('You
are the suntan of my life').”
Jakobson’s six language functions
FACTOR
addresser
addressee
context
contact
code
message
FUNCTION
emotive/ expressive
conative/directive
referential/informative
phatic
metalinguistic
poetic/aesthetic
“Text Linguistics”