COHESION & COHERENCE (B2)

Texture comes from cohesion and coherence.

Cohesion has to do with linguistic features in texts,and coherence has to do with
the kinds of ‘frameworks’ with which readers approach texts and what they want to
use texts to do.
When it comes to cohesion, the reader doesn’t have to do any work, and in case of
coherence the expectations in the mind of the reader are more important than what
is actually in the text.
Cohesion is just the linguistic features within the text.
Ex. ‘Lady G. doesn’t appeal to me, but my sister loves her’
Her (L.G.) > you have to do some mental work; you have to be smart enough to
know the it refers to L.G. and not my sister.

COHESION
Halliday & Hasan describe 2 kinds of linguistic devices that are used to force
readers to engage in this process of backward and forward looking which gives
texts a sense of connectedness. One type depends on grammar (grammatical
cohesion) and the other type depends more on the meaning of words (lexical
cohesion).
Devices used to create grammatical cohesion include:
● Conjunction
● Reference
● Substitution
● Ellipses
(pg 44 slide)
Lexical cohesion involves the repetition of words or of words from the same
semantic field.

- Conjunction: additive, contrastive, causative, sequential

Another very common way we make our texts ‘stick together’ is by using words
that refer to words we used elsewhere in the text. This kind of cohesive device is
called ‘reference’
There are 3 kinds Reference:
- Anaphoric (using words that point back to a word used before)
- Cataphoric (using words that point forward to a word that has not been used yet)
- Exophoric (using words that point to something outside the text)

Substitution is similar to reference except rather than using pronouns..

Ellipsis: (leaving something out) the emission of a N, Phrase or Verb from the
linguistic context.

All of the devices mentioned above are ex. of grammatical cohesion, the kind of
cohesion that is created because of the grammatical relationships between words.
Lexical cohesion occurs as a result of the semantic relationship between
words. The repetition of words, called ‘chains’ of similar kinds of words that run
through texts lexical chains. (lexical cohesion: reiteration, collocations)

COHERENCE
What makes a text a text is often as much a matter of the interpretative framework
that the reader brings to the text as it is of anything internal to the text. (nel caso
della lista della spesa)
This aspect of texture known as coherence, has to do with our expectations about
the way elements in a text ought to be organised and the kinds of social action (
like shopping) that are associated with a given text.
We need to apply our experience with past texts and with certain conventions that
have grown up in our society in order to understand new texts we encounter.

BEFORE AFTER

AD.

‘Before’ is usually portrayed as ‘bad’, and ‘after’ as ‘good’, the product being
advertised is portrayed as the ‘agent’ that causes the transformation from ‘before’
to ‘after’. This structure is a variation on what M. Hoey (1983) has called
‘Problem-Solution’ pattern, which underlies many texts from business proposals to
newspaper editorials.
The advertiser: ‘ BodyCoach.Net and the slogan ‘Perfect Body’: this creates for
readers an interpretative frameworks.. Once this framework is triggered, most
readers have no trouble interpreting the space formed in the ‘before’ side of the ad
as the ‘hourglass’ shape associated with female beauty and the product which the
company sells.
There are a number of different kinds of interpretative frameworks, we might call
“generic framework”. Part of what forms such generic frameworks is that
different parts of a text are not just grammatically and lexically related, but that
they are conceptually and procedurally related - they appear in a certain logical or
predictable sequence. Texts following Hoey’s pattern, begin by presenting a
problem and then go on to present one or more solutions to the problems.
But not all the knowledge we use to make sense of texts comes from our
knowledge about the conventions associated with different kinds of text.
Knowledge is part of larger conceptual frameworks .. using the term ‘cultural
models’ to describe these frameworks. J.P. Gee call cultural models ‘videotapes in
the mind’ based on the experiences we have had and depicting what we take to be
prototypical (or normal) people, objects and events. Cultural models reflect the
beliefs and values of a particular group of people in a particular place at a
particular point in history.

C2 - ANALYSING TEXTURE
Different kinds of texts tend to use different kind of cohesive devices.
Descriptive texts make heavy use of pronoun reference, for instance: advertising
texts, use repetition, to repeat the name of the product; legal texts, prefer ripetition
to reference; analytical and argumentative texts make heavy use of conjunctions in
order to make connections between ideas.
Different kinds of generic frameworks, they trigger different kinds of word
knowledge.
Ex. (sopra) newspaper article on a Indian Website
Here there no use of conjunction, this is not unusual since they have to report only
what happened, nor any opinions and personal analysis.
No reference where L.G. is referred as ‘she’, or the dress as ‘it’.
She becomes the ‘eccentric “Poker Face” hitmaker’ and the dress becomes ‘meaty
outfit’ ‘meat ensemble’ > rephrasing allows the author to deliver to the reader
additional information about the people/things, so referring to L.G., giving
additional information: she is ‘eccentric’, she has a number of hit songs, and the
title of his (famous) song.
In the article there are 4 chains (which resume it):
1. Words related to L.G.
2. Words related to the meat dress
3. Words related to the winning of awards or ‘elections’
4. Words having to do with shock or controversy

D2 - TWO PERSPECTIVES ON TEXTURE

Here we include excerpts from 2 classic texts which address the problem of the
texture. Firstly, from ‘Cohesion in English’ by M.A.K. Halliday and R. Hasan,
their basic idea of cohesion and the different kinds of devices that create cohesion
in texts.
Then, the article ‘Notes on a Schema for Stories’ by D. Rumelhart in which he
argues that our ability to understand stories depends on us having in our minds the
basic structure or ‘schema’ for stories.

The concept of cohesion

The word ‘TEXT’ used in linguistic to refer to any passage, spoken or written,
whatever length, that does form a unified whole. The distinction between a text and
a collection of unrelated sentences is a matter of degree, and there may be
instances about which we are uncertain - a point that is familiar to teachers and
students.
A text is a grammatical unit that is larger than a sentence in the same way that a
sentence is related to a clause, by CONSTITUENCY, the composition of larger
units out of smaller ones.
A text is a semantic unit, a unit of meaning. A text doesn’t consist of sentences >
it is REALISED BY sentences.

TEXTURE
Anaphoric / cataphoric

COHESIVE TIES

COHESION
THE CONCEPT OF COHESION IS A SEMANTIC ONE;
IT REFERS TO RELATIONS OF MEANING THAT EXIST WITHIN THE
TEXT, AND THAT DEFINE IT AS A TEXT. IT OCCURS WHERE THE
INTERPRETATION OF SOME ELEMENT IN THE DISCOURSE IS
DEPENDENT ON THAT FOR ANOTHER.

Ex. A: Time flies.

B: you can’t. They fly too quickly

La prima frase non è un testo.

Cohesion, no less than 3 ties: elliptical form ‘u can’t’; reference ‘they’; lexical rep.
‘fly’
Cohesion: is part of the system of a language. The potential for cohesion in
systematic resources of reference, ellipsis and etc. that are built in the language
itself. So, it is expressed through the stratal organization of language. Language
can be explained as a multiple coding system comprising three levels of coding, or
strata:
 ● the semantic system; (meanings) realized as ↓
● The lexicogrammatical system; (forms) are realized in turn in ↓
● Phonological and orthographic system ; (expressions)

> meaning is put into wording, and wording into sound or writing.

Cohesion is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through the
vocabulary. We can refer therefore to GRAMMATICAL COHESION and
LEXICAL COHESION.
(The semantic relations of equivalence and semblance and
The grammatical devices of reference, substitution and ellipsis.)

STORY SCHEMA (D. RUMELHART)

Just as simple sentences can be said to have an internal structure, so too can stories
be said to have an internal structure.
● A simple story grammar
It consists in a syntactic structure of stories and a set of semantic interpretation
rules.
Regola 1: STORY: SETTING + EPISODE
Setting is a statement of the time, as well as an introduction to its main
characters. It is the initial section of a story.
Ex. (c’era una volta, tizio e Caio, e figlio/a)
Once upon a time, one day, + CL.

ALLOW (SETTING, EPISODE)

- SETTING > STATE (settings consist of a stative propositions)

Rule 2: AND (State, State…)

Set of conjoined propositions

Rule 3: EPISODE > EVENT + REACTION

The ep is the occurrence of some event followed by the reaction of the hero of the
episode
INITIATE (EVENT, REACTION)
It is the relationship between the external event and the hero’s reaction

Rule 4: EVENT > ⦃ EP | CHANGE-OF- STATE | ACTION |

EVENT+EVENT⦄
An event can be a episode, a change of state or action
It requires no semantic interpretation rules

CAUSE (Event, Event) or ALLOW (Event, Event)

The rule states that a sequence of two events can either be interpreted as one event
CAUSE a second event or they can be interpreted as the first event ALLOW the
second.
Cause used when relationship between the events is physical causation

Rule 5: REACTION > (INTERNAL RESPONSE + OVERT RESPONSE)

The reaction consist in these 2 parts.
The semantic relation between these 2 responses is:

MOTIVATE (Internal Resp., Overt R.)

It is the term used to relate thoughts to their corresponding overt actions.
Probably there a large variety of types of internal responses, the two most common
seem to be emotions and desires

Rule 6: INTERNAL RESPONSE > ⦃ EMOTION | DESIRE ⦄

[Genres are communicative events] The communicative purposes of texts are
often multiple and complex. A recipe, for ex., may be persuading you to make a
certain dish as much as it is instructing you how to do it, a newspaper article might
be attempting something not just to inform you, but to affect your opinion about a
particular event.

[Conventions & constraints] Genres come with ‘built-in’ constraints as to what

kinds of things they (informatori) can include and what kinds of things they
cannot, based on the activity they are trying to accomplish.
(in una lettera, leggerla e mettere il motivo per cui è stata scritta per ultimo, è ciò
che in genre analysis è chiamata “move structure”, it determines how successfully
I am able to fulfil the communicative purpose of the genre).
But what is important these conventions and constraints is that they make
communicative events more efficient, but also that they demonstrate that the
person who produced the texts knows ‘how we do things’.
The writer is ‘a certain kind’ of person who knows how to communicate like us.

[Creativity] Often, the most successful texts are those which defy conventions and
push the boundaries of constraints. Spesso esperti produttori/scrittori mischiano
diversi generi insieme, etc. ma ci sono dei limiti how much a genre can be altered
and still be successful at accomplishing what its producers want to accomplish. Ci
sono sempre dei rischi associati alla creatività.

[Discourse communities] The concept of genre is the idea of belonging. We

produce and use genres not just in order to get things done, but also to show
ourselves to be members of particular groups that have certain common goals and
common ways of reaching these goals.
J. Swales call these groups ‘Discourse communities’ in his book ‘Genre Analysis’
(1990) [D3]
Genres also link to people with activities, identities, roles and responsibilities.

B3 - ALL THE RIGHT MOVES

J. Swales, the father of genre analysis, illustrated the idea of moves in his analysis
of introduction to academic articles. He identified four moves characteristic of
such texts:
- Establishes the field in which the writer of the study is working;
- Summaries the related research or interpretations on one aspect of the field;
- Creates a research space or interpretative space for the present study by
indicating a gap in current knowledge or by raising questions; and
- Introduces the study by indicating what the investigation being reported will
accomplish for the field.

Not all introductions to academic articles contain all four of these moves in exactly
his order; some article intros may contain only some of these moves are realised
might be very different for articles about engineering and articles about Engl.
literature.
He was trying to make these moves as the prototypical one. It is important to
remember that not all genres are equally ‘conventionalised’, but some have very
strict rules.
One genre which has a particularly consistent set of communicative moves is the
genre of the ‘personal advertisement’.
Then there are some examples of dating ads, the reason for these moves are
essential if the overall communicative purpose of finding a partner is to be
achieved. Such ads not only serve the communicative purpose of individual
members of a discourse community to find suitable partners, but they also serve to
define e reinforce the values of the discourse community as a whole regarding
what kinds of partners and activities are considered desirable.
Another important difference has to do the kinds of information included the
descriptions. There are other communicative purpose of the sub-genre (ex. finding
a wife, a sexual partner, a reproductive partner)

[Bending & Blending] advertisers Describe the kind of person that they are seeking
and describe the kind of relationship they want to have. Ironically, the strong
conventionalised nature of this genre,has the potential to work against the overall
communicative purpose, attracting the attention of interested readers.
Consequently, It is not uncommon for ‘expert user’s to make their ads stand out
by ‘playing with’ the conventions of the genre.
One way of ‘playing with’ generic conventions, which Bhatia calls genre
bending, which make a particular realisation of a genre seem creative and unique.
Another of ‘playing with’ generic conventions Is to mix the conventions of one
genre with another, a process which Bhatia refers to as genre blending.
Similarly, when Bendig a genre, one must be careful not to be bend it to the point
of breaking. Whether are particular use of genre is considered a creative
innovation or an embarrassing failure is a matter of Whether or not the original
communicative purpose of the genre is achieved.

Nowadays, it is more likely that one would encounter such an ad on the internet
than in newspaper > the genre itself has changed.
First, it changed in terms of modes (perché è facile upload video, imm, auto-
descrizioni su ad personali). Second, websites that host such ads often require users
to fill out web forms; third, internet-based dating ads include all kinds of ways for
advertiser and target to interact ( mex online, ingaggiare persone tramite skype etc)
Every time a genre changes, new sets of conventions and constraints are
introduced, and users need to invent new ways to operate strategically within these
constraints and to bend or blend the genre in creative ways.

C3 - ANALYSING GENRES
Analysis genres involves more than a particular type of text. It involves
understanding how these texts types function in social groups, how they reinforce
and reflect the concerns of and social relationships in these groups, and how they
change over time as society and the groups within them change.
Genres are related to other genres in a number of different ways.
\\ are also related to other genres in non-sequential relationships that are called
networks.[a job applicant letter]
Genres can also be seen as existing in larger genre ecologies in which texts affect
one another in sometimes subtle and sometimes dramatic ways. Like natural
ecologies, genre ecologies are not static: conditions change; old disc. communities
dissolve and new ones form.; so they evolves as users creatively bend or blend
them, or else become extinct if they can no longer fulfil the communicative goals
of their users.
Ex. of dynamic nature of genres is the genre of weblog, or blog.
The genre of blog also (2) contains many sub-genres: the filter type and diary type.
Like an article they have a title, date/time, intro / comment, a video or picture
/embedded media), attribution, hyperlink, quote and interactive tools…
Its main purpose is to filter or select content from other websites that may be of
interest to readers of a particular blog.

D3 - GENRES, DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES (DC) AND POWER

We have 2 important figures: J. Swales and V. Bhatia.

Swales clarifies the concept of ‘disc. community’ by providing 6 ‘defining

characteristics’ having to do with people’s relationships to one another and to the
texts that they use together. He want to identify a group of individuals as a disc.
comm.
 1. A DC has a broadly agreed set of common public goals
2. A DC has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members
Ex. people in the same cafe profession (cafe owners) who do not necessarily
have a means of communicating with one another. Anche se lavorano nello
stesso ambito e interagiscono con la clientela (clienteles), non stando nel
locale non interagiscono tra loro.
3. A DC uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information
and feedback
4. A DC utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative
furtherance of its aim
A DC si è sviluppata e continua a farlo, si coinvolgono (involve) topic
appropriati, la forma, funzione e posizione degli elementi del discorso.
5. In addition to owning genres, a DC hs acquired some specific lexis
Involve lexical items known to the wider speech communities in special and
technical ways…
6. A DC has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree or relevant
content and discoursal expertise
Survival of the community depends on a reasonable ratio between novices
and experts.

Bhatia discusses the tension between creativity and conformity in genre and how
this relates to issues of power and politics among members of a DC.

[Complexity of generic forms] Although generic forms are products of

conventional knowledge embedded in disciplinary cultures, they are dynamic
constructs. These forms are often characterized by their generic integrity, on the
one hand, and their propensity for innovation, on the other. These 2 aspects of
genre may appear to be somewhat contradictory at first, but as we discover, these 2
characteristic are complementary to each other. One is, in a way, an essential,
prerequisite to the other.
The tension between conformity and creativity, is not necessarily real.
The whole point about such associations is that they communicate best in the
context of what is already familiar. If one is not familiar with the original, the
value of the novel expression is undermined.
According to B., genres are defined by the tension between their ‘generic
integrity’ and their potential for innovation. In fact, he argues that these 2
aspects of genre work together: that generic conventions provide the basis for
innovation

[Organizational preferences and generic words] In the case of newspaper

genres, the news reports and editorials, we find an unmistakable ‘generic identity’
in almost all of the exploits of these genres from various newspaper. Some may be
more objective or others more interpretative; some more socially responsible, or
sensational.
All these areas of generic use indicate that although their preferred generic forms
show a subtle degree of variation for what could be seen as ‘tactical advantage’,
they never disregard some of the basic features of individual constructs, which give
these genre their essential identities.

[The power of genre] Bhatia says there is no better illustration of the saying
“knowledge is power”, ‘than the one in the case of generic power’ > it’s
particularly trues when it comes to professional genres. Power to use, interpret,
exploit and innovate novel generic forms is the function of generic knowledge
which is accessible only to the members of disciplinary communities.
- Maintaining generic integrity: editorial invention
In some forms of academic discourse, one can see generally two kinds of
mechanism in place to ensure generic integrity: the peer review process, and
editorial intervention. Both these mechanisms operate at different levels.
After peer review, the second most important intervention comes from the
editors, who enjoy all the power to maintain the identity and integrity of the
research article genre.
- Generic conventions as authority: the case of citations and references
The power of genre is better illustrated in Swales’s research report.
In order to become acceptable to the specialist comm., one must relate his or
her knowledge claims to the accumulated knowledge of the discipline.
- Power to innovate (mixing and embedding)
The dynamic complexity of academic and professional communication is
further increased by the role of multimedia, the explosion of information
 technology, the multidisciplinary contexts of the world of work and above
all the nature of promotional and advertising activities; the inevitable result
of this is that many of the many institutionalized genres, whether they are
social, professional or academic, are seen as incorporating elements of
promotion.
- Shared knowledge - privileged access/insider information
The shared knowledge could be in the form of linguistic resources used to
construct a generic form, or it could be in the rules of language use which
are learnt, as the ones associated with classroom discourse and academic
genres, or others that can be legally enforced, such s courtroom procedures.
- Maintaining solidarity within a professional community
> the typical use of a range of appropriate genres, which their members think
serve the goals of their community. This creates solidarity within its
membership giving them more powerful weapon to keep outsiders at
distance.

A4 - DISCOURSE AND IDEOLOGY

Text always promote a particular ideology. An ideology is a specific set of beliefs
and assumptions people have about things such as what is bad and good/right and
wrong/ normal and abnormal. Ideologies provide us with models of how the world
is ‘supposed to be’.

‘Whos doing whats’

The linguist M. Halliday (‘94) pointed out that whenever we use language we are
always doing 3 things at once: we are in some way representing the world, which
he called the ideational function of language; negotiating our relationship with the
people with whom we are communicating, which he called the interpersonal
function; joining sentences and ideas together in particular ways to form cohesive
and coherent texts, which is called textual function. [PG 30 SLIDE]
The words we use for processes and how we use them to link participants together
can also create different impressions of what is going on. One of the key things
about processes is that they always construct a certain kind of relationship between
participants. H. calls this relationship transitivity. When it comes it has to do with
which participants are portrayed as performing actions and which are portrayed as
having actions performed to or for them.

[Relationships] Another way we use language to construct relationships is through

the style of speaking or writing that we choose.
H. sees the degree of ‘formality’ of language as a matter of what he calls register,
the different ways we use language in different situations depending on the topic
we are communicating about, the people with whom we are communicating, and
the channel through which we are communicating.
Like genres, registers tend to communicate that we are ‘certain kinds of people’
and show something about the relationships we have with the people with whom
we are communicating.
J.P. Gee refers to all different ways of speaking and writing as social languages.

[Intertextuality] according to M. Bakhtin ( Russian critic literary) all texts involve

some degree of intertextuality. We cannot speak or write without borrowing the
words and ideas of other people, almost everything we say or write is some way a
response to some previous utterance or text and an anticipation of some future one.

[Discourses] ‘you may now kiss the bride’ can be seen as ideological > it promoes
the Gee’s cultural models or generalisations about the world and how people
should behave. Cultural models help us make sense of the texts and the situations
that we encounter in our lives. They also function to exclude certain people or
certain ways of behaving from our consideration.
Gee calls them ‘Discourses’, Foucault (French) calls as ‘orders of discourse’, and
give examples like clinical/economic/psychiatric discourse, the disc. of natural
history. According to F. is important to remember that discourses are complex and
often contain internal contradiction.

B4 - CONSTRUCTING REALITY
No text is ideologically ‘neutral’ - that all texts promote certain kinds of power
relationships between people. The main ways authors of texts promote ideologies
by constructing versions of reality in which certain participants are excluded, and
those that are included are linked to each other in certain relationships, often based
on the actions of they are portrayed as engaging in.
Involving some kind of physical actions that one participant is portrayed as doing
something to or for the other (action processes); processes involve writing or
saying, so one participant takes the position of the speaker/writer and the other of
the listener/reader (verbal processes); processes involving thinking and feeling
link participants to ideas or emotions in various way (mental processes).

[The ideology of warnings] Ex. how participants and processes can be combined
in texts to create certain versions of reality can be found in the warning labels that
most governments require to appear on cigarette packets.
At the time shill had considerable influence with the government, regarding how
the warnings should be worded.
Ex. ‘Caution: cigarette smoking MAY be Hazardous to your health.’
May: reduces the certainty of the statement
Then in the 70s it changed in:
Ex. ‘Warning: ….is dangerous’
The processes has changed, and participants too.
Is rather than may be
Hazardous > dangerous
In the 85s a new process: of ‘causing’: it places in cause and effect relationship
with a number of serious diseases (lung cancer heart disease..) but in pregnancy
MAY be uncertain

All this examples of processes show constructs very different versions of the risk
of cigarette smoking. Grammar, is a resource that authors draw upon to represent
reality in particular ways.

[Constructing relationships] Constructing reality is also a matter of the author of

a text constructing a certain kind of relationship with the reader or listener and
communicating something about the relevance of what is going on to him/her. One
way is done to use the language’s system of modality. Another way authors might
construct a relationship with readers is through the use of pronouns such as ‘u’ and
‘me’.
To really understand how people actually interpret texts and ideologies, it is
necessary to go beyond the texts themselves and analyse both discourse practices
(authors and readers engage).

C4 - OTHER PEOPLE’S VOICES

There are many different ways authors might represent the words of other people
in their texts. Another way authors represent the words of other people is to
paraphrase (or ‘summarise’ them). This gives author’s much more flexibility in
characterising these words in ways that support their point of view. Sometimes
they will employ a mixture of quotation and paraphrase. Quotes are put around
single words or phrases are sometimes called ‘scare quotes’ and are usually a way
of saying things such as ‘so called…’ or ‘as s/he put it…’.
Paraphrase also open up lot of possibilities for authors to change, alter, exaggerate,
underplay or otherwise distort the words and ideas of others. On the other hand,
assertion and presupposition also make the relationship between the author and the
person whose words he/she is borrowing more ambiguous.
Different forms of discourse representation:
- Direct quotation
- Paraphrase
- Selective quotation
- Assertion
- Presupposition
[ex pg 100-1]

D4 - IDEOLOGIES IN DISCOURSE
Discussing about some of the basic conceptual and analytical tools you can use to
do critical discourse analysis.
N. Fairclough’s ‘Discourse and Social Change’ which devoted to the study of
discourse and ideology. He explains the concept of intertextuality and its
relationship with ideology.

The term ‘intertextuality’ was coined by Kristeva in the late 60s in the context of
her influential account for western audiences of the work of Bakhtin. Although it’s
not B.’s term, the development of an intertextual approach to analysis of texts was
a major theme of his work throughout his academic career, and was closely linked
to other important issues including his theory of genre. B. points to the relative
neglect of the communicative functions, in which texts and utterances are shaped
by prior texts that they are ‘responding’ to.
For B., all utterances (spoken and written) are oriented retrospectively to the
utterances of previous speakers and prospectively to the anticipated utterances of
the next speakers.
Kristeva observes that intertextuality implies ‘the insertion of history (society)
into a text and of this text into history’
By ‘the insertion of history (society) into a text’, she means that the text is built up
of texts from the past .
So the inherent historicity of texts enables them to take on the major roles they
have in contemporary society at the leading edge of social and cultural change.

[Ideology, social languages and cultural models]

The mixing of ‘social languages’ that Gee observes on the bottle of aspirin is also a
kind of intertextuality, sometimes called interdiscursivity. This kind of
intertextuality occurs when larger aspects of discourse such as speech styles, social
languages, genres and even ideologies are borrowed from the others.
Gee says that our choices of and assumptions about the meaning of words are often
determined by ‘cultural models’, which are idealised versions of ‘normal, typical
reality’. They often involve ideas about certain ‘types’ of people, such as
‘bachelors’ and how they are supposed to act.

When we speak/write, we very often mix together different social languages.

Bakhtin called this heteroglossia (multiple voices).
Ex. of the bottle of aspirin

[Meaning] Having established the context of social languages, we can turn directly
to meaning.
Ex. ‘that’s not a sofa, it’s a settee’
‘We’ (per es.) now realized that we don’t mean the same meaning by the word
‘sofa’.
I’m making the distinction between them, where something is either the one or the
other, and not both, while we don’t make such a distinction, we use it in the same
way as we use ‘sofa’.
It reflects one central principle involved in meaning, a principle I will call the
exclusion principle.

Let’s consider what the word ‘bachelor’ means, ‘An unmarried man’, but in most
context it is used it excludes as applicable ‘woman’, girl, boy, married.
So, is the Pope a bachelor? WE DON’T KNOW. the context is different.
[pg 162] + word ‘spinster’

Despite the fact that cultural models vary across both different cultures and
different social group.