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Chapter 2 What Is (A) Text

The document discusses the definition and components of a text. It defines text as any spoken or written passage that forms a unified whole. A text has texture, which distinguishes it from non-text, through coherence and cohesion. Coherence refers to a text's relationship to its context, while cohesion binds the elements within the text. The document examines the levels of lexicogrammatical units and the types of reference, lexical, and conjunctive cohesion that contribute to a text.

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80 views7 pages

Chapter 2 What Is (A) Text

The document discusses the definition and components of a text. It defines text as any spoken or written passage that forms a unified whole. A text has texture, which distinguishes it from non-text, through coherence and cohesion. Coherence refers to a text's relationship to its context, while cohesion binds the elements within the text. The document examines the levels of lexicogrammatical units and the types of reference, lexical, and conjunctive cohesion that contribute to a text.

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nugrahasakertabarat
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CHAPTER 2

What is (a) Text?

TEXT  any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length that does


form a ‘unified whole’. (MAK Halliday and Ruqaia Hassan, 1976).
Meaning
Texture  the property that distinguishes text from non-text.
Texture:
Coherence  the text’s relationship to its extra-textual context (the
social and cultural context of its occurrence), e.g. Field, tenor, mode
Cohesion  the way the elements within the text bind it together as a
unified whole.

Text as a semantic unit


Does LANGUAGE in Example 2.1 constitute a text?

Mean mad adder made because


Example 2.2 handwriting
The words do not ‘hang together’

 The purpose of art is to ‘make strange’ or defamiliarize our


expectations.
 Cummings scrambled the text so that it doesn’t offer us
recognizable words.
 The letters can be unscrambled to give us recognizable English
words.
 The words are made meaningful because the text uses them
within lexicogrammatical structures.
 Lexicogrammatical  the stratum of ‘words and structures’

Table 2.1 The units of the lexicogrammatical rank scale


Units of lexico-grammar
highest rank (largest unit) clause, clause complex
phrase, group
word
lowest rank (smallest unit) morpheme

The Grasshopper
A grasshopper who as we look up now gathering into leaps,
striving to rearragingly become
Grasshopper
Grammar and the meaning of text
1. Coherence (contextual properties): the way a group of clauses or
sentence relate to the context (Halliday & Hasan, 1976).
 Registerial cohesion: a text has registerial coherence when
we can identify one situation in which all clauses of the text
could occur (field, tenor, & mode).
 Generic coherence: a text is an example of a particular
genre.
2. cohesion (internal properties)

Reference
It refers to how the writer/speaker introduces participants and then
keeps track of them once they are in the text.
Participants can be people, places, and things.

The definite article: the


Demonstrative pronoun: that, these, those, …
Pronouns: he, she, it, they, … mine, his, hers, theirs

REFERENCE
 Endophoric  creates cohesion
 Exophoric  creates text’s coherence
Endophoric
1. Anaphoric reference: occurs when the reference has appeared at an
earlier point in the text, e.g.:
When she abandoned herself, a little whispered word escaped her
slightly parted lips. She said it over and over.
2. Cataphoric reference: this occurs when the referent hasn’t yet
appeared but will be provided subsequently, e.g.:
The news came as a terrible shock to them all, but most of all to Mrs.
Mallard. It seemed her husband Brently had been killed in a railroad
disaster. His friend Richards, carried the sad tidings to Mrs. Mallard and
her sister Josephine.
3. Esphoric reference: this occurs when the referent occurs in the
phrase immediately following the presuming referent item.
When the storm of grief had spent itself.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees
that were all aquiver with the new spring life.
LEXICAL COHESION
1. Taxonomic lexical relation: class/sub-class or part/whole relations
2. Expectancy relations: predictable relations between a process and
either the doer of that process, or the one affected by it (mouse-
squeek, nibble-cheese, brake-screech, etc.).

Taxonomic relations
1. Classification: relations between superordinate and its members or
hyponym.
 Co-hyponomy: influenza-pneumonia are members of illness
 Class/subclass: illness-pneumonia; job-teacher; toy:doll; snack-
cilok
 Contrast: clear:blurry; wet:dry, joy:despair
 Similarity
 Synonymy: message:report; news:intelligence; sunny:bright
 Repetition: death:death

2. Composition: part/whole relationship


 Meronimy: whole to part
Body:heart; car:tyre; computer:monitor;
 Co-meronimy: both parts of a common whole
Heart:lungs; dashboard:tyre; keyboard:monitor
CONJUNCTIVE COHESION
1. Elaboration: restatement or clarification, by which one sentence is a
resaying of previous sentence, e.g. in other words, that is to say, for
example, for instance, thus, to illustrate, to be more precise, actually,
as a matter of fact, in fact.
Mrs. Mallard had heart trouble. In fact, it was her heart that killed her.
2. Extension: addition (one sentence adds to the meaning made in
another) or variation (one sentence changes the meaning of another,
by contrast or by qualification), e.g. and, also, moreover, in addition,
nor, but, yet, on the other hand, however, on the contrary, etc.

3. Enhancement: one sentence can develop on the meanings of


another in terms dimensions such as time, comparison, cause,
condition, or concession.
 Temporal: then, next, afterwards, just then, at the same time,
before that, soon, after a while, meanwhile, all that time, etc.
 Comparative: likewise, similarly, in a different way.
 Causal conjunction: so, then, therefore, consequently, hence,
because of that, for, in consequence, as a result, on account of
this, etc.
 Concessive relations: but, yet, still, though, despite this, however,
even so, all the same, nevertheless.

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