2. The standards of textuality: cohesion

Traditional approach to the study of lannguage: sentence as conventional object of study Structuralism (Bloofield, Harris, Chomsky): sentence as the largest unit with an inherent structure (cf. Bloomfield 1933: 170). Whatever fell beyond the scope of the sentence was assigned to the domain of stylistics. Meaning as a secondary aspect, because it includes extra-linguistic aspects

Uo to the 70s no established methodology that would apply to texts ‘“text linguistics” cannot be a designation for a single theory or method. Instead, it designates any work in language science devoted to the text as the primary object of inquiry’ De Beaugrande - Dressler

historical roots Rhetoric: training public orators texts evaluated in terms of their effects upon the audience of receivers; texts are vehicles of purposeful interaction. Stylistics style results from the characteristic selection of options for producing a text. literary studies Anthropology language as human activity; focus on meaning Sociology analysis of conversation as a mode of social organization and interaction

Where TL comes from Rhetoric shares several concerns with text linguistics, notably the assumptions that: (a) arranging of ideas is open to systematic control; (b) the transition between ideas and expressions can be subjected to conscious training; (c) among the various texts which express a given configuration of ideas, some are of higher quality than others; (d) judgements of texts can be made in terms of their effects upon the audience of receivers; (e) texts are vehicles of purposeful interaction.

Both Rhetoric and TL concerned with: “How are discoverable structures built through operations of decision and selection, and what are the implications of those operations for communicative interaction?” as opposed to “What structures can analysis uncover in a language?”, (traditional linguistic)

many aspects of texts only appear systematic in view of how texts are produced, presented, and received.

«When we move beyond the sentence boundary, we enter a domain characterized by greater freedom of selection or variation and lesser conformity with established rules. For instance, we can state that an English declarative sentence must contain at least a noun phrase and an agreeing verb phrase, as in that perennial favourite of linguists: [18] The man hit the ball. But if we ask how [18] might fit into a text, e.g.: [18a] The man hit the ball. The crowd cheered him on. [18b] The man hit the ball. He was cheered on by the crowd. [18c] The man hit the ball. The crowd cheered the promising rookie on. it is much harder to decide what expression for the ‘man’ should be used in a follow-up sentence (e.g. ‘him’ vs. ‘this promising rookie’), and in what format (e.g. active vs. passive).

TEXT An extended structure of syntactic units (W) A communicative occurrence (dB-D) The larger units in terms of which utterances (i.e. sequences of sentences) should be constructed. (vD 3) H-H: "The word text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole. […] A text is a unit of language in use.” "The concept of texture is entirely appropriate to express the property of 'being a text'. A text has texture and this is what distinguishes it from something that is not a text".

Standards of textuality For Werlich: coherence and completion (W 23-25) For De Beaugrande –Dressler: seven standards, which serve as constitutive principles of textual communication. most important ones: cohesion and coherence. It is to be noted that the two elements of this conceptual distinction taken together correspond broadly to Werlich's coherence. vD (93) defines only coherence: "a semantic property of discourses, based on the interpretation of each individual sentence relative to the interpretation of other sentences".

“A text will be defined as a communicative occurrence which meets seven standards of textuality..... (dB-D)

standards of textuality: cohesion coherence intentionality acceptability informativity situationality intertextuality.

From text linguistics to discourse analysis Text-internal criteria Cohesion Coherence Text-external criteria Intentionality Acceptability Informativity Situationality Intertextuality Discourse analysis “pure” text linguistics

1. Cohesion how the components of the surface text, i.e. the actual words we hear or see, are mutually connected within a sequence. The surface components depend upon each other according to grammatical forms and conventions, such that cohesion rests upon grammatical dependencies....

2. Coherence concerns the ways in which the components of the textual world, i.e. the configuration of concepts and relations which underlie the surface text are mutually accessible and relevant....

Cohesion and coherence cohesion = connectivity of the surface coherence = connectivity of underlying content