1. Lecture 19 From sentence to Text

2. Sentence and text the sentence: the highest rank of grammatical unit and also the basic linguistic unit constituting a text. A text: spoken or written, is a structurally cohesive and semantically coherent unit realized by a string of sentences for communicative purposes.

3. 1.Sentence meaning and communicative function It is the context or situation that determines the communicative function of sentences. Every sentence has its meaning, which is closely related to, but can by no means be quoted with, its communicative function. In different contexts or situations, one and the same sentence may perform different communicative functions; in the meantime, one and the same communicative function may also be performed by different types of sentences.

4. 2. Correctness and appropriacy Correctness is concerned with grammatical structure, while appropriacy with the question whether a sentence is used in the right place, eg: A: What ’ s your brother doing? B: ? He works in factory. B: ? He works in a factory. Appropriacy is determined by: register, by genre, by cultural norms, and above all by context or situation.

5. –2.1 Textual connectors textual connectors: devices for cementing sentences into a text. three groups: logical, grammatical and lexical connectors. Logical connectors 1.The few transitional words or expressions that indicate the logical sequence between clauses or sentences. 2. Make it easy for the reader to follow the movement of thinking on the part of the writer, without which a text will be lacking in cohesion and coherence. Logical connectors are mostly conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs, eg: though, afterwards, later, then, finally, next, last, and, besides, furthermore, otherwise, moreover, likewise, etc.

6. 2.2 Grammatical connectors Some grammatical devices can also be used to connect sentences: tense-aspect collocations, pronoun reference and comparative reference, substitution and ellipsis, as well as the use of parallel constructions.

7. 2.3 Lexical connectors By lexical connectors we mean the repetition of key words, and the use of synonyms, near-synonyms and antonyms as cohesive ties.

8. –3. Text building The sentence: the basic linguistic unit of a text. –3.1 What is sentence group – The sentence group: A meaningful unit composed of a group of sentences organize in an orderly sequence. – the sentence group is a larger meaningful unit than the sentence, and it is a number of such meaningful units that constitute a text. –sentence group vs. paragraph 1. A paragraph is normally a larger unit than a Sentence group. 2. the paragraph is not necessarily an indispensable part of a text, but the sentence group is, and a fully developed paragraph is itself a text.

9. From sentence group to text As components of a text, sentence groups are organized in various ways. But whatever way a sentence group may be organized, it must focus on a central idea which is closely related to, not divorced from, the topic of the theme of the text.

10. 4. Topic sentence (group) vs. supporting sentence (group) 4.1 Single- and multi- sentence group texts 4.2 Topic sentence (group) and supporting sentence (group) topic sentence or sentence group: stating its central idea. supporting sentences or supporting sentence groups: the rest of the sentences or sentence groups centering around the topic sentence (group) to develop or expand the topic of the text. Position of the topic: the beginning of a text, but sometimes it may be delayed till the end.