4. Text linguistics

Coherence

the continuity of meaning of a text, constructed by the reader or listener through interpretation and inference, incorporating context and world knowledge

cohesion

the grammatical and lexical links on the text surface, through which a semantic connection within the text is signaled

grammatical cohesion: pro-forms

reference, substitution

grammatical cohesion: syntactic constructions

ellipsis, parallelism

grammatical cohesion: grammatical categories

tense, aspect

lexical cohesion subtypes

Repetition and portion reoccurrence, semantic relations (synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy), paraphrase (expansion, condensation), collocation (lexical field, lexical set)

rheme

the “new” information writers/ speakers do not take for granted; usually realized by putting it at the end of a sentence (e.g. the predicate)

text

any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that forms a unified whole

text linguistics

concerned with larger units of speech (i.e. above the level of the traditional sentence), investigates how these larger units fit together and how sensible arguments or expositions are constructed by employing specific linking devices, spoken &written

textuality

seven standards: cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality, intertextuality

Textuality: cohesion

the surface structure of the text must linguistically and semantically fit together

Textuality: Coherence

the content of the text must be functionally connected

Textuality: intentionality

the communicative goals a writer or speaker wants to achieve

textuality: acceptability

the expectation the reader or listener has towards the text in terms of connectedness and relevance

textuality: informativity

the extend to which the contents of the text are new to the recipient

textuality: situationality

a text must be relevant in a specific context

textuality: intertextuality

in order to interpret a text, a recipient needs to have an idea about the characteristics of text genres and/ or specific texts

thematic progression (and types)

simple linear progression, progression with constant theme, progression with derived themes, development of a split rheme, progression with a thematic leap

simple linear progression

the rheme turns into the theme of the following sentence

progression with a constant theme

several sentences have the same theme, each time introducing a new rheme

progression with derived themes

themes are derived from a “hypertheme”

development of a split rheme

the rheme of the preceding sentence is split into two or more themes in the following sentences

progression with a thematic leap

as the theme progresses one or more themes are left out, the reader/ listener uses their world knowledge to fill the gap

theme

the information writers/ speakers take for granted their reader/ listener will know because it was mentioned previously, it is considered world knowledge, it is clear from a situational context, usually realized through the first constituent of a sentence (e.g. the subject)