Appunti e analisi inglese II

The seven standards of textuality

The seven standards of textuality are principles that make a discourse easier to understand.

Cohesion

The first standard of textuality is cohesion, which acts as "the glue" that "sticks" a sentence to another in a paragraph or a paragraph to another in a text. A text can be cohesive through the use of certain devices such as a conjunction or conjunctive adverb to link sentences with particular logical relationships. For example, in a sentence of the article "Japanese PM’s website hacked by whaling protesters": "Anonymous has, however, claimed responsibility for previous attacks on Japanese website at the country’s whaling programme," there is the linking adverb "however" that links this sentence to the previous one. The meaning is "Even if this time the action appears to have been taken by a sympathizer... however Anonymous has claimed responsibility for previous attacks..."

Coherence

The second standard is coherence, which means that a text is easy to understand because it follows a certain kind of logical order, and the organization of ideas is systemic and logical. Some kinds of logical order are: chronological order, spatial order, and order of importance. So, in the subheading of the text "Japanese PM’s website hacked by whaling protesters," the writer explains in a few words what the article states. In the first line of the text, the writer repeats the same things (given information); in this way, it will be easier to understand the text for the reader, because it starts with something that sounds familiar.

Intentionality

The third standard is intentionality, concerning the intention of those who produce a cohesive and coherent text. In this case, the writer wants to spread the news about the hacking of the Japanese PM’s website caused by whaling protesters.

Acceptability

The fourth standard is acceptability concerning the reader, who has to accept or understand the text while keeping in mind a determined cultural and social context. So in this case, the text can be understood just by people who know the English language and its news terminology. The sentence "A tweet, purportedly from a member of the loose collective of hacktivists, Anonymous..." can be understood just by readers who know what’s "a tweet".

Informativity

The fifth standard is called informativity; the comprehension of a sentence is possible thanks to the fact that both the writer and the reader have in common a base of knowledge derived from previous portions of the sentence. For example, in the line "The tweet was accompanied by a screenshot showing that connections to the site..." we already know what tweet and what