Lingua inglese II: Textual Analysis

What is a text? Any piece of language which is complete for itself -> CONTEXT

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: Science of how people communicate speaking to each other.

DISCOURSE: text in a social context

SPOKEN COMMUNICATION & WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

WRITTEN PIECES OF LANGUAGE: TEXT

DISCOURSE TYPES (GENRE)

DISCOURSE: socially acceptable way of using language in a given context.

CONTEXT:

1. Who wrote it? SENDER
2. For whom? RECEIVER
3. How? FORMAT
4. Where? "PLACE"
5. Why? PURPOSE

What is a text?

Any piece of language which is complete for itself -> CONTEXT

Discourse Analysis:

Science of how people communicate speaking to each other.

DISCOURSE = text in a social context

SPOKEN COMMUNICATION & WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

WRITTEN PIECES OF LANGUAGE: TEXT

Discourse Types (Genre)

DISCOURSE: socially acceptable way of using language in a given context.

CONTEXT:

1. Who wrote it? SENDER
2. For whom? RECEIVER
3. How? FORMAT
4. Where? "PLACE"
5. Why? PURPOSE

STRUCTURE

• TRANSITION SIGNALS (CONJUNCTION, LINKING WORDS)
• COHESIVE DEVICES (LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL)
• LOGICAL ORGANIZATION (CHRONOLOGICALLY SEQUENCES)
• Different kind of language for different kind of people.

DISCOURSE TYPES

FEATURE

• who / to whom? (sender / receiver) (friends, teacher, boss, child —)
• Why? Function (purpose) (giving information, attracting attention, persuasion)
• What? form — written text, phone call, notice, monologue —
• Title / introduction (user’s manual, Dear John, fcls)
• Grammar / vocabulary (subordinate clauses, colloquialism, archaisms)
• FOR MAT? (How?) - pronunciation / graphology (accent, volume, delivery, typeface, numbers / hyper)

TEXT:

1. linearity: well-formed text.
2. Prospective: looking forward Ex. NOVEL There are exceptions. Non-prospective text: the meaning doesn’t derived from the organization — EX DICTIONARY, TELEPHONE BOOK, BIBLIOGRAPH, SHOPPING LIST. The receiver assumes what kind of organization the text will follow. CLASSIC LETTER: address, date, introduction, conclusion, salutation, signature BOOK: dedication, acknowledgements, contents (list of the chapters), preface, chapter one, appendix, notes, bibliography, index.
3. Interactive: relationship between writer and reader how the reader interprets what is written.
4. COHERENCE: logical connection. A: “The phone is ringing.” B: “I’m in the bath.”

COHESION

how the words are joined together

A thing refers to something outside the text.

A: The phone's ringing B: OK, can you answer it?

Inside the sentence there are rules.

INFRA-SENTENTIAL

inside the sentence

SUPRA-SENTENTIAL

outside: the rules can break down, we can make new rules, physiological, social, cultural

EX. The knight killed the dragon, he cut off its head with his sword -> COHESIVE CONNECTION

The knight killed the dragon, the pineapple was on the table -> COHERENT CONNECTION

COHERENCE

connects a piece of language to our knowledge of the world outside the language

PARALINGUISTIC FEATURES

• ORAL COMMUNICATION: face-to-face contact, facial expressions, eye contact, posture, gesticulation, gesture, volume of the voice, speed, hesitancy, proximity
• TEXT: USE OF LANGUAGE, FORMAT - PRINTED OR HAND WRITTEN, FORM - EXPENSIVE BOOK, PIECE OF PAPER

CONTEXTUAL -> COHERENCE: outside language

FORMAL -> COHESION: inside language

• PHONEME: basic unit of phonology, /paet/
• MORPHEME: basic unit of grammar, stood up
• LEXEME: lexical unit (it can be more than a word) GIVE UP, GET OFF WITH (more/drive) THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
• LOCUTION (phrase): in the corner, it is a CHUNK of a sentence: as far as I know, you must be joking, it's got nothing to do with me, you're not going to believe this, but -> PRESCRIPTED TEXT: it's already written
• CLAUSE (proposizione): when he walked in, Pat saw Charles -> MAIN CLAUSE
• SENTENCE: Pat, standing in the corner, saw Charles when he walked in.

WORD CLASS = Lexical set can be:

• open: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adjuncts (Adverb)
• closed:
  1. Determiners
  2. Pronouns
  3. Prepositions
  4. a) Conjurers
  5. b) Linking words
  6. Interrogatives

WORD CLASS SHIFT (cambio)

PLAY (N), TO PLAY (V), TO TABLE, TO HERD, TO FOOT, TO CHAIR (presiedere), TO RECORD (verb), A

RECORD (noun); EXPORT (noun), TO EXPORT (verb), THAT (determinus)/THAT (conj.), AROUND (noun, preposition, verb, adjective, adverb).

CLAUSE PATTERNS

The girl was laughing. He caught the bus

Subject Verb Object

Tom is here. She called him a fool. Mary is very kind.

Adjunct Complement Complement

She puts the forks on the table. She gave me a present.

Adjunct Indirect Object

Tom read a book -> Did Tom read a book?

S V O

MARKED and UNMARKED SENTENCES

• SOMETIMES
• She reads a book in bed

TRANSITION SIGNALS

The sender is signalling to the receiver that he is adding another thing.

Types Sentence

• - He had his dinner -> Simple Sentence - SVO
• - He had his dinner and went to bed (Compound)
• Coordinating Sentence

CONJUNCT

COORDINATORS (Coordinating Conjunct)

• AND: He had his dinner and then went to bedadds another piece of information ADDITIVE
• BUT: She looked everywhere but couldn't find himcontrasting CONTRASTIVE
• OR: You can find a job or join the armyalternative coordination ALTERNATIVE
• SO: She couldn't find him so she decided to go to homeexpressing consequence CONSEQUENTIAL

• After (x) he had his dinner, he went to bed
• He had his dinner before (x) he went to bed

MAIN/INDEPENDENT CLAUSE:

SUBORDINATE/DEPENDANT CLAUSE:

FRONTING: EMPHASIS

1. He went to bed after he had his dinner.
2. He had his dinner before he went to bed.

I like Eva    Eva likes me

I like Eva and    Eva likes me

I like Eva because Eva likes me

CONJUNCTS

• Temporal: when, after, before, while, as soon as, until, since, whenever, now that, just as, as
• Positional: where, wherever
• Causal: because, since, as
• Conditional: if, unless, as long as, in case, even if
• Concessive: Although, even though, while, whereas
• Resultative: such as, so that
• Comparative: just as, as, as as, than
• Relative: who, which, that, whom, whose
• Nominal: what, that, (I thought that)
• Interrogative: who, what, where, why, when, how, whether

TRANSITION SIGNALS 2

- DISJUNCT: outside the sentence, no GRAMMATICAL

• Sometimes she needs a hand in bed (UNMARKED)
• She is walking quite naturally
• Naturally, she is walking

DISJUNCT, ATTITUDE MARKER

• Obviously, Unfortunately, (Frankly in all frankness), To be frank, To put it frankly, Frankly speaking, If I can speak frankly)
• Personally
• The disjunct is used between two sentences.
• He had his dinner. Afterwards, he went to bed.

- ADDITIVES: She is in a difficult situation. She has 5 children. What is more, she lives in two rooms flat.

• Moreover, Furthermore, Besides this, In addition, Also

- ADVERSATIVES: He was a wealthy man, but he was depressed.

1. He was a wealthy man. However, he was very depressed. Nevertheless, Nonetheless, Despite this,
2. COHESIVES: I didn't ask her to leave. but tried to make her stay.
3. I didn't ask her to leave. Instead, I tried to make her stay. In fact, Actually, On the contrary,

- ALTERNATIVES: You can pay in cash or (you can) buy it in installments.

• You can pay in cash. Alternatively,
• Otherwise, As an alternative, On the other hand

- RESULTATIVES: The parrot used bad language so the neighbors complained.

• The parrot used bad language. As a result,
• Therefore, Thus, Hence, Consequently, Accordingly,

SEQUENCE MARKERS:

There are three reasons for this.

1. First of all, Firstly, In first place, For a start, To begin with
2. Secondly, Next, Then, Afterwards
3. Finally, Lastly, In conclusion, To conclude, To sum up, All in all

First, Firstly → Sequence markers

At first, At in the beginning → NO

CLARIFICATION MARKERS:

The limsey has various functions, for example, . It has a decision making capacity, that is, / in other words, to put it in other words, i.e.

OPINION MARKERS:

Personally, I think the, In my opinion, Personally speaking, As I see it, There is, I think, I believe, According to SB, As far as SB is concerned,

ATTITUDE MARKERS:

Generally speaking, This is Obviously, Apparently, Presumably, Actually, Unfortunately, Luckily, Surprisingly, Basically

CONNECTIVE DISCOURSE:

deniers to organize the text

PARAGRAPH:

a unit of text. English idea of paragraph is different from the Italian. The writer shows the reader where he is

An ideal paragraph will have UNITY COHESION LOGICAL ORGANIZATION

Ex. of course this doesn’t always happen. the tea is far too hot, for example, so just send me an e-mail, and here’s Spiderman himself since on average there are 1000 pins: 2 paddles

Generally, this sentence is grammatically correct but it hasn’t unity, logical organization

A paragraph tells about one single thing

PARAGRAPH:

begins with INTRODUCTION ->

continues by ESTABLISHING TOPICS and sends an ORGANISED MESSAGE -> and ends with some kind of RESOLUTION or CONCLUSION

(the) GIVEN - INFORMATION

(a) NEW /

Ex Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899 in Chicago where his father was a _N doctor.

There _is a man _called & - /

PARAGRAPH: more than one sentence, it's formed in a very specific way

TOPIC SENTENCE:

it's usually the first and the main sentence of a paragraph

EX:

1. English is a difficult language to learn.
2. The long expression _{so long} drives from the Arabic Slam.
3. Driving in Rome requires a lot of skills and attention if you are not a native driver. TOPIC SENTENCE
4. How to register exam results at Sapienza

1. too short, too wide; (2) example, too specific; (3) title

COHESION:

inside the text. The writer isn’t telling to the reader. It's very internal.

GRAMMATICAL COHESION

LEXICAL COHESION

bank | post office station hotel cinema bar

LEXICAL SET: nouns, adjectives, verbs - OPEN

There are also closed lexical set: for example the days of the week, the colours of the rainbow, the weeks of the month.

ROOK, BISHOP, KNIGHT, PAWN, KING, QUEEN

CHESS

Collocation:

All words collocate, go together

Two kinds of collocation:

CO-OCCURENCE

STANDARD COLLOCATION

adj + noun adj + adv verb + noun

Fixed collocation:

a serious illness, a heavy smoker, a fatal accident, a lethal weapon, a deadly poison, a red shirt: it's NOT a collocation a red face: is = & embarrassed

make | make/do a favour -> zero - information content word | do, make, prepositions

BY THE WAY:

introducing something different

CO-OCCURRENCE - collocation chain

The course was difficult. The students had to study hard to learn all the material, but in the end the exam results were excellent.All these words take part in a LEXICAL SET, to take, to set an exam.

SUPERORDINATE

HYPONYMS

• Vegetable: potato carrot onion cabbage
• Vehicle: car truck bus tram

LEXICAL COHESION

1. REITERATION
2. SUBSTITUTION
3. COLLOCATION

1. repeating the word: LEGAL TEXT, AD.

ALLOUNYMs: ALLO- other, another way to say thingsEx: Pope => the Bishop of Rome

1. synonyms, superordinates, generic nouns

SYNONYMS: small-size / little, positive associationdifferent connotation: fat, overweight <- lextonloo, toilet.

The exercises are not very difficult; in fact the activities are quite easy.

Does she like eggs? Yes, she eats the same food as everybody else.

SUPERORDINATE

Can I take my car? No, all vehicles are banned.Where should I put the roses? I don't like flowers in the bedroom.Do you ski? No, I prefer summer sports like tennis.

ANTONYMS

of the superordinate

GENERIC NOUN

includes the other piece of information

• THING: people, person, animal,
• STUFF: object, thing, matter,
• move, place, problem,
• idea, issue, fact, time,
• idea, issue, fact, time,
• situation

ANAPHORIC NOUNS

looks backwards. Where is your car? It's over there.

→ Refers to somethingexample, purpose, reason, proposal.

COLLOCATION: belonging to the same lexical set →CO-OCCURRENCE → collocation chain

Grammatical Cohesion

1. Reference:
   • Endophoric: inside the text. Most references are inside the text. Ex: John has two sisters. Them names Susie and Jenny.
   • Exophoric: outside the text; refers to something mentioned before. Ex: This was caused by the heavy flooding we reported in yesterday's programme. This and we refer to something outside the text.
2. Anaphoric: looks backwards. Ex: Helen has lost her job. This doesn't surprise me.
3. Cataphoric: looks forwards. Ex: You're not going to believe it... Helen's got a new job.
4. Personal Pronouns:
   • He, she, her, him, his, herself refer to persons or in they itself.
   • Pronouns mention back before. Ex: There was a pineapple on the table, so I ate it.
   • John's forgotten his book, can you lend him yours?
5. Cataphoric
   • Demonstrative: this, these, those. Deictic words: here, there, now, then; pointing. Ex: Cloning is a kind of cropping. There is nothing new in this. It involves taking a single cell.
   • This refers to the sentence before. It refers to cloning.
   • Ex: They were waiting for the bus. It was late.
   • Ex: I can get us free tickets for the concert. That's if you want.
   • It will be fantastic it refers to the concert.
   • Helen's lost her job. This doesn't surprise me. Helen told me she had lost her job. That was in the past time I spoke to her. Last time I spoke to her.
   • That can only be used as an anaphora.
6. Substitution: something in the text is substituted by something else. By Pro-Forms: some, ones, some lang, the same.
7. Noun

I like that picture. Which one? The red one? No, the white one. What about the blue one? Richard loves that one.

What sort of games do you like? The ones where I win. THOSE

I save my e-mails, I do the same.

does(n’t), did(n’t) OPERATOR -> VERB

He smokes, but his girlfriend doesn’t.

They keep meaning to phone, but they never do.

The’y’ve already left. They can’t have done.

They substitute the main verb.

So not -> CLAUSE VERB PHRASE

You should complain to the boss. I’ve already done so.

It’s going to rain, I hope not.

The bullet was the murderer. At least I thought so.

Ellipsis: substitution by nothing.

I first visited Rome in 1992 and I’ve loved the city ever since (that time).

Can you fix it for 2? I’d be glad to. (Fix it for you)

THIS EXTRAPHORIC DEICTIC

I haven’t spoken to him yet but I will (speak to him) later.

DISCOURSE TYPES and REGISTER

REGISTER: the sort of language which is used in discourse types, depending on who is the sender and who is the receiver.

Three things that belong to the SENDER:

• OFFICE. Position of a person in the society, the office of a person reflects the communication.
• STATUS: can change depending on the person you are talking to, can be temporary, depends on culture.
• ROLE: the kind of languages we use depending on our OFFICE.

DOCTOR: a person with medical qualifications OFFICE we rely on doctors or they could be accused so they lose their STATUS (usually respectful). Medical advise to be consulted -> ROLE.