Textual Communication and Analysis
Concept of Text
Text is a communicative act occurring in a specific context with a defined structure and properties. Its correctness and stylistic variation depend on the context. Smaller units within the text contribute to the overall meaning.
Properties of Text
- Fitness: The text serves the relationship between text and situation, considering communicative intentions (e.g., referential, conative) and the communicative situation.
- Coherence: Elements relate to the global meaning, creating unity.
- Cohesion: Grammatical and lexical elements connect different parts of the text through markers (e.g., discursive markers or connectors).
Mechanisms of Coherence and Cohesion
Units of Speech
Prepositions and conjunctions mark relationships between words, phrases, and clauses. They express dependency and connect units with the same function. For example, “beef and chicken” share the same function, while subordinate clauses depend on main clauses (e.g., “or I’ll come”).
Discourse Connectors
Discourse markers or connectors contribute to textual cohesion. They highlight semantic relationships between text parts without changing their syntactic function. They often appear with pauses and can be classified as follows:
- Structure/Information: initiators, commentators, computers, digressors, spatio-temporal
- Argumentative: additives, counterarguments, sequential
- Reformulating: explaining, amending, distancing, summarizing
- Operators: argumentative boosters, concretion, viewpoint expression
- Conversational: well, hey, look, of course
Scientific and Technical Texts
These texts transmit factual knowledge through universal, objective, and true statements. Scientific texts explain reality, while technical texts instruct. Objectivity, precision, and denotative vocabulary are key. The structure varies depending on the method, but documentation is always crucial.
Linguistic Forms
Technical terminology and artificial languages are common, ensuring clarity and cohesion. Borrowing from classical and modern languages (xenisms, semantic calques, loan translations, eponyms), word formation (derivation and composition), abbreviations, and acronyms are frequently used.
Humanistic Texts
These texts address human-related issues using verbal language. Social sciences describe and analyze social reality, while humanities focus on the individual. Exposition and argumentation are dominant, with description and narration also appearing.
Typology and Structure
Humanistic texts often combine exposition and argumentation. Deductive reasoning is common, following a structure of introduction, development, and conclusion. Sources are crucial for scientific rigor.
Linguistic Forms
Natural language is prevalent, with a tendency towards subjectivization. Nominal style, denotative language, indicative mood, present or timeless historical tense, and impersonal structures are common. Discourse markers are also used.
Terminology
Terminology refers to words with precise meanings within a specific field. Technicalities are monosemic words with absolute precision. Scientific texts often use neologisms. Common language is more prevalent in the humanities. Terminology creation includes borrowing, composition, derivation, acronyms, and assigning new meanings to existing words.
Lexical and Semantic
Words are linguistic signs with a signifier and meaning. They are formed by monemes (lexemes and morphemes). Nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs form the core lexicon. Borrowing from other languages is a common source of new words.