Lesson 7: Textual Linguistics
In this lesson we will talk about Textual Linguistics or textual analysis and we will also analyse literary texts.
Textual Linguistics
Early text linguists concentrated on the development of various paradigms for the study of how sentences interconnect. They have drawn attention to the various linguistic devices that can be used to ensure that a text "hangs together" the concept of textual cohesion.
Such devices include the use of articles, lexical repetition and personal pronouns to refer back to entities the use of linking words to establish a particular logical relationship of, say, contrast, concession or addition between two or more sentences in a text. Other types text linguistic themes include: developing a typology of text types such as written text types.
The most commonly known classification is that typological variation can be reduced to 5 functional types: argumentative texts, narrative texts, descriptive texts, expository texts and instructive texts. In some versions of this theory, the 5 types tend to be viewed as textualisation-strategies.
It is not uncommon for a single text to incorporate parts which fall under different functional headings (for instance, a novel may consist of descriptive, narrative and argumentative episodes; a newspaper editorial is likely to contain narrative and argumentative parts). From libraries and bookshops to advertisement posters, from newspapers text is everywhere. We can study the structure of the text in terms of the flow of elements which follow a temporary sequence (narrative analysis), or in terms of the logic/persuasive structure of assertions in order to convince an audience about a claimed truth (argumentation and rhetoric analysis).
If we intend text as a communication of a message, we can systematically analyse its content (content analysis) or the interaction of different actors involved (discourse analysis). Finally, we can refer to the vast cultural/social context of meanings from which text emerges (semiotics analysis). Narrative analysis deals with how tellers interpret real events into narrative: what is the focus of the analysis is how narrators structure perceptual experience, organise their memory, rebuild events of life assigning, reordering and reshaping meanings.
What is interesting is the way in which various elements, protagonists, times of the story are ordered and systematised. All this furnishes precious information about the subjective perspective of the narrator, about the context on which meanings are grounded, about values that narrator wants to emphasise and those he/she wants to conceal.
What includes narrative? Personal experiences, novels, poems as well. A problem arises when we try to define possible different types of narrative. We, however, often pose this question ‘what is text analysis?’ and the answer will be: ‘it is a technique designed to analyse text and draw conclusions as to the linguistics and stylistic structures of a given text.’ Next question will be: ‘What is a text?’
Text is to be considered as any piece of written or spoken language designed to be understood. The importance of text analysis at any early stage lies in the extent to which text can be analysed and categorized in terms of reader expectancy.
