1.

Reading and Thinking Strategies across

Text types

Competency 1. Text as Connected Discourse

LEARNING COMPETENCY

The learner describes a written text as connected discourse.

CODE (EN11/12RWS-IIIa-1)

Specific Objectives:

• Identify the nature and purpose of a discourse.

• Differentiate between the types of discourses.

• Identify and differentiate between the types of literary discourses.

• Distinguish between literary and academic discourses.

• Identify the properties of a well- written text.

Learn about It!

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the
creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the
finest teacher of how to write.” – Annie Proulx

Recognizing Different Types of Text

How does a text differ from a discourse?

Text is derived from the Latin word texere, which means to weave, while
discourse comes from the Latin word discursus, which denotes conversation speech.

Merriam-Webster defines text as a piece of writing or speech or the main body of

a printed or written matter on a page , while a discourse is defined as the use of words
to exchange thoughts and ideas. It is also defined as a long talk or piece of writing
about a subject.

Crystal (1992) defines text as a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written, or

sign discourse identified for purposes of analysis. It is often a language unit with a
definable communicative function, such as a conversation, a poster. He defines a
discourse as a continuous stretch of (specially spoken) language larger than a
sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke or
narrative.

Cook (1989) defines text as a stretch of language interpreted formally, without

context. He defines discourse as a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful,
unified and purposive.

Text refers to a large unit of written language - a group of ideas put together to
make a point or one central idea . It has a structure which requires the ideas in the
discourse to be relevant to each other. It is an actually connected discourse.

Surface Text, Deep Text, Texture and Sequential Implicativeness Defined

Surface text refers to the set of expressions actually used making some
knowledge explicit.

Deep text occurs during processing, leaving other knowledge implicit.

Texture- what makes a text understandable is the element of texture. Crane

(1994) describe texture as the basis for unity and semantic interdependence within a
text. He added that any written text that lacks texture would simply be a bunch of
isolated sentences that have no relationship to each other. A feature of texture is
‘sequential implicativeness’. This denotes connectionism-each line in a text is
connected from or connected to the previous line. Each succeeding line is built upon the
preceding line /s; henceforth, language contains a linear sequence. The linear
progression of text creates a context of meaning-the “with” text.

Learning Tasks 1

Task 1.1. Analyze the sample written text below and answer the following questions:

1. How is the principle of sequential implicativeness shown in the presentation of

the story below?

2. What context is created?

3. Identify the surface text and the deep text in the story.

The Mountain

There were two warring tribes in the Andes, one that lived in the
lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain people
invaded the lowlanders one day, and as part of their plundering of the
people, they kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families and took
the infant with them back up into the mountains.

The lowlanders didn’t know how to climb the mountain. They didn’t
know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and they didn’t
know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the
steep terrain.

Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to climb the
mountain and bring the baby home.

The men tried first one method of climbing and then another. They
tried one trail and then another. After several days of effort, however,
they had climbed only several hundred feet.

Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that the
cause was lost, and they prepared to return to their village below.

As they were packing their gear for the descent, they saw the baby’s
mother walking toward them. They realized that she was coming down
the mountain that they hadn’t figured out how to climb.

And then they saw that she had the baby strapped to her back. How
could that be?

One man greeted and said, “we couldn’t climb this mountain. How
did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in the village,
couldn’t do it?”

She shrugged her shoulders and said, “it wasn’t your baby.”