Learning Goals and Outcome

The unit aims to introduce to students the advanced topics in text linguistics and discourse analysis such
as text pragmatics, intention, communicative structure and information structure focusing on a
functional approach that merges the notions of grammar and coherence in text and discourse. Another
important topic is the role of context especially its psychological, social and cultural aspects.

There are two aspects of discourse analysis. One focuses on the structure of discourse while the other
one explores discourse as the main factor to deal with the functions of morphological and syntactical
units and devices. For example, articles, conjunctions, adverbs, word order can be explained by
discourse strategies. But mainly the researches cover both aspects.

The unit will help students to understand text and context which is very important during production of
a complex social and communicative event defined as discourse.

Content and Themes

2.1. Text pragmatics

Despite the fact that the linguistic aspects of text have always been central in the studies of text,
researchers also focus on the role of extralinguistic factors and, first of all, on the role of people who use
text in society. Thus, in modern functionalism, it has come to be applied to the study of language from
the point of view of the participants of communication process, especially of the choices they make, the
constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction, and the mutual effects the
participants have during communication. The field focuses on an area between pragmatics, semantics,
sociolinguistics, text linguistics and discourse analysis.

Pragmatics, which is considered as the study of language use in relation to the structure of language and
the context of use plays an important role in the analysis of text communication. (Levinson 1981, Mey
2001, Verschueren 2003, etc.) According to Levinson, pragmatics studies the relation between the
structure of a semiotic system and its usage in context and forms the general theory of meaning along
with semantics (Levinson, 1981). The main focus in pragmatics is implicit meaning as the ways of its
manifestation through the structure of language requires investigation of what is presumed and
inferred. As we see, the linguistic pragmatics is dealing with language, meaning and context. It also
seems obvious to require meaning of a text: a text must mean in order to function and its form must
enable a receiver to derive meaning from it. A familiarity with the context, either in its original form in
connection with the speech act or in a sufficiently complete and accurate reconstruction, may be
needed before we understand what a text is all about. We have to note that not only word, word
combination or sentence but also text acquires meaning in context. In this regard Lyons pays special
attention to the link between text and context (Lyons, 1981:189):

Text are constituents of the contexts in which they are produced; and contexts are created, and
continually transformed and refashioned, by the speakers and writers in particular situations.
Van Dijk defines context in the following remarks (Dijk, 1998: 23):

As to the context, on the other hand, this is said to include the participants and their roles, goals,
settings and shared knowledge.

This understanding of context brings us closer to another fundamental problem in text communication-
the role of participants, i.e. the sender and the receiver of text. On the other hand, Enkvist writes
(Enkvist, 1989: 375): To be meaningful, and to satisfy the definition of a text as a meaningful sequence
of symbols in language, the text must be interpretable. Connexity, consisting of coherence and cohesion
obviously results from interpretability: a person who can interpret a text can set up the necessary
cohesive and coherent links within that text.

In fact connexity in text implies linking not only sentences but also ideas. On the other hand, as linking
sentences and linking ideas are based on the subjective assumptions related with arbitrary nature of the
linguistic sign, with controversy of its meaning, as well as with the various pragmatic and cognitive
factors the receiver of text is facing ambiguity.

Ambiguity can be divided into two broad categories: lexical-grammatical and textual. Both may be
deliberate and unintentional. The lexicalgrammatical ambiguity normally occurs when a word or a
syntactic structure has apparently more than one meaning in or in spite of its context; vagueness or
obscurity can usually be reduced to ambiguity. We usually think about such linguistic phenomena as
homonymy and polysemy keeping in mind linguistic context. (Yule, 2006)

Pragmatics offers the ways of disambiguation of words and sentences through contextualization. The
deliberate lexical ambiguity separates the two meanings of a homonym like race/race, and an
unintentional ambiguity is usually actualized or clarified in the linguistic context. The syntactical
ambiguity is observed on the level of word combinations and sentences. If a sentence is syntactically
ambiguous within its context, it must be poorly written. All the notoriously ambiguous sentences and
groups like the shooting of the hunters, etc. as well as less obvious ones such as summer school, foreign
language teaching, etc. can be disambiguated if the context is reasonably informative (Chafe 1971). It is
also important to note that the tendency of all languages to use many present and past participles
independently as adjectives with a slightly different stable meaning gives rise to ambiguities like, lost,
striking, etc. as well as the fact that grammatical or functional words themselves represent a common
source for ambiguity. Prepositions, pronouns, articles, etc. have many meanings or it is sometimes very
difficult to identify the referents of pronouns, articles and most phrasal verbs.

Lexical ambiguity is both more common and more difficult to actualize than grammatical ambiguity.
Words may have anything from one meaning to many and the meaning may be close to or remote from
each other. Sometimes a word has two meanings which are both equally effective (pragmatically and
referentially) in the relevant stretch of language, e.g. book, direct, etc. You can find ambiguities in most
words and sentences if you try hard enough-that is the nature of language. All ambiguities are
referential, since they prompt two or more images of the reality and it is necessary to establish the
meaning in which an ambiguous word or sentence is used from the relevant context.
Meanwhile textual ambiguities sharply differ from lexical-grammatical ones as it is not clear what is the
strategy of the sender to use these ambiguities and whether they are intentional or not. In this regard
Eco writes (Eco, 2011:35):

When one has a text to question, it is irrelevant to ask the author. At the same time, the of the author,
the intention of reader cannot give just any interpretation, simply depending on his or her fancy, but
must make sure that the text in some way not only legitimizes but also encourages a particular reading.

The idea of “intention of the author (or sender)” was widely discussed in the researches on the
functional-pragmatic approach to the study of language. Eco further clarifies his approach to the notion
intention distinguishing ”the intention of the author, the intention of the reader, and the intention of
the text”. (Eco, 2011: 35) The other two intentions defined by Eco were extensively discussed in his
books The Role of the Reader (Eco 1979) and The Limits of Interpretation. (Eco 1991) In The Role of the
Reader, he analyses the reader’s (or sender’s) ability to construct meaning while reading texts (mainly
literary). He gives strong argument in favour of the view that meaning is produced not only thanks to the
structure of text but also thanks to the interpretable ability of the reader, who makes inferences and
constructs meaning based on interaction. (Eco 1979) In the Limits of Interpretation” Eco argues that
during communication text acquires its own intention due to the limits of interpretation imposed by text
and there are a limited number of reasonable interpretations of any given text. Eco discusses these
limits suggesting that signs can be created to constrain interpretations and criticizing total subjectivity
during interpretation. (Eco 1991) He further highlights the issues of the limits of interpretation and
intention of text in his attempts to look at these issues from the perspectives of the semiotics of text
(Eco, 2011: 37):

To say that the interpretations of a text are potentially unlimited does not mean that interpretation has
no object-no existing thing (whether fact or text) to focus on. To say that a text has potentially no end
does not mean that every act of interpretation can have a happy end.

And he adds (Eco, 2011: 41):

Recognizing the intention of a text means recognizing a semiotic strategy. Sometimes the semiotic
strategy is detectable on the grounds of established stylistic conventions. If a story begins with ‘Once
upon a time’, I have a good reason to assume that it is a fairy tale.

So we can come to such conclusion that text is not as open as a system of linguistic signs due to the fact
that the process of text construction imposes limits for possible linguistic choices to be made by a
sender and at the same time, these linguistic signs rule out possibilities of unlimited interpretation for a
receiver. Interpretability is some sort of interaction between text and context in the process of discourse
construction. Obviously the receiver’s ability for interpretability depends on his/her personal
(psychological) mood, first of all such as individual capacity for perception, which is mostly considered as
creativity.

The sender uses certain linguistic elements for construction cohesion and coherence in order to make
from a stretch of language a text. On the other hand, the linguistic elements constructing cohesion and
coherence become strong cognitive devices helping the receiver to infer and to interpret text and thus
carry out certain cognitive modifications in discourse.

Further aspects of text pragmatics, which represent interest, are the use of various linguistic elements
for weighing of expectation in case of implicit relations in discourse. Normally the meaning of text exists
in the relevant linguistic elements and can be understood by a receiver via various explicit grammatical,
lexical and stylistic devices. But information, as a rule, is not fully explicated in the linguistic elements, as
any text constructed by a sender for a receiver is the product of an invisible compromise based on the
assumption of these discourse participants who do not experience any constraints in understanding
thanks to the shared knowledge common within certain culture. This factor enables the discourse
participants to convey certain part of information in an implicit way. With a view of such approach to
the process of text understanding it is necessary to look at certain mental patterns.

The linguistic elements clearly demonstrate to the receiver how to connect textual information with
already existing information model. Therefore, the meaning of text is understood thanks to the active
interaction between the information explicated in text and implicit meaning. Thus discourse participants
understand text in different way depending on their shared knowledge, experience and ability to use
linguistic elements. As the significant part of textual information is usually explicated via the relevant
linguistic elements, their pragmatic and cognitive strategies help the receiver to understand text.

Hence text emerges as a crucial element both in linguistic and in interdisciplinary approaches to
discourse. Linguists have traditionally acknowledged the fact that production of discourse takes place in
the course of the construction of text by person. Originally, it is believed that discourse analysis aimed at
the explorations of two major issues: 1) how text acquires meaning; 2) what makes text connected and
interpretable? As we see, discourse analysis mainly focuses on intertextuality. At the same time, text
linguists also indicate its relevance for the study of text. But if we compare discourse with the similar
definitions of text, such understanding does not shed light on how to differ it from text. Enkvist explains
the difference between text and discourse as follows (Enkvist, 1989, 371-372):

Those who are fond of this distinction usually define it in terms of whether we look at a text as divorced
from its situational context, or as discourse and part of a situation, to cite a classic example, as long as
No Smoking sign is on the desk of a linguist, who studies its linguistic structure as such and apart from its
original situational context, it remains a text. But once it is hung on the wall, or is studied as a specimen
of a text recovered from a wall in a specific kind of room and with a specific situation-bound function, it
becomes a piece of discourse.

Despite the obvious difficulties to put a clear difference between text and discourse (it sometimes
causes the synthesis of text linguistics and grammar of text with discourse analysis), the above factor
helps to understand the difference. Text is a final product or final result, whereas discourse is a process
of text construction. As we see a text can be studied as the real product of certain activity, while
discourse is more complex. If we want to study it we have to reveal the idea and the intention of the
sender, that is to say it is necessary to define presuppositions hidden behind the explicit linguistic form.
Text is viewed mostly as the formal construction used for messaging, while discourse is regarded on the
level of mental processes. Therefore, discourse analysis is mostly dealing with the extra-linguistic factors
beyond text. For example, the consistent use of the definite determiners in the text of discourse implies
a shared knowledge and experience of the sender with the receiver that may not actually exist in text.
This reference called exophoric can be clearly shown by the traditional uses of pronouns and the definite
article in the following political and media texts. (see examples 1, 2) The receiver of the first text
(political) may want to show whether the implicit associations between Britain, us, our shores, our
society and the whole country are inferable and interpretable by the audience keeping in mind their
cognitive ability. The whole information actualized via the uses of the personal pronoun us, the
possessive pronoun our and the definite article the exists within the text, although the use of the form
in plurality implies a shared knowledge with the audience that may not actually exist. It is some sort of
address to the readers who are outside the text but within discourse. The sender of the second text
from USA Today describes the sport event took place in the underlined period of time. The sender
presupposes the knowledge of situational context by the receiver and indicates at it through the
demonstrative pronoun this summer. Thus discourse analysis as a field of intertextual study represents a
special interest to the sociologists, psychologists and other researchers in humanities and social
sciences.