TEXT GRAMMAR

Text grammar (also text linguistics) is the branch of linguistics that studies linguistic units above the level of the
sentence. It shows how sentences are put together to convey ideas, facts, messages, and fiction.
1. DEFINITIONS
"A text is an extended structure of syntactic units [i. e. text as super-sentence] such as words, groups, and clauses
and textual units that is marked by both coherence among the elements and completion ... While a non-text consists
of random sequences of linguistic units such as sentences, paragraphs, or sections in any temporal and/or spatial
extension." (Werlich, 1976: 23)
"A naturally occurring manifestation of language, i. e. as a communicative language event in a context. The
SURFACE TEXT is the set of expressions actually used; these expressions make some knowledge EXPLICIT,
while other knowledge remains IMPLICIT, though still applied during processing." (Beaugrande and Dressler,
1981: 63)
"[A term] used in linguistics to refer to any passage - spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a
unified whole. A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or a sentence; and it is
not defined by its size. A text is best regarded as a SEMANTIC unit; a unit not of form but of meaning." (Halliday
and Hasan, 1976: 1–2)
"A text is made up of sentences, but there exist separate principles of text-construction, beyond the rules for
making sentences." (Fowler, 1991: 59)[6]
"[Text is] a set of mutually relevant communicative functions, structured in such a way as to achieve an overall
rhetorical purpose." (Hatim and Mason, 1990)

Text linguists generally agree that text is the natural domain of language, but they still differ in their perspectives
of what constitutes a text. This variance is mainly due to the different methods of observations of different
linguists, and as such, the definition of text is not yet concrete.
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONTEXTS
There is a text and there is another text that accompanies it: one text forms “the surface structure” (and here we
have concrete physical words, phrases and sentences, we can put our fingers on), the other text is the context,
which forms “the deep structure”, which goes beyond what is said and written: it includes other non-verbal signs-
on-the total environment in which a text unfolds. (Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 5) Text and context are so intimately
related that neither concept can be comprehended in the absence of the other.

Text grammar concentrates on the linguistic structure of texts, their main features.
A text is a coherent body of sentences. Coherent means they are linked by a consistent theme. The text ends
when completion is signalled. For example, when a problem introduced at the start is solved, or when a promised
discussion has reached a conclusion.
The text is a unit of language in use. It applies to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does
form a unified whole - a semantic unit. The text is the object of studies of the branch of linguistics called TEXT
LINGUISTICS. Text linguistics is a relatively new branch of language studies that deals with texts as
communication systems.
In the 60-70s of the 20th century, text linguistics dealt mainly with ways of expressing cohesion and coherence and
distribution of the theme and the rheme of an utterance according to the rules of the functional sentence
perspective. Today text is viewed in much broader terms that go beyond a mere extension of traditional grammar
towards an entire text.
But up to now there does not exist universally accepted definition of the text. The difficulties that arise can be
explained by the fact that scholars study the text in its various aspects: grammatical, stylistic, semantic, functional
and so on.
2. THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE TEXT
Text Cohesion
The term cohesion was introduced by Halliday and Hasan in 1976 to denote the way in which linguistic items are
meaningfully interconnected in sequences. Each piece of text must be cohesive with the adjacent ones for a
successful communication. Cohesion concerns the ways in which the components of the surface text are connected
within a sequence. There are two main types of cohesion: grammatical, referring to the structural content, and
lexical, referring to the language content of the piece and a cohesive text is created through many different ways.
According to Halliday and Hasan there are five general categories of cohesive devices that create coherence in
texts: reference, ellipsis, substitution, lexical cohesion, and conjunction.
1. Reference is realized by nouns, determiners, personal and demonstrative pronouns or adverbs. Reference is a
sending of linguistic means to either the preceding context (retrospection), or to the next context (prospection).
The reference of the retrospective is called ANAPHORA, and prospective - CATAPHORA. The most obvious
means of reference in the English language is an article determination: anaphoric link is usually marked by the
definite article and cataphoric link is marked by indefinite article. Many English sentence adverbs (contrariwise,
likewise, similarly, etc.) are the means of anaphoric link, that transparently pointing to a previous context.
2. Ellipsis When we can easily understand everything in the sentence because of the surrounding text, we use
textual ellipsis. For example, we know that certain verbs and adjectives can be followed by a that-clause, so if we
see a clause without that after such verbs and adjectives, we assume that the writer or speaker wants us to
understand the same meaning as a that-clause (I knew [that] something terrible had happened.) The same happens
when we do not repeat words in clauses connected with and, but and or (coordinated clauses). We understand what
the ‘missing’ items are (We went for a walk and [we] took some lovely photographs. He wrote to [everyone he
could think of who might help] and [he] phoned everyone he could think of who might help.) We can also leave out
the complement of a verb when it is obvious what the complement is (“Why don’t they move to a bigger place?” –
“They don’t want to [move to a bigger place]. They’re happy where they are.).
3. Substitution is very similar to ellipsis in the effect it has on the text. Substitution involves the replacement of
full-meaning element or elements of the previous context on the empty-meaning element or elements in the
following context. The most striking example of the substitution is pronominalization - the use of pronouns instead
of nouns (Jack could neither read nor write. He was illiterate.) Another way of substitution is using "do” or "to”.
(Who knows Mary? - I do.)
4. Conjunction creates cohesion by relating sentences and paragraphs to each other by using words from the class
of conjunctions (I was terribly angry. And Ann was too.), numerals, adverbs (firstly, secondly, lastly) or sentence
formations (I mean).
5. Lexical cohesion is a communication tool when we use lexical items "serve" the same subject area. For
example, there are such words as "books, librarians, to read, reading halls, shelves, journals” in a text fragment, it
is clear that describes situation relating to a library or reading room.
1.5 Text Coherence in linguistics is what makes a text semantically meaningful. Coherence concerns the ways in
which concepts and relations, which underlie the surface text, are linked, relevant and used, to achieve efficient
communication. A concept is a cognitive content which can be retrieved or triggered with a high degree of
consistency in the mind. Relations are the links between concepts within a text, with each link identified with the
concept that it connects to. Surface texts may not always express relations explicitly therefore people supply as
many relations as are needed to make sense out of any particular text. Types of relations include:
I. Causality (A spider was climbing up a branch. Down came the rain and washed the spider out." - The event of
"raining" causes the event of "washing the spider out" because it creates the necessary conditions for the latter;
without the rain, the spider will not be washed out)
II. Enablement ("Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall." - The action of sitting on the
wall created the necessary but not sufficient conditions for the action of falling down. Sitting on a wall makes it
possible but not obligatory for falling down to occur.)
III. Reason ("Jack shall have but a penny a day because he can't work any faster."- In contrast to the rain which
causes the spider to be washed out, the slow working does not actually cause or enable the low wage. Instead, the
low wage is a reasonable outcome; "reason" is used to term actions that occur as a rational response to a previous
event.
IV. Purpose ("Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone."- In contrast to Humpty
Dumpty's action of sitting on the wall which enables the action of falling down, there is a plan involved here;
Humpty Dumpty did not sit on the wall so that it could fall down but Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard so
that she could get a bone. "Purpose" is used to term events that are planned to be made possible via a previous
event.
V. Time ("Cause", "enablement" and "reason" have forward directionality with the earlier event causing, enabling
or providing reason for the later event. "Purpose', however, has a backward directionality as the later event
provides the purpose for the earlier event.)
Thematic unity Text is not only structural but also thematic unity, and thus can distinguish meaningful parameters
that characterize it as a unit of a higher level. Note, however, that sometimes informative text options listed below
are considered as belonging to the theory of pragmatics.
1. Intentionality. There are objects and intentions of author of the text.
2. Acceptability. It`s a parameter indicating availability of text to the recipient and emphasizing the active role of
the recipient in the text.
3. Informativity. It is a degree of representation of something new, unknown, unexpected. It emphasizes the basic
property of the text of bearing of certain information.
4. Situational parameter. It is a match of form and content of the text of the situation of communication. It allows to
"place" the text in the format of communication, making it relevant for communicants.
5. Intertextuality. It is the relationship of the text to other texts. In contrast to the above-mentioned types of
cohesion and coherence it does not consider the internal but external relations communication of the text. Each new
text - consciously or not - is generated by the author given existing ones, which "traces" are found in the text.
3. Textual categories
The textual category is a property characterizing every text, in other words it is a typological feature of a text.
Textual categories appear and function only in the text as a language unit of the highest rank. It is important to
remember that the text is never modeled by one textual category but always by a totality of categories. It is
sometimes regarded as a total of categories.
Today the list of textual categories is open: linguists name different textual categories because they approach the
text from different angles. Most scholars differentiate between contensive(from content) and structural categories.
However, some linguists draw a strict demarcation line between the two while others do not.

The most commonly identified textual categories include:

1) DIVISIBILITY – the text can be divided into parts, chapters and paragraphs dealing with specific topics,
therefore having some formal and semantic independence;
2) COHESION – formal connectedness;
3) COHERENCE – internal connectedness (integrity, according to I. R. Galperin);
4) PROSPECTION (flash-forward) – anticipation of future events;
5) RETROSPECTION (flash-back) – return to events in the past;
(Both prospection and retrospection break the space-time continuum of the text.)
6) ANTHROPOCENTRICITY – the Man is the central figure of any text independent of its specific theme,
message and plot;
7) CONCEPTUALITY – any text has a message. Expressing some idea, that is,
conveying a message is the basis of any creative work;
8) INFORMATIVITY
Prof. I. R. Galperin whose book on the text and its categories is one of the
most authoritative and often quoted ones identifies three types of information:
- content-factual information – information about facts, events and
processes taking place in the surrounding world; always explicit and verbalized;
- content-conceptual information conveys to the reader the author’s
understanding of relations between the phenomena described by means of content-factual information,
understanding of their cause-effect relations, importance in social, economic, political and cultural life of people
including relations between individuals. This kind of information is deduced from the whole literary work and is a
creative reunderstanding of these relations, facts, events and processes; not always explicit;
- content-implicative information is hidden information that can be
deduced from content-factual information due to the ability of linguistic units to generate associative and
connotative meanings and also due to the ability of sentences conveying factual information to acquire new
meanings.
9) COMPLETENESS – the text must be a complete whole;
10) MODALITY – the attitude of the author towards what is being communicated;
11) THE AUTHOR’S IMAGE – way the author’s personality is expressed in the text.
4. Textual units.
Supra-Phrasal Unity and Paragraph
Analyzing the structure of the text, linguists identify semantically connected sentence sequences as certain
syntactic formations. One of prospective trends in modern text linguistics is describing such syntactic formations,
or text units, identifying patterns according to which they are built and studying relations between them.
Irrespective of their specific features, all text units are united by their common function – they represent the text as
a whole integrally expressing
the textual topic.
There is no universal agreement as to the term that should be used to
describe text units. In the Russian tradition the following terms were used to refer to such formations: “phrase”,
“strophe”, “prosaic strophe”, “component”, “paragraph”, “microtext”, “period”, “syntactic complex”, “monologue
utterance”, “communicative bloc”, “complex syntactic unity”, “supra-phrasal unity”. The latter is the most
commonly used one.
It should be noted that there are some scholars who do not recognize the existence of linguistic units beyond the
framework of the sentence. This opinion can be explained by the lack of a complete systematic description of
linguistic peculiarities of such units.
The problem of text units has been addressed by numerous scholars both in this country and abroad. Speaking
about Russian linguists, we should mention the works by I. R. Galperin, O. I. Moskalskaya, E. A. Referovskaya, Z.
Ya. Turaeva, G. Ya. Solganik and others.
The supra-phrasal unity (SPU) is a minimal text unit consisting of two or more sentences united by a common
topic. In some cases the SPU can coincide with the text if it’s a short one, for example, a news item in the
newspaper, a miniature story, etc. However, most commonly, the SPU is a component of a larger text. The SPU
consists of at least two sentences, it is characterized by topical, communicative and structural completeness and the
author’s attitude towards what is being communicated. The SPU is a complex semantico-structural unit, the
communicative value of which does not equal the sum of meanings of its constituent sentences, it is a new
semantico-structural formation.
It should be noted that sometimes it is not easy to delimit the boundaries of the SPU. In some cases it can coincide
with the paragraph (this is especially typical of scientific papers and business documents), while in others the
paragraph can be easily divided into several SPUs, for example, in fiction and poetry.
As for the correlation of the supra-phrasal unity and the paragraph, a few decades ago the SPU was considered to
be a unit equivalent to the paragraph. In today’s text linguistics there are two approaches to this problem.
Some scholars still believe that the SPU coincides with the paragraph, or rejecting the term “supra-phrasal unity”,
consider the paragraph to be a complex syntactic unity.
Other researchers draw a strict demarcation line between the SPU and the paragraph saying that the former is a unit
of composition while the latter is a unit of punctuation.
5. Text and Discourse are similar concepts, but not identical. Text and discourse are two terms that are
commonly used in linguistics, literature, and language studies. There are many debates about the interchangeability
of these two terms. Some linguistics view text and discourse analysis as the same process whereas some others use
these two terms to define different concepts. Text can refer to any written material that can be read. Discourse is
the use of language in a social context. This is the key difference between text and discourse
The term discourse has many meanings and definitions.
Discourse was first interpreted as dialogue – an interaction between a speaker and a listener. Thus, discourse
referred to authentic daily communications, mainly oral, included in the wide communicative context.
The term discourse was then also used to refer to the totality of codified language used in a particular field
intellectual inquiry and of social practice (e.g. medical discourse, legal discourse, etc.)
Michael Foucault defines discourse as “systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs,
and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak.”
In linguistics, discourse is generally considered to be the use of written or spoken language in a social context.
What is the difference between Text and Discourse?
Although many linguists have given different meanings to these two terms, there is no clear cut definition between
the two. Some also use these two terms as synonyms.
For example, Widdowson (1973) describes that text is made up of sentences and have the property of cohesion
whereas discourse is made up of utterances and have the property of coherence. But, these definitions have become
ambiguous in his later works as he describes discourse as something that is made up of sentences, and omits any
mention of text.
Text refers to any object that can be read.
Discourse has different definitions depending on the context. In a broad and general sense, discourse is considered
to be the use of spoken and written language in a social context.