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VII

 1. TEXT TYPES

 1.1 To progress from a study of abstract structures in possible sentences to the study of texts as communicative occurrences, we must confront a new challenge in the domain of linguistic TYPOLOGY. In descriptive linguistics, typology centered on minimal units, i.e., on repertories for distinctive features, phonemes, morphemes, etc. In transformational grammar, typology centered on a set of basic sentence patterns and classes of rules for building other patterns. Alternative typologies for sentences used categories like “declarative – interrogative – imperative – exclamatory” (traditional grammar); or “process – action – judgment – identification” (Brinkman); or “process – action – feature – classification’ (“functional” grammar) (see Helbig 1974: 159, 186). These latter typologies suggest a fundamental confusion about the nature of the sentence. It is people, not sentences, who “declare,” “interrogate,” and “exclaim.” It is concepts and relations that are the basis of “processes,” “classifications,” and the like, not grammatical formats. Hence, the usual typologies of sentences cannot offer a means of classifying texts as occurrences in communicative interaction (cf. Morgan 1975).

1.2 If sentence typologies are simple but sterile, text typologies are dauntingly vast and subjective. Early attempts to press conventional linguistic methods into service for text typologies were discouraging. We may count up word classes or measure sentence length and complexity (Mistrík 1973) with no certainty of distilling out crucial distinctions. Being told that advertising texts have an abundance of adjectives, and news reports have lots of verbs (Grosse 1976a) may provide a statement of symptoms for deeper-lying tendencies, but certainly doesn’t explain the types themselves.

1.3 The landmark colloquium at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld in January 1972 (proceedings in Gülich & Raible [eds.] 1972) brought new issues to light. The proliferation of binary oppositions so well known in phonology was proposed, yielding such questionable and diverse constructions as “± spontaneous” (Sandig) or “± figurative’ (Stempel). The plus-or-minus sign, placed in front of any convenient expression as if it could transform an intuitive notion into a scientific one, was denounced as indicating the absence of all formalisms (Kummer) and hindering the development of theory altogether (van Dijk) (Gülich & Raible [eds.] 1972: 136, 181). In effect, such features don’t account for a phenomenon, but simply mark it with one of a large, totally unsystematic set of arbitrary labels.

1.4 It might be more productive to study text types from the standpoint of evolution and usage. The INTERTEXTUALITY I suggested as indispensable for utilizing texts (I.4.11.6) evolves from social as well as linguistic factors:

1.4.1 A differentiation of social settings and participant roles leads to a differentiation of situation types.

1.4.2 The differentiation of situation types engenders reliance upon those text types held to have greater appropriateness (cf. I.4.14).

1.4.3 The accrual of episodic knowledge about situations and texts fosters expectations about what is acceptable and effective in a given context.

1.4.4 People build strategies to fit those expectations and to control textual occurrences accordingly.

1.4.5 The priorities of control result in the relative dominances of surface features, e.g. word class proportions and syntactic complexity.

1.4.6 These surface dominances gain the status of heuristic patterns against which new texts can be matched.

1.4.7 The patterns may exert influence back on the control strategies applied to situation management (I.3.4.6).

1.5 In this view, text types cannot be defined independently of pragmatics (Dressler 1972: 95; Kummer 1972a; Schmidt 1972; notwithstanding Grosse 1976b: 119). People use text types as fuzzy classifications to decide what sorts of occurrences are probable among the totality of the possible (cf. IV.1.23.3). As such, the text type can be defined only as strictly as considerations of efficient applicability allow. Unduly stringent criteria, like the rigorous borderline between sentences and non-sentences, can either (1) open up endless disputes over the admissibility of unusual or creative texts to a type, or (2) lead to so many detailed types that any gains in heuristic usefulness are lost. It has often happened that preconceived notions about a text type have led people to reject a particular text which later became an acclaimed and classic representative. The history of literature is filled with examples.

1.6 Two approaches to the TYPOLOGY of texts are readily evident (Schmidt 1978:55). First, one could begin with the traditionally accepted text types, e.g. narrative, descriptive, literary, etc., and seek to define distinctive traits of each one; second, one could undertake to define a theory of texts independently, and then observe whether one obtains a workable typology. The issue may have to be resolved by a compromise: in the development of a text theory, the applicability to text typology should be envisioned such that traditional types become definable. I shall adopt this approach here.

1.7 Perhaps the following definition of the notion might prove useful for further research.

A text type is a distinctive configuration of relational dominances obtaining between or among elements of: (1) the surface text; (2) the textual world; (3) stored knowledge patterns; and (4) a situation of occurrence.

The relevant dominances can apply to elements of any size, according to the circumstances. Without stipulating exactly what a text must look like for a given type, these dominances powerfully influence the preferences for selecting, arranging, and mapping options during the production and processing of the text. We can at most obtain FUZZY sets of texts among which there will be mutual overlap. Some textual traits will be DOMAIN-SPECIFIC, i.e., peculiar to the situation, topic, and knowledge being addressed.

       1.8 Some conventional categories of texts in our own culture (on some very different cultures, cf. Grimes 1975) could be explicated along these lines:

1.8.1 In DESCRIPTIVE texts, the CONTROL CENTERS in the textual world are in the main object and situation concepts whose environments are to be enriched with a multiple directionality of linkage. All link types of state, attribute, instance, and specification will be frequent. The surface text will reflect a corresponding density of modifier dependencies. The most commonly applied global knowledge pattern will be the frame.

1.8.2 In NARRATIVE texts, the control centers in the textual world are in the main event and action concepts which will be arranged in an ordered directionality of linkage. The link types of cause, reason, enablement, purpose, and time proximity will be frequent (cf. VIII.2.13). The surface text will reflect a corresponding density of subordinating dependencies.¹ [Accordingly, the version (164b) of the Hawkins protocols seems to be a more fitting narrative than version (163) with ‘and’ used throughout (cf V.7.3).] The most commonly applied global knowledge pattern will be the schema.^la [1a. Freedle and Hale (1979) show that a narrative schema, once learned, can easily be transferred to the processing of a descriptive text on the same topic. ]

1.8.3 In ARGUMENTATIVE texts, the control centers in the textual world will be entire propositions which will be assigned values of truthfulness and reasons for belief as facts (cf. IV.1.23.1); often there will be an opposition between propositions with conflicting value and truth assignment. The link between types of value, significance, cognition, volition, and reason will be frequent. The surface text will contain a density of evaluative expressions. The most commonly applied global knowledge pattern will be the plan whose goal state is the inducement of shared beliefs.

1.8.4 In LITERARY texts, the textual world stands in a principled alternativity relationship to matchable patterns of knowledge about the accepted real world. The intention is to motivate, via contrasts and rearrangements, some new insights into the organization of the real world. From the standpoint of processing, the linkages within real-world events and situations is PROBLEMATIZED, that is, made subject to potential failure (cf. I.6.7), because the text-world events and situations may (though they need not) be organized with different linkages. The effects would be an increased motivation for linkage on the side of the text producer, and increased focus for linkage on the side of the receiver. This problematized focus sets even “realistic” literature (reaching extremes in “documentary” art) apart from a simple report of the situations or events involved: the producer intends to portray events and situations as exemplary elements in a framework of possible alternatives.

1.8.5 In POETIC texts, the alternativity principle of literary texts is extended to the inter-level mapping of options, e.g. sounds, syntax, concepts, relations, plans, and so on. In this fashion, both the organization of the real world and the organization of discourse about that world are problematized in the sense of VII. 1.8.4, and the resulting insights can be correspondingly richer. The increase of producer motivation and receiver focus will also be more intense, so that text elements will be assignable multiple functions (cf. Schmidt 1971a).

1.8.6 In SCIENTIFIC texts, the textual world is expected to provide an optimal match with the accepted real world unless there are explicit signals to the contrary (e.g., a disproven theory). Rather than alternative organization of the world, a more exact and detailed insight into the established organization of the real world is intended. In effect, the linkages of events and situations are eventually de-problematized via statements of causal necessity and order.

1.8.7 In DIDACTIC texts, the textual world must be presented via a process of gradual integration, because the text receiver is not assumed to already have the matchable knowledge spaces that a scientific text would require. Therefore, the linkages of established facts are problematized and eventually de-problematized.

1.8.8 In CONVERSATIONAL texts, there is an especially episodic and diverse range of sources for admissible knowledge (cf. VIII.1.4ff.). The priorities for expanding current knowledge of the participants are less pronounced than for the text types depicted in VII.I.8.4-7. The surface organization assumes a characteristic mode to reflect changes of speaking turn (cf. VIII.1.2ff.; VIII.1.18).

1.9 Even within this modest typology, we can see that types cannot all be explicated along the same dimensions. Whereas there may well be dominances of concept and relation types for descriptive, narrative, and argumentative texts, the concept and relation types in the other text types are probably domain-specific in the sense of VII.1.7. Moreover, description, narration, and argumentation will be found in various combinations in the other text types. And finally, if text types are dependent upon situational settings (cf. VII.1.4ff.), the basic question is how people use CUES to assign texts of various formats to a given type.

1.10 People can seek cues outside the text itself. Some situation types are institutionally defined regarding the text types to be used, e.g. a church service (in Pike 1967). Explicit announcements may establish the situation type, e.g. a political gathering. Appearances of particular speakers or of a writer’s name in print can activate expectations about the forthcoming text type. A printed format, as in poems or newspapers, or a characteristic title, such as for drugstore novels, may be influential. Even a specific topic, such as those in many technical reports, can act as a cue. In accordance with what I hold to be a general principle of human processing (cf. III.4.15; IV.1.10; IV.2.9), the less evidence there is in the immediately apperceived text, the more the text receivers will gather and utilize all kinds of cues.

1.11 A single text can indeed be shifted from type to type by altering its situation of presentation. For example, it has become fashionable to “find” poems by removing texts from their original environments (Porter 1972), such as cooking recipes (Nöth 1978: 29f.) or classified advertisements (Kloepfer 1975: 88). Conversely, poems are converted into advertisements (Reiss 1976: 70). Although the text remains stable, the audience’s processing procedures are placed under different controls and priorities. A non-poem presented as a poem is subjected to the intensified assignment of multiple communicative functions to language options (Schmidt 1971a, 1971b; Beaugrande 1978b). Presented as an advertisement, a poem undergoes an impoverishment of the functions of its elements.

1.12 For a linguistics of texts as communicative occurrences, the issue of text types is one of global processing controls. People are probably able to utilize texts without identifying the type, but efficiency suffers, and the mode of interaction of speaker/writer and hearer/reader remains vague. It seems unlikely that we can throw away the traditional text types; after all, they have functions in language users’ heuristics. Here as in many other areas, we may instead have to throw away the hopes for air-tight, exhaustive, and mechanical sorting techniques that consult only formal features without regard for human activities.

2. THE PRODUCTION OF TEXTS

2.1 In comparison to comprehension, the production of texts has been left unexplored (Fodor, Bever, & Garrett 1974: 434; Goldman 1975: 289; Osgood & Bock 1977: 89; Rosenberg 1977: xi; Levin & Goldman 1978: 14; Simmons 1978: 26). The plausible reason is that linguists’ analysis can be taken as a model for language understanding much more readily than for language production (II.2.4). If we take linguistics too literally, the production of utterances seems like a miracle of computation (cf. II.1.2f.). R. Jacobs and Rosenbaum (1968: 286) criticize traditional grammar for conveying the impression that “human language is a fragile cultural invention, only with difficulty maintained in good working order.” But the transformational grammar advocated by Jacobs and Rosenbaum is infinitely more fragile with its endless lists of rules that can barely be kept under control and, to this day, have never been assembled into a complete grammar for any language (cf. Achtenhagen & Wienold 1975: 9f.).

2.2 It might seem desirable to have a language model that uses the same procedures for both the reception and the production of texts (cf. Klein 1965; Harris 1972; Simmons 1973; Simmons & Chester 1979). The mapping between the surface text and the underlying text-world would then be SYMMETRICAL in either direction (Simmons & Chester 1979). However, this procedurally advantageous approach would not be plausible for humans. Mapping is, in some ways at least, clearly asymmetrical in textual communication (cf. I.6.12; III.3.5)—even people with good memories will report what they have heard and understood in words differing slightly from the original presentation. However, there is probably considerable symmetry among the operations of mapping from one level to another and back again (cf. VII.2.11). In practice, pilot programs for generating have usually been performed with what Goldman (1975: 290) calls “canned output”: a small repertory of expressions that forces everything into the same format. An alternative with more varied options selected by weighting probabilities has been developed by Sheldon Klein and co-workers (1973) (cf. the “weighted filters’ for paraphrasing advocated by Mel’čuk & Žolkovskij 1970). But a more detailed, circumspect model of the motivations for selecting a particular option (some of these will be outlined below) is still needed.

2.3 Procedurally, reversals of operations would cover some differences between production and reception of texts, but by no means all.² [2. The processing via a transition network would foresee parallel control in prediction of occurrences, but reversed control in stacking and building the network (cf. 11.2.7ff.).] A text producer has to map a plan onto conceptually relational content, and the content onto a surface format; the receiver maps the surface back to the content, and the content back to the plan. But it is surely an idealization to suggest that the receiver arrives at the same material which the producer started out with. In some cases, the producer would prefer keeping the plan secret or creating the impression of a quite different plan. The receiver may also adopt an unexpected personal outlook on the presentation. Reversability is furthermore not applicable to the textual operations in which production and reception are running in parallel: the producer monitoring the reception, and the receiver predicting the production. And the production involves much more active selection and decision processes which consume more resources and attention than does reception.

2.4. These considerations suggest that text production can only be treated by a linguistics of actualization. The older linguistic methods oriented toward identification, generalization, and description (cf. I.1.10f.) were purely analytic, whereas a linguistics for explanation, reconstruction, and management, such as is needed to study text production, must also have a synthetic outlook.

2.5 Consider the issue of misfunctions. We can recognize fairly clearly cases where our own texts have been misunderstood, and we can discover the causes in factors like surface ambiguities or misleading expectations. But it is vastly more difficult to recognize when a text has been misproduced, i.e., when operations have been wrong rather than merely inefficient, ineffective, or inappropriate (I.4.14). If we count ambiguities as mistakes, we end up with vastly fuzzy borderlines, because language options are systematically ambiguous in their potential, and their usages possess variable degrees of determinacy. If we count ungrammatical surface formats, we include occurrences such as Milton’s famous warning to follow Christ, or else:

(189) Him who disobeys, me disobeys. (Paradise Lost, V, 611-12)

To deal with misfunctions, we evidently need a language model which does not simply discover and analyze structures, but also relates structures to processes operating with greater or lesser satisfactoriness.

2.6 In face-to-face communication, decisions and selections often have a provisional character. The speaker may reconsider and introduce revisions when difficulties ensue—”self-initiated repair,” according to Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks (1977). Due to numerous factors competing for limited time and processing resources, the operational load for spontaneous speaking may become unduly heavy. People expect, on the other hand, much more controlled organization in written texts, where the producer has time to discover and develop an efficient and effective arrangement. If processing is overloaded during the initial phase of expression, the producer has opportunity of going back and reviewing results with a specially distributed focus. Hence, merely writing down the same utterances one might produce in conversation—a frequent practice of untrained writers—should not be expected to result in satisfactory texts. Writing demands that situational factors, such as intonation, gestures, facial expression, and immediately available feedback, be given compensation by factors specific to written organization. The aspects of participant roles, time, and location seem unproblematic in face-to-face communication, where people are immediately present. In writing, they too must be accounted for by the organization of the text world and its expression.

2.7 Like reception, production must involve a satisfaction THRESHOLD where operations are TERMINATED (cf. I.6.4). Just as a receiver might go on and on with inferences and spreading activation, a producer might keep revising a text over and over. At some point, a decision to cease must be made, based on the intended effects of the text on its audience; taken by itself, production appears to be an open-ended operation. I shall attempt to sketch out the various phases of this operation before going on to actual samples. I shall be concerned in particular with the production of written texts (for a more thorough treatment, see Beaugrande, in preparation).

2.8 The production process can be seen to consist of PHASES.³ [3. I note a different, simpler phase model proposed by Milic (1971) in VII.2.38. For a full elaboration of my own model, see Beaugrande 1984] The phases are presumably not separate operations in a time sequence, but rather stages of PROCESSING DOMINANCE during which some operations are accorded more resources and attention than others. I would distinguish at least four phases: PLANNING, IDEATION, DEVELOPMENT, and EXPRESSION. During the PLANNING phase, a text producer focuses on the PURPOSE of the text as a step toward a personal, social, or cognitive GOAL, and on the intended AUDIENCE of text receivers. A TEXT TYPE is selected, and correlations set up between the various component steps of the plan and the general criteria of the production process. I use the term RELEVANCE to designate these correlations: knowledge or discourse is thus not inherently relevant, but relevant only with respect to a task at hand (cf. I.4.14).

2.9 The IDEATION phase places processing dominance upon the discovery of CONTROL CENTERS for cognitive content. An IDEA is the internally activated configuration of concepts and relations, which lies at the foundation of meaning-creating behavior, including text production. It is extremely difficult to judge how ideas originate, because the operations involved are in part at least beyond the reach of conscious control. As a comparison, we could envision the focus of attention as a beam of light sweeping across an enormously elaborate network of knowledge; whatever the beam hits becomes active and can be inspected with regard to its RELEVANCE. To write a friendly letter, the ideation phase could cast about for material bearing the traits of INTERESTING (i.e., not obvious as a matter of course) and EPISODICALLY RECENT (i.e., experiences in one’s personal environment that the text receiver would not already know). To write a scientific text, ideation could focus on a pre-decided knowledge space with its own dense internal connectivity. To write a news report, ideation would be directed toward the episodic storage of a situation or event sequence. To write a novel, the ideation of situations and events would be substantially less controlled by episodic storage of the producer.

2.10 These early production phases of planning and ideation need not be dependent upon language. The raw materials feeding into production are essentially points and pathways of knowledge: concepts, relations, mental images, states of the world (past, present, projected), emotions, desires, and so on. The correlation of all of these entities among themselves and with natural language expressions is, I suspect, accomplished via respective modes of PROBLEM- SOLVING: search, testing, and traversing of access routes. To attain COHERENCE, the access routes are established among knowledge points; to attain EXPRESSION, access routes are established between knowledge points and language expressions; to attain COHESION, access routes are established among expressions within a surface format (cf. I.4.4); and to attain RELEVANCE, access routes must be established between knowledge points or expressions (or whole configurations of these) and the steps and conditions of the producer’s plan in the current setting.

2.11 Although there is surely considerable ASYMMETRY among these various accessing operations (cf. I.6.12), I would view the operations themselves as comparable; while the materials to be managed differ, the SYSTEMATICITY of their management is unified by a common commitment to search, access, and connectivity. The operations all require CONTROL CENTERS that determine the DIRECTIONALITY of search and access (cf. II.2.9; III.3.6; VI.3.5; VII.1.8.1ff.; etc.). They all vary according to degree of detail from LOCAL to GLOBAL (cf. VI.1.1, etc.) and from MICRO-elements to MACRO-elements (cf. II.2.9; III.4.27;. VI.4.7; etc.). They all work toward a THRESHOLD OF TERMINATION where processing is deemed satisfactory for the task at hand (cf. I.6.4; III.3.3; III.3.23f.; IV.1.6; VII.2.7; etc.) These common factors only emerge in the synthetic outlook I advocated for a linguistics of textual communication in VII.2.4, where structures and rules are interpreted as processes and procedures (cf. I.3.5.8).

2.12 The DEVELOPMENT phase receives the results of planning and ideation, whether or not language expressions are already in sight at this moment. This phase is responsible for the detailed internal organization of concepts and relations. To the extent that this organization is not stored as determinate or typical linkage, ORIGINALITY results. Originality may even lead to the creation of totally new concepts like “chaos theory”. However, I suspect that if we go into sufficient detail, we may find even new concepts to be composed mainly of established materials put together in new ways (cf. IV.3.14). As the development phase goes forward, the control centers passed on from ideation continue to spread and intersect. If the conceptual-relational configuration were mapped into expression at an early stage, we would have a terse text that would appear as an OUTLINE (not fully cohesive) or a SUMMARY (fully cohesive) of the text that would be mapped out at a later stage;