Dialogue and Expository Texts: Characteristics and Structures
Features of Dialogue
- Path of Return: Dialogue requires a sender and a receiver, with the possibility of exchanging roles.
- Dialogic Voltage: The motivation that moves two or more participants to establish a communicative exchange.
- Connection Tension: A starting point that allows for contact.
- Conformity Voltage: Maintaining a stable conversation without significant advancement.
- Silence: This is involved in the dialogue.
- Consistency: Every piece of information is connected to the previous statement.
Dialogue Styles
- Direct Style: The words of each participant are transcribed verbatim. Within narrative, direct style may be represented in several ways, most often replicating interventions using dashes, similar to dramatic text. Each intervention is prefaced by the character’s name in all caps or small caps.
- Indirect Style: A narrator transcribes the interventions of the characters through subordinate clauses introduced by the conjunction “that”.
Language in Dialogue
- Lexical Features: Use of verbs related to language and thought.
- Morphological Traits: Specific employment of language.
- Syntactic Features: Prevalence of interrogative and exclamatory sentences, interjections, and vocatives. Spontaneous language often leaves sentences unfinished or alters the logical order of elements.
- Textual Features: Lexical repetitions, use of pronouns and other deictics, anaphoric and cataphoric processes, and discursive use of connectors.
Fields of Exposure
- Academic: In manuals, textbooks, class notes, applications, or claims, specific data is presented.
- Social: In texts such as medicine leaflets, notices, letters, reports, forums, and curricula.
- Media Communication: In news, reports, or journalistic features.
Expository Text
Expository text consists of objectively explaining a topic so that the receiver acquires new knowledge (predominantly a referential function). To demonstrate the speed of information, the issuer may use verifiable data such as appointments, data, or percentages.
Classification According to the Recipient
- Informative Expository Texts: Intended to inform in a clear and simple way about a general interest theme aimed at a broad audience.
- Specialized Expository Texts: These address topics requiring further research. They are written by experts who employ more complex language, characterized by the use of jargon, and are aimed at a specialized receiver.
Classification According to Structure
It should be orderly, consistent, and follow a clear structure:
- Deductive: Starts with a general idea and then provides specifics, often used for exemplification.
- Inductive: The sender starts with specific data to draw a conclusion.
- Cause-Effect: A fact is described, followed by its effects.
- Chronological: Events follow a temporal order.
- Exemplification: Examples are used to facilitate text comprehension.
Lexical Features of Expository Texts
- Monosemic and denotative use of words.
- Employment of technical terms.
- Formation of new words. Frequently used acronyms. It also refers to loans taken from neologisms and foreign languages.
- Cultisms and Latin expressions often appear.
Syntactic Features of Expository Texts
- Prevalence of external sentence structures.
- Concrete syntax structures are used, such as coordinates and subordinate adverbial clauses.
- Preference for a single verb tense.
- Domination of indicative and impersonal formulas. The most common is to use the third person or the first person plural.
Textual Features of Expository Texts
- Discourse Markers: To mark the parts of the text and organize logical reasoning.
- Objective Description
- Exemplification