Textual Properties and Linguistic Elements

Posted on Feb 27, 2025 in Linguistics and Applied Languages

Consistency

Consistency refers to the unity of meaning in a text.

  • Exhibition: Used to convey ideas or data, allowing the receiver to decide freely.
  • Expository-Argumentative: Defends an idea by providing a set of reasons.

Key elements include:

  • Summary
  • Topic
  • Thesis
  • Types of Argument: Statistical, authority, dating, comparative, exemplification.
  • Types of Structure:
    • Analyzing: Thesis presented first.
    • Synthesizing: Thesis presented at the end.
    • Circular: Conclusion reaffirms the initial view.

Adequacy

Adequacy refers to the text’s appropriateness for its context.

  • Scope of Use: Private or public.
  • Genre: Scientific, legal, humanistic, journalism, advertising, literary.
  • Subgenre: (For journalism) Informative or opinion pieces (e.g., column, op-ed).
  • Communicative Function:
    • Referential (inform, explain)
    • Appellative (persuade, exhort, prescribe)
    • Poetic
    • Expressive (expressing opinion)
  • Intention of the Sender: Inform, explain, persuade, etc.
  • Purpose of the Text
  • Tone: Objective (as stated) or subjective (expressing the author’s idea).
  • Form of Utterance: Expository-argumentative, expository, descriptive, narrative, dialogic.
  • Transmitter
  • Receiver
  • Register:
    • Cultivated (formal situation, specialized theme, distant relationship, written/oral channel)
    • Standard (formal situation, general theme, general relationship, written/oral channel)
    • Colloquial (informal situation, everyday theme, family relationship, oral channel)
  • Modalization of the Statement: Objectivity or subjectivity, modalized (rhetorical figures, evaluative lexis, punctuation, modals).

Coordination and Subordination

  • Non-coordinating:
    • Copulative (y/e, ni)
    • Disjunctive (o/u, as well)
    • Adversative (but, but, however)
    • Distributive (ya…ya, bien…bien, unos…otros)
    • Explanatory (i.e., that is)
  • Subordinating:
    • Substantive (NX-conj.)
    • Adjective (NX-pron.relativo)
    • Adverbial (quantitatives, causative, and circumstantial)

Syntactic Structures

  • SN (Noun Phrase): CD, CI, CC, Cpred, Attribute, CAG, Supplement, Cadjan or CADV.
  • PADV (Adverbial Phrase): CA, Attribute.
  • Sadja (Adjectival Phrase): Adjacent, Cpred, Attribute.
  • SPREP (Prepositional Phrase): CD, CI, CC, Cpred, Attribute.

Values of “SE”

  • Reflexive variant: You live (CD) or indirect (CI).
  • Direct reciprocal (CD) or indirect (CI).
  • Ethical dative.
  • Passive reflexive verbal morpheme (will + verb in 3rd person (singular or plural) + Subj.).
  • Impersonal (will + verb in 3rd person singular).

Values of “QUE”

  • Without Graphic Accent: Relative pronoun (who, where, who, whom) and conjunction (function: NX).
  • With Graphic Accent: Exclamatory or interrogative pronoun (antecedent is not present) and interrogative adjective (takes precedent).

Periphrasis

  • Modal Periphrasis: Indicates obligation or possibility.
  • Aspectual Periphrasis: Perfective or imperfective aspect.

Cohesion

Semantic Cohesion

  • Lexical Repetitions: The most repeated words in the text.
  • Lexical Family.
  • Keyword.
  • Semantic Relations:
    • Semantic Field (e.g., vehicles: car, motorcycle, bicycle).
    • Conceptual Fields (words related to the keyword).
    • Synonyms.
    • Antonymy.
    • Hyperonymy (e.g., Profession: medical, educational).
    • Rhetorical Figures: Metaphor and metonymy.
    • Lexical Peculiarities.

Grammatical Cohesion

  • Grammatical Repetitions:
    • Pronouns (Myself, you, this, another).
    • Distributive Conjunctions (ya…ya, bien…bien).
    • Adverbs (here, there, the other, sometimes).
    • Noun Phrases with Nuclei (day, youth, in war).
  • Substitutions:
    • Proforms:
      • Endophoric: Anaphora (refers to a previous mention), Cataphora (refers to a later term).
      • Exophoric: Deixis (personal, social, spatial, and temporal).
  • Ellipsis: Deletion to prevent text oversaturation.