Understanding Text Properties and Types
Text Properties: Adequacy, Coherence, and Cohesion
Sentences are connected in ordained sequences, paragraphs, making up a text or speech. This is language, the maximum unit of communication. Texts have three main properties: adequacy, coherence, and cohesion.
Adequacy
A text is an act of communication; its form and content should be adapted to the characteristics of the elements of the situation: who the sender and receiver are, the purpose, and the subject matter.
Coherence
The content of a text must be structured around a core of information, linked to the speaker’s communicative intent.
Cohesion
The parts that make up a text must be formally connected through linguistic means. One of the bonding methods is the use of markers, also called connectors or suprasentential/extra-sentential links.
Text Markers
Successive paragraphs of a text relate to each other by means of extra-sentential markers or connectors. These belong to the class of adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, or expressions. The most common are:
- Additive Markers: Indicate addition or additions (and, also, on the other hand, similarly, also, even more, even, indeed, moreover…).
- Opposition Markers: Show contrast between two ideas (however, in contrast, now, nevertheless, in any case, on the contrary, in any form, while, yet…).
- Causality Markers: Indicate cause and consequence (so, therefore, thus, well, if so, then…).
- Temporal Markers: Show the chronological order of events and actions (later, on another occasion, meanwhile, immediately, instantly, while, at the same time…).
- Spatial Markers: Organize objects and their parts in space (right, left, side, front, below, above…).
- Discourse Organizers: Identify the different parts of a text.
- Reformulative Markers: Perform three functions: explanation, conclusion, or exemplification.
Text Types
A text is a communicative act that involves a transmitter, receiver, channel, code, message, and position. Text types can be classified as follows:
- According to the issuer’s intent: Informational, expository, persuasive, prescriptive, expressive, educational, propaganda, playful, aesthetic, and didactic.
- According to the level of language used: Cultivated, popular, and vulgar.
- According to the communicative atmosphere or tension (proximity or distance): Formal and informal.
- According to the channel: Oral and written.
- According to the nature of the linguistic code: Verbal, nonverbal (mimetic-gestural, iconic, and auditory), and mixed.
- According to the linguistic code structure: Descriptive, narrative, conversational, expository, and argumentative.
- According to the level of social interaction: Academic, professional, labor, judicial, parliamentary, family, etc.
Oral and Written Texts
In oral texts, the language can be more expressive, spontaneous, and improvised, therefore, less precise. In written texts, language is more refined, precise, and explicit. Oral texts include:
- The Conference: A prepared speech that addresses a topic in depth with the intention to inform and persuade.
- The Colloquium: A communicative exchange following the exposure of a subject by an expert, establishing a dialogue to clarify doubts.
- The Debate: An organized dialogue in which two or more people defend points of view on a controversial topic.