Understanding Text Structures: Narrative, Description & More
Narrative
1. Statement of fact, real or fictitious, that happen to characters in a certain time and space.
2. The presence of a narrator who selects and organizes information.
3. The existence of characters that establish relations between them that determine the development of history.
4. The use of time both in relation to the characters and in relation to the order of the narrative. Using temporal adverbs and connectors.
5. The importance of space both in the organization of history and the character development.
6. Prevalence of action verbs and past tenses (although you can use the historical present).
7. Distinction between the voice of the narrator and by personages called “modes of discourse” style direct, indirect or free indirect.
8. Tendency to the structure “knot-outcome-approach”.
9. Interface with other modes (especially the descriptive and dialogue).
Description
1. Exhibition of space, beings or objects, not facts. Can be static or dynamic.
2. Prevalence of space as a structuring element. Abundant space adverbs and connectors, especially deictic and anaphoric.
3. It usually resolves temporal development of the alerts, though some may also be an important element.
4. Dominance of state verbs and copulative verbs, with a predominance of the present and imperfect tenses.
5. Plenty of adjectives and, generally, all kinds of noun complements.
6. Enumerations, comparisons, metaphors and personifications.
7. The description may be more or less objective (of that depends predominantly referential or emotional function).
8. The physical description of people is called Prosopography; psychological description is called Etopeya; the combination is a portrait.
Argumentative
1. Defend an idea or point of view, often trying to change the behavior or opinion of the receiver.
2. The use of 1st or 3rd person depending on the degree of involvement of the issuer in its argument (referential or emotional functions; it can also be the conative).
3. Prevalence of declarative sentences, but can also appear interrogative, exclamatory and even hesitant if the issuer is involved too much in his argument.
4. Complex syntax with long sentences with a predominance of subordination.
5. Emergence of paragraphs to clarify some aspects of the theme.
6. Use of verbs of thought (say, believe, infer, etc.), in most of this.
7. Using abstract nouns and technical terms (depending on type of argument).
8. Using evaluative adjectives, except in scientific arguments.
9. Logical structures: an introduction-body-conclusion / analysand, synthesizing, and so on.
Dialogued
1. Reproduction of the interventions of several partners in conversation.
2. The use of elements of spoken language:
- Liberal use of deictic and anaphoric elements:
- Pronouns, especially first and second person (trade partners).
- Adverbs of time, place and manner.
- Determinants.
- Punctuation marks.
- Trend towards simple or coordinated sentences.
- Fillers (e.g., “uhm”, “well”, “like”).
- Use of proverbs and idioms.
3. The independence between the various parliaments of the characters to create a unitary text, which favors the appearance of:
- Syntactic inaccuracies or anacolutha.
- Unfinished sentences.
- Ellipsis elements common understandings.
4. Variety of registers according to the speaker.
5. We must always differentiate between formal dialogues and non-formal dialogues.
6. The dialogue within the story follows the guidelines mentioned above as modes of discourse (direct, indirect, free indirect, monologue).
7. The theatrical dialogue also follows the guidelines of its own superstructure (stage directions, asides, etc.).
Expository
1. To play, submit or list facts, processes or ideas.
2. Declarative sentence mode. Linguistic function: the benchmark.
3. Denotative lexicon and often abstract or specialized.
4. Dominance of 3rd person (sometimes to the 1st person plural).
5. Predominance of present tense, mixed with the imperfect.
6. Abundance of impersonal and passive structures.
7. Tendency to compound sentences, especially subordinates.
8. A tendency towards nominalization of processes.
9. Tendency to the enumeration and classification.
10. Logical Structures: analysand, synthesizing, and so on.
11. The exposure usually appear linked to the argument.