Grammatical realizations of rhetorical relations in different registers

Abstract

In this paper, we will report on our ongoing investigation of the realizations in the lexicogrammar of English of rhetorical relations in the semantic organization of texts belonging to a range of different registers. More specifically, we are concerned with different kinds of lexicogrammatical realizations of the rhetorical relations of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). In Section 1, we specify our research questions, relating them to complementary research activities. In Section 2, we introduce the theoretical and descriptive accounts that we need as background for the main account in our paper – RST, lexicogrammatical forms of realization, and a contextual classification of registers that we have used in sampling texts from different registers. In Section 3, we will analyze a few text exemplars of different registers, comparing them in terms of their RST structures – and also in terms of the patterns of lexicogrammatical realizations. In Section 4, we will then explore a sample of texts from a larger range of registers – all operating in written and monologic contexts but drawn from a number of fields of activity. In Section 5, we will discuss the results of our very exploratory investigation, and suggest how these results can inform future, larger-scale studies.

Keywords:

• rhetorical structure theory
• lexicogrammatical realizations
• classification of registers
• logical organization of text

Notes

1. This is not a criticism: we are always faced with trade-offs in text-based research, and one trade-off central to our concern is that between the range of registers and the size of the sample of texts representing each register.

2. Here it is important to note that the relations link the semantic units realized by ranking clauses rather than the clauses themselves: the rhetorical-relational organization of text is semantic, not lexicogrammatical; and it is thus possible to such semantic units to be realized incongruently, e.g. by nominal groups (see Section 2.2.1 below).

3. The terms are taken from Halliday and Hasan (1976), and the contrast has also been elaborated by Martin (1992) in his description of conjunctive relations. Halliday (1990: 65) contrasts external and internal as in rebus and in verbis. For the significance of the distinction, see also Halliday (2001). External and internal relations have different ‘intended effects’ in the sense of RST: see Mann and Matthiessen (1991).

4. This kind of recursive system is really a kind of shorthand for the ‘mechanism' for introducing both linear development and internal nesting (cf. Matthiessen 1988; Bateman 1989).

5. In their RST coding manual, Carlson and Marcu (2001) list many more rhetorical relations; and it is of course clear that both congruent and incongruent realizations suggest an inventory of rhetorical relations that is much larger than the set of ‘classical' rhetorical relations. A related issue is the delicacy of the differentiation of rhetorical relations. For discussion of the general issue of what relations to posit in the description of different languages, see Matthiessen (in prep.).

6. From Barcan, Alan, Tom Blunden, Alan Dwight & Stephen Shortus (1972), Before yesterday: aspects of European history to 1789. Melbourne: Macmillan. For further analysis of this text, see Eggins, Wignell & Martin (1993). The RST analysis presented here may be compared with their “conjunctive relations” analysis (p. 106).

7. Winter (1982: 1) characterizes “vocabulary-3 words” as follows: “these patterns like open-class lexical items but relate parts of the text in the same way as closed-system items such as subordinators. An example would be the word reason, which paraphrases and signals the same semantic relation as the subordinator because.”

8. We can of course also consider interpersonal and experiential contributions that help listeners and readers infer relations. For example, a switch in the selection within the interpersonal system of polarity may point to a ‘replacive’ relation (see Halliday & Matthiessen 2013: 473). Compare also Zhang's (2013) corpus-based study of the lexicogrammatical features that are associated with the contrast between ‘adversative' and ‘concessive' conjunctions.

9. From Kaufman, Joe. 1975. How we are born, how we grow, how our bodies work and how we learn. New York: A Golden Book. p. 21.

10. This is one way in which such texts resemble factorial explanations, but factorial explanations are dominated by ‘external’ relations, not by ‘internal’ ones; and they are less likely to end with a macro-New — the textually prominent interpersonal finale in our historical exposition.

11. We have represented the motifs simply as classes in a taxonomy, not as options in a system since (as noted by Halliday, 1993/2003: 214) there are other motifs alongside the 3 Ds.

12. As Figure 2 shows, all except one of the ‘enhancing’ clauses nexuses in the Thai ferry news report are temporal, relating events in the sinking of the ferry temporally.

13. Or to be cautious, we should say ‘potential registerial differences’ since our sample is really too small to make it possible to differentiate between purely instantial differences among particular texts and more general registerial differences.

14. Other conjunctions may also be internal; but the internal temporal conjunctions are easy to identify as a distinct set.

15. From Andrew Hepburn (1968), Rand McNally Guide to Southern California. Chicago, New York & San Francisco: Rand McNally & Company. pp. 12–13.

16. To map these registers into our field-based typology in Figure 11 with a reasonable degree of certainty, we would need to examine the texts in Biber et al.'s (1999) corpus; but we can tentatively assign their four different categories the following locations: ‘academic prose' is likely to operate predominantly in the ‘expounding’ and ‘elaborating’ sectors, the balance between the two depending on the nature of the academic discipline (cf. Parodi 2010); ‘news’ is likely to be located mainly within the ‘reporting’ sector, ‘fiction' within the ‘recreating’ sector and ‘conversation' within the ‘sharing’ sector.

17. Since sequential explanations are in a sense atypical and in certain respects on the borderline between ‘expounding’ and ‘reporting’, we didn't include them in our earlier overview. We turn to them here precisely to bring out their special character.