Genre and Discourse Structure

Mar 28, 2018

Genre/discourse structure

Text structure

·         Distinguishing general claims from data to support them

·         Distinguishing deduction from induction

·         Recognizing rhetorical patterns:

o   Comparison and contrast

o   Cause and effect

o   Chronological order

o   Classification

o   Process

o   Definition

·         Recognizing genre conventions

o   Introduction

o   Materials and method

o   Results

o   Discussion

Genre

· Situational characteristics (discourse participants, medium (oral/written),    temporary/permanent, etc.).

·        Genre markers (linguistic features that typify the genre, e.g. once upon a time).

·        Cohesive devices

  •           Reference words and substitutes (personal pronouns, demonstratives, so, one(s), the same, etc.
  •             Ellipsis
  •            Comparison (similar, same, identical, equal, different, other, additional, else, likewise, so, more, fewer, less, etc.)
  •             Lexical cohesion (repetition, synonyms, near synonyms, superordinate and general  words)

·   Lexical signalling: transitions adverbials, transition sentences and lexical words (and,  namely, but, in spite of this, as a result, because, since, for the purpose of, thus, in  order to, if/then, so, therefore, the reason, led to, provide, required, etc.)

·       Patterns of co-occurring linguistic features.

·   Information structuring: signs in text that signal the flow of information, differentiate   from more important, signal given (typically at the beginning) and new info (toward the   end).

·  Topic continuity systems: ways of tracking topical information: topic continuity, topic persistence and referent competition.

·   Plausibility