Les structures informationnelles globales du discours
Global discourse information structure

Author(s): Ewa Miczka
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Applied Linguistics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: information structure
Summary/Abstract: The main aim of this book is to describe the way in which information is organizedabove the sentence structure level in discourse. The in-depth analysis focuseson two parts: thematic and rhematic structures of discourse as well as relationsbetween global units of information structures described as thematic segments.The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter One aims to examine threebasic items in the field of research i.e. text, discourse and discourse representation.In this chapter, an account of the evolution of the concept of text is provided; fromfirst attempts of distributional analysis of syntactic sequences by Zellig S. Harris,via the models within the framework of textual grammars, the concepts framed byresearchers of functional linguistics as well as systemic linguistics, with referenceto the ideas proposed by cognitive linguistics. Furthermore, the chapter discussesthe coherence of text, polysemy of the term discourse and the remainder of thechapter presents the meaning of discourse representation. In terms of discourserepresentation, it should be noted that it is defined as a kind of cognitive representationconsisting of six domains, such as information, functional, ontological,expressive, axiological domains and a domain of genre conventions.As the main aim of this book is to describe global discourse informationstructure. Chapter Two focuses on information domain which is the first distinctivepart of discourse representation. After discussing the evolution of Theme inmodern linguistics, a model of the hierarchical thematic-rhematic structure isconstructed. In the thematic part of discourse information structure, three levelsare distinguished: a global level depicted by hypertheme, an indirect level on whichthere are partial themes and generalizing themes, and a basic level perceived asthemes of sentences. The rhematic part consists of two levels; there is an indirectlevel on which there are rhematic sets and a basic level comprising rhemes of sentences.This chapter looks at three basic models of information structures whichare not delimited to the sentence framework: a model with one partial theme, alinear model and a model based on two alternating partial themes in discourse. Itis worth noting that a discussion on a relation between these basic models and anotion of prototypes is conducted.The subsequent three chapters provide a thorough analysis of various aspectsof global discourse information structure. Chapter Three gives a full description ofthematic units configurations above the sentence structure, such as hypertheme, partialtheme and generalizing themes. Moreover, the models of global discourse informationstructures are discussed respectively. It should be noted that apart from theabovementioned basic models, models with partial themes that are used repeatedlyin discourse and a presentation of models expanded by hypertheme and generalizingtheme, the function of which is based on information synthesis included intwo (or more) partial themes are distinguished in the following discussion.Chapter Four analyses rhematic structures which are not delimited to thesentence framework. On conducting a discussion of the corpus, it is possible topresent rhematic structures:–– structures comprising merely common rhemes – depending directly on a givenpartial theme;–– structures that are marked with common rhemes and joint rhemes; the latter areconnected with hypertheme or generalizing theme;–– structures in which borrowed rhemes emerge next to common rhemes; comingfrom rhematic sets dependent on various partial themes;–– rhematic structures perceived as the most complex, joining together three categoriesof rhemes: common, joint and borrowed ones.Chapter Five refers to a relation between thematic segments. A thematic segmentis an item of the global discourse information structure comprising partialtheme and a set of rhemes (common, joint and borrowed) that are subordinate tothis abovementioned theme. In particular, this chapter gives a typology of thematic-rhematic relations as well as merely rhematic ones, which enables to transferinformation between various thematic segments in discourse.The model of analysis, implemented in the book, includes three stages, eachof which focuses on a different aspect of information discourse structure, givingthe possibility to outline the thematic and rhematic structures that are above thesentence structure. What is more, in the light of the model, it is possible to answera set of questions referring to the way the connections between the units of globaldiscourse information structure are organised.

• Details
• Contents