LINGUIST List 18.2583
Wed Sep 05 2007
Diss: Disc Analysis/Text&Corpus Ling: Christou: 'The Notion of Ling...'
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1. Marianna
Christou,
The Notion of Linguistic Choices in Written Text Production
Message 1: The Notion of Linguistic Choices in Written Text Production
Date: 04-Sep-2007
From: Marianna Christou <marianna_christouhotmail.com>
Subject: The Notion of Linguistic Choices in Written Text Production
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Institution: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2007
Author: Marianna N. Christou
Dissertation Title: The Notion of Linguistic Choices in Written Text Production
Linguistic Field(s):
Discourse Analysis
Text/Corpus Linguistics
Subject Language(s): Greek (ell)
Dissertation Director:
George D. Babiniotis
Aikaterini Bakakou-Orfanou
Christophoros Charalambakis
Dissertation Abstract:
This thesis aims at making a contribution to the fields of DiscourseAnalysis, Text Linguistics, and Corpus Linguistics, from which it draws.More precisely, it explores linguistic choices activated by native speakersof Modern Greek in written text production, and suggests a clarification ofthree terms:
a) available possibilities of expression, offered by the linguistic systemof Modern Greek itself due to the inherent anisomorphism between contentand form, are characterised by variety and are called options; their valeur(in Saussurian terms) can be detected at the level of paradigmatic andsyntagmatic relations,
b) potential wordings for linguistic performance of this system arecharacterised by variation and are called selections; they can be mainlydetected at the paradigmatic axis and lead a native speaker to theprocedure of preferring only one selection among others, and
c) the results of this selection procedure in written text are calledchoices, which can be detected at the syntagmatic axis of parole,reflecting the personal style of each author; hence, they are characterisedby uniqueness for the occasion on which the are used.
What motivated this study was the need for a thorough and systematicdescription, analysis and interpretation of creativity in writing textsthrough variation in language. As many alternative possibilities oflinguistic expression are offered, it is shown that they do not have thesame function nor do they always lead to the same communicative effect.
To this end, qualitative and quantitative approaches were combined. Sourcesof data were: a) two corpora -one in written and one in electronic form-from which texts and examples were drawn for linguistic and textualanalysis and b) questionnaires completed by informants.
As revealed by textual analysis combined with informants' opinions, thein-depth investigation of linguistic choices can significantly contributeto the detection (or even reconstruction) of the author's intentions, asthese are developed in the course of written text production. Apart fromthis, it is suggested that the kind, function and use of linguistic choicesin communication can be clarified through close scrutiny at all levels ofmicrostructure and macrostructure. It also becomes explicit that an authordecides -more or less consciously- to activate linguistic choices thatserve his or her aims and objectives in text production. Use of differentlinguistic choices on the part of the author can change the content of themessage and can subsequently modify the communicative effect of discourse.
Moving from microstructure (i.e. phonetic and phonological, morphological,lexical, syntactic, and semantic level) to macrostructure (level ofvocabulary, phrase, utterance, paragraph, and text) this differentiation isso strong that it is impossible for two texts to share exactly the samechoices. Every linguistic choice is closely connected with the author'sdecisions and preferences in written text production, and is affected bylinguistic and textual factors. The communicative situation and itsparticipants, genre and text type, register, intertextuality, iconicity,informativity, cohesion and coherence, reference and deixis of the text,hypotheses, expectations and predictions of the reader, general strategyand individual tactics that the author employs in order to structure his orher message, as well as the perspective of information, these are some ofthe factors that can influence text production.
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