DISCOURSE TYPES, GENRE SCHEMATA, AND RHETORICAL RELATIONS

1. DISCOURSE TYPES, GENRE SCHEMATA, AND RHETORICAL RELATIONS Andrej A. Kibrik Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences kibrik@comtv.ru

2. Genres and discourse types • Discourse studies: typology of discourse specimens is the least developed area (cf. e.g. van Dijk ed. 1997) • However, the issue is important: in any empirical discipline a classification of specimens is among central tasks

3. General problem • In modern discourse studies, there is no satisfactory classification of genres or discourse types • All available classifications are purely enumerative • Enumerative inventories cannot be demonstrated to be exhaustive and internally coherent

4. those that belong to the Emperor, embalmed ones, suckling pigs, those that are trained, mermaids, fabulous ones, stray dogs, those included in the present classification, those that tremble as if they were mad, innumerable ones, those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, others, those that have just broken a flower vase, those that from a long way off look like flies A classification of animals in ‘a Chinese Encyclopedia’cited in Borges’ Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge

5. General goal • Move towards a non-enumerative, but rather a calculus-type classification of discourse genres

6. Specific problem • Discourse genres are defined as non-linguistic phenomena • Swales (1990): • genres are attributes of discourse communities • genres serve typical communicative intentions salient in such communities • It is not clear whether genres can be attributed any linguistic properties

7. Specific goals • Address the question: are discourse genres linguistically identifiable? • If yes, attempt to provide a linguistic definition of at least one genre

8. ATTEMPTS OF LINGUISTIC GENRE DEFINITION • Linguistic definition 1: Genre schemata • TOO GENERAL • Linguistic definition 2: Morphosyntactic and lexical features • TOO DETAILED • An alternative linguistic definition: Configurations of rhetorical structures

9. Linguistic definition 1: Genre schemata • The story schema (Chafe 1994) • Orientation • Complication • Climax • Denouement • Coda • Additional elements in Labov 1972 • Abstract • Evaluation

10. Definition 1 (another example) • The Native English business letter schema (Kong 1998) • Source of reference • Making the request • Background of the company • Justification for the request • Stating the conditions • Other related requests • Cordial conclusion

11. Definition 1 is problematic • Too large-scale approach: It is unclear how one can make any predictions of the linguistic form of a genre specimen

12. Linguistic definition 2: Morphosyntactic and lexical features • Biber 1989 • 481 texts in corpus • 67 morphosyntactic and lexical features • 5 dimensions: groups of covarying features • 8 clusters of texts in the 5-dimensional space • 8 text types with tentative labels, such as “intimate interpersonal interaction” • limited correlation to established genres • Example: 62% texts of the genre of personal telephone conversation belong to the text type “intimate interpersonal interaction” • The conclusion is that genres are linguistically irrelevant

13. Linguistic definition 2 fails, as demonstrated by Biber • Too small-scale approach:Individual morphosyntactic and lexical features are incommensurable with discourse genres as wholes • But why do discourses of the same type fail to have consistent characteristics?

14. A possible clue: types of passages • Narrative • Descriptive • Expository (explanatory) • Instructive and hortatory • Persuasive (argumentative) (see e.g. Longacre 1992) • this list is enumerative, too, but at least the number of categories is more embraceable

15. Type of passage Characteristic morphosyntactic and lexical phenomena Narrative Past tense, perfectives Descriptive Stative predicates Expository ??? Instructive Imperatives Persuasive Modal verbs Selected features of discourse passages

16. Reasons for Biber’s results • Morphosyntactically and lexically identifiable discourse units are passages rather than discourses as wholes • Genres are not internally homogeneous in terms of passage types; they consist of more than one passage type • Therefore, discourses as wholes cannot be expected to be consistent in terms of morphosyntactic and lexical features

17. A set of working hypotheses • So, the question is: what could be a viable linguistic definition of discourse genres? Or at least of passage types? • Prerequisite: Genres can be defined in terms of genre schemata • Genres schemata can be defined as combinations of passage types • Passage types can be defined in terms of rhetorical relations • Therefore, genres can also be ultimately defined in rhetorical terms

18. A CASE STUDY THE NIGHT DREAM STORIES PROJECT • Original goal: search for differences in discourse structure in the night dream stories of children with and without neurotic disorders • 69 stories from neurotic children • 60 stories from neurologically intact children • About 3000 discourse units in corpus • The corpus has been: • transcribed • RST-diagrammed

19. Rhetorical structure theory (RST) • Originally formulated by Mann and Thompson 1988 • A unified view of discourse structure, irrespective of the size of discourse segments • A nomenclature of rhetorical relations between discourse segments • Each discourse segment serves the realization of the overall communicative intention of the speaker • We added a number of rhetorical relations to the canonical set in order to account for narrative discourse data (Kibrik, Podlesskaya, Kal’kova, and Litvinenko 2002)

20. Generalized schema of a night dream story • Begin • (Headline) • Setting • NARRATIVE CHAIN • (Evaluation) • (Summary) • End

21. Two major types of passages in stories • The great majority of texts in corpus are predominantly narrative (= are stories) • 129 texts altogether • 6 non-narrative texts • Narrative chain: Narrative type of passage • Setting: Descriptive type of passage

22. Typical normal story: Z11 1. My s klassom ..(1.8) poshli ..(1.1) vot ..(0.5) kuda-to. My classmates and I went somewhere. 2. ..(0.3) Zashli v dom, Entered a house, 3. ..(1.2) i tam ..(0.2) byli stupen'ki ..(1.8) i voda. and there were steps and water there. 4. ..(1.0) My stali na bol'shoj plot, We went onto a big raft 5. ..(0.6) i pereexali na druguju storonu. and crossed to the other side. 6. ..(1.5) Potom ..(1.4) my vyshli iz dveri. Then we exited the door. 7. ..(0.8) Tam byla dver' ...(1.0) takaja zheltaja. There was a door there, a yellow one. 8. ..(0.5) My otkryli ee, We opened it, ...

23. RST-diagram of text Z11

24. RHETORICAL STRUCTURE OF NARRATIVE PASSAGES • Uppermost relations: • Sequence • Consequence • (Emotional reaction) • (Discord) • All these relations are variants of the basic narrative relation • We can therefore define the narrative passage as a passage that has one of narrative relations in its uppermost node

25. Typical neurotic story: N08 1. Ja byla doma ..(0.3) s mamoj, ..(1.1) s bratom,I was at home with my mom, with my brother, 2. ..(0.4) nu tam ..(0.3) kot mne eshche snilsja moj.well I dreamt about my cat too. 3. ...(2.8 m)Dolgoe tam vremja snilos',For a long time I dreamt 4. kak my prosto doma tam,how we were just at home 5. delami zanimaemsja.doing various chores. 6. ..(1.) Potom ..(0.2) chego-to ..(0.2) trevogu ja pochuvstvovala,Then for some reason I felt anxiety, 7. vygljanula v okno,looked out of the window, 8. u nashego pod'ezda pozharnaja mashina stoit.next to our entrance there was a fire engine. ...

26. RST-diagram of text N08

27. Frequency of the uppermost narrative relations

28. Relations appearing above narrative relations: • Begin • Headline • Setting • (Evaluation) • (Summary) • End • Out-relations • All these relations are “genre-organizational” for the genry of story

29. Frequency of the highest level non-narrative relations

30. Rhetorical relations-based definition of the genre of story • Story is a discourse that has one of narrative relations in its highest node in the rhetorical graph, with the exclusion of genre-organizational relations Begin, End, Headline, Summary, Setting, and Evaluation

31. A generalized rhetorical diagram of a story

32. RHETORICAL STRUCTURE OF DESCRIPTIVE PASSAGES IN STORIES (SETTINGS)Frequency of settings in stories

33. Most typical relations appearing at the uppermost node of descriptive passages • Joint • Elaboration • Background • At a certain degree of granularity, these three relations can be taken as varieties of one and the same

34. Relations that can potentially appear above the typical descriptive relations • Source-out is the only relation that appears in this position in corpus more than once • Five other relations appear once each, most of them of organizational (e.g. Summary) or realizational (e.g. Split) kind

35. Frequency of settings by structural type

36. Generalizations on the rhetorical structure of descriptive passages • There is a significant portion (22%) of trivial descriptive passages that do not contain any rhetorical relation • Whenever descriptive passages are not trivial, they can be reliably defined as having one of the relations Joint, Elaboration, and Background in their uppermost node

37. Questions remaining for future research • Are descriptive passages as well rhetorically definable as narrative passages? • Are basic descriptive relations used exclusively in descriptive passages? • Can it be the case that types of passages are rhetorically definable only when they figure as “major” (Longacre) types of passages in particular discourse genres? • If that is the case, rhetorical definitions may be more suitable for genres than passage types. • How can one define trivial passages? Perhaps inherent aspect of predicates? • Can all discourse material be attributed to a certain type of passage?

38. CONCLUSIONS • At least some passage types can be identified in terms of rhetorical relations • Since genre schemata can be defined as configurations of passage types, genres can also be ultimately defined in terms of rhetorical relations • A rhetorical relations-based definition appears adequate for the narrative type of passage, and for the discourse genre of story • For descriptive passages in stories, a rhetorical definition is useful when such passages are not trivial • The question of whether a rhetorical definition can be universally used to define discourse passages and genres requires further study