SIL International Publications

Holistic textlinguistics

Relation Text: 
SIL Electronic Working Papers 2003-004
Statement of Responsibility: 
Longacre, Robert E
Issue Date: 
2003
Abstract: 

This article is a rather full presentation of the author's approach to Textlinguistics with special emphasis upon the facts that a text is a whole-so that such matters as text types, profiles, macrostructures, text templates, and other high-level concerns are inextricably bound up with the morphosyntax. While it is a truism to say that everything expressed in a text must use the language of the text as its medium, it is not generally realized how the text not only is constrained by that language but skillfully exploits features of it by artistically distorting those features to convey what the text has to say. Passages from The Final Diagnosis by Arthur Hailey are used as illustrative material (by Hailey's permission).

Extent: 
48 pages
Subject: 
Subplot
Narrative Template
Macrostructures
Holistic
Textlinguistics
Field: 
Content Language: 
Nature of Work: 
Is Referenced By: 
Longacre, Robert E.; Shin Ja J. Hwang, editor
2010