Pragmatic attitudes

Introduction

Coherence is a key concept of text linguistics. Many definitions of "text" include coherence as a necessary feature. Coherence is especially relevant to the research on text comprehension and text clarity: Authors should design a text in such a way that the addressee may detect the relationships linking individual text constituents and thus may build a coherent mental model of the text's content. This guideline is particularly valid in the context of knowledge transfer and learning.

The interdisciplinary discussion on the concept of coherence has been reviewed in a number of different studies.

The interest in the interdependence of coherence and text clarity has prompted researchers to shift their focus from a product-oriented to a more process-oriented view of coherence.

There are two views of coherency - product-oriented and process-oriented

Product-oriented coherence studies have focused on the analysis of coherence cues in static text. Process-oriented coherence studies, in contrast, investigate the role of coherence in communication processes, focusing on either coherence-building and coherence-design:

- Coherence-building is a key aspect of models on discourse comprehension.

These models describe how recipients build coherent knowledge structures

while processing text and how this process is affected by the interaction of linguistic and non-linguistic factors.

- Coherence-design is the focus of models on discourse production. These models describe the strategies authors pursue in order to guide and promote the process of coherence-building, as well as the linguistic and non-linguistic tools they utilize.

Most of the process-oriented models have been developed with the idea in mind that author and reader (or: speaker and hearer) perceive and process discourse in the same sequential ordering. Nevertheless, a process-oriented perspective of coherence allows, in principle, to account for steps of coherence-building during the selective processing of information coming from multiple documents.

Coherence

Coherence is a one of text-formative categories. Coherence makes a text semantically meaningful. Any text as a work of speech is characterized by internal and external coherency, which is a coherency of linguistic appearance, which implies the use of certain lexical – grammatical means, which formally realize this coherency, and all the features of linguistic units usage in text formation.

Coherence is the most integral feature of any message, which expresses itself in its semantic integrity and has linguistic ways of expression. These ways are language mechanisms. They connect separate elements and form semantic unity.

A text can be cohesive through the use of the following devices:

1)Repetition. An instance of using a word, phrase, or clause more than once in a short passage

2)Synonymy. If direct repetition is too obvious, there is a use of a synonym of the word which is need to be repeated.

3)Antonymy. Using the 'opposite' word.

4)Parallelism. Repeat a sentence structure.

5)Transitions. Use a conjunction or conjunctive adverb to link sentences with particular logical relationships. There are many kinds of transitions.

The category of coherence concerns not only a message on the whole but also its every meaningful part. Within the framework of the entire text, coherency is realized as mutually dependent and determining one another components.

According to M.Hallyday coherence includes reference, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical means. I.R. Galperin identifies several classes of coherence elements - lexical, grammatical, associative, logical, figurative, compositional, structural, stylistic.

"Coherence is fundamentally not an objective property of the produced text. Rather, that text is a by-product of the mental processes of discourse production and discourse comprehension, which are the real loci of coherence." (T. Givón, English Grammar 1993)

As a rule, researchers distinguish local coherence and global coherence. Local coherence is connection of linear sequences such as statements. It is determined by inter-phrase syntactic links (pronominal words, forms of verbs, lexical repetitions, word order, conjunctions, etc.). Global connection is what provides meaningful semantic integrity of the text as a whole. It is expressed through the author's evaluation and keywords, thematically and conceptually integrating text as a whole or its fragments.

Texts can be coherent at what is called the 'local level' and the 'global level.' Local-level coherence is that which occurs within small portions of texts, usually within texts no longer than a paragraph. A text is said to have global coherence, on the other hand, if the text hangs together as a whole." (Duane H. Roen, "Coherence." Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition 1996)

Obviously, the text is a dialectical unity of static and dynamic aspects. Static elements ensure its integrity as a single, comprehensive formation. Let us examine these elements.

Pragmatic attitudes

Text as a whole depends on its pragmatic attitude and on the pragmatic attitude of the author of the text.

The presence of some pragmatic attitude on which author rely on while creating a work of speech is recognized by most of modern scholars. It is noteworthy that the author's pragmatic attitude category, despite its psychological nature can be described and also structurized.

Text is impossible without the author's assessment, his understanding of the described objects, connection of the author’s message and composition, the author's position. Without the author's position, semantic unity of the text and its integrity can not be. Integrity of the text is determined by the organization of speech means, designed to convey the contents of the text reflecting the author's position.

Pragmatic attitude of the text is determined by the text itself, its type, genre, tasks which the text should implement.

Pragmatic attitude of the author is associated with the author's modality as any message includes not only information, but also the author's attitude to the reported information. The latter is particularly important in establishing the pragmatics of text as it is connected with interpretation of the text. The author not only forms the text, but also guides the reader in his interpretation of the text.

Pragmatic attitude of the text comes from the text itself - its purpose, form, genre. At the beginning of creation of the text sometimes is known its general aim - informing, teaching, declaring, etc. Thus, each text has its pragmatic attitude. It determines the form of the text, the selection of material, the overall stylistics, etc. Thus, scientific and official texts are characterized by the author's intend to make the reader’s text understanding unambiguous - hence the consistency, accuracy of narration, strict selection of stylistically homogeneous vocabulary. The author, however, relying on the general rules of the text composing of any orientation, makes his own, personal adjustments to the construction of the text, thus realizing his pragmatic attitude.

They can be defined as materialized in the text specific intentions of the sender to make a certain effect on the recipient. Probably the main aim of pragmatic attitudes in speech is to establish and maintain contact between the subjects of communication - the author and his readers.

Pragmatic attitudes not only promote a more effective textual activity of a reader, guiding and correcting the perception of speech product, but also indirectly inform about the author's own system of values ​​and even his language proficiency.

Key words

Other means of coherence are the key words. They create around themselves a single semantic context, involving him in other words, contextually connected with the word chosen as the key. The key features in the text can be not only words but also word combinations and whole sentences. Besides the term "keywords" is also used metaphorical terms "supporting elements", "semantic core".

Keywords create semantic text fields, which reflect the main theme of the text; they play a particularly important role in the establishment of inner semantic relationships of the text and in the organization of reader's perception. Typically, keywords related to the topic of the text, a text fragment.

The main features of keywords that allow to distinguish them from the other lexical items are:

1) a high degree of repeatability of these words in the text (repetition of key words and phrases creates an "internal sense rhythm " of the text.)

2) the ability to condense information expressed by the entire text, to merge its main content; keywords in this regard form a minimal model of the content of the text; this feature is particularly vividly manifested in the title.

Keywords can occur in any part of the text, however, it was observed that they are often concentrated at the beginning of the work, and often function as a title. The question of their quantity is solved in different ways (depending on the nature of the text). In the short texts the key signs can be single, then, as a rule, in the large texts a number of words is used. There can not be less than two key signs in the text.

Continuum

Continuum appears as a result of interaction between segmentation and coherence of the text. The term "continuum" means a continuous, undifferentiated flow of movement in time and space. Thus, the continuum as a grammatical category is connected with the concepts of time and space; it is a specific sequence of facts, events unfolding in time and space. It is important to remember that the continuum - the category of the text, it is not the category of a sentence, as there is no development of the thought.

Staying in a substantially continuous in the sequence of temporal and spatial facts, the continuum can not be shown in the message in its precise formal temporal and spatial forms. In the text continuum breaks at the same time into individual episodes, fragments, paragraphs (serving this way as a textual expression of the segmentation category), and the presence of the coherence category provides the ability to understand the whole text as one coherent process.

The division of the text to certain fragments helps to see the movement of its components.

Thus, the continuum as a grammatical category is a synthesis of coherence and continuity; these categories are interdependent and supplement each other.

Continuum is not necessarily implemented by the linear presentation. Interweaving narrative temporary plans determine the division of segments of text. The more chaotic the connection of the events is presented in the temporal and spatial relations (or facts in cause-effect relations), than harder it is to understand the meaningful and conceptual information.

However, the division of the text to certain fragments helps to see the movement of its components. While stopping movement, attention focuses involuntarily on these components; they are given a special meaning, their functional features and formally meaningful elements are getting more sharpened. Form is particularly noticeable when it apart from the content, being the only way of expressing it.

Temporal and spatial continuums are effective means to evoke in the reader a sense of movement.

The discontinuity/continuity of consistent, logical development of text content is reflected by the concept notion of logical-themed continuum. Logico-themed continuum includes the fundamental and indissoluble unity of two elements:

1) thematic deployment

2) logical relationships between the elements of the text content.

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