DISCOURSE TYPES, GENRE SCHEMATA, AND RHETORICAL RELATIONS

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DISCOURSE TYPES, GENRE SCHEMATA, AND
RHETORICAL RELATIONS

• Andrej A. Kibrik
• Institute of Linguistics,
• Russian Academy of Sciences
• kibrik_at_comtv.ru

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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

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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

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A classification of animals in a Chinese
Encyclopediacited in Borges Celestial Emporium
of Benevolent Knowledge

• 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,

1. innumerable ones,
2. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
3. others,
4. those that have just broken a flower vase,
5. those that from a long way off look like flies

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General goal

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

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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

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Specific goals

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

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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

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Linguistic definition 1 Genre schemata

• The story schema (Chafe 1994)
• Orientation
• Complication
• Climax
• Denouement
• Coda
• Additional elements in Labov 1972
• Abstract
• Evaluation

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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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

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Selected features of discourse passages
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Reasons for Bibers 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

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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

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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

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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, Kalkova,
  and Litvinenko 2002)

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Generalized schema of a night dream story

• Begin
• (Headline)
• Setting
• NARRATIVE CHAIN
• (Evaluation)
• (Summary)
• End

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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

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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,
• ...

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RST-diagram of text Z11
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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

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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.
• ...

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RST-diagram of text N08
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Frequency of the uppermost narrative relations
Relations n
Sequence 91 71
Consequence 29 22
Emotional reaction 3 2
NONE (non-narrative text) 6 5
TOTAL 129 100
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Relations appearing above narrative relations

• Begin
• Headline
• Setting
• (Evaluation)
• (Summary)
• End
• Out-relations
• All these relations are genre-organizational
  for the genry of story

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Frequency of the highest level non-narrative
relations
Relations above narrative Number
NONE 20
Begin 9
End 69
Headline 10
Summary 1
Setting 55
Out-relations 13
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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

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A generalized rhetorical diagram of a story

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RHETORICAL STRUCTURE OF DESCRIPTIVE PASSAGES IN
STORIES (SETTINGS) Frequency of settings in
stories
Z N Total
Setting 25 38 63 49
No Setting 35 31 66 51
Total 60 69 129 100
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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

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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

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Frequency of settings by structural type
Uppermost relation n n, including similar
TRIVIAL CASE 14 14 22
Joint 13 16 25
Source-out gt Joint 3
Elaboration 15 22 35
Source-out gt Elaboration 4
Background 4 6 10
Source-out gt Background 2
Other 5 5 8

TOTAL 63 100
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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

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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?

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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