Anda di halaman 1dari 10

CHAPTER VII INFORMATIVITY The Fifth standard of textuality is called Informativity and concerns the extend to which the

occurrences of the presented text are expected vs. Unexpected or known vs. Unknown/certain. In sample (14), the assertion that you will not be able to call is much more unexpected than it is in (14)a. The processing of highly informative occures is more demanding than otherwise, but correspondingly more onteresting as well. Caution must be exercised lest the receivers; processing becaome overloaded to the point of endangering communication. We use term Informativity to designate the extent to which a presentation is new or unexpected for receivers. Usually, the nation is applied to Content; but occurrences in any language system might be informative. Attention attention would be defined as the expenditure of processing resources that restricts the potential for other tasks at the same time (Keele 19730. Hence, if attention is focused on the coherence of concepts and relations, other systems are not given prominence unless deliberately handled in noticeably non-expected ways. For example, some trends in twentieth-century poetry invovebizarre configurations of sounds that do not form know words Information theory Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver (1949) set forth an Information Theory based primilary on the notion statistical Probability. The greater the number of possible alternatives at a given point, the higher will be the information value when one of them is chosen. The Markove Chain A sequence constituted according to these item-to-item transitions is called a Markov Chain Statistical versus contextual probability The decisive step would be to replace the notion of statistical probability with that of contextual probability. The crucial consideration is then not how often things occure together in any absolute frequence, but rather what classes of occurrences are more or less likely under the influence of systematic constellations of current factors. Quite possibly, a statistically rare configuration of surface expressions, underlying concepts, or plan steps, might be highly probable under appropriate conditions. At least, it

seems to conclude that the contextual probabilities are different in strength for the different elements in text (cf. Miller 1951; Shannon 1951; Sprung 1964). Three orders of informativity A range of three orders of informativity, each sufficiently broad that human language users might be able to distinguish them during actual communication. If each occurrence is being selected from a Fuzzy set of options, we might divided the range into: (a) upper degree, 9b) lower degree, and (c) apparently outside the set altogether. First-order occurrences are rather Trivial, that is, so well integrated into a system or setting that tey receive very slight attention in the sense of VII.I. In Englsih, the socalled Function Words (Articles, prepositions, and conjuctions), all of which signal relations rather than content, are usually so trivial that even frequent occurrence of them in a single text are hardly noticed. We obtain Second-order informativity. The presence of at least some second-order occurrences would be the normal standard for textual communication, since texts purely on the first order would be difficult to construct and extremely uninteresting. Occurrences which at first appear to be outside the set of more or less probable options convey Third-order invormativity. These are comparatively infrequent occurrences which demand much attention and processing resource, but which are, in return, more interesting.

Triviality,defaults, and preferences The facts which a person or group consider to be generally applicable to some real or recoverable situation or event constitute their beliefs. The real world is accordingly the priviledge source of beliefs underlying textual communication. Of course, we can produce and receive many texts which are not factual in this way; but we still tend to use the real world as our point of orientation. Some facts are so firmly entrenched in our manner of thinking that they act as defaults for any textual world that might be presented; that causes have effects; that something cannot be both true and false, or existent and non-existent, at the same instant and under the same circumtances; that objects have identity, mass, and weight; and so forth. The standard procedures applied to first-order occurrences in communication would be Defaults (operations or selections assumed to be stipulated in absence of contrary indicators) and Preferences (operations or selections routinely favoured over competing alternatives ).

Upgrading and downgrading The procedures above minimize processing load, so that attention is reserved for higher-order occurences. When defaults or preferences are overridden, i.e. when occurences are below the upper range of probability, we obtain Second-order informativity. The presence of at least some second-order occurences would be the formal standard for textual communication, since texts purely on the first orderwould be difficult to construct and extremely unintersting. Upon occasion, firstorder occurences could be UPGRADED and third-order ones Downgraded to keep this medium order, as we shall see presently. Discontinuities and discrepancies Occurrences which at the first appear to be ouside the set of more or less probable options convey Third-order informativity. These are comparatively infrequent occurrences which demand much attention and processing resources, but which are, in return, more Interesting, discontinuities, where material seems to be missing from a configuration, and Discrepancies, where text-presented patterns dont match patterns of stored knowledge, would be the usual kinds of thirs-order occurrences.

Motivation search The text receiver must do a motivation search- a special case of Problem- solving- to find out what these occurrences signify, why they were selected, and how they can be integrated back into Continuity that is the basis of communication. In eefect, a successful search will show that the occurrence in question was within the range of options after all, though accessible only via some mediation. Directionality Accordingly, the search has downgraded the thirs-order occurrence into the second order. Downgrading could have several directionalities. If text receivers go back to find motivation in earlier occurrences, they are doing backward downgrading. If they wait to consider later occurrences, they are doing forward downgrading. If they move ouside the current text or discourse, they are doing outward downgrading. The same distinction can be made for upgrading.

Strength of linkage The degree to which a third-order occurrence is actually disturbing would depend on the Strength of linkage affected. An occurrence that ran counter to determinate knowledge would be more disorienting than one that ran counter to typical; and a violation of typical knowledge would be more disturbing than that of accidential. Removal and restoration of stability Apparently, determinate knowledge about the substance of the sea- it simply couldnt be the sea if not made of water- is being presented to no purpose. The text producer himself upgrades this first-order occurrence when he claims later on the sea is actually a solution of gases and salts The producer might have started out this way insted: the sea is not water. It isactually a solution of gases and salts. then, the receiver is met right away with a third-order occurrence which can be easily integrated by forward down grading. The regulative release from such a state is a prime illustration of qow communication represents the continual removal and restoration of stability. Classifying expectations: the real world; facts and beliefs; normal ordering strategies; the organization of language; surface formatting; text types; immediate context

Negation The appeal of frequency counts was doubtless due to their conciseness and simplicity. The discovery of text users expectations, on the other hand, is a messy and intricate task. Only on certain occasions do people actually declare what they are expecting. It follows that we shall have to work largely in the other direction. After identifying language techniques which serve to indicate expectations, we can proceed to trace out the latter from textual evidence. A fairly obvious illustration is the use of Negation, which typically is found only when there exists some motivate to believe something is otherwise true (Wason 1965;Osgood 19971; Givon 1978). We need merely locate and analyze negations to see what kinds of content are being presupposed. Definiteness One important factor is Definiteness the status of text-world entities which are identifiable, accessible, and recoverable. This status is conventionallymarked in English texts by the definite article, while the idefinite article is reserved for entities just being activated. The distinction is in fact vastly more intricate than this.

Motivations of non-expectedness A motivation search is required to downgrade them. Receivers cannot, in most societies, verify beliefs about ghosts via recourse to the real world as defined in VII.18 I; the motivation for the texts assertions cannote be factual and so must be done only if the identity of both the ghosts and the group desigated we.us, our is established. The letter group can be defined in this context as those of us who have left something undone. The ghosts can be defined as entities which re-enact the omitted events. We hope that our discussion of informativity in this chapter has at least raised some worth while issues in the study of texts. We have argued that informativity, being the extent to which presented materials are new or unexpected, exert important controls on the selection and arrangement of options in texts. The usual standard of informativity is amedium degree we called second-order; occurrences of the first order can be upgraded, and those of the third order downgraded. We suggested that text producers can create a planned flow of expectations in order to uphold interest and fulfil an intention, and weundertook to illustrate the claim with two very different texts. We conclude that the controls exerted by informativity must be a vastly important factor in limiting and motivating the use of particular options in all sorts of contexts

CHAPTER VIII SITUATIONALITY The term Situationality is a general designation for the factors which render a text relevant to a current or recoverable situatioon of occurence. Very rarely are the effects of a situationonal setting exerted without mediation; the extent to which one feeds ones own beliefs and goals into ones model of the currents communicative situation.

Situation models The accessible evidence in the situation is fedinto the model along with our prior knowledge and expectations about how the real world is organized. If the dominat functions of a text is to provide a reasonably unmediated account of the situation model, situation monitoring is being performed. If thedominant function is to guide the situation in a manner favourable to the text producers goals, situation management is being carried out

Mediation and evidence In sample (5) (vi.29), Piglet managed a difficult situation by compelling the other participant to accept a certain kind of monitoring.If it had become apparet in either case that these monitorings werein reality highly mediated and contrary to available evidence, the plans of the monitoring participants whould have failde Monitoring versus managing Despite such cases of plan concealment, the distinction between monitoring and managing, if viewed in terms of dominances, is a useful one. One obvious variety of monitoring would be simply describing in the sense of Osgoods (1971) well-know experiments where people were asked to describe objects and events presented before them. Even here, the texts are more than mere responses to the stimuli of the scene. Frequency One very basic of improbability would be a disproportion in Frequency, as stressed by the statistical approach to information theory.

Sailence Salience may be subsequently downgraded into a predictable standard; Fillmore (1977) suggests that salience affects surface formatting. Salient objects are readily assigned to the subject or direct object slots of English sentences to bring them into a prominent perspective. Negotiation Expectations are validated at the vary moment when they seem to have failed in a confrontation with an actual situation. Such a process belongs to the means for Negotiating the socially accepted model of reality and its norms. Situation monitoring is thus extremely likely whenever different participants have opposed notions about what is going on.

Exopora Situation monitoring can be simplified by the useofPro-Form rather than conceptual names for objects or events present. Halliday and Hasan (1976) suggest the term Expphora for this usage (in analogy to anaphora and cataphora,cf.iv.22ff) Exophora is not strictly co-reference, since there is no other expression in the text beside the pro-form; one could argue that there is some corresponding expression held in active storage without being uttered, but this argument is certainly contestable. Anaphora is the most common directionality for co-reference, since the identity of the conceptual content being kept current is made plain in advance.However, anaphora can still be troublesome if there is a lengthy stretch of text before the pro-form appears. By then, the original elements could have been displaced from active storage and other candidates may be mistakenly call. The use of the pro-form before the coreferring expression is called Cataphora. Managing In mauperordinate goals of the kind we saw in the conversation between the spinster aunt nagement, there are s Plans and skripts Situation management can be profitably explored in terms of Plan theory.The stabilized plans often called scripts

Planboxes and planbox escalation Schank and Abelson (1977) discuss a set of planboxes containing plans frequently used in goal negotiation. You might simply ask other people to do things or to give you something. You might inform the people of a reason why they should be cooperative . You could bargain to do them a favour in return, or you could bargain to give them some object they would desire. If all these discourse actions fail, you could threaten people, overpower them, or steal what you want. This list toward steadily more extreme actions, we can use the term planbox escalation. Such escalation could occure within a single planbox as well. A trade-off between efficiency and effectiveness Like many other procedures, planbox escalation entails a trade-off. The planner must find a balancebetween efficiency (ease, minimum effort) and effectiveness (maximum success chances) that will be appropriate to the situation and to the participants role. Strategies for monitoring and managing situation Some common strategies; 1. Use a situation monitoring to begin a discourse 2. If someone elses monitoring does not match your own outlook, do not accept it. You may; (a0 reject it outright; (b) question it; (c) ignore it; or (d) replace it with your own monitoring. 3. To encourage planbox escalation, upgrade the object or event that you are being asked to give or perform. 4. If your monitoring is not accepted, replace it with a less mediated version. 5. Project your own desires and goals onto other participants except where there is evidence to the contrary. 6. When the monitorings of the participants fail to macth, negotiate the sense of the topic concepts involeved. 7. If your own plan-directed monitoring would be disbelieved, dont advance it, but dont commit yourself to its opposite either. 8. If your monitoring might be disbelieved, dont advance it directly, but ask others for reasons why it would not be plausible. 9. If you desire objects or favours from people, reject their asks, invoke themes,

and inform reasons until planbox escalation reaches bargains. 10. Prevent goal abandonment or extreme escalation by showing indecision in your refusals. 11. To upgrade your contribution and steer escalation toward a good bargain, informs or invoke outlooks of people who are absent and cant contradict you, so that you will not seem unreasonable or greedy. 12. To encourage co-operation, downgrade the expenditure of time and resources that others must make to futher your goal. This chapter has been devoted to sescribing some significant ways in which texts are correlated with discourse actions and applied to a situation. The correlations involved are far from simple reflections of the apperceivable evidence in the situation alone. Instead, the content of texts is usually removed via mediation from the evidence according to the producerss outlook, beliefs, plans, and goals. Whether a text is acceptable may depend not on the correctness of its reference to the real world, but rather on its believability and relevance to the participants outlook regarding the situation. We have argued that discourse actions can be viewed as realizations of general strategies for monitoring and managing all sorts of situations in which people communicate and interact.

Anda mungkin juga menyukai