SYNOPSIS: Styles in Text

We already know that a text has texture, tie and cohesion. After knowing this, we should now discuss the nature of a text and its relation to a context of situation. Whenever we are analyzing a text, consciously or unconsciously, we don’t only give importance to linguistic clues but to situational clues as well.

Linguistic clues can be divided into two: (1) relations within the language (2) relations between the language and the relevant features of the participants. Under the linguistic system, there are three main components which show where cohesion comes in relation to the rest. The ideational component is concerned with the language’s content. The interpersonal component is about the language and speaker’s social, expressive and conative functions. The last is textual component which forms the text in the linguistic system.

Situational clues are the extra-linguistic factors which can affect the text. These external factors affect the speaker or writer’s choice of words. To further elaborate the relation of situational context in the nature of the text, there are eight components of speech situation categorized by Hymes. These are: form and content of text, setting, participants, ends, key, medium, genre and interactional norms. In contrast, Halliday et. al proposed three headings which is a basis for deriving the text’s features from the features of the situation. Firstly, field is the total event in which the text is functioning together with the speaker or writer’s purposive activity. Secondly, mode is the function of the text in the event including both the channel taken by the language and its genre or rhetorical mode. Lastly, tenor refers to the type of role interaction, the set of relevant social relations among the participants involved.

These linguistic and situational features constitute a register. Register is the set of meanings that is associated with situational context while cohesion is concern on how the text is constructed as a set of meaning, these two together effectively define a text. Thus, in analyzing a text it is important to give equal importance to its linguistic and situational context.

Reference: Halliday, MAK (1976). Cohesion in English. photocopied material.pp. 1-30