3.4. Interpretation of repetition patterning: central and marginal sentences

Treating sentences as interrelated packages of information, connected by multiple repetition links, we might expect those sentences that are the most important for the development of the theme of a text (or, rather, to its semantic nucleus which is the package of information containing the most important elements of the theme of the text and elements which indicate what happens to the theme, i.e. the rheme of the text) to make maximum number of bonds with other sentences. We will call such sentences central. Those sentences that contribute less to the development of its theme show fewer signs of connection with the rest of the text [Hoey 1991: 43] and have low information value. We will call such sentences marginal.

If we examine the Drug-crazed grizzlies text in this way we will obtain the following indicators for each of the sentences (the figures show the number of sentences, before and after, with which the sentence in question shares three or more links, i.e. has a bond):

sentence 1 (–, 3)

sentence 2 (1, 2)

sentence 3 (0, 0)

sentence 4 (2, 0)

sentence 5 (2, –)

Its is seen from this scheme, that sentence 1 has bonds with three sentences, sentence 2 – also with three, sentence 3 has no bonds at all, sentence 4 has bonds with 2 sentences, sentence 4 has bonds with 2 sentences and sentence 5 also has bonds with two sentences.

3.5. Making summary of a text

The given example is too short for profound statistical analysis, however, we can see from it that there are two sentences, which make three bonds with the remainder of the text, while the rest make two bonds or fewer. These sentences are the first two in the text about Grizzlies, and if we extract them from the text we will obtain a reasonable summary of what the text is about:

1. A drug known to produce violent reactions in humans has been used for sedating grizzly bears Ursus arctos in Montana, USA, according to a report in The New York Times.

2. After one bear, known to be a peaceable animal, killed and ate a camper in an unprovoked attack, scientists discovered it had been tranquillized 11 times with phencyclidine, or “angel dust”, which caused hallucinations and sometimes gives the user an irrational feeling of destructive power.

The rest of the text provides additional information to these statements, so the sentences that make most connections (i.e. have maximum number of bonds) with the rest of the text seem to be the most important for understanding, interpretation and translation of the text, i.e. they are regarded to be central in terms of making up the semantic nucleus of the text.

It follows that the least connected sentences will be regarded as marginal. Only one sentence in the text about grizzlies stands out as markedly less connected than the rest, and that is sentence 3, which in fact has no bonds at all:

3. Many wild bears have become “garbage junkies”, feeding from dumps around human developments.

While the article as a whole is concerned with the effects of drugs applied to wild bears, this sentence describes one of the reasons why such drugs were used and can be easily left out without significant damage to the overall theme of the text.

Sentences 4 and 5, each having bonds with two other sentences, could have been in principle included into the summary. However in this short text, proceeding from the principle to include into the summary sentences with the maximum number of bonds, we believe that these two sentences provide additional information to sentences 1 and 2 and are located in the zone between central and marginal sentences.

Of course, judgements about centrality and marginality of sentences are, to a certain extent, subjective. All we can say at the moment is that our analysis is based on real linguistic facts within the framework of methodology suggested by M.Hoey [1991].

However, with rapid development of computer software such analysis becomes much more “objective”, easy and quick to perform. Computer assisted text processing is capable to detect bonded sentences and construct summaries of texts. Needless to say that this is of paramount importance for all areas of storing and distributing textual information with the help of informational technologies, starting with compiling library catalogues, making up front page summaries of newspaper and magazine articles and ending with the Internet services (e.g., constructing hypertexts which by establishing hyperlinks with databases allow the user to get practically unlimited amount of information from the web), as well as translation and interpretation strategies.