прагматика и медиа дискурс / Teun A van Dijk - Text and Context

Chapter 5

Macro-structures

1 Introduction

1.1

In the previous chapters it has already been indicated that a semantic characterization of discourse structures should also be given on a leve) of a more global organization, that of MACRO-STRUCTURES. In particular it has been shown that conditions of semantic coherence are to be formulated relative to such notions as TOPIC OF CONVERSATION or TOPIC OF DISCOURSE.

In this chapter some of the semantic properties of these and related notions will be made more explicit.

1.2

It is not the aim of this book or of this chapter to provide a sound THEORY of macro-structures, which would certainly be a premature enterprise.' On the one hand such a theory would clearly pass the boundaries of the dómain of grammars or linguistic theory in general, extending to a more inclusive study of discourse in psychology, the social sciences and poetics, and on the other hand observations and descriptions with respect to linguistic properties of macro-structures are still too vague to warrant theoretical generalization. This chapter, then, will be limited to some observations about the LINGUISTIC, and in particular the SEMANTIC, nature of macro-structures, referring only indirectly to cognitive evidence which has been provided in the last few years for the hypothesis that macro-structures constitute a separate level of linguistic analysis.

1.3

Let us first enumerate some QUESTIONS and PROBLEMS which seem to require a formulation in terms of macro-structures.

First of all, as we mentioned aboye, it is necessary to clarify the status of such concepts as TOPIC OF CONVERSATION and TOPIC OF DISCOURSE. In the previous chapter, where the notion TOPIC for sentences has been discussed,

semantic information processing, the notion of macro-structure will be approached from a more concrete point of view, viz the explication of the intuitive notion of TOPIC. In this respect the discussion provides a necessary basis for the coherence conditions given earlier and at the same time completes the discussion about the notion 'topic of a sentence'.

2.2

The notion TOPIC OF DISCOURSE (or TOPIC OF CONVERSATION, two terms

which for the moment we take to be synonymous) seems to be even more vague than the notion 'topic of a sentence'. For the latter notion we at least are able to assess certain phonological and syntactical structures indicating an assumed topic-comment articulation. On the other hand, terms like 'topic', 'theme' or 'being about' are intuitively applied to longer stretches of discourse and conversations. It is also in the latter sense that, even in sentences, it is (con)textually determined whether the topic is, for example, `John', or 'Mary', or <'John, Mary'> or 'making a trip around the world'. Sentential topics, as we have seen, determine the distribution of information along sequences of sentences, whereas discourse topics seem to reduce, organize and categorize semantic information of sequences as wholes.

2.3

In order to make these intuitive assumptions more precise let us examine some examples.

The beginning of the crime story by Chase, of which we analysed the first passage of Chapter 9, runs as follows:

[1] Fairview was dying. In the past, it had been a go-ahead, prosperous little town and its two large factories, specializing in hand-tools, had been a lucrative source of wealth.

Now, Fairview had had its golden age. Mass production had seen to that. The little town's methods of production could not compete with the modere factories that had sprung up overnight in the neighbouring districts.

Mass production and Bentonville had put paid to Fairview. Bentonville was a rapidly expanding manufacturing town some thirty miles away. It was a mushroom town. A town for the younger generation with brightly painted shops, neat, cheap little bungalows, swift trolley cars and a young, vigorous beating heart of commerce.

The youth of Fairview had gone either to Bentonville or farther north; some even went to New York. The more progressive businesses had transferred to Bentonville as soon as the writing appeared on the wall. Only the less enterprising smaller shops were left to carry on as best they could.

Fairview was defeated. You could see it in the shabby houses, the unkept roads and the quality of goods in the shop windows. You could see it in the dignified shabbiness of the small colony of retired business people who had done well in the golden age and were content to live out their days

in this sad, stagnating little town. And you could see it particularly in the numbers of unemployed who gathered at street corners, índífferent and apathetic.

Asked what the topic or theme of this passage is, or more simply `what this passage is about', a native speaker will in general be able to answer something like: "Fairview, a little town", "The decline of Fairview", "The decline of

Fairview due to massproduction and to competitionfrom a neighbouring town,

Bentonville", and such answers would be intuitively and conventionally acceptable. The question is: what are the (semantic) rules or procedures underlying this ability of language users?

An obvious beginning would be to indicate that the topic of this passage is expressed; in fact it is expressed several times:

[2] Fairview was dying.

Fairview had had its golden age.

Mass production and Bentonville had put paid to Fairview. Fairview was defeated.

These somewhat metaphorical sentences are quasi-paraphrases of the same underlying semantic representation. Yet, how do we know that just these sentences express the topic of the whole passage?

Similarly, taking "Fairview" as topic, we may say that it is also functioning as topic in many sentences of the sequence. But again, such a purely quantitative' answer to the problem would hardly be satisfactory.

The specific status of sentences like those of [2] must be sought in the relation between their meaning and the meaning of the other sentences of the sequence. More particularly, we may say, intuitively, that the other sentences SPECIFY this meaning. Thus the concept of `decline' (of a town, country or culture) implies that of previous economic and/or cultural prosperity and that of actual stagnation. This content of the concept of decline is indeed expressed in the passage (In the past ... Now ...). At a still more detailed level of specification the reasons for componente of this prosperity and stagnation are expressed. Here our semantic (conceptual) knowledge and our knowledge of the world allow us to relate the concept of economic prosperity to the existence of lucrative factories. Similarly, we know that competition may be a sufficient condition for economic decline, and that in turn mass production is a possible component of successful competition. Futhermore, the consequences of economic decline are possibly the appearance of the town (shabbiness of houses, streets) and a socio-economic state as unemployment, in turn causing indifference and apathy. Conversely, if B successfully competes with A, it follows that B becomes richer, a property which may show in urban expansion, appearance, etc of B. Finally, the concept of `economic progress' is related to that of `modern', 'young', 'vigorous', that of `decline' to `old', 'old-fashioned', 'retired', `sad', etc.

In other words, a concept or a conceptual structure (a proposition) may

134

become a discourse topic if it HIERARCHICALLY ORGANIZES (propositional) structure of the sequence.

It will be assumed that the abstract notion of discourse topic is to be made explicit in terms of (or formally equivalent structures). This means, for our passage, that the topic would not be Fairview or decline, but at least decline (Fairview) or decline (a) & town (a) & small

(a) & (a = Fairview). From the informal discussion given aboye it then follows that given a discourse sequence E ; , and a proposition a, is the TOPIC of E ;, iff E; ENTAILS a. In our example this is trivially the case because a is also a member of the propositional sequence E ;. In general the definition must also hold, however, for those sequences where a is not an element of E ;. In that case we require that the ordered sequence E, of propositions JOINTLY and non-trivially entails a. In a formal description we would have to PROVE that such a relation is indeed satisfied. This would require explicit statement of a set of meaning postulates and a set of propositions representing conventional knowledge of a part (here: socio-economical structures) of the world, of which some examples have been given in a natural language version aboye. Instead of such a (very complex) proof we may give a hierarchical representation of the conceptual and factual relations involved.

As a hypothesis we take the complex proposition underlying the sentence

A (little) town (called Fairview) is declining because it cannot compete with another town (called Bentonville). In somewhat more formal notation the underlying proposition would in that case be something like:

[3]town(a) & town(b) & [ — CAN. (compete with (a, b))](e) & cause (e, f) & [decline(a)]().

This is a simplified notation, in which the constants e and f are event constants, Z and where the causal relation is expressed by a two-place predicate over events (instead of a specific causal connective as used in Chapter 2). Now, the proposition decline(a) entails the following proposition:

[4]prosperous(a, t.)& —prosperous(a, t + )

Given certain propositions from the set F of factual knowledge, we may infer:

[5][town(a) & prosperous(a)]-fl Ú-[have(a, c) & industry(c) & lucrative(c)]

Note that the semantic relations can be established both ways: on the one hand it is (economically) necessary or al least probable that lucrative industry in a town implies that this town is (economically) prosperous, and on the other hand it may be possibly concluded that if a town is prosperous it has lucrative industry. On the basis of the first relation the establishment of the topic is operated. The second relation determines hypothesis formation in the

interpretation process concerning POSSIBLE CONTINUATION of a discourse. That is, once we know a town is prosperous, we may reasonably expect the information that it has lucrative industry. In other words, we may expect information about the CONDITIONS of a certain event.

Similarly, the notion of `competition' involves methods of production, and `modere factories' implies `modem methods of production' which, with further factual information, yields:

[6] — CAN,(compete with(a, b)).

In addition to [4] we may infer from [3] that

[7] prosperous(b, t ;+,),

a proposition which follows from a joint sequence of propositions like

[8]a: expand(b)

b: have (b, heart of commerce(d)) & vigorous(d) & beating(d).

The set of these and further propositions expressed in the passage form what has been called a FRAME, te a subsystem of knowledge about some phenomenon in the world like economic prosperity and decline. In more specific tercos such a frame contains information about COMPONENT states, actions or events, about NECESSARY OR PROBABLE CONDITIONS and

CONSEQUENCES, as defined in the previous chapters. Thus, the propositions expressed in the third paragraph of this passage, describing the town Bentonville, JOINTLY imply that this town is prosperous (cf [7]) owing to the information in the frame associated with the concept of economic prosperity. The same holds for the description of decline of Fairview in the fifth paragraph, eg by

[9] a: [shabby(a') & part of (a', a)] 0-• shabby(a) b: shabby(a) - —prosperous(a)

In the COMPETITION-frame we would further expect information about the transfer of business and preferente of employees to work for the successful competitor. Finally, the fact that the decline of a is indeed caused by the inability to compete with b follows from the propositions in the second and third paragraph Chad put paid', 'had seen to that').

In this slightly more precise way we have given an indication of how we may derive' the components of the complex proposition [3] functioning as a topic of this passage. Sufficient propositional information is given in the respective sentences to infer the specific conceptual frame (PROSPERITY, c0MPETITION) and individual (small-scale, micro-) proposition (prospero us(a)). The connections and hence the inferences (entailments) involved are to be defined with respect to the specific subset of actual postulates defining the set of worlds in which this story is satisfied, viz the set of socioeconomic laws of a capitalistic society.

136 SEMANTICS

2.4

We have reconstructed the notion of topic of (a part of) a discourse as a proposition entailed by the joint set of propositions expressed by the sequence. In case there is more than one proposition satisfying this requirement we may speak of alternatives. The set of these alternatives will be called the TOPIC SET of that part of the discourse.

According to our definition the topic must be entailed by the sequence as a whole. This is true also for the atomic parts of the topical proposition if that is complex as in [3]. And indeed, it may also be said that this passage is about a town, about two towns, about the decline of a town, or about competition. We see that this use of the notion of topic is to be construed as a component atomic proposition of the topic. In such cases we will speak about SUBTOPICS or ATOMIC TOPICS. That such subtopics cannot be the whole topic is shown by the fact that other sequences of sentences of the passage entail further atomic propositions. This means that only those propositions entailed by (a part of) a discourse are topics which DOMINATE all semantic information of the sequence:

[10] A proposition T is TOPIC of a sequence of propositions

E = (p l , p z , ... , p^ ) iff for each p ; E E there is a subsequence E k of such that p; E Ek, and for each successive E k there is a P. such that

and T = Pi.

In fact this definition 3 should be formulated in a recursive way, because it may

be the case that there is a sequence of entailed propositions <P i, P;+1, ...) which in turn entail a proposition Q. entailed by T. Thus, in our example, the

subset of propositions expressed in the last paragraph entails the proposition `The town is declining', which is part of (entailed by) the complex topic of the whole sequence.

Sentences expressing (sub-)topical propositions directly, as those in [2] will be called TOPICAL. Such sentences NEED not occur, but are often given to emphasize the topic. They have a specific function in the cognitive processing of discourse: they either'announce' the topic of a passage or, after a passage, confirm the hypothetical topic established by the reader. In this sense the other sentences may be viewed as'explicating' or 'specifying' the information of the topical sentences.

2.5

The definition of topic given aboye needs some further specification. One of the provisos to be built in is that the entailed propositions are not too GENERAL. Thus , in our example, Fairview is a town, but this in turn implies that Fairview is an inanimate thing. Similarly, that Fairview is declining, implies that Fairview is subject to a certain process. In order to keep the topic of a discourse as SPECIFIC as possible, we must require that the entailment relations involved are DIRECT or IMMEDIATE, ie define the SMALLEST SUPERSET of a set. The concept defining this smallest superset will be called the IMMEDIATE SUPERCONCEPT of a given concept. 4 Thus, the immediate superconcept of'house' is 'building'. The same will be required to hold for the

assignment of frame concepts: given the description of a state, action, event, etc they will be integrated into the smallest possible frame. Thus, the occurrence of houses, shops and streets will be assigned the TO W N- frame, and not the COUNTRY-frame.

2.6

The characterization of the notion of topic of (a part of) a discourse given aboye is identical with what we intend MACRO-STRUCTU RES to have. That is, a macro-structure of a sequence of sentences is a SEMANTIC REPRESENTATION of some kind, viz a proposition entailed by the sequence of propositions underlying the discourse (or part of it). First of all, this assumption implies that the macro-structure of simple sentences may be identical with their underlying propositional structure. s The macro-structure of the discourse Peter is going to Paris next week would then simply be its underlying proposition, something like [go to (Peter, Paris)]e & next week(e).

Secondly, we should speak of several LEVELS OF MACRO-STRUCTURE in a discourse. Given the definition, any proposition entailed by a subset of a sequence is a macro-structure for that subsequence. At the next level these macro-structural propositions may again be subject to integration into a larger frame, ie entail,jointly, a more general macro-structure. Thus, the last paragraph of the passage we analysed has as a hypothetical macro-structure a proposition like `Fairview is (economically) declining' or `Fairview is not prosperous'. The latter proposition, together with the proposition entailed by the first paragraph ('In the past F. was prosperous'), would yield `Fairview is declining'. Now, when we speak of THE macro-structure of a sequence we refer to the most general macro-structure, entailed by the other macrostructures, 'dominating' the whole sequence. b The proposition `Fairview is declining' could not as such be THE macro-structure of our passage because it does not contain the information that decline was due to competition with another town, nor any information about this other town.

2.7

Before we can apply our observations to macro-structures in general, we should at least give a tentative analysis of another passage. Whereas the Fairview passage is 'descriptive', ie pertains to a certain state of an object, it should be investigated whether the assessment of a discourse topic is also possible for action and event discourse, eg for narrative. Consider, for example, the following passage from Boccaccio's The Decameron (Second Day, Fourth Story):'

[11] This Rufolo, then, having made the sort of preliminary calcu]ations that merchants normally make, purchased a very large ship, loaded it with a mixed cargo of goods paid for entirely out of his own pocket, and sailed with them to Cyprus. But on his arrival, he discovered that several other ships had docked there, carrying precisely the same kind of goods he had brought over himself. And for this reason, not only did he have to sell his cargo at bargain prices, but in order to complete his business he was

practically forced to give the stuff away, thus being brought to the verge of ruin.

Intuitively, the topic of this passage may be expressed by a sentence like A merchant wants to trade but is ruined by competition. The topic, as we see, is partially identical with that of the previously analysed passage, viz `ruin due to competition'. The differences are that here the competition is not industrial but mercantile, and that it happens to a person instead of a town.

The procedures by which the topic for this passage is obtained are similar. First of all, the complex concept of `trading', asan action, is constructed from the first propositions of the sequence: if x wants to trade, he will have to make calculations, buy goods, transport them or have them transported, and will try to sell them at a higher price than he bought them at. This is, in a succinct form the content of the TRADE-frame. We see that such an action frame consists of the following elements: PREPARATORY ACTIONS (making calcu-

lations), AUXILIARY ACTIONS (purchasing a ship), and COMPONENT ACTIONS,

according to the definitions of these terms given in Chapter 6. The component actions are those which are necessary parts of the compound or complex action: they define the concept in question. Here: buying cargo, and trying to sell it. The component of transport is spelled out here by the propositions `a sailed to Cyprus' and `a arrived in Cyprus'.

The next event, viz the fact that R. is meeting competition, is constructed from the proposition `that there are others with the same cargo', which is a necessary component of mercantile competition. Finally, the event of his being ruined is composed by propositions like `a had to sell his cargo at bargain prices' and `a practically had to give the stuff away'. As is expressed in the passage itself, these two events constitute probable CONDITIONS of mercantile failure, which is itself a probable CONSEQUENCE of the conditioning events. Again, we see that information implied by a sequence of sentences may also itself be expressed in the discourse (thus being brought to the verge of ruin). On the other hand, neither the concepts of trading nor that of competition are themselves directly expressed: they are implied by the successive subsequences of this passage.

2.8

Language users not only have the ability to produce or interpret (parts of) discourses with respect to a given topic, they are also able to CHANGE a topic and to perceive such a topic change in a discourse or conversation. We are now in a position to make this intuitive notion more precise. The obvious road to take is to make use of the formal criterion that for a sequence to have a topic, each sentence (or its underlying propositions) must 'satisfy' this topic, directly or indirectly. A sequence with this property is coherent with respect to topic or, more broadly, to MACRO-STRUCTURE. Thus, we may expect a change of topic to occur if one of the sentences of a discourse no longer `belongs to' a given topic and if the sentence is the first member of a sequence with a different topic: that is, if a sentence introduces an argument

or a predicate which cannot be subsumed under higher order arguments or predicates of the given topic.

In our Fairview passage we thus witness the introduction of a new subtopic with the introduction of a new individual in the first sentence of the third paragraph,e viz the town Bentonville. Although Bentonville is an argument of the topic of this passage, we do not know yet whether this argument is `local' or more global. In the latter case, Bentonville would occur as an argument also in other topics of the story, as will in fact turn out to be the case.

A characteristic example of a topic change is the sentence following the Fairview passage [1]:

[12] But there was still one spark of life to be found in Fairview (...) when Fairview was at the peak of its prosperity Harman had founded a newspaper for the town (...)

In this passage first of all a new individual is introduced, viz a newspaper, and secondly it is asserted that it constitutes an exception to the decline of the town. That is, the predicate (`x is a spark of life') cannot be subsumed under the topical predicate of decline of the first passage. That this newspaper has topical function will appear from the rest of the passage initiated with [12]: a description of the newspaper, viz its history, building and editors are given. In the same way, the topic then changes to/with the introduction of the `main character' of the story, as follows:

[13] (...) The staff consisted of the editor, Sam Trench, Al Barnes, three somewhat inefficient clerks and Clare Russell.

Clare was the mainspring of the Clarion. The office, the staff and the copy revolved round her. She was responsible for the small spark of life that remained in the newspaper (p 6).

Although it is a normal part of a TO W N-frame that there is a newspaper, this newspaper is specifically thematized'. It is not only introduced like the `unemployed' in the previous paragraph, but a series of predicates are assigned to it, such that it acquires independent topical character. Similarly, Clare Russell is not merely named as one of the editors, but she acquires topical 'independence' by an elaborate description of her career, her character and her appearance. Since she will re-appear throughout the whole story, she is not only locally topical, but more globally so. Moreover, her local topical role is further assessed by the fact that she is the cause of the specific exceptional property ('spark of life') of the newspaper in Fairview, just as Bentonville is the cause of Fairview's decline.

One clear surface manifestation of underlying `global structures' such as topics, is the use of but at the beginning of [12]. According to our satisfaction conditions for natural but, we expect it to connect propositions. In this case, but does not connect the last proposition in [1 ] with the first in [12], but in fact connects the whole sequence of [1] with [12], not individual propositions of