Communicative division of dialogical units

The essence of communicative division is in distinguishing theme and rheme. Communicative division in Dialogical Units with Special questions.

1. In Special questions interrogative word marks the rheme. The reacting remark contains the rheme.

2. Communicative division with contextually opposed rheme.

Communicative division with repeated nomination of thematic elements of the utterance.

Communicative Division of Dialogical Units with General Questions.

1. The communicative division of general question is the next: theme and marked rheme. The most typical reactions to a general question are “Yes” or “No”. They are pseudo-rheme, as they act instead of the expected rheme.

2. Communicative division with repeated nomination of thematic elements.

3. In every-day dialogue the response can be presented by a rhematic complex:

Communicative Division in Dialogical Units “declarative + declarative”.

The declarative has both thematic and rhematic elements. The reacting remark can contain either additional rheme or it can strengthens the rheme of initiating remark.

Structural organisation of dialogical speech.

Two-member constructions are typical for initiating remarks.

A two-member constructions in reactions helps to express some intentions:

1. in cases when the question is to the predicate, the two-member reaction is usually used.

2. to reveal the cause of action.

3. the question to the predicative.

4. to emphasise rhematic element.

5. if the hearer rejects the syntactical program of the initiating remark.

6. in emotional speech.

Substitution and ellipsis are very useful and important: a) they shorten the message; b) they may make the connections of meaning more easy to grasp. The general rule, introduced by Leech is: “Cross-refer and omit wherever you can, except when this leads to ambiguity.”

Ellipsis is omitting items that are shared. Attention is focused on the rheme.

Types of ellipsis:

• contextual ellipsis

• valency ellipsis

• situational ellipsis.

The element omitted can be:

1. The subject

2. The subject and part of the predicate (auxiliary or link-verb omitted)

3. The subject and the whole predicate are left out

4. The whole predicate (a notional verb) is left out

5. The semi-notional verb had is commonly omitted in spoken English in the modal phrase had better.

Ellipsis may occur in compound and complex sentences; non-finite and verbless clauses.

Substitution is a means of avoiding the repetition of various grammatical units (words and groups of words) already mentioned. Types of substitution:

• pronominalization

• proverbalization (verbal substitution)

• substitution for clauses.

Metacommunicative utterances.

The aim of meta-communicative utterances is to identify and clarify the intention and to regulate the communicative process by means of the language. Meta-communicative utterances can be of two types:

• fatic meta-communicative utterances. Their aim is to help to establish, maintain or break communication.

• Performative meta-communicative utterances, which help to identify and clarify the intention of another utterance.

Fatic meta-communicative utterances can be of three types, depending on the stage of communication:

• contact establishing;

• contact maintaining;

• contact breaking.

There are several types of performative utterances:

1. performative utterances identifying the function of the declarative.

2. performative utterances,clarifying the function of the interrogative.

3. performative utterances, identifying the emotional state of the speaker.

4. performative utterances, containing inducement to some speech action.

5. modal performative utterances conveying the speaker’s attitude towards the content of his speech.