Longacre 1983

Reference:

Under construction

Review

Excerpts

'This chapter deals with broad concerns of monologue discourse and leaves the matter of the relations of monologue and dialogue to the introduction to the next chapter. One initial concern in the analysis of monologue discourse is discourse typology. Characteristics of individual discourses can be neither described, predicted, nor analyzed without resort to a classification of discourse types' (1).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | analysis | dialogue | discourse | introduction | monologue |



'It is obvious that not all monologue discourses are of the same sort.... There are, on the other hand, similarities between certain of the types' (2).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | monologue |



'Our classification needs ... to include both broad classifications and also more narrow specification of surface types. The classification needs, however, to allow for the difference between notional structures ... and surface structures.... In brief, notional structures of discourse relate more clearly to the overall purpose of the discourse, while surface structures have to do more with a discourse's formal characteristics' (3).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | difference | discourse | purpose |



'To begin with, we can classify all possible discourses according to two basic parameters: contingent temporal succession and agent orientation.... Narrative discourse ... is plus in respect to both parameters. Procedural discourse ... is plus in respect to contingent succession ... but minus in respect to the agent orientation ... Behavioral discourse is minus in regard to contingent succession but plus in regard to agent orientation ... Expository discourse is minus in respect to both parameters' (3).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | agent | discourse | narrative | orientation | procedural | temporal |



'Each surface structure type has characteristic tense/aspect/voice features in the verbs that occur on its main line' (7).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | structure |



'Every discourse finds a further principle of unity in terms of participants and/or themes' (8).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | discourse | participants |



'We must remind ourselves that the classification into broad categories of surface structure types subsumes many specific genres within various languages' (9).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | structure |



'It is a fact of language that whenever surface structure becomes well crystalized and marked, i.e., whenever it is opaque rather than transparent, it may be thrown out of phase with the notional structure. We must, therefore, face the fact that a given notional structure type may encode in the form of a differing surface structure type' (10).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | face | form | language | structure |



'An example of this occurred in a news story in the Dallas Morning News ... Its notional intent was to give a first person account of an apartment fire in Dallas, but it is cast in the form of procedural discourse' (11).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | discourse | form | procedural |



'The previous section has skirted the edge of a further feature of monologue discourse that requires discussion in its own right: the distinction between the main line of development in a discourse and all other material -- which I here lump together under the rubric supportive' (15).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | discourse | distinction | monologue |



'There are stories in which the hand of the narrator is very evident and there are stories in which the hand of the narrator is very covert. As an extreme, we may mention The French Lieutenant's Woman in which the author, John Fowles, almost spoils the story by intruding into it at several crucial points' (18).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | author |



Longacre calls 'the man [sic] who is making up the discourse and beaming it towards us' a composer (17).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | discourse |



He thinks of the 'composer as framer of the discourse' (19).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | discourse |



'I here get to the main point of this chapter...Something like plot characterizes forms of discourse other than narrative....Plot is the notional structure of narrative discourse' (20).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | discourse | narrative | plot | structure |



Longacre outlines several features of peak as a zone of turbulence: rhetorical underlining, concentration of participants, heightened vividness, change of pace, change of vantage point or orientation, incidence of special particles and of onomatopoeia (25-38).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | onomatopoeia | orientation | participants | peak |



Last Modified: July-12-96 10:10:38

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