Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)
ÁGNES DELI Interpersonality and Textuality in Discourse
108 Ágnes Deli There are several other conventional patterns detectable in narratives. Winter (1994) and Hoey (1994) identify the following semantic units in text: Situation Problem Response/Solution Evaluation Basis for Evaluation. The units can be identified by lexical signals, by position, and also by the verb tenses. Another method of testing is using a dialogue test, i.e. a projection of the text into a dialogue, which means using a question-answer system where the questions introduce into the discourse what is not there explicitly (cf. Hoey, 1994: 42). According to Hoey (1983: 33), although the resources of discourse organization are finite in number, i.e. the semantic types of textual units are definite, the patterns of organization are various, and the number of these is indefinite. Spoken language data show that the patterns commonly occurring in narratives similarly obtain in conversations. The following are examples of the occurrence of the so-called Problem-Solution pattern. 17. A: But it's particularly a problem if the person who is under hypnosis has been told to deny that he or she is under hypnosis by the hypnotist. B: Oh, yes. This is a terrible problem, because the unscrupulous hypnotist puts up blockages and and inprogrammes the the subject he is abusing, first of all not to be hypnotisable by anyone else, and then, if [a] the person should be hypnotised by someone else [am] not to remember various things, and # there are famous cases where it took years for the deepprogramming hypnotists to unscramble the mess made by the unscrupulous hypnotists over many years. .. 18. A: So , from a sheer protectionist point of view you fear a unification. B: I feel the present war is a trade war, it's not a war with with [a] weapons like we used to have # in history. The semantic unit Problem is lexically marked in both extracts: in 17 by the NP a problem , in 18 by the verb fear. In the former the confirmation is lexicalised, whereas it is not expressed explicitly in extract 18 Still, the implication is there, which is obvious from the fact that the lexicalisation yes could be inserted here, too. So we can say that the two exchanges share the following pattern:
