Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

www.elsevier.com/locate/pragmaJournal of Pragmatics 45 (2013) 119--130

Never mind the text types, here’s textual force:Towards a pragmatic reconceptualization of text type

Stavroula Tsiplakou a,1, Georgios Floros b,*aOpen University of Cyprus, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, 13-15 Digeni Akrita Ave., 1055 Nicosia, Cyprus

bUniversity of Cyprus, Department of English Studies, P.O. Box 20537, 1678 Nicosia, Cyprus

Received 21 May 2012; received in revised form 6 November 2012; accepted 8 November 2012

Abstract

This paper discusses aspects of the theoretical and methodological confusion around the notions of language function, text type andgenre, and proposes a restructuring of the purported relationship among them. Taxonomical biases regarding genre have led to thepostulation of superordinate classes, variously labeled prototypical text categories, text prototypes, deep structure genres, or text types,which are typically defined on the basis of linguistic criteria; however, in practice, classifications of text types involve a strong functionalcomponent. The result of such mixing is a disparate set of analytical categories labeling text types. Rather than doing away with theproblematic construct of text type, we propose a different approach whereby text type is reconceptualized as what we term the overallforce of a text. Borrowing insights from speech act theory and Relevance theory we define force as an overarching textual function andargue that force is arrived at by processes of inference deploying contextual knowledge. Such an inferential approach allows forpreserving the dynamism of this intuitively necessary superordinate construct.© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Genre; Text type; Relevance theory; Speech act theory; Textual function; Textual force

1. Introduction

When attempting to understand a textual occurrence in terms of its overall function, an aspect of understanding textswhich is of central importance to educators or translators, among other specialists, function-oriented taxonomicalapproaches provide a solid theoretical basis for analysis and application. However, there seems to be much confusion asto the categories forming the basis of such taxonomies.

Tracing the reasons behind the theoretical and methodological confusion among constructs such as genre, text typeand language function is a relatively straightforward matter, despite the by now vast literature on these topics. The obviousanswer is that such confusion largely arises because theorists argue from different perspectives (text-linguistic -- verybroadly construed --, discourse analytic, rhetorical, pedagogical, translation studies, etc.) and with different aims. Anotherreason is theoretical unclarity as to the ways in which these analytical primes may meaningfully form a theoreticallyrelevant constellation. The aim of this paper is to re-establish the necessity of a category partly akin to text type, not as yetanother taxonomical move, but as a pragmatically driven attempt to describe the overall textual function as textual force,while preserving the notion of genre as a distinct category necessary for inferring said force. This would respond to theparticular problem that genre alone is not a sufficient category for explaining the function of a text, since texts belonging to

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +357 22 89 21 24/99 31 13 59; fax: +357 22 89 53 10.E-mail addresses: stavroula.tsiplakou@ouc.ac.cy (S. Tsiplakou), gfloros@ucy.ac.cy (G. Floros).

1 Tel.: +357 22 41 19 22/99 37 68 04; fax: +357 22 41 16 01.

0378-2166/$ -- see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.11.004

S. Tsiplakou, G. Floros / Journal of Pragmatics 45 (2013) 119--130120

the same genre may prove functionally different and texts from different genres sometimes prove functionally similar, aswill be shown with examples below.

The paper is structured as follows: a brief overview of the notions of genre and text type in their historical dimension isattempted with the aim of showing that the confusion between the two constructs arises as a result not only of the tensionbetween more socially-oriented versus more linguistically/cognitively oriented approaches, but also of the circularityinherent in ‘functional’ approaches to linguistic features as determinants of text types. We propose reconceptualizing texttype as what we term the overall force of a text, borrowing insights from classic speech act theory and, crucially, recastingthe notion of (illocutionary) force in Relevance-theoretic terms. It is hoped that such a reconceptualization will provide ananalytical tool which, beyond genre analysis, will benefit specialists in areas where ‘text’ is of central importance.

2. What’s in a genre? The genealogical dimension

The minimal point of consensus among varying approaches to date is the conceptualization of genres as socio-cognitive constructs (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1995:4), i.e. as templates or frameworks institutionalized to varyingdegrees for the purposes of regulating and facilitating types of social interaction. If genre is a byproduct or, rather, a kind ofmetapragmatic index (cf. Gumperz, 1982, 1992) of types of social interaction, this entails that both stability and flux areinherent properties of genre; flux is regulated by changes in the social/cultural/interactional context, while at the same timesome kind of linguistic, textual or even ‘functional’ stability of generic schemes is required for the purposes of felicitousindexing of the corresponding type of social interaction.

2.1. Varying traditions, varying foci

In what follows we argue that, while 20th century traditions largely subscribe to the conceptualization of genre as asocio-cognitive category, differences emerge as a result of differential emphasis on the linguistic/textual dimension versusthe social dimension of genre. Thus, North American genre theory, as articulated within New Rhetoric, views genre as adynamic product of the complex interplay between language and context, with the emphasis on social context and socialaction rather than on linguistic/textual structures carrying meaning or semiotic import independently of their context ofoccurrence (see Knapp, 1997; Freedman and Medway, 1994). In this view, genre is ‘‘typified rhetorical action based onrecurrent situations’’ (Miller, 1984:31); in other words, genres are viewed as functions from social contexts to linguisticforms. This grants genre a form of recursivity, which, according to Miller, allows it some kind of independent status as aconstruct somewhere in the middle ground between the macro-level of culture and the micro-level of language (Miller,1994:68; see also Bazerman, 1988, 1994, 2004 and Matsagouras and Tsiplakou, 2008 for extensive discussion).

Differential emphasis on context and on linguistic/textual properties of genre appears to be a distinguishing feature ofrelated approaches to genre analysis, such as English for Specific Purposes (ESP) (Swales, 1990; Bhatia, 1993, 2004;see also Hyon, 1996). Thus, while Swales describes genre as a ‘‘fuzzy concept’’ (Swales, 1990:33) and views genres asfunctions of social action,2 he nonetheless acknowledges that there is ‘‘pedagogical value in sensitizing students torhetorical effects and to the rhetorical structures that tend to recur in the genre-specific texts’’ (Swales, 1990:213; Bhatia,1993:18 and Yunick, 1997:323--325 for a succinct discussion). Since both these approaches ultimately view genre ascontextually situated, no attempt is made to deploy more generalizing analytical primes such as text type.

2.2. Australian educational linguistics in the wake of Halliday

Australian educational linguistics claims its roots in Hallidayan systemic-functional linguistics (see Halliday, 1994;Halliday and Hasan, 1991); in the Australian tradition (Cope and Kalantzis, 1993; Christie, 1989; Halliday and Martin,1993; Kalantzis and Cope, 2012; Martin, 1989, among others), the concern is language and literacy learning andtheoretical takes on genre are largely informed by pedagogical concerns. The Australian school also lays particularemphasis on the role of context in determining and delimiting genre.

Reliance on, and varying implementations of, Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar, and of his approach to registerin particular, underlie the Australian school’s approaches to genre, and it is worth noting that quite significant ambiguitiesregarding genre as an analytical construct arise from the Hallidayan conceptualization of register as an aggregate of tenor,field, and mode. Interestingly, genre and text type do not have any clear theoretical status in this configuration. Hallidaynotes that:

2 Swales (1990:58) defines genre as ‘‘a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposeswhich are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community’’.

S. Tsiplakou, G. Floros / Journal of Pragmatics 45 (2013) 119--130 121

3 Wepropos(récit,

exposi

[genre] is an aspect of what we here call the ‘mode’. The various genres of discourse, including literary genres, arethe specific semiotic functions of text that have social value in the culture. A genre may have implications for othercomponents of meaning: there are often associations between a particular genre and particular semantic featuresof an ideational or interpersonal kind [. . .] Hence labels for generic categories are often functionally complex.’’(1978:145)

This formulation is rather unclear: on the one hand, genre is seen as an aspect of mode, presumably on a par with othercomponents of mode such as channel, rhetorical means, etc., but on the other hand it is treated as a kind of compositesuperordinate category of mode, as it affects/indexes choices relating to the ideational and interpersonal component, i.e.aspects of field and tenor as well as their linguistic correlates (see also Yunick, 1997:327--328). Nevertheless, we find theinsight that genre is a category mediating between context and language especially useful for the proposal that will bearticulated in this paper.

Postulating genre as a distinct analytical category in Hallidayan linguistics has stemmed from the pedagogical concernthat register analysis was felt to privilege lexico-grammatical and phonological patterns and their relation to context overthe social-semiotic role of broader textual-discursive structures (cf. also Couture, 1986; Ferguson, 1994; Finegan andBiber, 1994; Lee, 2001). Placing genre at a level over and above register variables (e.g. in Eggins and Martin, 1997;Hasan, 1994; Martin, 1992; Martin, 1997 and Matthiessen and Martin, 1991) was seen as necessary because overarchinggeneric schemata reflect socio-cultural categories and processes and their discursive mapping out in families of texts.

The postulation of an additional level of generic structure in the terms described above has, paradoxically, led to ratherrigid taxonomies of ‘genres’ within the Australian tradition (cf., e.g., the taxonomy into description, recount, report,procedure, exposition, explanation, discussion and exploration proposed in Martin, 1989, 1992 and the elaborate (sub)categorizations in Martin and Rose, 2008). It is surprising that initially dynamic conceptions of genre as part of social actionshould end up as taxonomical devices. We suggest that this is partly a result of the pedagogical bias inherent ineducational linguistics (see also Kress, 1999, 2003; Paltridge, 1995, 1996; Thwaite, 2006), and partly a result of residualtheoretical unclarity in the conceptualization of genres as textual/discourse schemata (see also Hyon, 1996). Ultimately,and despite the fact that the notion of text type does not figure at all in these approaches, such categorizations are stronglyreminiscent of classifications into text types in more text linguistically oriented approaches, as will be discussed in the nextsection.

3. Never mind the text types?

Text types are a construct that is usually viewed as superordinate to genre, in the sense that they are typically treatedas ‘‘as a principle of abstraction and classification, an analytical category that aims at capturing structural, functional, andother conventionalized patterns’’ occurring in particular genres (Georgakopoulou, 2005:594). Such superordinate classeshave variously been labeled prototypical text categories, text prototypes, deep structure genres, or, more commonly, texttypes (see Moessner, 2001:133--135 for an overview). Postulating a higher-order category over and above genre seemsto stem both from the need to formalize the intuition that seemingly disparate genres may share linguistic/structuralfeatures and aspects of ‘function’ and from the taxonomical bias inherent in corpus studies, ESP and other pedagogically-oriented approaches (see section 2.2 above), although there is significant disparity in the typologies proposed.3

3.1. ‘Internal’ definitions

In corpus studies text types are treated as aggregates of ‘internal’, i.e. linguistic/structural features (Biber, 1988, 1989).Thus, Biber (1989:6) notes that ‘‘linguistically similar texts from different genres represent a single text type’’; linguisticsimilarity is purportedly established through statistical methods, which yield different text types cutting across genres, onthe basis of rates of linguistic similarity and/or disparity (see also Biber and Finegan, 1986, where eight text types aresuggested; for a review see Lee, 2001; Moessner, 2001; Paltridge, 1996; Taavitsainen, 2001). It is important to note,however, that the text types emerging from such statistical analysis are usually functionally rather than linguisticallylabeled (cf., e.g., the labels involved production, informational production, narrative concern, explicit reference, situation-dependent reference, overt expression of persuasion, abstract information and online informational elaboration in Biber,1988:102--103).

rlich (1975) analyses five text types (narration, description, exposition, argumentation and instruction), Beaugrande and Dressler (1981)e seven text types (descriptive, narrative, argumentative, scientific, didactic, literary and poetic) and Adam (1992) suggests five text typesdescription, argumentation, explication and dialogue). Longrace (1976, 1983) proposes four types of texts (narrative, procedural,tory and hortatory), which he terms ‘‘deep structure genres’’.

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As we have argued elsewhere (Matsagouras and Tsiplakou, 2008), the nature of such classifications points to the factthat aggregates of surface linguistic/textual features are viewed as realizations of language functions, differentiallyconceived depending on author and project. The result is a rather disparate set of analytical categories labeling text types, infact categorial medleys consisting of genres, functions and textual, rhetorical or presentational strategies, as is evidencedby the varying proposals in the literature.4 We would like to argue that the reason for such disparity is in fact the circularityinherent in corpus-based approaches, which by admission start off with ‘external criteria’ such as selecting a range of textsthat are generically and situationally ‘representative’ (cf. Biber, 1993:245) and then determining the linguistic/structuralfeatures that are relevant for classifications into text types, via cross-checking between the quantitatively emergent linguisticand the pre-established ‘external’ classifications of the genres selected for corpus analysis. This, however, means that thereis no autonomous, ‘internal’ way of determining text-types,5 as the ‘linguistic’ categories employed for classification in factend up being defined on the basis of external, contextual, generic or functional criteria.6

3.2. ‘External’ definitions

The question that naturally arises is whether there is any theoretically meaningful way of salvaging the construct of texttype and distinguishing it from genre. If text types cannot be defined on the basis of ‘internal’, linguistic criteria, then theother obvious way of reaching an independent definition is to look for ‘external’ parameters as a basis for definition.7 Therehave been several such attempts to date, the common thread running through them being a functionally-orienteddefinition of text types. Fludernik (2000) aptly points out that in earlier approaches such as those in Kinneavy (1971), andWerlich (1975, 1983), text types are aligned with (quasi-) Jakobsonian language functions. In a similar vein, Adam (1985,1992) attempts to deploy insights from speech act theory (Austin, 1962) and to define eight text types based on the‘speech act’ they are taken to correspond to; this approach however leads to a rather mixed bag of analytical categories.For example, the narrative, descriptive and explanatory text types are all taken to correspond to the speech act ofassertion, while the argumentative text type corresponds to the speech act of convincing, the ‘injunctive’ text typecorresponds to the speech act of directing, the predictive text type corresponds to the speech act of ‘prophesying’, the‘conversational’ [sic] text type corresponds to an array of speech acts, such as ‘questioning’ ‘excusing’, ‘promising’, etc.Rolf (1993:65ff.), based on Brinker’s (1983) analysis, proposes a very interesting functional classification of genres(‘Textsorten’, see German text linguistic tradition below) according to the five illocutionary points described by Searle(1969), the core idea being the alignment of types of speech acts with the textual functions of genres. However, speech acttheory is deployed by Rolf in a way that favors a fixed set of textual functions, thus not allowing for finer distinctions andfurther possibilities in the functional behavior of discourse types.

While the attempt at aligning text types with speech acts is intuitively an attractive proposition, leading, as it does, to afunctional, rather than linguistic/structural definition of text types, the proposed taxonomy is both fairly rigid anddescriptively/explanatorily inadequate, relying, as it does, on a rather narrow conception of speech acts and confoundingspeech acts with rhetorical strategies and modes of text organization (see also the critique in Fludernik, 2000). Virtanenand Wårvik (1987), Virtanen (1992) and Fludernik (1996, 2000) attempt to preserve the basic intuition that text types servesome kind of communicative function (i.e. they also opt for an ‘external’ definition of text type), and they also attempt to dojustice to the complexity of the relationship between text type, genre and mode of discourse (i.e. strategies of textorganization) by introducing more multi-layered models. Thus, Virtanen and Wårvik (1987) and Virtanen (1992) suggestthat narrative, description, instruction, exposition and argument are discourse types relating to functions of discourse,

4 Cf., for example, the Helsinki Historical Corpus of English Texts taxonomy of 33 ‘text classes’ (see Moessner, 2001:135--137) or Hoey’s(1983) classification into problem--solution, general--particular, matching contrast and hypothetical--real text types. Cf. also Hedge’s (1988) staticdescriptions, process descriptions, narratives, cause and effect, discussions, compare and contrast, classifications, definitions, and reviews, andHammond et al.’s (1992) procedure, anecdote, description, exposition, problem-solution, recount, procedure, report and review.

5 In Biber’s words, ‘‘there is no a priori way to identify linguistically defined types’’ (1993:245).6 The unwelcome circularity inherent in the process is in fact spelled out in the relevant literature: ‘‘The internal linguistic criteria of the text [are]

analyzed subsequent to the initial selection based on external criteria. The linguistic criteria are subsequently upheld as particular to the genre[. . .] Thus classification begins with external classification and subsequently focuses on linguistic criteria. If the linguistic criteria are then relatedback to the external classification and the categories adjusted accordingly, a sort of cyclical process ensues until a level of stability is established.’’(EAGLES, 1996:7, as quoted in Lee, 2001:41; see also Moessner, 2001, Virtanen, 2009 and Matsagouras and Tsiplakou, 2008 for extensivediscussion).

7 Another line of approach, adopted, for example, by Chatman (1990) and Görlach (2004), treats genres as ‘‘special subclasses orcombinations of text-types.’’ (Chatman, 1990:10, see also Taavitsainen, 2001). A different line of analysis is attempted by Herman (2008),who argues that text types can be compared to Bakhtin’s (1986[1953]:60) ‘‘primary speech genres’’ and treats text types as prototypes in the spiritof prototype theory (Rosch et al., 1976). While a full review must necessarily lie outside the scope of the present paper, a preliminary remark canbe made in relation to our discussion, namely that it is unclear whether text types are treated as functional or as featural/linguistic/structuralprototypes.

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which in turn correspond to cognitive processes and intentions. They make the very interesting suggestion that a cognitiveprocess [sic] or intention, e.g. argumentation, is not necessarily always served by choosing the argumentative discoursetype, but may be served by a different discourse type, e.g. narration, description or evaluation. In a rather similar vein,Fludernik (2000) proposes a tripartite model with an overarching, very general level of ‘macrogenres’, i.e. of text typesconceived of as broad communicative functions (akin to those in Jakobson, 1960), the level of genre and the level ofdiscourse mode, where structural aspects of texts (e.g. description, narration, argumentation) acquire specific functions,depending on the properties of their containing genre.

Leaving aside the details of the application of this model to the analysis of literary texts, it seems to us that we want topreserve the basic intuition, namely that text types relate to functions, but these are not language functions in their abstractsense but rather emergent ones, whose precise communicative import is somehow mediated or contextualized by genre(cf. also the proposal in Virtanen, 2010 for differentiating between text and discourse type in a way that allows for thedynamic nature of the interface between the two to emerge).

Before proceeding with our attempt, it seems worth looking at the way in which the relationship between genre and texttype is presented in Translation Studies. To this effect, it is important to see how the German text linguistic researchtradition perceives these constructs at theoretical/terminological level, compared to the Anglophone tradition. Accordingto Neumann (2008:10), the German tradition differentiates between Texttypen (text types) and Textsorten (kinds, sorts oftexts) which refer to top-down8 and bottom-up9 text classifications respectively. According to Muntigl and Gruber (2005)and Lee (2001), genre, as used in the Anglophone text linguistic tradition, seems to be the closest correspondence toTextsorte, while Neumann (2008:10) concurs: ‘‘Text type seems to be used in similar ways in both research traditionsaddressing top-down categories on a high level of abstraction’’. Schäffner asserts that:

8 See9 Cf.

[. . .] ‘Texttyp’ (text type) is understood as a category for a more abstract, theoretical classification of texts, and‘Textsorte’ (or ‘Textklasse’, i.e. genre, text class, text variety) is a label used for an empirical classification of texts asthey exist in a human society’’ [. . .]. ‘Textsorte’ corresponds to what is typically called ‘genre’ in Anglo-Saxon studieson genre analysis. Members of a linguistic community therefore have specific genre knowledge, rather than text-type knowledge’’. (2002:4)

In any case, the terms Texttyp and Textsorte seem to imply an opposition of classificatory approaches rather than anykind of interdependence or interrelation between the above concepts, an interrelation which would be situated within awider text linguistic framework. The trend in the German tradition, however, goes towards Systemic Functional Linguistics(SFL) and Register theory, which Neumann (2008) favors as mediation between top-down and bottom-up extremes in textclassificatory attempts. She argues (cf. Neumann, 2008:11--12) for the placement of text classification within the largerframework of a general language theory (SFL), as such placement would provide the necessary conceptual links to bothlanguage as system and language as concrete instances. Thus there seems to be a convergence of the two academictraditions, albeit not at terminological level. Issues concerning the contrastive understanding and mutual delimitation ofthe terms Texttyp and Textsorte, and equally between the terms text type and genre, as well as the possible relationshipbetween them, remain largely unexplored, to the extent that in many cases the terms are used interchangeably.

The classificatory concept enjoying wide acceptance in Translation Studies is provided by Reiß (1976), who proposed atranslation-oriented text classification based on Bühler’s Organon-Modell (1934), while some other classificatory attemptsbased on functional criteria were also suggested (e.g. Newmark, 1981; Roberts, 1985). Reiß distinguishes three basic texttypes (informative, expressive, operative), which she sees as essential in determining and applying the appropriatetranslation type and strategy. She then assigns to each text type a number of text varieties. In her model, text varieties(genres) can thus be understood as a text classificatory category further to text type. Again according to Schäffner (cf.2002:4), genres, rather than text types, have become relevant for Translation Studies, as they (genres) can be described astypical combinations of contextual and structural features. It is exactly this combination of communicative-functional andgrammatical aspects which has moved the interest of translation scholars towards the investigation of genre. This is alsoevident in House (1997), who provides a scheme for analyzing and comparing original and translation texts. According to thisscheme, ‘‘linguistic features discovered in the text are correlated with the register categories FIELD, TENOR and MODE’’(1997:110, emphasis is the original). An individual textual function is then derived from the register analysis. Genre isintroduced as a category ‘‘in-between’’ the register categorization and the textual function (cf. House, 1997:110). It thusbecomes obvious that the individual textual function is derived also from ‘genre’ (knowledge) without being explicitlyunderstood in terms of ‘text type’.

The trend today continues being mainly function-oriented, in line with the Hallidayan tradition, which has had a largeimpact on how genre and register are understood within the framework of translation-oriented text analysis (see Trosborg,

Werlich (1975), Reiß (1976), Isenberg (1983), Göpferich (1995), among others., e.g., Adamzik (2000), Neumann (2003).

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1997, 2000; Schäffner, 1997, 2000, 2002) and the fundamental question concerning translation is whether specific textualfeatures of the source-text present translation problems and, subsequently, to what extent these features might influencetranslation decisions. Trosborg (2002) understands genre as the purpose of an interaction, combining the translation-oriented investigation of genres with skopos-theory (i.e. the theory stating that the purpose a translation is set to fulfilldetermines the choices opted for). Furthermore, she sees genre as superordinate to register features, a view which is inaccordance with discourse-analytic approaches following the Hallidayan tradition. If, however, genre is understood as thepurpose of an interaction immediately deriving from the (subordinate) register, then this presents, in our view, a theoreticalinadequacy. It would mean that genre ‘subsumes’ and includes textual function and that register would help infer thepurpose of the interaction. In reality, however, one can see texts with the same textual function being realized with differentregisters, e.g. instructions in case of fire and manuals, and, also, very similar registers used for texts displaying differenttextual functions or purposes, e.g. parables and novels. The above makes it clear that Translation Studies seem to beabandoning the theoretical preoccupation with text type, in line with the general trend in text linguistic research.

4. A reconceptualization of the notion of text type as force

The preceding discussion makes it clear that a novel model is required that will bring together previous correct insightswhile at the same time providing a firm yet dynamic distinction between the problematic notions of genre, text type,language function(s) and textual function.

We take on board the widely accepted understanding of genre as a socio-cognitive construct/category (see section 2above). What is precisely meant by the term socio-cognitive, however, needs some further elaboration. Genres are waysof codifying types of social/linguistic activity, i.e. ways of linguistically structuring, or, to use a more ethnographic term,indexing types of social activity via linguistic/textual configurations. Genres are also cognitive constructs in that theycodify, with linguistic means, varying types of cultural activity and such codifications are akin to mental representations inthat they constitute ‘mental maps’ of the activities in question. It goes without saying that such cognitive constructs areculture-specific and dependent on linguistic and literacy practices within specific communities of practice. In this sensegenres are not tokens; rather, specific textual manifestations identified by a community as belonging to a genre, aretokens of that genre. This implies that genres change over time and across cultures/communities. However, becausegenres remain cognitive constructs, their conception may not always be totally in line with their actual linguisticmanifestations, especially as genres mutate over time, across communities, etc.

We take issue with the predominant view that genres are tokens of text types, for reasons discussed in detail above.This, however, does not void the need to maintain the notion of text type; rather, it raises the question of how the relationbetween the two may best be defined.

The problems with linking core linguistic features with text types have already been discussed above. The problematicaspects of identifying text types with functions require further discussion. The key question is what is meant by function inthis context. The problem is not of a quantitative nature, although objections to text types as functions have relied heavilyon the absence of one-to-one correspondence between, for instance, the six Jakobsonian functions and the significantlylarger number of text types as identified in the literature (see section 3). The reason why such purely typologically orientedapproaches ultimately fail to draw a meaningful mapping between language function and text type is that the attempt is todefine text types both top-down and bottom-up at the same time, i.e. to map a limited number of functions onto text types,which, however, also emerge bottom-up on the basis of linguistic or textual features. This makes the whole enterpriserather circular, as discussed above.

Another reason why top-down and bottom-up approaches cannot happily coincide in retrieving a fixed set of text typesis because the dynamic nature of genre gets in the way. The dynamicity of genre as a socio-cognitive construct lies in thefact that it indexes functions which may be relevant and specific to very situated contexts and communities of practice; assuch, these functions may mutate across time, communities and cultures. Moreover, very similar linguistic and textualmeans may be used to encode very different functions (for example, the historical present functions differently in footballmatch relays and in book blurbs or film descriptions and in jokes --- in all of these cases the narrative function is arguablydominant, but ‘narrative’ is functionally very different in each case). Furthermore, actual genres display blends of‘functions’ -- ‘text types’, as has been extensively discussed in literary narratology with regard to the mixing of narrationand description in literary genres (Chatman, 1990; Fludernik, 1996, 2000; Herman, 2008). More importantly, it is very oftenthe case that a text may have an overall recognizable ‘function’, or it may belong to a recognizable ‘text type’, but onanother, simultaneous level of reception, the same text may be assigned a radically different ‘function’ or ‘text type’, e.g. anadvertisement may be structured as pure description, yet the function of the description is not identified as referential, butas conative. Similarly, parables are narratives, but recipients recognize their ultimate function as exhortatory.

Two issues emerge here: a) there seems to be a duality to the notion of function, in that what is identifiable as function x onone level may be identifiable as function y on another level---the question that immediately emerges is the epistemological

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status of these levels, an issue to which we well return presently; b) what allows function x to be interpreted as function y isknowledge of genre, and especially of its contextual/social/cultural dimension. Genre seems to act as a mediator to therecognition and interpretation of ‘function’ in a text. This is not surprising if we adopt the view outlined above that genre is asocio-cognitive construct, providing a mental map of context, participants, intended meanings, etc.

Earlier we posed the question of what allows for the retrieval of function y and we showed that it cannot be linguisticfeatures of the text or at least not linguistic features alone. It makes sense to argue that function y, the more indirect yetmore dominant function or interpretation, is pragmatically retrieved via a process of inference. What allows for theinference is precisely genre knowledge or genre awareness, which aids the recipient to implement contextual features ofthe interaction (field, tenor) in order to recover intended, but not linguistically stated, functions.

To bring the above strands of analysis together, let us consider the following potential scenarios: a) two texts usuallytaken to be generically similar on the grounds of language functions (e.g. narration) and linguistic features may prove to bedistinct at a different level through genre knowledge, if genre knowledge is taken in its socio-cognitive dimension, e.g. jokeand fable; b) two texts arguably taken to be generically dissimilar in terms of language function and textual organizationmay prove to be similar at a different level, again through genre knowledge in the above sense, e.g. advertisement and(auto)biography. We propose that this different level be identified as the level of ‘text type’, which, however, needs to beredefined, not in terms of linguistic features or language functions in the Jakobsonian sense. In what follows, we willattempt to define this level in terms of speech act theory.

Before embarking on aspects of speech act theory which we take as relevant to our redefinition of text types and theirrelation with genre, we will make the following crucial assumption: What are typically taken to be text types, e.g.descriptive, narrative, argumentative, expository, etc., we will redefine as structural aspects of text organization. Thereason for this should be obvious from the preceding discussion, but we will summarize our argumentation for the sake ofclarity. Narration, exposition, argumentation, etc. are structuring patterns occurring across a large array of texts but notnecessarily univocally linked to function. Thus, narration, for example, does not necessarily index a specific function (e.g.referring to or making assertions about a state of affairs in the world: cf. joke, parable, etc.). It is therefore preferable to treatnarration, exposition, argumentation, etc. as patterns of textual organization, which relate to functions only through aninferential process such as the one described above, with genre knowledge mediating to achieve the intended inference.

The parallels to speech act theory immediately become apparent. We maintain Austin’s classic tripartite distinctionbetween locution, illocutionary force and perlocutionary effects (cf. Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969; Searle and Vanderveken,1985).10 We further assume, following classic speech act theory, that the speech act/the (illocutionary) force of anutterance is not necessarily part of the utterance content,11 but can be inferred on the basis of both structural andcontextual factors (e.g. verb mood, relationships between participants). It becomes very tempting to assume that text typequa function is the text’s (illocutionary) force. Genre acts as context, or, if we adopt a radical pragmatic perspective (e.g.Relevance theory), genre properties, crucially its indexing of particular fields and tenors, are mentally represented ascontextual assumptions leading to particular inferences.12 This approach explains, for example, why the ultimate force ofa joke is entertainment and not informing, or why the ultimate force of an advertisement is persuasive and not descriptive/informative. To return to the above potential scenarios, the approach just outlined can account for two different genresrelating to the same text type/function-as-force (cf. (a) above), or for two texts belonging to the same genre relating todifferent text types/functions-as-forces, e.g. instructions in case of fire and instructions for playing a game (the decisivedifference in force being warning vs. the absence thereof).

Speech act theory has long been concerned with types and numbers of illocutionary forces and the extent to whichthese are directly encoded by performative verbs, verb mood, etc. As is to be expected, there is no consensus in thesemantic/pragmatic literature with regard to this issue (cf. Austin, 1962; Searle and Vanderveken, 1985; Levinson, 1983;Wilson and Sperber, 1993). Given that illocutionary force is to a large extent culturally and contextually dependent and,moreover, because apparently identical illocutionary forces may take on subtle nuances, again depending on context,interlocutors and cultural conventions (e.g. the use of the imperative mood in languages such as Greek may notnecessarily perform a speech act of ordering; cf. Sifianou (1992) for Greek, as well as the vast literature on politeness).Relevance theory accounts for the dynamic nature of illocutionary force precisely by assuming that illocutionary forces arenot lexicalized or conventional implicatures but they arise in context and take on their particular value as a result of a

10 This parallel is deployed in Bazerman (2004), where genres are seen as ‘typifications’ of speech acts qua types of social action; the approachhowever implicitly collapses ‘genre’ and ‘text type’.11 Even when there is a performative verb, the illocutionary force/speech act may be different than what the verb denotes, e.g. ‘‘Quiet, please!’’said with a commanding intonation.12 There is by now a significant body of work within a Relevance-theoretic framework which opts for a cognitive-pragmatic treatment of genreknowledge as accessible representations or contextual assumptions (aka encyclopedic knowledge) entering the inferential procedure ofpragmatic interpretation and aiding the achievement of optimal relevance through generating or constraining expectations of relevance (see,e.g., Goatly, 1994; Sperber, 1996; Sperber and Wilson, 1998; Unger, 2001, 2006; Vega-Moreno, 2007; Zegarac and Clark, 1999).

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dynamic process of inference in which different types of contextual assumptions may be involved (see, e.g., Carston,2003; Ifantidou, 2001; Lenci, 1995; Recanati, 1987; Sperber and Wilson, 1995; Wilson and Sperber, 1993). We would liketo argue that it would be very fruitful to draw a parallel (with the usual caveats that may apply when generalizing fromutterances to texts) to the retrieval of ‘text type’ or, following our reconceptualization, text force. Texts are not tokens of afixed number of ‘text types’ in the same way that utterances are not tokens of a fixed number of illocutionary forces. Rather,‘text types’ or forces are dynamic shifting, changing entities, dependent as they are on socio-cognitive factors discussedextensively above.13 To wrap up the argument, let us repeat that many of the patterns traditionally considered to be texttypes or functions we treat as modes of textual organization,14 (part of the text’s ‘locution’, if we want to maintain theparallel to speech act theory). These, together with register, assist in the retrieval of a text’s force (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 shows the conceptual difference between micro-functions that may be present in a text (which we previouslytermed function x) and the ultimate textual force (function y), which is our reconceptualization of text type. Crucially, textualforce emerges as the result of a process of inference, for which relevant contextual assumptions include socio-cultural andlinguistic knowledge, namely knowledge of register (in the Hallidayan sense; cf. Unger, 2006) and awareness of genre asa mental map thereof. Prior knowledge of genre and contextual exposure constrain the processing effort of having tochoose among a vast range of possibilities and lead to inferences which may optimally cover the particular constellation ofinteracting factors in a given textual situation. In this analysis it is therefore crucial that genre be treated as part of context(cf. note 11). Genres are not viewed as pre-existing, static entities; rather, they are seen as dynamic mental codificationsof situational parameters which aid in the retrieval of a text’s ultimate force. In Fig. 1 we also tentatively placedperlocutionary effects as additional interpretations on the part of the text’s recipients: We may assume that, since theanalysis focuses on whole texts rather than utterances, perlocutionary effects of texts may be quite rich and varied. It istempting to model such perlocutionary effects of texts as weak implicatures in the sense of Sperber and Wilson (1995).This analysis must, however, fall outside the scope of the present paper.

To provide a concrete example, we briefly discuss two texts with significant similarities as regards content and textorganization. The first one is Aesop’s fable ‘The ant and the grasshopper’ and the second one is one of a series of well-known jokes with the same topic, which stands in a parodic, subversive relationship to the original fable (see Appendix A).The two texts clearly belong to different, well-established and easily identifiable genres, but, according to approaches totext type discussed above, they also belong to the same text type (narrative). A large array of linguistic and textual featuresin both texts point to ‘narrative’ (e.g., the use of past tenses, the sequential organization of events, causal relations,narrative closure, etc.). This much is also assumed by more mainstream approaches to text types. In the model proposedhere modes of text organization such as narrative only correspond to the apparent function of texts (function x). Genre isalso indexed through linguistic and textual features: For example, generic or indefinite noun phrases referring to theprotagonists as well as the indeterminate temporal anchoring of events indicate imaginary narrative and thus narrow downthe possibilities for genre retrieval. Textual features such as the moral in the fable and the punch-line in the joke are almostunivocal indexicals of the respective genres. In more traditional analyses, two very different genres such as the above aretreated as tokens of the same text type, precisely because of the identification of text type with our function x. We argue,however, that, while this unifying feature of both texts is available, a further step of analysis is needed in order to capturefully the pragmatic properties and the interpretive potential inherent in the two particular configurations of textual andgeneric features. We argue, then, that genre knowledge acts as a contextual premise allowing for a further step ofinference, that of the texts’ forces (our function y), i.e. admonition for edification purposes in the case of the fable andentertainment in the case of the joke, just as illocutionary forces are retrieved on the basis of linguistic and contextualinformation in speech act theory through steps of pragmatic inference as modeled in Relevance theory. Other facets oftextual force pertaining to particular configurations of socio-cultural contexts, recipients’ perceptions, etc. may be treatedas perlocutionary effects or as weak implicatures in Relevance-theoretic terms.15

5. Conclusion

In this paper an attempt was made to show that the notion of text type, recast here as force, i.e. as a pragmaticallyinferred overarching textual function, is an analytical category which fruitfully complements genre in investigating thefunction of a text as a whole. To this end, we implemented a radical pragmatic approach, which crucially also entails a

13 The figure below does not imply a linear parsing model where a full genre and register analysis is required prior to the retrieval of force. Suchcognitive processes may well work in parallel; initial assumptions as to force may be reconsidered as further processing of the text and its contexttakes place (see also the analysis of the texts below).14 There is some similarity here to Georgakopoulou and Goutsos (1997, 2000), where narrative and non narrative are treated as modes.15 For example, the telling or reading of fables for entertainment purposes may have been an additional aspect beyond the fable’s main force. Asimilar perlocutionary effect of the joke is the potential parodic subversion of dominant cultural values encoded in the original fable.

S. Tsiplakou, G. Floros / Journal of Pragmatics 45 (2013) 119--130 127

Fig. 1. Modeling the relationship between genre and text type.

partial reconceptualization of genre as a cognitive construct, a set of contextual assumptions feeding into the inferentialprocess of force retrieval.

The approach laid out in this paper may have potential added value for applied text sciences such as (second/foreign)language teaching and Translation Studies (including interpreting). As to language teaching, the tendency towardsenhancing critical literacy may best be served by an approach which allows not only for the recognition of genre, but alsofor the recognition of textual force, which can then be correlated to the cultural and linguistic features making the force-related inferences possible in the first place. As to Translation (and interpreting), the awareness of an actual textual forcebeyond the apparent textual function may prove very fruitful in terms of a tertium comparationis, in the sense that what istranslated is, ultimately, the force of a text, above and beyond its structural features as inference-inducing mechanisms.

A further potential outcome of the proposed model is the awareness that a) the articulation of a force may vary cross-culturally, in the sense that different contexts may require different linguistic and other means to achieve the same force,and b) force is not tied to genre. Thus texts of the same genre may display different forces, and, vice versa, texts with thesame force may belong to different genres. Furthermore, the reconceptualization of ‘text type’ as force is arguably apragmatically meaningful move which allows us not to throw the construct of ‘text type’ out with the bathwater.

Appendix A

The fable

Source:Æsop, 2001. Fables, retold by Joseph Jacobs. Vol. XVII, Part 1. The Harvard Classics. P.F. Collier & Son, New York;

1909--14. Bartleby.com, 2001. www.bartleby.com/17/1/.

The ant and the grasshopperIn a field one summer’s day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. An Ant

passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.‘‘Why not come and chat with me,’’ said the Grasshopper, ‘‘instead of toiling and moiling in that way?’’‘‘I am helping to lay up food for the winter,’’ said the Ant, ‘‘and recommend you to do the same.’’‘‘Why bother about winter?’’ said the Grasshopper; ‘‘we have got plenty of food at present.’’ But the Ant went on its way

and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food, and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw

S. Tsiplakou, G. Floros / Journal of Pragmatics 45 (2013) 119--130128

the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopperknew:

‘‘IT IS BEST TO PREPARE FOR THE DAYS OF NECESSITY.’’

The joke

Source:Thisismyindia.com, 2011. www.thisismyindia.com/entertainment/jokes/ant-grasshopper.html.

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. Thegrasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowedto be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

BBC, CNN, NDTV show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortablehome with a table filled with food.

The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the

grasshopper.The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper.Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA], with effect

from the beginning of the winter.The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is

confiscated by the government and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony covered by BBC, CNN and NDTV.Bush calls it ‘‘A Triumph of justice. . . ’’.

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