Discourse Units and Relations
Discourse Units and Relations
The chapter examines narrative and non-narrative units and relations. The identification of narrative units depends on the analysis of narrative structures as e.g. in story grammar models or in Labov’s model of narrative structure. In the latter, evaluation is discussed as a central structural component, realised through several devices. Narrative units can also be distinguished in thematic terms, including idea units, lines, stanzas etc., as well as in sequential or hierarchical terms, including the foreground-background distinction. Non-narrative units, on the other hand, can also be identified in sequential terms, as a result of the basic strategies of continuity and shift. Ideational acts, like those involved in the rhetorical relations of Rhetorical Structure Theory, are also prominent, while a clear distinction should be made between the latter and intentional relations, which are involved in argumentation.
Keywords: story grammar, evaluation, narrative structure, paragraph, foreground-background, sequential, ideational, intentional, argumentation
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