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  • From: "B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>
  • To: <pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca>, "'B-Hebrew'" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Expository discourse profile
  • Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 07:41:23 -0400

Hi Ken,

The sources would be Longacre, _The Grammar of Discourse_ (1996, Plenum) and Dawson, _Text-linguistics and Biblical Hebrew_ (1994, Sheffield). See p. 146 in Dawson, for example.

I'm dredging up an old message from the archives, wondering if there is a
published source for some of the ideas Bryan outlined below about
differentiating genres based on the parameters of consecutivity, projection,
and agent orientation (or any other formal system for differentiating
genres).

I am wondering what the genre with the features -C -P +AO would look like?
Psalms, perhaps? 1QHa?

Right. Dawson says a eulogy is an example, but we also find passages of the -C -P +AO type in psalms about the Lord, who is most assuredly not dead! The speaker/writer presents a catalogue of the achievements and qualities of someone without special attention to chronology.

Many psalms have a hortatory frame. That is, they begin and end with exhortations to praise the Lord. The large middle section is expository, which highlights the character or achievements of the Lord, making Him worthy of praise. For example, Psa 135. My point is that I often analyze one text as a inter-relation of more than one genre. For example one psalm may contain material of one genre that hosts material of another embedded genre. Expository material often supports hortatory material. These genres are not literary genres; they are text-grammatical genres.

Psa 1 is wholly expository. Psa 150 is wholly hortatory. Psa 135 is expository embedded within hortatory.

What about +C +P -AO? Casuistry? (a combination of instructional and
procedural discourse)? 11QT?

It is instructional. (meaning the chart I give in the quoted material below has an error (sorry!).) IOW, the text tells how to do something. It is plus C because the text communicates a process with a chronological sequence. It is plus projection because the text is about an activity someone may want to perform in the future. It is minus agent orientation because it is not focused on a particular agent whom we may name. Rather it is focused on a goal or achievement that any qualified person may attempt.


Shalom,

Bryan

B. M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206

ph: 315.437.6744
fx: 315.437.6766

Ken Penner, Ph.D. cand., McMaster University
pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca
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[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of B. M. Rocine
Sent: February 6, 2003 5:19 PM

...

Genres, in this view, are unlike the genres posited by the
literary critic
or poet. In the model I use, genres perform a simple, universal
communication task, as follows:

Historical Narrative tells a story set in the past.
Predictive Narrative predicts a story.
Hortatory Discourse directly attempts to modify behavior.
Instructional Discourse tells how to do something.
Procedural Discourse tells how something was done (repeatedly).
Expository Discourse reveals truth of any other sort.

Three parameters inherent to the communication tasks also define the
discourse genres by their presence or absence; they are:
consecutivity (C),
projection (P), and agent orientation (AO),.

Consecutivity is present when the text displays a line of temporal
contingencies. Linkage is mostly temporal rather than logical.

Projection is present when the text looks forward as
prediction or wish.

Agent orientation is present when the text focuses on
participants (rather
than abstractions or goals).

The genres fall out like this (+ means the feature is
present, and - means
it is absent):

parameters: C P AO
genres:
Historical Narrative + - +
Predictive Narrative + + +
Hortatory Discourse - + +
Instructional Discourse - + -
Procedural Discourse + - -
Expository Discourse - - -

As one might imagine from the above descriptions, the two
narrative genres
will be dominated by forms that move story time forward. In contrast,
Hortatory and Instructional discourses will be dominated by
modal forms.
The first five genres will use a series of mostly action
verbs to form the
text.






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