Didactics of Translation: Text in Context

The notion of text in textlinguistics

Before briefly reviewing the main studies which have contributed to the development of a linguistics of text, it would be worthwhile to look at the various definitions of text which have been proposed in textlinguistics. Generally speaking, these definitions are complementary. Thus, for Reiss, a text is
a coherent, thematically oriented, linguistic set of utterances, (realized in the medium of written language), for the purpose of communication. (Reiss 1981: 128).
In another definition Reiss states that
within the text-linguistic model, texts are viewed as verbal components of human behaviour in an interactive situation. (Reiss 1987: 47)
As for Halliday (1989: 10), a text is
language that is functional. By functional, we simply mean language that is doing some job in some context, as opposed to isolated words or sentences that I might put on the blackboard.
He also adds that a text is
essentially a semantic unit. It is not something that can be defined as being just another kind of sentence, only bigger.
Brown and Yule (1983: 6), for their part, give a very succinct definition of text: “It is the verbal record of a communicative event”.
In Beaugrande and Dressler (1981: 3), a text is defined as
a communicative occurrence which meets seven standards of textuality. If any of these standards is not considered to have been satisfied, the text will not be communicative.
These seven standards of textuality are cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality and intertextuality.
In Hatim and Mason (1997: 3), a text is
the set of mutually relevant intentions that serve an overall rhetorical purpose (e.g. to counter-argue). It is the ultimate linguistic unit in any activity to do with communicating in language.
Finally, Baker (1992: 111) defines a text in its relationship with lexical items and grammatical structures in the following terms:

lexical items and grammatical structures have a meaning potential which is only realized in communicative events, that is in text. Text here is an instance of language in use rather than language as an abstract system.

Baker also distinguishes a text from a non-text by stating that
a text has features of organization which distinguish it from non-text, that is a random collection of sentences and paragraphs. These features are language and culture-specific just like collocational and grammatical patterning and a number of other linguistic phenomena. Each linguistic community has preferred ways of organizing its various types of discourse. (Ibid: 112)
According to Baker, language users identify a string of sentences as being a text because they particularly notice that there are connections within these sentences. Such connections, for Baker, can be classified as:

1. 
   connections resulting from the arrangement of information within each clause and between clauses, and which contribute to “topic development through thematic structure and information structure”.
   
2. 
   “surface connections” which link different parts of the text to each other (cohesion).
   
3. 
   “underlying semantic connections”, which enable hearers and readers to understand a text, that is to make inferences (coherence and implicature). (Baker 1992: 113)
   

In addition to these connections, language users according to Baker recognize a text as being such because they perceive that the “textual material is packaged by the writer along patterns familiar to the reader” (Ibid: 114). In other words, readers or listeners perceive a particular genre and a particular text type within a text.
In conclusion, all of the above definitions and descriptions of the unit text share one important feature: they all refer to text as a communicative event, an instance of language in use which is fulfilling some function.

3.