Didactics of Translation: Text in Context

Text structure and texture as elements of discourse: the contrastive discourse model

In this section, two elements of discourse, namely text structure and texture, will be considered in their relation to text context. (See also section 3. 2. 2. 3. 5 above for another aspect of this relation; i.e., the relation between CC and text structure and the way the first influences the latter).

1. Text structure:

Text structure according to the contrastive discourse model proposed by Hatim and Mason (1990) refers to “the hierarchical principles of composition” (p: 165). In other words, a text is seen as being made up of a sequence of sentences which, taken together, “serve some overall rhetorical purpose”, i.e. an overall intention (Ibid). This overall rhetorical purpose is not the result of the linear arrangement of text elements such as words, phrases, clauses… It is rather the outcome of the relations between the rhetorical functions which each one of these elements performs. It is these discourse relations which lead to the emergence of sequences of elements and that constitute a text having an overall rhetorical purpose.
A sequence is defined in this model as
a unit of text organization which normally consists of more than one element and which serves a higher-order rhetorical function than that of the individual elements in question. (Hatim and Mason 1990: 174)
To give an example of the relationship between sequences and elements which obtain in a typically counter-argumentative text, the following figure adapted from Hatim and Mason (1990: 175) is given below:

Figure 3: The relationship between sequences and elements in a counter- argumentative text

Sequence I E1 general thesis
Thesis cited ĺ E2 specific thesis
Sequence II E3 opposition Opposition ĺ
Sequence III E4 etc.
Substantiation ĺ
(E = Element)
Perceiving the relationships between sequences is very crucial in discourse processing in general and for the translator in particular. As Hatim and Mason state:
The translator’s concern is of course to relay the rhetorical purpose of the producer of the source text. Perceiving the plan of composition of sequences and of entire texts is an essential part of the text. (1990: 176)
They also maintain that discourse relations “facilitate a retrieval of rhetorical purpose” (p: 181) and “are important not only as an aid to better comprehension in general but also in activities such as summarizing and reporting” (p: 185).
In Hatim and Mason’s discourse model, there is a relationship between text structure (the compositional plan) and the text type. Thus, they state, following Hasan (1989), that
the use of any given structure is motivated by the way that text users react to context. More specifically, users pursue a rhetorical purpose which becomes the focus of a particular text type… This focus reflects the way a given culture organizes textual material in terms of signs. We recognize these signs within familiar generic, discoursal and textual structures. The underlying principle of this whole process is intertextuality, our ability to recognise and produce texts as tokens of a type. (Hatim and Mason 1990: 169).
They also add that
our awareness of text type… almost causally determines the compositional plan of a given text ( i.e. its structure). Internalized as part of language users’ textual competence are a set of structural configurations corresponding to a set of typological foci. (Hatim & Mason 1997: 7).
The basic structure designs of counter-argumentative, through- argumentative and expository texts are:

Figure 4: The basic structure designs of counter-argumentative, through- argumentative and expository texts

2.