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Text structure and texture
Much credit goes to Halliday for introducing the three contextual features field, tenor and mode in the interpretation and study of texts. However, no less credit must also go to R. Hasan who has introduced not only the concept of contextual configuration (CC), but also the way CC is employed in characterizing text structure. According to R. Hasan (Ibid: 56),
we need the notion of CC for talking about the structure of the text because it is the specific features of a CC - the values of the variables - that permit statements about the text’s structure.
Before proceeding any further, a word about the concepts text structure and texture is in order. For R. Hasan, text structure and texture constitute the most important elements in the identification of a text. They distinguish a text from a non-text. A text possesses a “unity of structure and texture” (Ibid: 52), whereas a non-text does not.
As far as the meaning of text structure is concerned, R. Hasan equates this with the “overall structure, the global structure of the message form” (Ibid: 53). Thus, overall structure usually subsumes a number of essential elements as, for example, it is the case in Greek tragedy. Citing Aristotle,
R. Hasan states that Greek tragedy is composed of three major structural elements: a beginning, a middle and an end. However, she makes the point that the degree of transparency of text structure varies:
Between classical tragedy and the everyday common phenomenon of casual conversation, there exists a wide range of genres, varying in the extent to which the global structure of their message form appears to have a definite shape. (Ibid: 54)
Concerning the relationship between CC and text structure, and the way the first affects the second, R. Hasan maintains that the features of the CC can be used for making certain kinds of predictions about text structure (Ibid: 56). These predictions hinge upon those elements which are obligatory, those which are optional, their obligatory place of occurrence, their optional place of occurrence, and the frequency of these elements. In other words, CC is said to be able to make predictions about those elements of text structure that are obligatory and those that are optional. In fact, according to R. Hasan, it is the obligatory elements which indicate the genre; i.e., “the obligatory elements define the genre to which a text belongs” (Ibid: 61). Thus, texts are associated with particular genres by virtue of their obligatory elements. R. Hasan goes further to claim that
it is possible to state the structure potential (or GSP, generic structure potential) of a given genre, which will permit a large number of possible structures that can be actualized. (Ibid: 64)
To conclude, text structure is said to be closely connected with the context of situation; the values accruing from field, mode and tenor, i.e. the contextual configuration (CC), allow one to make some predictions about the text structure and vice-versa; i.e., the text structure at hand “defines and confirms the nature of the contextual configuration” (Ibid: 70).
As regards texture, the other main element of text alongside structure,
R. Hasan states that it is “manifested by certain kinds of semantic relations between its individual messages” which are realized by lexico- grammatical patterns (Ibid: 71). It is also seen to be indirectly affected by context through the medium of structure. In relation to this point, R. Hasan says:
when we raise the question of the specific relationship between elements of structure and facts of texture, one interesting finding in recent years has been that the cohesive chains display a close relationship to the structural movement of the text. So far this finding is restricted to two major genre types: fictive narrative (Hasan 1984b) and exposition (Martin 1984). Further research is needed for confirmation of this relation. (Halliday and Hasan 1989: 111)
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