ÑA Practical Guide for Functional Text Analysis

Task 1. Brown and Levinson claim that Mediterranean cultures use positive politeness strategies more frequently tan Northern cultures. Do you agree? Why do you think this is so? Find examples from your every day life.

ÑA Practical Guide for Functional Text Analysis

Tenor in interactive texts

Interactive texts are usually spoken and include a face-to-face conversation, a telephone

conversation, but not a prepared lecture. Some written texts are also interactive, for

example a real-time Internet chat. To a lesser extent, written texts directed at a single

participant known to the writer (as opposed to those directed at the public) are also

interactive.

Relative status (equality, inequality)

When analyzing an interactive text for its tenor, you will be interested in the status of the

participants to each other. Are they equal, or is there some amount of equality between

them? This will typically be reflected in the choices the speakers make while speaking.

Speech acts

We recognize the following speech acts:

Information Goods and Services

Offer Statement (offer of

information), prototypically

realized by a declarative clause.

Sally made this coffee.

Offer (of goods and services),

usually realized by an

interrogative clause. Would you

like me to make coffee?

Request/Demand Question (request for

information), prototypically

realized by an interrogative

clause. Who made this coffee?

Command (request for goods and

services), prototypically realized

by an imperative clause. Make

coffee.

You will want to find out who has access to what type of speech acts.

• Those who mostly ask questions come across as needing or lacking information.

They are also causing those the questions are directed at to come across as having

the information.

• Those who mostly provide statements come across as possessing information

worth communicating. They are also making others come across as needing or

lacking the information.

• Those who mostly give orders (sentences in the imperative) are making

themselves

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