Unit 15 Dialogical Texts.

Structure and Characteristics

1. Introduction
2. A Theoretical Framework for the Analysis of Dialogic Texts
2.1. The Notion of Text Linguistics: Discourse Analysis
2.2. On Defining Text
2.3. Intertextuality: Text Types
3. Dialogic Texts: Structure and Main Features
3.1. On Defining Dialogic Texts
3.2. Dialogic Texts: Main Elements
3.3. Dialogic Texts: Structure
3.4. Dialogic Texts: Main Features
4. Dialogic Texts and Language Teaching
5. Conclusion
6. Bibliography

1. Introduction
The main aim of unit 15 is to present the issue of dialogic texts (conversational texts) in terms of
structure and main features. Our aim is to offer an account of how language and textual features
are used to achieve the purpose of stablishing a successful exchange of information between two
or more participants.
In Chapter 2 I will provide a theoretical framework for the analysis of dialogic texts since the
concepts of “text” and “dialogue/conversation” are related to other key notions which prove
essential in the understanding of their analysis. To establish the relationship between both
concepts, I will review (1) the notion of text linguistics within the framework of Discourse Analysis. I
will provide (2) a definition of text and I will examine (a) its main textual features (common to all
text types) and (b) the seven standards of textuality to get the notion of intertextuality. Then, I will
approach (3) the notion of intertextuality regarding (a) the main criteria for classifying text types
and (b) the term “dialogic”.
Chapter three will offer an insightful analysis of dialogic texts in terms of (1) definition, (2) main
types of description, (3) structure and (4) main textual devices within dialogic text types: (a)
cohesion, regarding (I) grammatical, (ii) lexical and (iii) graphological devices, and (b) coherence.
Chapter four will be devoted to present the main educational implications in language teaching
regarding dialogic texts and Chapter 5 will offer a conclusion to broadly overview our present
study. Finally, Chapter 6 will include the bibliographical references used.

2. A theoretical Framework for the Analysis of Dialogic Texts

In Chapter 2 I will provide a theoretical framework for the analysis of dialogic texts since the
concepts of “text” and “dialogue/conversation” are related to other key notions which prove
essential in the understanding of their analysis. To establish the relationship between both
concepts, I will review (1) the notion of text linguistics within the framework of Discourse Analysis. I
will provide (2) a definition of text and I will examine (a) its main textual features (common to all
text types) and (b) the seven standards of textuality to get the notion of intertextuality. Then, I will
approach (3) the notion of intertextuality regarding (a) the main criteria for classifying text types
and (b) the term “dialogic”.
2.1 The Notion of Text Linguistics: Discourse Analysis
The notion of text linguistics designates” any work in language science devoted to the text as the
primary object of enquiry” (Beaugrande & Dressler, 1988). In fact, many fields have approached
the study of texts, and that of dialogic texts through linguistics (grammar, morphology and
phonology), anthropology (different speech acts in different cultures), psychology (speaker and
hearer behaviour) and stylistics (correctness, clarity, elegance, style). Text linguistics has its
historical roots in rhetoric, dating from Ancient Greece and Rome through the Middle Ages up to
the present under the name of text linguistics or discourse.
2.2 On Defining Text
Following Halliday & Hasan (1976) “the word text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage,
spokes or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole”. Generally, we know
whether an utterance or sequences of utterances constitute a text or not though it may be “spoken
or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue, and also anything from a single proverb to a
whole play, from a momentary cry for help to an all-day discussion on a committee”. In addition, a
text is best regarded as a semantic unit and not a unit of form. So, we may establish its relation to
the term “dialogic” since we may deal with supporting or disagreeing with a statement whose
validity is questionable.
Textual features such as texture and ties give a text the status of being a “text”. First, the concept
of texture is defined as the textual resource that functions as a unity with respect to its
environment and secondly, ties are defined as the resources that English has for creating texture
to contribute to its total unity by means of cohesive relations (reference, substitution, ellipsis,
conjunction and lexical cohesion).
In the approach to text linguistics by de Beaugrande & Dressler (1988), a text, oral or printed, is
established as a communicative occurrence, which must meet seven standards of textuality:
cohesion, coherence, intentionality and acceptability, informativity, situationally and intertextuality.
If any of these standards are not satisfied, the text is considered not to have fulfilled its function
and not to be communicative.
I will briefly review the first six standards of textuality to analyse the seventh one in next section:
(1) Cohesion is, as well as coherence, a text-centred notion which is related to the function of
syntax and the components of the surface text. It also deals with cohesive ties (anaphora,
cataphora, ellipsis, etc.) and signalling relations (tense and aspect, modality, junction,
conjunction, disjunction and subordination)
(2) Coherence is “the outcome of actualizing meanings in order to make sense” (Beaugrande &
Dressler, 1988). It gives sense to a text.
(3) Intentionality subsumes the intentions of text producers, that is, their attitude. This standard
deals with the pragmatic perspective of discourse: “be informative, be truthful, be relevant
and be brief”.
(4) Acceptability concerns the receiver attitude, that is, the text having some use or relevance
for the receiver.
(5) Informativity concerns the extent to which the occurrences of the text are expected vs.
unexpected or known vs. unknown or uncertain by means of content words (verbs, nouns,
adjectives, adverbs). Hence, we expect different types of texts (poetic, scientific, literary,
etc.).
(6) Situationally concerns the factors which make a text” relevant to a current situation of
occurrence.
And finally, intertextuality which will be reviewed in connection to text types and the notion of
dialogic texts in next section.
2.3 Intertextuality: Text Types
Intertextuality concerns the factors which make the use of one text dependent upon knowledge of
one or more previously encountered texts, that is, the ways in which the production and reception
of a given text depends upon the participants knowledge of other texts. The usual mediation is
achieved by means of the development and use of text types, being classes of texts expected to
have certain traits for certain purposes: descriptive, narrative, argumentative, literary and poetic,
scientific and didactic.
I will approach the concept of text typology from two main perspectives: (1) the main criteria for
text typology regarding literary devices, order and sequence of elements and common text
structures; and (2) a text type classification and description.
Text Types: Main Criteria
There are three main criteria:
(1) Regarding textual principles, we deal with literary texts which share specific conditions of
production, contradictory cultural discourses and intercultural processes. Oral discourse
shares the same cooperative principles as other types of texts (be truthful, be relevant, be
brief, be informative).
(2) Text structure. The notions of Order and sequence come into force when approaching the
form of a text. In dialogic texts we find the overall structure of introduction, development and
conclusion.
(3) Main textual features. In the case of dialogic texts, they are characterized by the presence
of idiomatic expressions (greetings, farewells, apologies), linguistic, paralinguistic and
extralinguistic elements (gestures and laugh, interrogatives) that are not found in other
types of texts because they do not enjoy an open structure as dialogic texts do .

Text Types: Dialogic

We may classify texts in two ways. Firstly, according to purpose, and secondly, according to type
or mode. According to purpose, in terms of communicative functions, the discourse is intended to
inform, express an attitude, persuade and create debate. According to type or mode, the
classification distinguishes among descriptive, narrative, expository, instrumental, argumentative
and conversational modes.
In this study we are dealing with conversational texts which, on the one hand, are intended to
establish an exchange of information in terms of communicative functions and, on the other hand,
in terms of type of text it is included within the type of dialogic, that is, the fact of offering a
structured oral interaction between two or more participants.

3. Dialogic Texts: Structure and Main Features

Chapter three will offer an insightful analysis of argumentative texts in terms of (1) definition, (2)
main textual elements, (3) structure and (4) main textual devices within dialogic text types: (a)
cohesion, regarding (I) grammatical, (ii) lexical and (iii) graphological devices, and (b) coherence
concerning the cooperative principles and the notions of turn-taking and adjacency pairs. In
addition, I will analyse the main paralinguistic and extralinguistic devices.
3.1 On Defining Dialogic Texts
A dialogic text is defined as a type of discourse concerned with a text oral or written, which is
established as a communicative occurrence which has to meet seven standards of textuality:
cohesion, coherence, intentionality and acceptability, informativity, situationality, and
intertextuality. If any of these standards is not satisfied, the text is considered not to be
communicative. So, the purpose of dialogic texts is to established an oral or written interaction
between one or more participants so as to exchange information in a successful way.
The Dialogic Nature of Discourse
In the historical development of human society, the propensity for establishing communication
played an essential role since it provided participants a means of representing objects, ideas and
events among each other as a way to improve a relationship between them. In fact, the notion of
maintaining a dialogue states the main function of dialogic texts, to establish social relationships
among human beings.
3.2 Dialogic Texts: Main Elements
Linguists usually say that language and communication are not the same thing, and certainly this
is true. People and many species that do not use language seem able to communicate adequately
for their purposes, with and without language. There are common features to the notion of
language and communication which must be applied to the analysis of dialogic texts such as the
main elements of a dialogic text in terms of (1) participants and (2) the participants main purposes
to establish and exchange.
Participants
Regarding participants, according to Johnson (1981), oral communication is depicted as an
activity involving two or more people in which the participants are both hearers and speakers
having to react to what they hear and making their contributions at high speed. In the interaction
process each participant has to be able to interpret what is said to him and reply to what has just
been said reflecting their own intentions. We are talking about an interactive situation involving the
speaker and hearer. The way participants interact in a communicative event has much to do with
social psychology as social life constitutes an intrinsic part of the way language is used (to make
questions, to state, to command, etc.).
Regarding elements in the communication process of dialogic texts the linguist Roman Jakobson
explains how all acts of communication, be they written or oral, are based on six constituent
elements: the addresser, addressee, message, context, code and channel.
Purposes
The acts of speaking can be regarded as actions intended to accomplish a specific purpose by
verbal means (assertion, question, exclamation). The starting point of these purposes are
encouraged by elements working at the level of (a) formality (formal vs. informal language) and (b)
theme or topic which determines the participant role in the exchange (father vs. son, customer vs.
assistant).
“Speech act” should be taken as a generic term for any sort of language use, oral or otherwise.
Searle summarized speech acts into five main categories: representatives, directives,
commissives, expressives and declarations. Their main purposes are:
(1) Representatives (assertives), whose main aim is to refer to some state of affairs by means
of assertions, claims and descriptions.
(2) Directives, whose intention is to get the addressee to carry out some action by means of
commands or requests.
(3) Commissives which are speech acts which commit the speaker to some future course of
action by means of promises, threads or vows.
(4) Expressives, which are speech acts that indicate the speaker’s psychological state or
mental attitude by means of greeting, congratulating, thanking or apologising in order to
express the speaker’s feelings and attitudes.
 (5) Declaratives, which are speech acts that themselves bring about a state of affairs by means
of marrying, naming, blessing or arresting.

3.3 Dialogic Texts: Structure

The structure of dialogic texts is defined as a sequence of ordered interactions where the
minimum structure is based on a binary exchange of addresser and addressee on a specific topic.
This type of discourse organization is quite flexible and open, so both structure and content are
spontaneous and not previously planned. Participants usually start a conversation, develop it and
finally bring it into an end. Traditionally, the logical development of a dialogic text is presented into
three different phases: opening, body and ending.
Openings
They are considered as the starting point of a conversation since they state the main topic of the
encounter between two or more participants.
Ex: “saying hello” or “asking a question”
As open structures, dialogic texts offer a lot of new information which must be classified according
to the participant’s purpose: greetings, questions and exclamations among others.
Body
It deals with the development of the conversation. This is a continuous process which consists of a
series of turn-taking mechanisms carried out by the speakers. This sequence of turn-taking
exchanges serves to frame the topic and to see if the receiver is interested or not.
Ex: (idiomatic turn-taking dialogues) “Hello, Mary. How are you?” – “Fine thanks, and you?” – I’m
very well, thank you”.
The first moves serve to establish the social roles of the participants. These moves are known as
adjacency pairs and refer to the binary utterances which are successfully produced by the
speakers in a fixed order. Although the linguistic signals are primary in getting and passing turns,
often, the first contact is usually non-linguistic (a smile, shaking hands, tapping on the shoulder).
Endings
The ending of a conversation is drawn from the feeling of both participants to have successfully
fulfilled their initial purpose, although, sometimes we find an unsuccessful ending.
3.4 Dialogic Texts: Main Features
I will approach the analysis of the main features of dialogic texts from linguistic, non-linguistic and
paralinguistic devices. In the first level of analysis, we find grammar. Then, these linguistic
principles are constrained by cooperative principles ruled by usage patterns which may be
supported by extralinguistic and paralinguistic devices.
Linguistic Devices
When revising dialogic texts, we may find common features to all text types and specific features
for dialogic texts (turn-taking, false starts, register changes between formal and informal, irony or
jokes) which will be reviewed under the linguistic parameters of cohesion and coherence.
Cohesion
The term “cohesion” concerns the ways in which the components of the surface text (the actual
words we hear or see) are mutually connected within a sequence of utterances, that is, intra-text
linking devices are connected to extra-textual reference. The notion of “cohesion” can be
explained as a multiple coding system comprising three levels of coding: the semantic one
(meanings), the lexico-grammatical (forms: grammar and vocabulary) and the phonological and
orthographic one (expressions: sounding and writing). “Cohesion” has a close relation to the
second of the textuality standards, “coherence” since cohesive markers can be used to enhance
“coherence”.
Since “cohesion” is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through the vocabulary, we
find two main types of cohesive devices: grammatical cohesion (substitution, ellipsis, conjunction,
reference) and lexical cohesion (reiteration, collocation). A third type is graphological devices
(orthography, punctuation, headings and footnotes tables of contents and indexes).
Grammatical Cohesion
The concept of cohesion accounts for the essential semantic relations in dialogic texts:
substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and reference. These items make refence to the terms:
“anaphora and cataphora, connectors and deixis”, quite frequent in dialogic texts.
Substitution, this device is very similar to that of ellipsis. Substitution is the replacement of an item
by another, and ellipsis is the omission of an item. They are essentially the same process since
ellipsis is the substitution of one item by zero (Halliday).
We may find different types of substitution which are defined, in grammatical terms rather than
semantically. The criteria are the grammatical function of the substituted item, so the substitute
may function as a noun, a verb or a clause. So, there are three types of substitution: nominal (one,
ones, sone), verbal (do), and clausal (so, not).
Ellipsis, As I stated above it is that form of substitution in which an item is substituted by zero. It is
related to the notion that it is “something left unsaid” but “understood” nevertheless.
Like substitution, ellipsis is a relation within the text, and in the great majority of instances the
presupposed item is present in the preceding text, that is, in “anaphoric” relation.
Reference: anaphora, cataphora, deixis. The third type of grammatical cohesion is reference
where the information to be retrieved is the referential meaning, the identity of the thing or class of
things that is referred to. In the case of reference, it is not constrained to match the grammatical
class of the item it refers to. There is a logical continuity through situational reference and textual
reference which can point back (anaphora) or forward (cataphora). The typical direction is the
anaphoric one, and they are always present in dialogic texts.
Ex: “Have you seen my mobile? I think so. Is it the one you were using yesterday?”
Conjunction is a relevant relationship with respect to dialogic texts since connectors establish the
necessary links between ideas and thoughts within the text (coordination: and, but, although,
however, in addition). They indicate how the subsequent sentence or clause should be linked to
the preceding sentence or the following sentence or part of sentences.
Connectors play an essential role in dialogic texts since they reflect cohesion within the discourse
and show a logical development of the discussion by establishing different relationships between
the presented ideas: summative (in addition, moreover), restrictive (specially, in particular), causal
(because, because of, due to), explanatory (I see, yes, I know), previous reference (anaphora: As I
said before) and conclusive (To end up this conversation).
Other grammatical devices involve the use of specific syntactic structures, such as (1)
interrogative and exclamative sentence structures, (2) finite clauses in past and present as a way
of switching reference (“was he sleeping? Yes, he always does”), (3) subordination (subordinate
clauses, relative clauses), (4) coordination (copulative, adversative) and finally (5) specific
formulae (farewells, greetings).
Lexical Cohesion
From a lexical approach, we cannot determine specific or technical vocabulary within dialogic texts
since they are spontaneous interactions and have open structures. So these type of texts are
characterized by the use of (1) affirmative and negative adverbs in answers (Yes/No), (2) a wide
range of deictic pronouns (you, this, here) and (3) connectors, which establish a semantic link
between clauses/paragraphs (moreover, although, in addition, but).
Graphological Devices
In oral interactions we face another type of cohesive features since written devices are substituted
by general conventions of “pauses” and “stress” to mark each participant intervention. There are a
few specific features in oral dialogic texts:
1. False Starts: unnecessary repetitions of words at the beginning of the sentence.
Ex: Hmm, Uhum, Aha, No, No way, Really?
2. Syntactic Anomalies: orally accepted but not in written essays.
3. Prosody Expressions: to complete sentences when we do not know what words to use.
Ex: Well, Actually, Then
4. Pauses, which are used to introduce significant information units usually with falling
intonation.
Coherence
It is a purely semantic property of discourse and a coherent text is a semantically connected,
integrated whole, expressing relation of closeness, time or location. A text must be coherent
enough for the interlocutor to be able to interpret. This coherence can be achieved either through
cohesion or through the employment of text standards of intentionality, acceptability, informativity,
situationally and intertextuality.
A main feature of conversation is that it tends to follow the convention of “turn-taking”. Simply,
there is a person waiting for the other to finish his/her utterance before contributing his/her own. It
is comforting to know that the other person respects your opinions enough not to continually
interrupt you. The best example of this occurs in the Houses of Parliament – a supposed debating
chamber where the observation of turn-taking code fails.
Extralinguistic Devices
As people speak, people often make gestures, nod their heads, change their postures and facial
expressions and redirect the focus of their gaze. The relation of gestures to the speech are usually
regarded as communicative devices whose function is to amplify or underscore information when
accompanying speech.
Paralinguistic Devices
Paralanguage refer to the non-verbal uses of the vocal tract, such as whistling or musical effects.
Thus, a speaker’s voice transmits information concerning his or her age, gender, region of origin,
social class and so on. Besides, we can have information about how the speaker feels.

4. Dialogic Texts and Language Teaching

Discourse in undoubtedly the most salient aspect of educational activity in classrooms of all kinds,
some form of discourse, either spoken or written, is going on for most of the time.
Action research group attempt to bring about change in classroom language because learning at
all levels must be conceived in terms of dialogue. The work of Dewy and Vigostky reveals that
human beings learn in the course of participating in purposeful joint activity to master the material
and intellectual tools to achieve the desired outcomes. With this transformation of practice, the
form of the present research has been in classroom activities that provide frequent opportunities
for students to collaborate in productive activities by means of discourse competence.
Nowadays, new technologies may provide a new direction to language teaching as they set more
appropriate context for students to experience the target language and culture.
The success partly lies in the way language becomes real to the users, feeling themselves really
in the language. Thus, foreign language activities are provided within the framework of social
interaction, personal, professional and educational fields.

5. Conclusion
In this study, dialogic texts have been approached in terms of main types, main textual features
and structure. To sum up, we may say that language is where culture impinges on form and where
second language speakers find their confidence threatened through the diversity of registers,
genres and text types, in particular, dialogic texts that make up the first language speaker’s day to
day interaction. Language represents the deepest manifestation of a culture and people’s values
systems, including those taken over from the group of which they are part. It also plays a
substantial role in the way they use not only their first language but also subsequently acquired
ones.

6. Bibliography
 Beaugrande & Dressler (1988) Introduction to Text Linguistics
 Canale (1983) From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language Pedagogy
 Council of Language (1998) Modern Languages Framework
 Crystal & Davy (1990) Investigating English Style
 Halliday & Hasan (1991) Cohesion in English
 Hymes (1972) On Communicative Competence