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Theory - This tool is based on the hypothesis that
one of the main structures in all communication (and text)
is:-
1. The description of a situation, and
2. The further evaluation of the situation
3. In many cases, a basis for the evaluation is also given
In a simple example "it's raining" describes a situation
(and probably implies unhappiness, otherwise the speaker would
not have mentioned it), "it's raining heavily" adds
the evaluation that the rainfall is heavy, and "it's
raining heavily, I can hear the rain on the roof" adds
a basis for the evaluation.
Nearly all sentences fall into this pattern, and the phenomenon
is so widespread that we can even ask if all thought
also takes this pattern too.
Sometimes, as in the example below, the situation and evaluation
need to be inferred from the text.
I have adapted this tool from the work of Michael Hoey (1994)
Signalling in discourse:a functional analysis of a common
discourse pattern in written and spoken English. In: Coulthard,
(ed.) Advances in Written Text Analysis, Routledge,
London. The same pattern is also used by Eugene Winter in
the the same work, and is a familiar tool from text analysis
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