Módulo Nomencladores

| Chapter Outline

5,1 Keeping track 156

5.2 Who's who?: identifying people 157

5,3 What's what?: identifying things 163

5.4 Where to look? 169

5.5 Tracking and genre 173

5.6 Identification systems in full 182

Identification

is concerned with tracking participants - with introducing people and things into a discourse and keeping track of them once there. These are textual resources, concerned with how discourse makes sense to the reader by keeping track of identities.

Following a general introduction, section 5.2 considers resources for identifying people - through

presenting

reference if their identity is unknown, and

presuming

reference if it is recoverable. Section 5.3 looks at comparable patterns for things, including abstractions and meta-semiotic reference to surrounding text.

In both sections the role of

comparative

reference between people and things is reviewed. Then in section 5.4 the different ways in which presumed identity can be recovered are introduced, including definitions of key terms such as

anaphora, cataphora, esphora, homophora, endophora

and

exophora.

Having built up the system of identification in sections 5.2-5.4, in section 5.5 we consider the way in which tracking can vary in discourse depending on what we are presuming (people, things, abstractions or co-text) and the genre we are in (story, argument or legislation). Finally in section 5.6 we formalize our presentation of identification and tracking systems, and summarize the realization of these systems in

nominal group

structure.

In order to make sense of discourse, one thing we need is to be able to keep t ra c k of who or what is being talked about at any point. When we first start talking ab o u t somebody or something, we may name them, but then we often just identify them as she, he or it. By this means our listener/reader can keep track of exactly w hich person or thing we are talking about, i.e. which participant in the discourse. There are many other ways of introducing participants into a discourse, and keeping track of them as we go, that we will explore in this chapter.

For example, when Tutu first presents Helena’s story, he introduces five participants: the SABC’s radio team, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Helena, her letter and the reprisals that she fears:

The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation's radio team covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission received a letter

from a woman calling herself ^Helena

(she wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals).

Helena, her letter and the feared reprisals are all introduced indefinitely in expressions which don’t assume that readers know what’s being talked about:

a letter a woman reprisals

But once she’s been introduced as a woman, Helena is referred to by pronouns:

herself she

These pronouns do assume that we know who’s being referred to. And Tutu also names Helena with the pseudonym she’s given to protect herself, a name that can be used to refer to her now we know who she is:

a woman calling herself Helena

The other participants in Tutu’s introduction are things referred to with ‘the’, which seems to assume we already know who he’s talking about. Both these things are institutions that are mentioned right at the beginning of his book in the Acknowledgement section, so this assumption is certainly justified:

The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation's radio team the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

In simple terms then, what we see here are a range of resources for introducing

p a r t i c i p a n t s into a discourse and for keeping track of them once there. We can express this as a set of choices, first between introducing participants and tracking them; and second, within tracking, between pronouns, names, and entities with

‘the’. These choices are shown in Figure 5.1. (Note that this is not drawn as a system network, as we need to expand the discussion before we’re ready to draw the system for identification.) In this chapter we will explore these basic choices for identification as follows. We will look first at how people are introduced and tracked through texts; secondly at how things are introduced and tracked; thirdly at how we know who or what is being referred to; and fourthly at the different ways that people and things can be tracked through whole texts.

IDENTIFICATION

<

by pronoun herself, she byname Helena

by Ihe' the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Figure 5.1 Basic choices in identification

Let’s begin by seeing how people are introduced and tracked through Helena’s story. We'll start with resources for introducing people, and then look at how their identities are tracked.

Introducing people

Helena’s story has three main characters: Helena and her first and second loves.

Helena is introduced to us by Tutu:

The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation's radio team covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission received a letter from a woman calling herself Helena (she wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals).

And Helena in turn introduces her two loves; her first love is introduced as follows' I met a young man in his twenties.

How are these people introduced? As we can see, the basic strategy here is to use V to introduce a woman and a young man. The word ‘a’ tells us that this is someone whose identity we can’t assume. When we can’t assume an identity it is

‘indefinite’, so a participant with ‘a’ is traditionally known as ‘indefinite’. On the other hand ‘the’ tells us that we can assume an identity, so a participant with ‘the’ is traditionally known as ‘definite’.

Moving on to her second love, Helena introduces him as follows:

I met another policeman.

Another identifies him in two ways. First an is indefinite like ‘a’, so we know we can’t assume this identity; secondly other tells us that he is different from the first policeman. These two meanings (indefiniteness and difference) are fused together as another.

Helena also uses the same strategies for introducing minor characters. When she meets her first love again, it is through a friend, who is also indefinite:

I met my first love again through a good friend.

A third man whom she briefly marries is introduced indefinitely as someone> Le.

nobody we know; and is also distinguished from her first love as someone else:

An extremely short marriage to someone else

In document Desarrollo de la capa de negocio para los modulos Administracion y Nomencladores del Sistema de Gestion de Inventario y Almacen: SIGIA. (página 109-119)