Prepared by:

RENELYN M. CASTAÑARES
Objectives:
At the end of this module, I
can:
a. Describe a written text as connected
discourse.
b. Distinguish between and among patterns of
development in writing across disciplines.
c. Identify properties of a well-written text.
Text
-It is a large unit of written
language.
- It is actually connected discourse.
- Is a group of ideas put together to
make a point or one central idea.
Discourse
- utterance, talk, speech,
discussion, conversation, etc.
- It is an expression of ideas.
Sample discourses:
Alex is no stranger to poverty.
Alex passed the highly competitive
college admission test of a respected
university.
Studying hard became Alex’s routine,
and despite his being poor, he made sure to
maximize the university’s resources.
 Inspired by his friends, Alex worked on
joining the National Chemical Engineering
Quiz Bowl as representative of his
university.
Alex will graduate with the
university’s highest academic achievement.
 Alex says that while it sounds cliché,
he really wants to give back to the
Philippines.
Almost five years later, Alex has
become one of the country’s premier
chemists.
 As you may have notice the ideas are
not connected or do not have a particular
structure. As opposed to what a discourse
is, a text has a structure which requires the
ideas in the discourse to be relevant to
each other. The author should connect
each idea to the others so that the reader
will be able to understand the main point
in the text.
 Customarily, sentences are regarded
as self-contained units.
Now , the focus is given to studying
how sentences are used in connected
stretches of language termed as “texts”.
Language is presented as sets of sentences
and not just fragments of sentences.
 Fowler (1991) maintained
that a text is made up of
sentences, but there exist
separate principles of text-
construction that is beyond the
rules for making sentences.
 Connected speech, also known as
‘connected discourse,’ is spoken language
that is used in continuous sequence of
sounds, just like in normal conversations.
As observed, there is often a
significant difference between the way
words are pronounced in isolation and the
way they are pronounced in the context of
connected speech.
 As connected discourse, written
text is formed from spontaneous
discreteness that predetermined its
connectedness.
Texts are any of a wide variety of
types of genres of linguistic forms
which can be spoken or written.
 The engendered text (source text)
serves as dominant strategy of a
writer- from the point of linguistic
structure to the forming of
appropriate and relevant units of
ordering and linking of items into
greater blocks to be able to put one’s
idea across.
 Text are any of a wide variety of types
of genres of linguistic forms which can be
spoken or written. Among written texts,
the range of possibilities extends from
labels and forms and charts to essays and
manuals and books. “Textbooks” is one
type of text, a book for use in an
educational curriculum.
 (Brown) 1994 presented the
inexhaustive list of written text:
1. Non-fiction
 Reports
Editorials
Essays, articles
Reference (dictionaries, encyclopedias)
2. Fiction 3. Letters
Novels Personal
Short stories Business
Jokes
Dramas
Poetry
4. Greeting cards
5. Diaries, journals
6. Memos (e.g. interoffice memos)
7. Messages (e.g. phone messages)
8. Announcements
9. Newspaper “journalese”
10. Academic Writing
 Short answer test response reports
Essays, papers
Theses, books
11. Forms, applications
12. Questionnaires
13. Directions
14. Labels
15. Signs
16. Recipes
17. Bills (and other financial statements)
18. Maps
19. Manuals
20. Schedules (e.g. transportation
information)
21. Advertisements
 Commercial
Personal (‘want ads’
22. Invitations
23. Directories (e.g. telephone, yellow pages)
24. Comic strips, cartoons
 “Text in general are self-contained,
well-formed, hang together (cohesive),
make sense (coherent), have a clear
communicative purpose, recognizable text
types, appropriate to their context use.”

-Scott Thornbury, Beyond the

Sentence, p 19, Macmillan, 2005