1. 1) Provide theoretical explanations about each of the following topics.
2) Illustrate with examples.
1) THE TEXT
To Systemic Functional Linguistics, a text is a semantic unit, that is to say a unit of
meaning. It is a unified whole which arises from the language in use, as a product of social
interaction, conveyed and encoded in a particular situation, and realized by sentences,
communicating a collection of meanings in a harmonic way. Thus, a text is always
understood in a particular linguistic context.
It can be considered a passage of whatever length, written or spoken, not a
grammatical unit, but one that carries meanings, expressed by a set of choices the speaker
does, which ones are determined by the social and cultural context. For example, some
aspects of context, such as field, tenor and mode, are defined by the immediate linguistic
and social environment and are clear examples of elements that vary according to the
speaker’s choices.
Field is what is being talked about, the topic of a text; tenor is the relation
established among the participants involved in the interaction, the social distance or
hierarchy, the role relations of power; and mode is the symbolic organization of a text,
how the text is transmitted (the channel of communication), and the role of language
according to the context.
Texture is an important element that let us distinguish a text from non-text. Texture
is what gives unity to a text, by holding the clauses together. Texture includes two
components that are closely related: cohesion and coherence. Cohesion is the internal
organization of a text, whereas coherence is established by the interaction between the
external context and the text itself. A text cannot have texture if there is no reference. The
reference refers to how the writer/speaker introduces topics and participants and keeps
track on them along a text.
Beiras Ximena, García Giménez Agostina

2. Language can be described as a semiotic system because it encodes meanings which
are socially conveyed, i.e: it involves sets of choices or oppositions conveyed among the
participants with a specific aim during the social interaction. Thus, as a semiotic system,
language has three levels: semantic, lexico-grammar and phonological-graphological.
Within the semantic level, the relation among the text and its internal context, and with
the external one, there are three types of meanings: the experiential meaning is
expressed by the content words of the clauses; the verbs show action, the nouns show
participants and circumstances, the adjectives qualify nouns or noun phrases, etc.; the
interpersonal meaning is shown by the types of clauses and modality used according to
the relation between the interactants; and the textual meaning which is provided by the
sequential implicativeness, the linear sequence in which each fragment of a text creates
the context within which the next bit or chunk of the it can be interpreted.
The lexico-grammar level is the responsible of turning the meanings into words
organized into grammatical structures; and the phonological-graphological one, is the one
in charge of the realization of the text into sounds (phonology), or into graphemes
(graphology).
2) “The Happy Prince”, a short story written by Oscar Wilde was chosen to illustrate
examples to back up the theoretical content developed above.
Firstly, we can say that this tale is a text but to make this assertion, it is necessary to
know if texture is present in this piece of writing, since it is the element that differentiates
text from non-text. To know if “The Happy Prince” has texture, it has to be cohesive and
coherent.
We can say it is coherent because despite the context of the tale was built by the
author, it can be understood due to the similarity with reality, since it is invented with
elements of our real context, creating the own environment in which the story occurs,
which means that coherence is present in it.
Beiras Ximena, García Giménez Agostina

3. It is also cohesive, because it presents and internal organization of it that conveys
meanings and gives sense to the story, the elements are joined together forming a unified
whole.
Besides, this short story arises as a product of social interaction, from the necessity of
the writer to transmit meanings to the other interactants, to the readers, and is
determined by the writer’s choices of what he wants to communicate and the social and
cultural context. For example, in “The Happy Prince”, we will analyse such aspects of
context as field, tenor and mode, which are defined by the reasons mentioned above.
Field: The topic of this text is a moral of how valuable is to make good deeds for
others, even when we sacrifice ourselves and our own lives, in favor of helping others,
because God, will reward in the eternity of Heaven.
Tenor: The participants involved in this interaction are the writer, who tells the story,
and the readers, especially children, for whom Wilde wrote this short story. There is social
distance, because the writer narrates a tale that the public doesn’t know, he has the
information and he decides to share it with the readers, and he did that by telling it in a
form a short story.
Mode: The channel of communication is written, is a narrative text presented in the
form of a short story.
So, on the whole we can assert that this tale is a text, because texture is present, and
results from a social interaction, determined by aspects of context and the set of choices
the writer does to transmit it.
From page 15, in the short story, we took a fragment of a dialogue between the two main
characters, the Happy Prince and the Swallow to develop the concept of sequential
implicativeness.
Here is the fragment:
-“Who are you?” he said.
-“I am the Happy Prince”.
-“Why are you weeping then?” asked the Swallow; “you have quite drenched me”.
Beiras Ximena, García Giménez Agostina

4. From this extract, we can assume various things from the context, for example that
the Happy Prince, despite being called happy is crying and feels sad and hopeless, because
of the question of the Swallow, “why are you weeping then?”. In fact, going back in the
text, before this dialogue, it is said “the eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears”.
So, the meaning of this sentence creates the context within which the next one can be
understood.
Another example we found from this conversation is when the Swallow said to the
Happy Prince “you have quite drenched me”, which gives us a hint that probably the
Swallow was stood below the statue of the Prince because he got all wet due to the tears.
This is also an example of sequential implicativeness, because going back several
paragraphs; we found the sentence that gives sense to what the Swallow said: “So he
alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince”. Once again, this sentence creates the
context within which the expression of the bird, “you quite drenched me” can be
comprehended.
Beiras Ximena, García Giménez Agostina