Peter H. Fries

Central Michigan University

Abstract

Within the textual metafunction, systemic linguists distinguish two similar pairs of concepts: (a) presenting vs. presuming reference, and (b) Given and New information. These two pairs of concepts (together with Theme and Rheme which is outside the focus of this paper) concern the issue of the ways concepts are presented and used in discourse. However these concepts address different aspects of this issue:

(a) Presenting and presuming reference are means of introducing nominal participants and indicating whether the listener should search for the identity of the referent. ( Martin 1993:102ff)

(b) New information is information which is being presented as not recoverable from the context. (Halliday 1994:298)

Of course, speakers always have the choice of how to present information, so, while information which is presented as structurally New is usually in fact new to the listener, individual speakers may choose to present as New, information which is obvious to the listener. Similarly, speakers are not required to introduce referents whose identities are in fact recoverable by the listener as if they were recoverable. If their purposes do not require the listener to identify the referents, speakers may present obvious and identifiable referents as if their identities were not recoverable.

Selections from texts will demonstrate that speakers construct the relevant textual meanings through language. Some comparisons with ‘cognitive’ approaches (e.g. taken by Prince 1981, 1992; Chafe 1992, 1994; and GivÛn 1983) will be made, and implications for modeling these aspects of language will be drawn.