The mode of a text tells about the method the text appears to have been produced in.
Mode is an element of the textual metafunction of a text.
Axes of the Mode continuum
The Mode of a text can be modelled as a point in a continuum defined by axes such as these:
• The spoken/written axis: some texts are prototypical spoken texts (such as a faceto-face conversation) and display signs of high interactivity, others are prototypical written texts (such as a scientific journal article) and display no signs of interactivity at all. Between them there is a continuum of texts which carry characteristics of both, such as radio programmes and personal letters.
• The action/reflection axis: depending on how close in time a text is to the events it describes, it may display signs of spontaneity. For example a dialog during a sports match is bound to be more spontaneous than a newspaper report on the same match the next day.
Interactivity
You will want to find out if the text was constructed in an interactive process. Typical indicators of an interactively produced text are:
• The presence of terms of address.
• The presence of attention attracting words, such as “look”.
• The presence of questions and answers.
Further indicators may help you determine the precise nature of the interaction:
• Face-to-face conversations. These are usually indicated by:
o Turn-taking.
o Interruptions.
o Overlaps.
o Hesitators.
o Supportive feedback (“right”, “OK”, “yep”, “really?”).
o Deictic references to the shared physical environment (“Could we move that into this corner here?”).
o Intentionally vague language if the vagueness concerns information which can be found in the shared environment. Example: “this thing” instead of “this chair” because the speakers are in the same environment, which gives them shared knowledge, which gives them enough context to figure out what “thing” refers to.
o Discourse markers, for example:
ƒ “Anyway” to indicate that the speaker wishes to return to another topic. “Right” to indicate that the speaker is ready to move to another topic.
o The thematic organization of the text is such that:
ƒ The experiential themes are often pronouns (“I”, “you”).The interpersonal themes are often interrogative words (“how”, “when”).
• Oral/aural conversations when the participants can’t see each other, such as a telephone call.
These are indicated by the same features as face-to-face conversations but usually lack the deictic references and the intentionally vague language (although there are exceptions, such as when both participants are looking at a copy of the same document).
• Written exchanges.
o Synchronous, e.g. Internet chat. Even though these are written rather than spoken, they usually bear the same characteristics as oral/aural conversations.
o Asynchronous, e.g. e-mail discussions. These usually involve repetition or quoting of what others have said in preparation for a response.
These indicators may be a reflection of the way the text was actually produced, or they may be a deliberate attempt to make the text appear interactive, typically with the intention to make the audience feel involved. Typical techniques are:
• Apparently direct address to the audience: “You can bet that…”.
• Use of (rhetorical) questions: “Just how much damage can they do?”.
• Responses to an imagined contribution from the audience or from another speaker/writer: “Sure, we all know…”.
Spontaneity As part of analyzing a text for its mode, you will want to answer:
• Whether the text seems to have been produced on the spot/on the fly/in real time/on-line, that is without an opportunity to edit or correct it.
• Or whether it seems to have been produced off-line, in a situation when it is possible to edit and correct it before it is finally presented to the audience.
Note that this distinction refers to spoken as well as to written texts. Spoken texts can also be prepared and rehearsed before delivery.
These are the indicators of spontaneous text:
• There are pauses and hesitators.
• There are mid-utterance corrections and reformulations.
• There is qualification of what has been said before.
• There are mid-utterance changes of syntax.
• There is repetition.
• There are abrupt changes of topic.
• Clauses have heads, e.g. “The white house on the corner, is that where she lives?”.
• Clauses have tails, e.g. “It can leave you feeling very weak, shingles, can’t it?”.
• Adverbials are placed arbitrarily, in places where they would not occur in a preplanned text. Example: “I was worried I was going to lose it and I did, almost”.
• There are chains of clauses connected with coordinating conjunctions, typically “and”: “… and … and … and …”.
• Subordinate clauses are used as if they were coordinate clauses. Examples:
o A: “Well actually one person has applied.”
B: “Mm.”
C: “Which is great.” [Would be “(And) that is great” if not spontaneous.]
D: “Though it’s all relative, of course.” [“Though” would be omitted if not spontaneous.]
o “Melanie is still a student and she works in McDonald’s cos she needs the money and…”
“Cos” here has the function of a coordinating conjunctions, simply connecting two phrases together (=“and that’s because”) rather than a subordinating one.
• There is low lexical density.
• There isn’t much nominalization (or other examples of grammatical metaphor). The more nominalization occurs, the less spontaneous a text is because nominalized expressions are less congruous (“in sync with reality”) then unnominalized ones.
• Noun phrases are simple and short. Long and complicated noun phrases are the sign of an un-spontaneous text because they require planning.
As for lexical density, there is an opinion that less lexically dense texts are easier to follow – perhaps because they appear to be more interactive, and therefore more “gripping” – and this has been exploited in a number of genres, such as tabloid journalism and popular science.
http://www.tc.columbia.edu
http://www.cainteoir.com
