Theoretical Grammar

LECTURE 10: THE TEXT, TEXTLINGUISTICS 
1. Text as a syntactic unit. 
 
Text is the unit of the highest (supersyntactic) level. It can be defined as a sequence of sentences 
connected logically and semantically which convey a complete message. The text is a language unit and it 
manifests itself in speech as discourse. Textlinguistics is concerned with the analysis of formal and structural 
features of the text. Textual basic integrative properties can be described with the help of the notions of 
coherence (цілісність), cohesion (формальна складність) and deixis. 
2. The notion of coherence. 
Coherence is a semantic or topical unity of the spoken or written text – that is, the sentences within the text 
are usually connected by the same general topic. Generally speaking, a coherent text is the text that ‘sticks 
together’ as a whole unit. Coherence is usually achieved by means of the theme and rheme progression. There 
exist various types of the theme and rheme progression, e.g. 
a) T1 R1 Once there lived an old man. 
T2 R2 The old man lived in a hut.

 
T3 R3 The hut was near a wood. 

b) T1 R1 Michael is a student. 
T1 R2 He lives in Boston. 
T1 R3 He has a cheap car. 
c) T The general topic is Ukraine. Subtopics are its 
climate, industry, population, etc. 

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T1 R1 T2 R2 T3 R3
Naturally, in the process of text development different types of theme and rheme progression are combined.
 
3. The notion of cohesion. Text connecting devices. 
 
Cohesion is a succession of spoken or written sentences. Sometimes the sentences may even not coincide 
topically. The connection we want to draw between various parts of the text may be achieved by textual and