Introduction
SECTION
A Example A11.2 Position Title: Beverly’s Lover Position Available: Full Time; Part Time; Temporary; Seasonal; Interns; and outpost: Positions around the Country. Job Description: A General all round Companion, with duties Including: hanging out; Listening to Beverly’s Ranting and raving; [. . .] (http://www.snakegirl.net/personalADD.htm)
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Task A11.2
➤ What makes this reference purely vertical rather than horizontal intertextuality? What is the intertextual reference to? Reflect on the translation into your own language of this kind of vertical intertextuality. How would you deal with the mode of expression alluded to in the above example if no equivalent point of reference exists in the TL? In the case of vertical intertextuality, conjuring up other texts ‘virtually’ in this way enables us to see a diverse range of linguistic/rhetorical devices (including emotive repetition and other forms of emphasis) as tokens of a type of textual occurrence. They are not necessarily concrete references to a text form we have actually encountered, but cues which conjure up images of other texts or genres. Our ability to recognize and catalogue such features of language use builds on a contextual awareness we possess as a basis of the way entire socio-textual practices evolve. These practices, which we will examine in terms of the triad genre–text–discourse, are crucial, particularly when they vary, sometimes drastically, from one language to another.
GENRE SHIFTS As we have indicated on a number of occasions so far, ‘genre’ is a conventionalized form of speaking or writing which we associate with particular ‘communicative events’ (e.g. the academic abstract). Participants in these events tend to have set goals, with strict norms regulating what can or cannot be said within the confines of given genre settings. An effective orator opting aimlessly for coy impersonal constructions (such as the passive) or an over-the-top reporter waxing lyrical gratuitously with emphatic constructions (such as repetition) would both be instances of mishandling genre in the context of an inauguration speech and a press release respectively. Similar transgressions may be noted when a letter of application begins with the words: ‘Your Excellency, I am honoured and flattered to apply for a place on the MA programme at your esteemed University.’ These can all be the result of poor translations or negative interference from the mother tongue. 88