Text linguistics as a science

Any linguistic research, in which the author investigates a text (in its oral or written form) as a unit of human communication, or which analyzes phenomena beyond the limits of a sentence to an extent when text fragments may be viewed as independent language units, is considered as one belonging to TL. In contemporary linguistic research “text” is viewed as an independent aspect of linguistic analysis.

But not so long before (in 1986) A.T. Kryvonosov in his article “TL and the Study of Correlation of Language and Thinking” expresses his views on TL as “just another stage of linguistic delusion (fallacy, error)” [Kryvonosov]. Yet, scientific interest to the study of a text is constantly increasing.

TL as an independent linguistic discipline appeared in the 60-70-ies of the 20-th century due to internal (linguistic) and external (extralinguistic) factors.

It was impossible to explain some language phenomena with the help of traditional system of concepts, that was oriented exclusively on the analysis of a sentence. First of all this refers to such well-known linguistic phenomena as pronominalization in all its forms, the usage of an article, interpretation of temporal relations etc. (one of the internal causes). It is not by chance that the majority of investigations in TL reflects these problems of Grammar.

Of great importance for the emergence of TL was external influence of other scientific disciplines: literary studies, psychology, sociology, theory of translation, methodology of teaching, native and foreign language. As Olga Ivanivna Moska’l’ka puts it: “under the circumstances, a speech fragment (i.e. a text) became the centre in which all approaches to language converge. A text became both the material for linguistic research and the subject of TL.

Types of text linguistics

Since the 1970s, i.e. the time when text linguistics began to develop as a separate

branch of linguistics, it has been possible to observe the widening of the scope of investigation

of this discipline. This has recently been a subject of discussion of various

Polish researchers, some of their views are, therefore, worth recalling. Jerzy Bartmiński

(2005: 47) sees modern textology as a common ground for linguists and literary

researchers, which opens a prospect for the integration of the whole philological

discipline. In his other works (Bartmiński 1998 as well as Bartmiński, Niebrzegowska-

Bartmińska 2009: 12–13) the scholar also advocates a broad scope of textology,

indicating that it encompasses all the detailed aspects of text. It may therefore be divided into a number of branches: theoretical textology (text theory), descriptive

textology, and applied textology (practical). The first branch focuses on studying

suprasentential units, which are able to function independently in the process of

communication. The aim of the second branch – descriptive textology – is to study

the structure, semantics, and pragmatics of concrete texts, and carry out their analysis

and interpretation with the help of methods of linguistics and literary studies.

The third branch, i.e. applied textology, covers practical operations on texts, their

transformations, development, summarising, etc. Here Bartmiński also places editorship

and text taxonomy. Bartmiński discusses the name of the discipline as well.

As an advocate of the term ‘textology’ he points out that the name ‘text linguistics’

separates linguistic studies from the literary or anthropological studies of text

(Bartmiński 1998: 19–20). It appears to me, however, that both of these terms may

be treated synonymously (Labocha 2008), since, as the history and practice of the

studies of this discipline have demonstrated, the linguistic aspect cannot in many

cases be separated from the references to the theory of literature, poetics, folk studies,

cultural studies, etc. Both terms – text linguistics and textology – imply a broader

context than only the strictly linguistics one, i.e. they indicate the interdisciplinary approach to the subject.