MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO Diploma Thesis
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION Diploma thesis Brno 2018 Supervisor: Author: doc. Mgr. Martin Adam, Ph.D. Bc. Lukáš Opavský MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Presentation Sentences in Wikipedia: FSP Analysis Diploma thesis Brno 2018 Supervisor: Author: doc. Mgr. Martin Adam, Ph.D. Bc. Lukáš Opavský Declaration I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. I agree with the placing of this thesis in the library of the Faculty of Education at the Masaryk University and with the access for academic purposes. Brno, 30th March 2018 …………………………………………. Bc. Lukáš Opavský Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, doc. Mgr. Martin Adam, Ph.D. for his kind help and constant guidance throughout my work. Bc. Lukáš Opavský OPAVSKÝ, Lukáš. Presentation Sentences in Wikipedia: FSP Analysis; Diploma Thesis. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, English Language and Literature Department, 2018. XX p. Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Martin Adam, Ph.D. Annotation The purpose of this thesis is an analysis of a corpus comprising of opening sentences of articles collected from the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Four different quality categories from Wikipedia were chosen, from the total amount of eight, to ensure gathering of a representative sample, for each category there are fifty sentences, the total amount of the sentences altogether is, therefore, two hundred. The sentences will be analysed according to the Firabsian theory of functional sentence perspective in order to discriminate differences both between the quality categories and also within the categories. The aim of this thesis is to gain an insight into the structure of the sentences from the functional perspective, i.e. to discover patterns in the underlying structure of the sentences. Keywords: functional sentence perspective, FSP, information structure, Firbas, communicative dynamism, CD, theme, transition, rheme, dynamic semantic scales, Presentation Scale, Quality Scale OPAVSKÝ, Lukáš. Prezentační Věty ve Wikipedii: FSP Analýza; diplomová práce. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, Pedagogická fakulta, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury, 2018. XX stran. Vedoucí diplomové práce: doc. Mgr. Martin Adam, PhD. Anotace Tato diplomová práce si klade za cíl uskutečnění analýzy korpusu sestávajícího se z prvních vět článků, jež byly nashromážděny z online encyklopedie Wikipedia. Byly vybrány čtyři kvalitativní kategorie z celkového počtu osmi kvalitativních kategorií, aby byla zajištěna reprezentativnost vybraného vzorku. Na každou kategorii připadá padesát vět, celkem se tedy jedná o dvě stě vět. Věty budou analyzovány dle Firbasovy teorie funkční větné perspektivy, aby bylo možno rozlišit rozdíly jak mezi jednotlivými kvalitativními kategoriemi, tak i uvnitř těchto jednotlivých kategorií. Cílem této práce je proniknutí do podstaty struktury vět z pohledu funkční perspektivy, to jest odhalit vzory v podpovrchové struktuře vět. Klíčová slova: funkční větná perspektiva, informační struktura, Firbas, komunikační dynamismus, CD, téma, přechod, réma, dynamické sémantické škály, prezentační škála, kvalifikační škála Table of Contents I. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 2 I.1 Wikipedia .......................................................................................................................... 3 I.2 The corpus ......................................................................................................................... 6 I.3 The topic ........................................................................................................................... 6 II. Theoretical part ................................................................................................................... 9 II.1 Functional Sentence Perspective ..................................................................................... 9 II.2 Communicative Dynamism ............................................................................................. 9 II.3 FSP Factors .................................................................................................................... 10 II.3.1 Linear Modification ................................................................................................ 10 II.3.2 Semantics ................................................................................................................ 11 II.3.3 Context .................................................................................................................... 11 II.4 Dynamic Semantic Scales ............................................................................................. 12 II.4.1 Presentation Scale ................................................................................................... 12 II.4.2 Quality Scale ........................................................................................................... 13 II.4.3 Combined Scale ...................................................................................................... 14 II.4.4 Extended Presentation Scale ................................................................................... 15 II.5 Communicative Units .................................................................................................... 16 II.5.1 Theme ..................................................................................................................... 17 II.5.2 Transition ................................................................................................................ 18 II.5.3 Rheme ..................................................................................................................... 20 II.6 Research Questions ........................................................................................................ 20 III. Practical part .................................................................................................................... 22 III.1 Approach Towards the Analysis and Terminology ...................................................... 22 III.2 The Analysis of the Corpus Sentences ......................................................................... 23 III.2.1 Featured Articles ................................................................................................... 23 III.2.2 Good Articles ........................................................................................................ 28 III.2.3 B articles ................................................................................................................ 35 III.2.4 Start articles ........................................................................................................... 42 III.3 Findings of the Analysis ............................................................................................... 49 IV. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 55 List of Abbreviations and Symbols AofQ the DSF of an Ascription of Quality B the DSF of a Bearer of Quality B# B article (Wikipedia) CD communicative dynamism Com Combined Scale D contextual dependency DSF the dynamic-semantic function DTh Diatheme / diathematic Ext Extended Presentation Scale FA# Featured Article (Wikipedia) FSP functional sentence perspective FSp the DSF of a Further Specification GA# Good article (Wikipedia) Ph the DSF of a Phenomenon to Be Presented Pr- Presentation / Presentational Pr the DSF of a Presentation / the Presentation Scale Q the DSF of a Quality / the Quality Scale Rh rheme / rhematic RhPr rheme proper S# Start article (Wikipedia) Set the DSF of a Setting Sp the DSF of a Specification SVOCA sentence types / patterns (subject – verb – object – complement – adverbial) Th theme / thematic ThPr theme proper ThPro theme proper oriented TME temporal-modal exponent Tr transition / transitional TrPr transition proper */** first / second level distributional subfield 1 I. Introduction This thesis will be aimed at studying language structures of presentational sentences from a corpus of collected sentences using an approach devised by Czech scholar Jan Firbas - the functional sentence perspective. The analysis of the information structure of the sentences will be based on the Firbasian approach to information structure, i.e. the framework of functional sentence perspective (FSP). The functional sentence perspective is a theory of uneven distribution of a certain amount of communicative dynamism (CD) among the sentence elements within a distributional field, i.e. a sentence or a clause. The corpus is comprised of two hundred sentences, all of them retrieved from the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Four different categories of articles were chosen to represent articles of various quality, while all the articles have the same topic. The aim of this thesis is to analyse whether there can be found patterns and deviations in the information structure of the sentences according to the respective quality classes and also differences both within and between quality classes. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse a set of sentences, compare and contrast them, but most importantly to gain an insight into the structure of the sentences from the functional perspective, i.e. to discover patterns in the underlying structure