118 A matrix perspective on text, I lit* change ol perspective wilh .ureal skill (e.g. Wm and Peace). However, if a telling seems not l<> work in llie judgement ol readers, llie cxphinalion may lie in an inconsistent perspective, which can be identified readily by means of a matrix. The implications I have mentioned so far are negative in nature. A more positive implication of matrix analysis for language, learning lies in the development of logical and critical thinking. If students are given a matrix with empty cells, they can he invited to consider what type of material/argument might need to be supplied to fill the cells. Alternatively, they might be invited to consider what implications leaving the cells empty might have for the soundness of the writer's argument. Probably the most important, and perhaps the most obvious, implication for language learning lies in the development of writing skills. Students might be given a matrix with brief notes in each cell and invited to write a complete text. The effect would be not only to test and develop the normal syntactic: and lexical skills, but also to give practice in the skill of organising a text. The advantage would be that this skill could be developed without any particular form of organisation being prescribed in advance. Bibliographical end-notes The Abe, Bill and Clara matrix is drawn with minor modifications from Pike (1981); the various (re)tellings of the'happening' (Examples 6.1-6.4) are my own, though Pike supplies similar tellings in his own paper. The news story concerning the murdered market trader (6.5) was brought to my attention by Carmen Caldas-Coulthard and is discussed from the point of view of speech representation in Caldas-Colillhard (1988); my analysis has benefited from discussions with her about the text. As before, the quotation from Borges' Death and the Compass (6.7) is taken from the translation by Donald A.Yates, published as part of the volume Labyrinths (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1964), reprinted in Penguin ISooks, 1981. The DKNCl.KN advertisement (6.9) was current in national newspapers in 1999. Example 6.11 is from Good God: Green Theology and the Value of Creation by Jonathan Clatworthy, Charlbury: Jon Carpenter Publishing. The text of this chapter draws heavily upon two conference papers, themselves substantially overlapping, in which matrices arc defined and described (Hoey 1991c, 2000). The notion of the matrix applied to narrative is taken from Pike (1981), though it should be noted that I have omitted much that Pike would regard as important from my discussion of his paper. The notion of the matrix applied to non-narrative is taken from Tim Johns (1980) who argues for the existence of a particular kind of non-sequential non-narrative structure that he terms a 'matrix' structure; while I deny that the matrix has structural status, preferring to view it as an analytical device, the second half of this chapter has been greatly influenced by his work. Hoey (1985b, 1997a) discusses the way that matrix may help explain paragraphing decisions; the later paper relates these also to collocational and colligational choices. Culturally popular patterns of text organisation Introduction The defining characteristic of a colony, discussed in Chapter 5, was that its ' component parts do not derive their meaning from the sequence in which they are placed. Conversely, of course, the defining feature of what I have been loosely labelling 'mainstream text' is that its component parts do derive meaning from their place in the overall text. In Chapter 2, we saw that texts may be seen as an interaction between writer and reader in which the writer seeks to answer the questions that s/he thinks his or her reader will want answering, and the leader seeks to anticipate the questions that the writer is going i<> answer, lb make the reader's task easier, writers normally adopt one or more of three strategies. First, they may attempt to anticipate accurately the questions that their readers want answered in the order that they want them answered. Second, they may spell out the questions that they are answering as they answer them. Both these strategies were discussed in Chapter 2 and were touched upon in Chapters 3 and 4. The third strategy that a writer can adopt, however, is to answer an agreed sequence of questions, to operate in effect with a template of questions that both writer and reader know about and can rcler lo. It is these sequences of questions, these text templates, that this and the next chapter are concerned with. Schemata and scripts One of the first linguists to consider what these 'templates' might look like was Rumelhart, who with Ortony in 1977, offered the following fragment of (fabricated) text for consideration: 7.1 Mary heard the ice cream man coming. She remembered her pocket money. She rushed into the house. (from Rumelhart and Ortony 1977) Before reading on, try answering the following questions: What does Mary want to do? How old is she? What country does she live in? What kind of area does she live in? lb the first, you will, I trust, have answered that she wants to buy an ice cream. To the second, you are quite likely to have answered 'between 8 and 12'on 120 Culturally popular patterns of text organisation I In' grounds 111.11 girls lie I ween I llcse ages lend In slmw cut I nisi asm liii' ice (Tt'lim; girls older llian llial usually arc loo sophisticated to show their enthusiasm and girls younger than that are normally not permitted to be out of the house without parental accompaniment. You might have assumed the country to be an English-speaking country (because her name is Mary, not Maria, Marie or Marja) with a tradition of itinerant icecream vendors with musical chimes, i.e. either the United . States or the United Kingdom. You may feci less certainty about the kind of area she lives in, but I would expect some readers at least to speculate that Mary lives in a semi-detached or terraced house in the suburbs, since ice cream vans tend not to operate in the country or in the inner cities, and it is easier to'rush into'a house with a small garden (or none) rather than one with a long drive. The point here is that the reader does half the work for the writer. The writer's words activate knowledge in the mind of the reader which the reader brings into play in his or her interpretation of the text (unless there are counter-indications in the text that might prevent him or her from doing so). The seventeen words of Rumelhart and Orlony's mini-text above are therefore read as if they said something like the following: 7.2 Mary, probably a young girl because young girls lend to have pocket money and to get excited by the prospect of ice cream, heard the chimes of the van driven by the ire cream man, which signalled that he w.\a coming mu\ that he was willing to sell ice cream. Wanting an ice cream and knowing that she would have to pay for it, she needed a source of money as she had no, or insufficient, money on her. She remembered that she still had her pocket money which would be sufficient to pay lor an ice cream. Because she knew that ice cream vans do not stay long in one place and that she would therefore lose her chance to buy an ice cream if she did not acl quickly, she rushed into the house where she lived outside which she was standing, in order to gel the money so that she could buy an ice cream. It is important to note, though, that oilier interpretations of the text arc possible; the words do not have to have the meaning that reader and writer cooperate in making. Placed into a context where the ice cream man is a heavy-footed bogeyman, famed lor his slaughter of young women for trivial sums of money with an ice pick, the passage could be read very differently. Mary could be a young woman who, terrified at hearing the step of the psychopath and realising that her pocket money represents a dangerous temptation for the monster, rushes into the house to secure herself and her money. The point, of course, is that only someone with a warped mind (like me) is likely to read it in such a way. Another such fragment of text (again fabricated) is supplied by Schank and Abelson (1977): 7.3 John knew his wife's operation would be expensive. There was always Uncle Harry. John reached for the telephone book. Culturally popular patterns of text organisation 121 The same points can be made here. We assume the count ry where the story lakes place to be ihe United Stales since the names indicate an English-speaking country and operations are not charged for in most other English-speaking countries. This could be mistaken; cosmetic surgery, for example, is not free in the United Kingdom. But in the absence ofconlra-iiidirations we assume I he operation to be of the health-sustaining kind. Furthermore, we assume that Uncle Harry is a rich and probably generous relative and we take it for granted that John's reasons for reaching for the phone book are to get Uncle Harry's number so that he can be asked for a gift or loan of money to pay for the wife's operation. We are likely to assume they both live in the same big city, in that John would not have the phone books for all areas of the United States. We also are likely to assume that they are not close; otherwisejohn would know Uncle Harry's number already. Again, other readings are possible. The same warped mind that imagined an ice-pick wielder in Mary's story could interpret the text as meaning that John does not want to pay for his wife's operation and therefore contacts the local Mafia man in order to arrange for her murder. Again, though, such an interpretation is unlikely to occur spontaneously unless the writer has already signalled its feasibility. Rumelhart and Ortony and Schank and Abelson have similar ways of explaining the phenomenon we have, been describing, though their terminology differs. They talk in terms of schemata and scripts in the reader's (and writer's) minds. For the purposes of this chapter, the difference between the terms is unimportant for reasons that will become quickly apparent. Crudely, a schema is a static representation of knowledge; whereas a script is a narrative representation of._ knowledge. A schema represents the (non-narrative) connections between facts; a script represents the sequence in which likely events will occur. The view of these authors is that knowledge of the world, our remembered experience of the world, is not randomly distributed in the mind, but is carefully organised in terms of schemata or scripts. Consequently whenever one part of that knowledge is activated, the rest becomes available at the same lime, and is brought to bear on the task of interpreting the text that provided the activation. The illustration of a restaurant is often used. If we enter a restaurant, we are unsurprised if a stranger in smart clothes approaches our table with a menu in his or her hand. If we sit at a table in a library, on the other hand, we expect no such thing and would immediately suspect that we were the butt of someone's humour (or the victim of some survey of public opinion) were such a figure to approach us. If we read about a meal in a restaurant, the same knowledge is activated as if we were in the restaurant ourselves (so the argument goes) and so the writer does not feel obliged to explain the presence of an unnamed pro-active stranger in the way that s/he would in other contexts. Culturally popular patterns of organisation Revealing though concepts such as schema and script are for a general understanding of the writing and reading processes, they are of limited value in text 122 Culturally popular patterns of text organisation .m.i lysis or in I he leaching nl leading ur writing. 'I'll is is because I here appears In be no practical liinil to the number of schemata or scripts we can hold and t lie exact content and boundaries of each schema or script arc open to real question. Ii is no accident that the restaurant script is so often cited - it happens to be an unusually scll'-coniaincd and bounded set oľ knowledge and expectations, ľ'iu'lhennorc, even il these problems were solvable in principle, we would still, never in practice be able to list, let alone describe, all the schemata/scripts that a reader develops in his or her life or that a writer is capable, of making use of. In í short schemata and scripts are not practicable analytical tools. What we need is something that allows us to generalise about these, schemata/scripts without losing the insight that readers co-operate with writers in making a common meaning! j The answer in part lies in the fact that readers seem to bring two kinds of knowledge to bear oil the texts they read the specific knowledge described by schemata and script#'awl .1 more generalised sol of expectations thai arc shared across a range of texts. I ľ we look again at Schank and Abelsons incomplete, mini-text, we can see that the question that the reader is likely to ask on being told that John knew his wife's operation would be expensive is What did he do about it? 1 n other words, the reader will recognise the situation described in the lirst sentence as a problematic one and will expect a response, to the problem described.'Ibis would have been true even if no specific schema could be activated. Thus the sentence: 7.4 John knew the gill net would be expensive a*ŕ&*e&Q&c£j?*z~y is extremely unlikely to trigger any schema in your mind, unless you happen to be keen on fishing la gill net being a net that is suspended in water as a way of trapping fish by their gills). Yet the more generalised expectation would be as strong here as il was when the expensive ilem was an operation. Just as the word operation triggers the schema of hospitals, welfare systems and so on, so the word expensive^ triggers a^gTTicnilised scripQrif problem followed by attempt at solution. I have just talked in terms of a'generalised script' in order to show the relationship of this concept to schemata and scripts. Henceforward, however, I shall talk of 'culturally popular patterns of organisation', not least to make it clear that such put terns arc in many respects closer to structures than to schemata and scripts as usually defined. Unpacked, my preferred label is intended to convey the following points. The wordCSgattenis^is chosen because they have a structuring eifect similar to that of the hierarchical organisation described in Chapter 4 and to that of the matching matrices described in Chapter 6. The term'organisation'is chosen in preference lofctruclureDto indicate that, although there are preferred I sequences and combinations of elements, there is no impossible sequence or ' combination (compare my beginning and ending to Chapter 1); John Sinclair, cited in Sinclair and Couhhard (1975), argues that linguistics should only refer to structures when there is at least one impossible sequence or combination of elements. They are referred to as 'culturally popular' in acknowledgement that they do not have a universal status but occur within particular cultures, as again illustrated in Chapter l.The inter.u tivity <•! text, the potential for hierarchicality! ' • j . • 1 1 1 I Culturally popular patterns of text organisation 123 in text and tlx' availability ofriilmi) siinel>ni ■. I claim as nuiv> 1 sals ul'ii \i; m> such claim is made, on tin: ol her hand, for the culturally popular patterns that this and the next two chapters will be describing. Finally, they are 'popular' in acknowledgement of the fact that all kinds of patterns of organisation are possible but some of the patterns will be very rare while others will recur with great frequency. There, is no demarcation line between the two types of pattern, so the point at which one stops describing dillerenl types of pattern will be determined by utility rather than principle. The Problem-Solution pattern Having explained what is involved in the label 'culturally popular patterns of organisation', we can turn our attention back to what is arguably the most common pattern of all (or at least the most thoroughly described), the Problem-Solution pattern. The basic outline of the Problem-Solution pattern posited above-can be illustrated in a short fabricated text (the only virtue of which is its skeletal nature). Sentence numbers have been added for convenience of reference: 7.5 (1) I was once a teacher of English Language. (2) One day some students came to me unable to write their names. (3) I taught them text analysis. (4) Now they all write novels. This vainglorious text contains the minimum elements of the pattern under consideration and can be projected into a dialogue as follows: 7.6 Text: Questioner: F r T: S I T: Oj T: I was once a language teacher. What problem arose for you? My students came to me unable to write their names. What did you do about this? I taught them text analysis. What was the result? Now they all write novels. The aim in projecting a text into dialogue in such a way is to ensure that the questions spell out the relationship between the sentences; the dialogue should make sense and there should be no distortion of the meaning of the text (except that necessarily occasioned by the change of emphasis that introducing questions cannot help but bring). In this case, the questions all support the initial identification of the text as organised by a Problem-Solution pattern, with sentence 1 being the Situation, sentence 2 the Problem, sentence 3 the Response and sentence 4 the Positive Result. The function of the Situation element in our fabricated text, sentence 1, is to provide background information. In some senses the Situation only belongs to the pattern retrospectively. There is nothing about the first sentence that triggers any expectations of a pattern to be followed. Once sentence 2 has appeared, (Atokcea-rk) 4p:SaL<. potto-* i\ U4 I'll Culturally popu/ni patterns of text organisation however, in answer in I lie second of the questions, answers to questions 3 and 4 are highly likely In appeal .in well. Tin- lenj',1 li till lie answers here is a lu ml ion i if I he artificiality ol'ihe example, but in authentic lext the answers may vary greatly in length, some texts devoting pages to answering the question'What did x do about it?', others treating this question peremptorily but providing expansive answers to I he quest ion'Wlia I problem arose:1'. Answers may also be shorter as we shall see in later, authentic, examples. J. K. R.'lolkien's Ijordoj'llu Rings answers the same lour questions as in Example 7.6 above, but takes well over a thousand pages to do it. The trigger of the pattern is the word unable, which, like expensive, negatively, evaluates a Situationand invites a description of some Response, and the pattern effectively begins at this point, with the identification of some Problem. Problem can be defined as 'an aspect of the Situation requiring a Response' (Hoey 1983) and gives rise to the expectation of a Response. This element of the pattern is often referred to in the literature as a Solution, though strictly the latter label is inappropriate since what is expected is the description of something done to deal with the Problem, not necessarily something that was successful in dealing with the Problem - a subtle distinction, but an important one. Sentence 3 provides the required Response to the Problem, as is indicated by the question it was possible to insert between sentences 2 and 3: What did you do about this? This is, of course, not the only question that might be used to connect these two sentences; indeed a number might be used. Some of these would represent alternative formulations of the same request for information. Thus the question What was your way ofdealing ivilh this problem? represents another way of formulating the question What didyou do about this? Other questions might be more general, e.g. What didyou do?, which allows an unplanned reaction such as /panicked to serve as an answer as well as the intentional Response that the fuller form of the question demands. Still other questions might focus on different aspects of the organisation, So, for example, the question What didyou leach in the circumstances? attends to the general-particular relationship that holds between sentences 1 and 3: "Unfa 7.7 1 was once a teacher of English Language I taught [my students] text analysis. To understand fully the place of sentence 3 (or any other sentence) in the text as a whole, the analyst needs to tease out all the possible questions that might be asked. However, when investigating a particular pattern, that is not necessary. For the purposes of identifying the Problem-Solution pattern, the question What didyou do about it? suffices. A Response does not bring the pattern to a close. If my fabricated text had finished with I taught them text analysis you would have felt it to be significantly incomplete. It is only when the Response can be shown to be in truth a solution that the pattern is felt to be complete, and this is done with either a Positive Result or a Positive Evaluation, or quite commonly both. This is, of course, provided by sentence 4. Culturally popular patterns of text organisation 125 The signals of a Problem-Solution pattern We have seen in earlier chapters that writers may signal the questions they are answering or intend to answer. The same is true of the Problem-Solution pat tern and the other patterns I shall be describing. So our fabricated text might have occurred thus: 7.8 I was once a teacher of English Language. One day my students came to me unable to write their names. My way of dealing with this problem was to teach them text analysis, with the result that they now all write novels. The signal do about cannot be introduced into this particular text but it occurs quite naturally in all kinds of narratives and other kinds of text. Indee.d the phrase do something about x is one of the most fundamental and common signals of the pattern and perhaps for this reason often occurs in stories written for very young children. Here are just two examples, the first from Mr Nosey by Roger Hargreaves, the second from Big Dog... Little Dog: A Bedtime Story by P. D. Eastman: 7.9 The people of Tiddletown decided thai Mr Nosey was becoming much too nosey, and so they held a meeting to discuss what to do about him. 'We must find some way of stopping him being so nosey' said old Mr Chips the town carpenter. 'That's right!'said Mrs Washer who ran theTiddletown laundry,'He needs to be taught a lesson.' 'If only we could think of away to stop him poking his nose'said Mr Brush the painter. And then, a small smile spread over his face.'Listen' he said, now grinning.'I have a plan!' 7.10 'Did you get any sleep last night, Ted?' 'Not a wink, Fred!' 'My bed is too little!' 'My bed is too big!' 'What can we do about it, Ted?' 'I don't know, Fred.' 'I know what to do!' said the bird.'Just switch rooms. Ted should sleep upstairs and Fred should sleep downstairs!' In both cases the phrase is introduced to mark the Problem and to point towards a Response. In both cases also, a suggested Response is shortly offered. In addition to these specialised lexical items, the prime function of which seems to be to signal relations and patterns, writers (and speakers) have available to them other kinds of signalling vocabulary. Thus negative evaluation items, for example, can be used to signal Problem. Thus, in another version of my fabricated narrative we have: / J' ,9p J.* I I2(> Culturally papular patterns of text organisation /.II I \v;im>iii i' ,i Ii.ii lui ill I'ii i(.'lisli I ..n i j.' 11 :i j.'t-. /hipii1 ii ii at fly n ly :;l in lei lis i li( I III il know how to write their names. I taught them text analysis. Novv they all write novels. In (his version the trigger unable has been removed and replaced with the writer's negative evaluation ol'lii.s students situation. Sometimes, though, negative evaluations or lexical signals of the kind described above are assigned to a participant within the text. Examples 7.9 and 7.10 contain examples of both. The evaluations {loo nosey, too big, too little) and the lexical signal do about are in both passages assigned to characters rather than directly to the writer. Strictly speaking, all the signals referred to so far can be seen as evaluative, whether this is their only function like terrible or they have a pattern-referring function like solution. Hut there are non-evaluative signals as well; some lexical items such as poverty, disease, and burglary refer to real world matters that arc almost always regarded as problematic - almost always, because there are occasionally situations, for example, a vow of poverty, where these words would not be regarded as markers of Problem. Jim Martin distinguishes two kinds of/ evaluation or appraisal (to use his own terminology): inscribed and evoked^ Inscribed appraisal is explicitly encoded evaluation. Evoked appraisal refers to lexical choices that evoke in the reader an evaluation. In some cases the evaluation that is evoked is very strong and quite unambiguous (e.g. thrill-killing, genocide); for such instances, Peter White, who has followed up Jim Martin's work, has coined the term'provoked appraisal' (White 1999); the example of thrill-killing is his own. An instance of evoked appraisal serving as a signal of Problem in our fabricated example would be: 7.12 I was a teacher of English Language. One year some of my students were illiterate. I taught them text analysis. Now they all write novels. Illiteracy is strictly a factual description, but it evokes a negative evaluation and therefore a Problem. Indeed it does this so regularly that the word is sometimes bandied about as a term of abuse aimed at writing felt to be below standard; in such cases, of course, the evaluation is inscribed, not evoked. The adjectives 'inscribed'and 'evoked' have, however, different implied actors. The writer inscribes the evaluation; on the other hand, it is the word that evokes (or provokes) an evaluation in the reader. For this reason, when referring to lexical signalling of patterns, I shall refer to evoking signals rather evoked signals. We can represent the simplest Problem-Solution possibilities diagrammatically as shown in Fig. 7.1. Working down the diagram, we note that Situation is optional and in certain kinds of text, e.g. advertisements, the exception rather than the rule. We note also that a more accurate label for Problem is Aspect of Situation Requiring a Response and that this label will help us distinguish the Problem-Solution pattern from other types of pattern in the next chapter. Each of the vertical stages represents a question being answered and, as is probably fairly Culturally papular patterns of text organisation 127 Slliuillon (i)|Jlfontil) Aspect of Situation Requiring a Response (i.e. Problem) Response Positive Evaluation Basis (optional) Positive Result Positive Evaluation (optional) Positive Result/ Evaluation combined in a single statement Figure 7.1 The Basic Problem-Solution patterns. Source: Adapted from Hoey 1983. obvious, the three branches represent alternative possible tex.ua Example 7.5 illustrates the third option. 1 reali sal ions. An intermediate stage between Problem and Response Only so much can be learnt from fabricated texts, whether those of others or my own. One feature that is missing from my examples but which is visible in authentic Examples 7.9 and 7.10 is the presence of a stage half-way between Problem and Response, which the Story Grammarians;.(Stein and Glenn and others) have termed 'Plan'. The label is not entirely satisfactory as we immediately shall see, though it does account well for some half-way stages. A characteristic of this element of the pattern is that it either defines what might count as an adequate Response or makes a suggestion as to what Response to adopt. Thus in Example 7.9, Mrs Washer goes beyond simply stating that Mr Nosey's nosiness has to be stopped; she specifies that 'He needs to be taught a lesson] a particular kind of Response, quite different, for example, from just securing windows and doors or keeping well away from him whenever he is about. Then again Mr Brush signals the imminent shift from Response with the words 'I have a plan!' The reader is not told what the plan is and has to infer it from subsequent events, but we recognise a shift of focus from Problem without having yet reached the point of Response. Quite often a sentence occurs which defines what will count as an appropriate Response without being followed by a statement of Plan. i'Jii (iiiiiiimiiv pu/iii/iir patterns 11/ lex/ uigauisatmn 11 ist i; 111 cila Plan slalemenl, we often encounter a Keei >m mi'i n le< I Response. All example occurs in Example 7.10. Hie bird announces llial s/lic lias a solution (7 know whal to do!') and then recommends a course of action. 'Ibis Recommended Response is not yet an actual Response, in that it does not answer the question What did they do about it?, but it shifts attention from Problem to Response. Recommended Responses account for more interim stages than do true Plans. Advertisements and editorials very frequently substitute Recommended Responses for actual Responses and in these contexts they are not felt to be interim and the actual Responses are likewise not felt to be missing. In narratives and much science writing, however, the need for actual Response is strong and in such contexts Plan/Recommended Response is felt to be a stage on the way. I shall not represent these intermediate stages in subsequent diagrams since they are optional, but their presence should always be looked for. Two advertisements displaying Problem-Solution patterning The following extract from an advertisement for an Internet service, which will also serve to illustrate the main features of the pattern as so far described, allow us to look more closely at the way signalling works: 7.13 TRYING TO WOR K WITH TH B 1NTERNKT? IS THE INTERNET TURNING YOU INTO A MONSTER? LET MGIS HELP YOU CONTROLTI IE BEAST. MCIS is a Total Internet Solutions Provider and can assist you in the following areas: [A list Ibllows] The first sentence invites readers to identify the Situation described with their own. (Presumably those who answer 'no' will turn their attention elsewhere.) The second sentence triggers recognition of the Problem-Solution pattern with the word monster, a recognition that is confirmed in the following sentence by the use of the near-synonym beast. It is important in any analysis to identify the signals that trigger recognition of the pattern and subsequently confirm its existence, since they are a direct linguistic reflection of the pattern. The frequency of the signals that will be found varies somewhat according to genre, with signals being rarer in academic scientific writing than in popular science reporting, for example. The reasons for this are to do with the knowledge a reader may be expected to bring to the text. The greater the knowledge that the reader shares with the writer, the less need there is for the writer to make explicit linguistic reference to the pattern being followed, since the significance of the information being provided will be quite obvious to the reader. s ^c.t>w A Problem having being indicated in the advertisement, a Response is sure to follow, and the offer of one comes in the third sentence (in the terms used above, a Culturally popular patterns qj text organisation 129 Recommended Response); this also contains a Positive Evalnalion/Kesnll williin it {help).This Evaluation/Result is repealed in the final sentence (can assislyou). One signal in this extract perhaps deserves a little more attention in that it shows the subtlety and complexity of the lexical signalling system, namely the word control. Of 112 examples of to control drawn from a sub-set of the British National Corpus, 38 (34% of my examples) were used in conjunction with clearly problematic situations, i.e. to control urinary incontinence, to control weeds, to control insect pests, to control his violent nature, to control fish frying odours, to control air pollution, etc. Another 62 (55%) were used in conjunction with situations capable of being problematic, i.e. lo control the bladder (cf. urinary incontinence), to control personal behaviour (cf. his violent nature), lo control the trade offish frying (ci.fish frying odours), to control the air we breathe (cf. air pollution), etc. This combination of meanings exactly matches with the apparent intentions of the advertiser. On the one hand, the text claims to be describing a clearly problematic situation [the beast) which needs to be prevented from doing damage to the reader; on the other hand, the reality it encodes is closer to the second use of control; the Internet is a situation capable of being problematic, rather than one that is necessarily problematic, so what is being offered is a service that will prevent the Internet becoming a problematic situation. Thus, a single item simultaneously functions to signal Response to Problem and an underlying, implicit situation where the need is to forestall a Problem before it happens. In 1983, I described the latter kind of situation as a special sub-class of Problem-Solution pattern where Problem equalled Delicate Situation and Response equalled Means of Avoiding Problem. The above discussion might lead to a misunderstanding if not immediately corrected. It is not the case that Problem-Solution patterns merely mirror reality. We are not observing patterns in the world that the text merely reflects, though presumably the text does reflect some aspect of the author's perception of reality. As evidence of the complex relationship that holds between what a writer encodes as problem and what a reader is willing to recognise as problem, consider the opening sentences from an advertisement for cold wax treatments that appeared in the 1980s, masquerading as an advice column: 7.14 CAROL FRANCIS TALKS ABOUT UNWANTED HAIR REMOVAL The other day my teenage daughter asked me about hair removal for the first time. Apparently, her new boyfriend had passed a comment about her legs being hairy, and she wanted to do something about it before a party on Friday night. Fortunately, she was talking to the right person, because I've tried everything. So I explained all the different methods and told her to make up her own mind. Here's what I told her. The advertisementtriggers recognition of the Problem-Solution pattern with the words wanted to do something about it. A Problem is being unambiguously signalled. But what is the Problem? Again, the text is unambiguous: the Problem is hairy legs. I have to accept that because the text has linguistically encoded it thus, the ta3 ISO Culturally popular patients oj'lext organisation pronoun it referring back lo her legs being hairy which is what she wanted to do something nlmnl. Hul I tin not accept I hill I lie writer's decisii in In encode hairy legs as a Problem t'cllecls everybody's reality; I do not accept that (he text is Iransparcnlly icllecling something that would be universally recognised as a real-world problem. For me, the problem is the boyfriend. But I recognise the pattern that has been signalled by the copywriter, and I interpret the remainder of the text in the light of what the writer has chosen to signal, not in terms of my own real-world perceptions. (Which does not prevent me reflecting critically upon the value systems that the writer has chosen to encode; cf. Fairclough 1989.) Recycling in Problem-Solution patterns The pattern so far described will account for some texts but there are many that will prove not to fit despite having many features apparently in common. Consider the following variant of Example 7.5: 7.15 (1) I was once a teacher of English Language. (2) One day some students came to me unable to write their names, (3) I taught them text analysis. (4) This however had little effect. On encountering this, the reader is likely to ask, So what did you next do about it? Whereas the earlier versions hail a sense of completeness about them, however inadequate they might have been in other ways, this version is likely to feel incomplete. The same questions are being answered as were answered in Example 7.5, but because the answer to the question What was the result? is negative, the pattern has lo recycle, as shown in Figure 7.2. Situation (optional) Problem Negative Evaluation and/or Result Response or Figure 7.2 rhc recycling effect of Negative F.valualion Positive Evaluation and/or Result (all 3 options as in Figure 7.1) = END OF STORY AND PATTERN in Problem-Solution patterns. Culturally popular patterns of text organisation IHI There are actually several types of recycling. One possibility is that each negative evaluation redefines llie nature iil'lhe Problem. Another is that the Problem remains unaltered but the Response changes. An example of the latter type of recycling can be found in the following story by a seven-year-old girl (my daughter); as previously, sentence numbering has been added for convenience of referencing: 7.16 My Love Story J[ ~z=^=*~ <7 (1) One wet day Mary wa^jDorecTand decided to go up into the attic to see what she could find. (2) After a while she came down looking very excited, she had an idea she couldn't go in the attic, it's too dirty for she had her best dress on. (3) She went to the swimming baths and learnt how to swim. (4) She learnt how to do it very well indeed. (5) She learnt the backstroke and the front stroke. (6) She learnt the doggy paddle as well but she got bored soon and went lo find something else. (7) She found a sports class and she won three races and lost one, but soon she got bored of that too. (8) Then she found a church and she thought, I haven't got a husband and she got married and you know what? (9) They did all those things which she thought she would enjoy with her husband, and she didn't get bored at all. (10) In fact she really really really liked it and her husband did really really really much. (11) They even went to the seaside and they enjoyed living together evermore, L Culturally popular patterns of text organisation (',>) Mine scrums limn most men rcalt.y . Unlet tissue (3) In nearly every business organization a surprisingly of the employees are suffering from rectal trouble. (I) This lad is well known to companies that require physical examinations of their personnel. (5) Yet even these same concerns are frequently negligent in providing equipment that will safeguard the* health of their employees. ((i) Harsh toilet tissue, for instance. (7) Any physician will tell you that mucous membrane can be seriously inflamed by the use of harsh or chemically impure toilet tissue. (8) Some specialists estimate that 65 per cent of all men and women at middle age suffer from troubles caused or aggravated by inferior toilet tissue. (9) Protection from rectal illness is just as important in the home as in business. (10) Fortunately, women are more careful in matters of this kind than men. (II) Already millions of homes are equipped with ScolTissue or Waldorf - the tissues that doctors and hospitals recommend. (12) Extremely soft, cloth-like and absorbent, these safety tissues cannot harm the most sensitive skin. (13) They are chemically pure, contain no harsh irritants. (14) 15e safe ... at home, at work. (15) Insist on ScolTissue or Waldorf. Scott Paper Company, Chester, Pa. (Mi) In Canada, Scott Paper Company, Ltcl,'loronto, Ontario [ illustrations of ScolTissue and Waldorf toilet rolls with accompanying descriptive text omitted] This advertisement, although more than 60 years old, has a number of the characteristic features of Problem-Solution advertisements. Notice, though, thai there are two Positive Evaluations, one ascribed to doctors and hospitals, the other emanating from ScolTissue, as can be seen in Figure 7.8. Figures 7.2 and 7.5 must now be seen as simplifications of the pattern possibilities, in that they do not include participant attribution. A more abstract representation of the possibilities is offered in Figure 7.9, though obviously th» diagram docs not attempt to pick up on the complications of recycling. It follow from Figure 7.9 thai there may be more than one Response from different participants, and that there may be a range of Evaluations from participants and writer, as illustrated in the ScotTissue text. Culturally popular patterns of text organisation 137 I'loblom lot ktvoitt and iton luvvis ot llio root [i.o. ywlic] (antagonism because of the smell) Response by chemists to the Problem for lovers and non-lovers of garlic (removing the smell) Positive Evaluation by the writer of the Response by chemists to the Problem for lovers and non-lovers of garlic (succeeded) Negative Evaluation by critics of the Response by chemists to the Problem for lovers and non-lovers of garlic (destroyed the flavour) Response by Nakagawa to the Problem for lovers and non-lovers of garlic (planting heads which appeared to have less smell, etc.) Positive Evaluation by Nakagawa of the Response by Nakagawa to the Problem for lovers and non-lovers of garlic Basis of Positive Evaluation Figure 7.7 Participant attribution in No smell garlic. Problem for a surprisingly large percentage of employees and 65% of all men and women at middle age Response recommended for negligent companies and for women in the home Positive Evaluation by doctors and hospitals (recommended) Positive Evaluation by ScotTissue (extremely soft, cannot harm the most sensitive skin, chemically pure, containing no irritants) k Promised Positive Result for families and employees (Be safe... at home, at work) Bgue7.8 Overall Problem-Solution patterning of ScotTissue advertisement. 138 Culturally popular patterns of text organisation Problem for x I Hi.".|)olis<.' I>y y" lo l*i olilfmi lor x I Evaluation by z" of Response by y to Problem lor x whore y may or may not he Ihe same as x and z may or may nol be Ihe same as either x or y and airy or all of x, y and z may be the writer. Figure 7.9 Participant altril)uliiin in tin- I'roblciii-Solutiun pattern. Interlocking patterns in narrative but There arc a number of implications to this modification 1« <»ir description i perhaps the most important is that it makes it possible to account for narratives with more than one central participant. Consider the following delightful verse tale by A A Milne: 7.19 Bad Sir Brian Bolarn Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on; He went about the villagers and blipped them on the head. On Wednesday and on Saturday, but mostly on the latter day, I le called at all the collages, and this is what he said: i am Sir Brian!' (ling-ling) 'I am Sir Brian!' (ral-lal) 'I am Sir Brian, as bold as a lion -'Ilike thai! and thai! and that!" Sir Brian had a pair of boots with great big spurs on, A fighting pair of which he was particularly fond. On Tuesday and on Friday, just to make the street look tidy, He'd collect the passing villagers and kick them in the pond. 'I am Sir Brian!' {sper-lash!} & 'I am Sir Brian!' (sper-losli!) J t L > 'I am Sir Brian, as bold as a lion -Is anyone else for a wash?' 11*1^ 4 jpcrv^f o^/™* Sir Brian woke one morning, and he couldn't find his battleaxe; He walked into the village in his second pair of boots. He had gone a hundred paces, when the street was full of faces, And the villagers were round him with ironical salutes. 'You are Sir Brian? Indeed! You are Sir Brian? Dear, dear! You are Sir Brian, as bold as a lion? ' Delighted lo meet you here!' Culturally popular patterns of text organisation 139 Sir Brian went ajoumey, and he found a lot of duckweed: They pulled him out and dried him, and they blipped him on the head. They look him by ihe breeches, and they hurled him into ililelies, And they pushed him under watcrliills, and this is what (hey said: 'You are Sir Brian - don't laugh, You are Sir Brian - don't cry; You are Sir Brian, as bold as a lion -Sir Brian, the lion, good-bye!' Sir Brian struggled home again, and chopped up his battleaxe, Sir Brian took his fighting boots, and threw them in-the fire. He is quite a different person now he hasn't got his spurs on, And he goes about the village as B. Botany, Fsquire. 'I am Sir Brian? Oh, no! I am Sir Brian? Who's he? / haven't got any title, I'm Botany -Plain Mr Botany (B). This tale of a worker's revolution from my childhood is still, by narrative standards, a simple affair, but, unlike My Love Story, it has - in classical terminology -a protagonist and a (group) antagonist, and accordingly participant linking of the pattern elements becomes essential if we are to produce an adequate account of its structure. The first thing to note is that the villagers have a Problem, evoked by blipped them on the head. The pattern for them is shown in Figure 7.10. But Sir Brian also has a Problem once the villagers attack him, and his pattern looks similar, except that we have an extensive Situation comprising verses 1 and 2 (see Figure 7.11). Problem for villagers (blipped, etc.) i Response by villagers (ditto) 1 Positive Resultfor villagers {Sir Brian chopped up his battleaxe) Figure 7.10 The first Problem-Solution pattern in Bad Sir Brian Botany. Situation for Sir Brian I Problem for Sir Brian (blipped, etc.) I Response by Sir Brian (Sir Brian chopped up his battleaxe) i Implied Positive Result fortheformerSir Brian Figure 7.11 The second Problem-Solution pattern in Bad Sir Brian Botany. 10 Culturally popular patterns oj text organisation Situation forSirBrian => Problem for villagers (blipped, etc.; I ■: Response by villagers (ditto) = Positive Resultfor villagers Problem for Sir Brian J Response by Sir Brian {Sir Brian chopped up his battleaxe) i Implied Positive Result for the former Sir Brian Figure 7.12 The combined Problem-Solution patterns in Bad Sir Brian Botany. Of course the point is that these two patterns interweave, and make a single pattern, shown in Figure 7.12. The combination of arrows and equal signs in the centre column is meant to indicate that Sir Brian's Situation is the same as and leads to the villager's Problem, that the villagers' Response is the same as and leads to Sir Brian's Response, and so on. Once we allow for the interlocking of participant-linked Problem-Solution patterns, we are in the position to consider handling quite complex texts. Or we would be if this were the only pattern. But it is not, and in the next chapter a range of patterns will be described that are similar to the Problem-Solution pattern and share many of its properties. Summary of the characteristics of Problem-Solution patterns Before wc examine other culturally popular patterns, it may be helpful to list the characteristics of the Problem-Solution pattern as described in this chapter, not least because most of them will also be found to be characteristics of the other patterns: (a) The Problem-Solution pattern arises as a result of the writer answering a predictable series of questions. The order in which these questions are answered is, however, not fixed. (b) The pattern is characteristically lexically signalled, either by means of inscribed signals (e.g. solution) or inscribed evaluations functioning as signals (e.g. unfortunately) or by means of evoking signals (e.g. had no money). One or more of these signals serves as a trigger for the pattern, in that it makes the pattern visible to the reader. (c) The pattern may be preceded by a Situation which is recognised retrospectively as providing a context for the pattern proper. (d) In between Problem and Response there may be an intervening stage in which either a Plan or Recommendation or outline of what will count as a Response occurs. (e) A Negative Result or a Negative Evaluation of the Response usually prompts a recycling of the pattern, and the pattern continues to recycle until such time as a Positive Result or Evaluation is reached. A Positive Result or Evaluation can always be overridden by an immediately following Negative Result or Culturally popular patterns o] text organisation 141 Evaluation.The exception is when a Negative Result is fell lo be so severe as not to admit further Response. (I) The elements of the pattern are attributed to participants in the text, those participants including the writer and reader, (g) Participant attribution permits the recognition of the interweaving of several different and co-existing patterns. Bibliographical end-notes Example 7.9 is drawn from Mr Nosey by Roger Hargreaves; Example 7.10 is drawn from Big Dog... Little Dog: A Bedtime Story by P. D. Eastman. The advertisement for MCIS (7.13) was current in national newspapers in the early part of 1998. Example 7.14 was taken from an advertisement for home wax treatments current in the mid-1980s. My Love Story (7.16) was written by my daughter when she was seven and printed in the Moor Green Primary School magazine. No smell garlic (7.17) appeared in New Scientist, 4 May 1978, p. 295. The advertisement (7.18) for ScotTissue was current in the 1930s; the advertising campaign of which it formed a part was a highly successful one. Bad Sir Brian Botany (7.19) is one of the poems by A. A. Milne in When We Were Very Young, first published in 1927 by Methuen & Go. A large number of linguists have sought to describe the way knowledge is stored and utilised in the interpretation of text and the world, and they have all, it would sometimes seem, invented a new term to describe the phenomenon, asWiddowson (1984) has complained. The term'schema'comes from Bartlett (1932) and probably is the most used, but the following terms have had currency also: frames (Gofl'man 1975), plans and scripts (Schank and Abelson 1977), ideational scaffolding (Adams 1979), global knowledge patterns (de Beaugrande 1980), scenarios (Sahford and Garrod 1981). Langer (1987', in an investigation of reading, concluded that readers activate a combination of genre knowledge, content knowledge and form knowledge when they make sense of text; although the boundaries between these types of knowledge are not clear-cut, this position seems sound. The pattern here identified has been widely described. Grimes (1975) andVanDijk (1977) make brief reference to it. Fuller descriptions can be found in Winter (1976, 1977), Hoey (1979,1983), Jordan (1980,1984,1992), and Crombie (1985) all of whom describe it in terms very similar to those adopted here. Mann and Thompson (1986,1988) and the story grammarians (e.g. Rumelhart 1975, Stein with Glenn 1979, with Policastro 1984, and on her own, 1982) have used related systems of description. Meyer has a similar and fully worked out description of long standing that has been particularly developed in connection with work on memory (e.g. Meyer 1975,1992, with Rice 1982). Labov (1972, with Waletzky 1967, and Fanshel 1977) has used an influential method of description that has a number of features in common with that provided here.