Choice Default A Discourse-Pragmatic Orientation

98 with , as well as other dependent and independent clauses. Narrative contexts include not only different text-types, but also the stage of development within a text. Different stages of development—such as aperture, nucleus, closure—may have certain characteristic features. Episode boundaries, commented on so frequently in the review of scholarship, are an example of a particular narrative context that are expected to have certain characteristic features.

5.2.4.4 Choice

One of the results of the context-sensitive nature of language is that communication involves a constant process of selection which potentially impacts every aspect of an utterance or text. This assumes, as Longacre points out, that there is no randomness or free variation in the surface structure. Any morphosyntactic form in a text represents the author’s choice whether conscious or automatic; we may not know the whys of all such choices, but we may speculate on them as implementations of differing discourse strategies. Longacre 1994, 337 The choice of discourse strategy in turn shapes the speaker’s or author’s selection of other aspects of the communication. Choice is operative at all levels and can affect everything from morphosyntactic form, to lexical items, to text types. For example, consider 1 Sam 1:9: Then Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the LORD. Pc-vqw3fs np Pd vqc Pp-np Pc-Pd vqa Pc-np Pa-ncms vqPms Pp-Pa-ncms Pp- ncfsc ncmsc np ? 5 I ; 8 1 Sam 1:9 Choice in narrative strategy is operative here. The use of is not the only way the information about Eli being in the temple could have been conveyed. So far in 99 1 Sam 1, Eli has only been indirectly introduced as the father of Hophni and Phinehas 1:3 and ; keeps Eli in a secondary participant role. This is further reinforced by in 1:12 and then - ? B + in 1:13. Eli comes into more active participant status in the final part of 1:13 with . The way the text presents the participants is a product of choice.

5.2.4.5 Default

The notion of “default” is one of the most useful concepts for determining the possible significance of the occurrence of a linguistic item. At the most basic level, to say something is default is to say that it is the automatic or typically expected structure. In the context-sensitive linguistic network of language, the concept of default must always take into account the varying situational dimensions of language use. The concept of default is not meant to posit a context-free basic structure in a prescriptive sense. Default structures will vary depending on genre, register, dialect, and other contextual factors that may impinge upon language use. Once these factors have been taken into consideration, frequency of occurrence can help discern what is a default pattern or item. In any case, judgment concerning whether or not a certain structure is default must only be made after extensive familiarity with the biblical Hebrew text.

5.2.4.6 Markedness