Reply on the problem with an RST analysis

[Joe Hamm]

All:

As an interested observer, although a non-linguist who joined at the
suggestion of a friend, I can't resist chiming in at this point to concur
with Bill Mann.  A major problem with the text is that the author has mixed
metapors.  Horse trading implies give and take, a haggling session in which
one starts with an obviously inflated price expecting an obviously low
offer which will then be countered and so on until a mutually agreeable
price is settled upon.  It is understandable that this might be considered
shameful if the opening arguments in the negotiations were well reasoned
and justified, though why the reader should feel ashamed is not at all
clear.  The reader doesn't know what the context of this short excerpt is,
though some sort of moral imperative is strongly implied.  What follows in
the text, however, is a description of strong armed tactics:  take it or
leave it; sink or swim (? I think not the best translation); oder Vogel,
friss oder Stirb.  In any of those cases, the one simply doesn't follow
from the other, because the metaphors are inappropriately mixed, however
shameful any of it may in fact be.  It's confusing because it's simply a
bad piece of writing.

With that, I return to my role of silent, though interested, casual
observer.    =)

Very truly yours,

Joseph W. Hamm


>All:
>
>I would agree with the comment that the text is incoherent.  I don't
>understand
>it as given, and I suspect that the problem is not with the translation to
>English.
>
>Yes, more context is needed, and perhaps more background knowledge of the
>situation and topic as well.  With more context, it might turn out that
>some of
>the items link up to the left and another group to the right, with no
>connection
>in this interval.
>
>Also, some of the units chosen for analysis are restrictive relative
>clauses or
>prepositional phrases.  It is true that RST can analyze some relationships
>within sentences, but I don't know that RST (at least what Nick Nicholas calls
>CRST, classical RST, per the 1988 paper in Text 8(3) ) is reliable at those
>levels.
>
>On this text, metaphor is also adding to the difficulties.  It might be more
>instructive to abandon this text and try to investigate the same issue
>with some
>other small whole text.
>
>I wish you the best of success in your research.
>
>Bill Mann
>
>
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator
>_________________________________
>Subject: DISCOURS Digest - 19 Oct 1999 to 20 Oct 1999
>Author:  <LISTSERV at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU> at Internet
>Date:    10/20/99 11:00 PM
>
>
>
>..
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Date:    Wed, 20 Oct 1999 10:08:32 +0100
>From:    Luuk Lagerwerf <l.lagerwerf at WMW.UTWENTE.NL>
>Subject: Re: DISCOURS Digest - 15 Oct 1999 to 19 Oct 1999
>
>Hi Holger,
>
>In reply to your RST problem, I would say that the text is incoherent.
>This is not an option in RST analyses, but the topic that is treated as
>known to the reader in (2): "the result of six months of negotiations",
>seems to be introduced afterwards in  (5) "When finally ... is
>announced".  But maybe I'm missing context before (1), or some stylistic
>trope has been used that I don't recognize in the English translation.
>
>Kind regards,
>
>Luuk Lagerwerf
>
>
>>
>> (1) What else but shame should one feel
>> (2) in face of the result of six months of negotiations,
>> (3) which started with a nice gesture
>> (4) only to end soon in woeful horse trading.
>>
>> (5) When finally in the next few days at the negotiations in Washington
>>     the sum of 6,9 billions DM is announced, =
>>
>> (6) this means: it's sink or swim.
>> (7) Because, for the former forced labourers every week counts.
>>
>>
>> (6) is "Vogel, friss oder stirb" in German, which means "bird, eat it
>> or die".
>>
>>
>> Okay, now here's the problem: decide to which unit (5-6) relates, and
>> with which relation. I tend to say (1-4) and "Joint" (or in D. Marcus
>> terms "Topic Shift"), although one could argue that in (5) the
>> "result" from (2) is ELABORAT-ed ("finally"). This however would
>> imply that (5-7) are sub-ordinate to "feeling shame" (1) and I am
>> not sure about this reading (i.e. I am not sure whether the author
>> wanted to convey it, my own feelings are not an issue here).
>>
>> Apart from this, I would say, 1 is related to 2-4 via a CIRCUMSTANCE
>> relation, so the conditional in (5-6) would also be a part of this
>> CIRCUMSTANCE which does not look too convining to me.
>>
>> Any comments anybody ?
>>
>>  Holger
>> -- =
>>
>> ---          http://www.coling.uni-freiburg.de/~schauer/            ---
>> "Kann mir jemand kurz das Anliegen der newsgroup erkl=E4ren?"
>> "Wahrheitssuche, eingeschr=E4nkt auf das Thema Fahrrad."
>>                   -- C. Karl und Bernd Sluka in de.rec.fahrrad
>>
>Luuk Lagerwerf
>Language and Communication
>University of Twente
>+31 53 489 35 67 (office)
>+31 34 351 38 81 (home)
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Wed, 20 Oct 1999 20:32:43 +0200
>From:    Gisela Redeker <G.Redeker at LET.RUG.NL>
>Subject: Re: A problem with an analysis in terms of RST
>
>I agree with Luuk Lagerwerf that more text is needed to
>adequately answer Holger Schauer's question about the relation
>between 1-4 and 5-6 below (though I hesitate to agree with Luuk
>in calling this text 'incoherent'!):
>
>> (1) What else but shame should one feel
>> (2) in face of the result of six months of negotiations,
>> (3) which started with a nice gesture
>> (4) only to end soon in woeful horse trading.
>
>> (5) When finally in the next few days at the negotiations in Washington
>>     the sum of 6,9 billions DM is announced, =
>> (6) this means: it's sink or swim.
>> (7) Because, for the former forced labourers every week counts.
>
>Considering the genre (news article), I'd guess 1-4 is the
>evaluative (or commentary) end of the last (or only) "take" of the
>article, followed by what Van Dijk might call an "expectation"
>segment (probably the final paragraph of the article).
>
>If that is true, we should not expect a strong rhetorical relation
>between these two paragraphs. As I have argued elsewhere
>(Redeker 1996/forthcoming), RST lacks special 'machinery' to handle
>genre-specific structures (where sequential relations between text
>segments are defined in terms of the structural elements expected,
>and not in terms of content or argumentation), and thus has to go
>with the nearest semantic or pragmatic relation-- in this case I'd
>say "SEQUENCE"--with the understanding that I assume 1-4 is the
>EVALUATION satellite within a larger segment,
>to which 5-7 can then form the 'next' in the sequence.
>
>This analysis would seem particularly appropriate if the earlier
>global strategy was also sequential (chronological report). If this is
>not the case, other possibilities might offer themselves, such as
>INTERPRETATION (with 5-7 as the satellite introducing the
>wider/new perspective) or a simple JOINT if the article is built up
>like a series of (not chronologically ordered)
>observations+commentary. The lattter is the option Holger
>discusses in his original mail:
>
>> Okay, now here's the problem: decide to which unit (5-6) relates, and
>> with which relation. I tend to say (1-4) and "Joint" (or in D. Marcus
>> terms "Topic Shift"), although one could argue that in (5) the
>> "result" from (2) is ELABORAT-ed ("finally"). This however would
>> imply that (5-7) are sub-ordinate to "feeling shame" (1) and I am
>> not sure about this reading (i.e. I am not sure whether the author
>> wanted to convey it, my own feelings are not an issue here).
>
>I'm not sure 2-4 should be subordinate to 1 (see below). But the
>attempt to link individual units across others prompts a general
>comment on (my understanding of) RST-methodology:
>What I see as very important and very useful in RST is the focus
>on local connectedness: For any unit, look first how it is connected
>to its immediate neighbors and how that cluster may be related to
>neighboring clusters (in the process of analysis, you may need to
>go up and down a few times between these, as the more global
>structure can affect the relative centrality (esp. nuclearity) of a unit
>inside a cluster). This principle is a useful guideline for the analyst,
>but more importantly it makes a lot of sense when we think about
>actual (online) text processing (which RST is not trying to model;
>but it's nice that it is compatible with it).
>
>> Apart from this, I would say, 1 is related to 2-4 via a CIRCUMSTANCE
>> relation, so the conditional in (5-6) would also be a part of this
>> CIRCUMSTANCE which does not look too convining to me.
>
>This is VERY difficult to analyze without further context. It sounds
>a bit like the article has just reported on someone being upset and
>ashamed about the result. In any case, 1-4 could not be the first
>units of the text, and 1-4 as a whole might be a RESTATEMENT or,
>if the details in 2-4 have not been stated before, an
>INTERPRETATION of the preceding cluster. Given some such global
>analysis, I'd analyze 1 as an EVALUATION satellite at 2-4, which in
>turn consists of a CONTRAST relation (3-4) that forms an
>ELABORATION satelite to 2.
>
>As for 5-7, I'd analyze 5 as a CIRCUMSTANCE satelite left-attached
>to 6, with 7 right-attached to the combination 5-6 as an
>INTERPRETATION satelite (introducing a new perspective).
>
>Again, this is very speculative because of the missing co-text
>(apart from being a first-off analysis that would need a second
>look after one or two days and/or discussion with co-analysts). But
>maybe Holger or some other list readers will find these useful to
>mull over and criticize...
>
>Happy analyzing!
>Gisela
>
>
>Gisela Redeker, Professor, Dept. of Language and Communication
>University of Groningen,  P.O.Box 716,  NL-9700 AS Groningen
>tel:  +31-50-3635973/-5858     fax:  +31-50-3636855
>e-mail: G.Redeker at let.rug.nl   http://www.let.rug.nl/~redeker/
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of DISCOURS Digest - 19 Oct 1999 to 20 Oct 1999
>***************************************************