authority to speak: the Justify relation -- some issues

[William Mann]

Dear folks:

In analyzing texts there has often been uncertainty about where to use the
Justify relation.  This is quite understandable, in part because perhaps it
reflects the corpus of over 300 texts that was the primary development base
for RST, where it happened that Justify was not frequent.

Justify is about the authority to speak.  Usually the basis for assuming the
right to speak is not made explicit, but is rather known to the audience.
One example in the published papers on RST involves a police officer
identifying himself and then arresting someone.

That sort of Justify is less common in peer-oriented, western style cultures
than in primarily hierarchic cultures.  We might want to call it
Role-Justify.

Sometimes the right to speak is established by education: "I'm a doctor. I
know those pills are safe for you."

Sometimes authority to speak is established by an established contract or
understanding, as for an employer:  "I'm paying you.  We will clean the
kitchen last."

Sometimes (seldom in Western cultures) the authority to speak is Model
authority:  the interpersonal relation between speaker and audience includes
the understanding that the higher-placed interactant is worthy of imitation,
as in this artificial example:  "You are my apprentice, and I am your
master.  I use oak to make wagon wheels."

Persons are authorities about their private thoughts and feelings.  "I know
about Sammy.  I am very sad." or "I have thought about your reasons.  I am
not convinced yet that the earth is round."

Research on texts  where these kinds of authority are frequently explicit
will have frequent use for the Justify relation. Researchers might find it
useful to invent and define a set of relations to replace the one, using
names like Role-authority or Model-authority or training-authority.  The
categorization should be done with more care and textual evidence than is
suggested by the short list above.

Evidence is different, in that the facts of the situation, without any
essential role of the writer, are used to support increased belief in a
nuclear claim.

Clearly, as usual,  there will be borderline cases.

I hope this helps.

Bill Mann




=============================
 William C. Mann
SIL in USA
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 bill_mann at sil.org