[Rstlist] Preparation, Restatement, and Summary

[Redeker, Gisela]

Just some thoughts in response to Andrew:

Restatement and Summary can indeed serve to increase or secure
comprehension (esp. if Restatement involves a reformulation), but they are
more flexible than that. First of all, they will often simply direct the
attention (esp. for Restatements that are or contain literal repetitions)
and thus influence memory or recall. In argumentation, Restatement or
Summary may add emphasis and thus support the persuasive force. In some
genres, summaries are required (e.g. the lead [=summary] not only catches
the attention, but also identifies an article as a news article as opposed
to a background article or commentary), and some rhetorical schemes may
require a kind of coda, where a final element would be a restatement of the
initial claim or theme or indeed a summary marking closure. As those
functions are hard to identify with any certainty, the definition in terms
of length and identity of content (leaving the particular rhetorical
function(s) unspecified in the relation choice), does seem preferable.

It is true that Restatement and Summary are somewhat uncomfortable members
of the Presentational group, as they are defined in terms of a relation
between states of affair (i.e. identity) and relative length ('bulk') of
the elements and not in terms of a speech-act relation (i.e. the
illocutionary force of one element wrt another). But they clearly do not
belong in the Subject Matter class, as they do not assert relations in the
world the discourse refers to (a caused/followed/.. b etc.), but hold
between the discourse elements themselves (textual relations).
This is actually something that I find more disturbing for the Background
relation, as it can take two quite different forms: (i) giving some kind of
definition (clearly presentational, relating to an expression in the
discourse) and (ii) adding background information (where it becomes hard to
distinguish from Elaboration unless it is strictly identificational as in
"This is the stuff you also find in xx").

Gisela


Gisela Redeker
Professor of Communication
University of Groningen
g.redeker at rug.nl
www.let.rug.nl/redeker

On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 2:39 AM, Potter, Andrew Nelson <apotter1 at una.edu>
wrote:

> Preparation, Restatement, and Summary are late additions to the list of
> Presentational relations.  Restatement and Summary were originally
> designated as Subject Matter relations,  and Preparation was not originally
> included at all.  I can see how Preparation belongs there.  Its intended
> effect is that the reader will be more ready, interested, or oriented for
> reading the nucleus.
>
> Restatement and Summary, however, are no so clear.  Restatement, as
> defined (http://www.sfu.ca/rst/01intro/definitions.html and elsewhere),
> states that the reader will recognize that the satellite is a restatement
> of the nucleus.  That sounds a bit like saying that the intent of the
> Restatement relation is that the reader will recognize that the restatement
> is a restatement.  I don’t understand what inclination in the reader that
> applies to.  Summary is similarly defined.  The effect of Summary is that
> the reader will recognize that the summary is a summary.  Or am I just not
> reading these definitions correctly?
>
> I can imagine making the case that the intended effects of Restatement and
> Summary are to increase reader comprehension, similar the Background
> relation.  But that’s not what the good book says...
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>   Andrew
>
> --
> *Andrew Potter, PhD*
> Assistant Professor
> Computer Science and Information Systems
> University of North Alabama
>
>
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