[Rstlist] Restatement and Summary

[Redeker, Gisela]

On Aug 31, 2017, at 10:34 AM, Potter, Andrew Nelson <apotter1 at una.edu>
wrote:
On the RST Web site, the Restatement and Summary relations are identified
as Presentational relations.  In earlier Mann and Thompson (1988), they are
identified as Subject Matter Relations.  Having given this some thought, I
can see how a case could be made for this, i.e. that the reader’s ability
to comprehend the nucleus is increased.  But I have some concerns about
that interpretation.  I wonder if anyone recalls previous discussion of
this, and if so, what the upshot may have been.


A few thoughts:

   1. The distinction between Subject Matter and Presentational relations
   is problematic in various respects (for a brief discussion see Van der
   Vliet & Redeker 2014); the status of the textual relations Summary and
   Restatement is just one of those problems. Another problematic case is the
   classification of Background as Presentational, although it would not seem
   to fit the definition of this category in MT87 (p.18), which stipulates
   that the satellite must "increase some inclination of the reader.”
   2. The classification of Summary and Restatement as Subject Matter
   relations (deviating from MT87/88) dates back (at least) to Bill Mann’s RST
   website. The version of 7th Jan 2000 of that website was the basis for the
   extMT relation definitions in the RSTTool and is still available at
   http://www.wagsoft.com/RSTTool/RSTDefs.htm
   <http://www.wagsoft.com/RSTTool/RSTDefs.htm>
   3. In Abelen, Redeker & Thompson (1993) the textual relations Summary
   and Restatement were found to pattern with ideational (subject matter)
   relations and not with interpersonal (presentational) relations in a
   comparison of US American and Dutch fund-raising letters, where the Dutch
   letters were found to focus on information content, while the US letters
   are openly persuasive.
   4. I wonder if there are any other studies available that may add
   corpus-based evidence relevant to this question. A decision on purely
   theoretical/conceptual grounds seems unattainable given the rather vague
   definitions of the categories "Subject Matter" and "Presentational". Maybe
   Summary and Restatement should be kept separate as textual relations,
   classifying the RST relations in the three-way distinction of Ideational,
   Interpersonal, and Textual that was developed and elaborately researched in
   Systemic Functional Grammar?

Best regards,
Gisela


*References*

Abelen, Eric, Gisela Redeker & Sandra A. Thompson. 1993. The rhetorical
structure of US-American and Dutch fund-raising letters. Text 13(3).
323-350.

Van der Vliet, N., & Redeker, G. (2014). Explicit and implicit coherence
relations in Dutch texts. In H. Gruber & G. Redeker (eds.) *The pragmatics
of discourse coherence: Theory and Applications* (pp. 23-52). Amsterdam:
Benjamins.

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

On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 4:34 PM, Potter, Andrew Nelson <apotter1 at una.edu>
wrote:

> On the RST Web site, the Restatement and Summary relations are identified
> as Presentational relations.  In earlier Mann and Thompson (1988), they are
> identified as Subject Matter Relations.  Having given this some thought, I
> can see how a case could be made for this, i.e. that the reader’s ability
> to comprehend the nucleus is increased.  But I have some concerns about
> that interpretation.  I wonder if anyone recalls previous discussion of
> this, and if so, what the upshot may have been.
>
>
>
> Thanks for any thoughts!
>
>
>
>   Andrew
>
>
>
> *Andrew Potter, PhD*
>
> Assistant Professor
>
> Computer Science and Information Systems
>
> University of North Alabama
>
>
>
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> Rstlist mailing list
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> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/rstlist
>
>
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