TU || Important question for B.A. Third year Critical Thinking

Level: B.A. Third Year || Code: 315 || Subject: Critical Thinking

Q. Discuss text, grammar and discourse.

Ans: A text is a stretch of language complete or partial, which comprises one or more units of meaning. A text can be jumble of unrelated sentences. It is just the collection of sentences which may or may not be coherent, sense making or related to each other. The definition of text is complex one. Sometimes a word or a single sentence is also considered as the text. Text does not care whether the sentences are related or not. To be a text, it is not necessary to produce any message, idea and sense. Text has no relation to grammar, size and length. Text can be oral or written as well.

Text is a unit of language in use. It is not defined with grammatical criteria. Tex is not defined by its size. Sometimes, single words like War, Peace or 'No' function as the text. Text is the guideline to discourse. A text is transformed into discourse when it forms a coherent whole. All the text may not be discourse. To be discourse, a text is required to communicate and make sense. The which is not coherent and fails to produce any sense out of it is just a use of language. In discourse a text is realized in a knowable context. A reader can feel and understand the text only when it is transformed into discourse. There are various types of discourses; normally we categorize discourse in the groups of informative, directive and expressive.

Grammar is the rule or constraint behind the use of language. Grammar has its relation to the structural aspects of the language. It is because of grammar language survives as the system. Grammar is established pattern and rules and regulation behind the use of language. In any language, grammar is necessary for its continuation. Because of grammar language learning and teaching are possible.

A phoneme is a speech sound. It is different from letter by the virtue of the sound. Phonology is the study of how speed sounds contribute to meaning.

Morpheme is the minimum grammatical unit as defined by Bloomfield. Morpheme is the smallest unit of word that cannot be further split. All words are morphemes but all morphemes are not words. Morpheme is the smallest unit of a word. A word can have one or more than one morpheme.

A word is often defined as a lexical item. For traditional grammarians, a word is a minimum free form. The definition of word is really problematic. A word cannot have its own existence always.

Group is defined as the phrase in traditional Grammar. There are four syntactic group in English. These groups mean nominal group, verbal group, prepositional group, adverbial group. In a sentence these groups have their own place and roles. The clause is the syntactic unit above the group, and usually complement (C) and adjunct (A).