Functional Sentence Perspective in Written and Spoken Communication (Studies in English Language) - Hardcover

Firbas, Jan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521373085 ISBN 13: 9780521373081

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1992

Synopsis

Inspired by the ideas of the Prague School, the theory of functional sentence perspective (FSP) is concerned with the distribution of information as determined by all meaningful elements, from intonation (for speech) to context. A central feature of FSP is communicative dynamism. Jan Firbas discusses the distribution of the degrees of communicative dynamism over sentence elements, which determines the orientation or perspective of the sentence. He examines also the relation of theme and rheme to, and implementation by, syntactic components. Special attention is paid to the relation between FSP and word order. The second part of the book deals with spoken communication and considers the place of intonation in the interplay of FSP factors, establishing the concept of prosodic prominence. It tackles the relationship between the distribution of degrees of communicative dynamism as determined by the interplay of the non-prosodic FSP factors and the distribution of degrees of prosodic prominence as brought about by intonation.

About this title

Book Description

Jan Firbas discusses the key phenomenon of communicative dynamism, which the sentence elements carry in different degrees, and the distribution of which determines the orientation or perspective of the sentence.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521373085
• ISBN 13: 9780521373081
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256