Information Structure in Letters to the Editor

Abstract

A study based on a suggestion by E. Winter (Fundamentals of Information Structure, London: School of Humanities, The Hatfield Polytechnic, 1976) that the information contained in "Letters to the Editor" can be analyzed in terms of four discourse categories: situation, problem, solution, & evaluation. Forty-three letters to the editor from the Daily Mail newspaper in the fall of 1977 were analyzed based on these categories. Examined were the questions: (1) What are the linguistic markers for each of the categories? (2) How are category boundaries marked? (3) What are the sequential properties involved? (4) In what way(s) do the categories overlap? Linguistic markers were found to be both lexical & syntactic. There is no fixed sequence pattern of the four categories, although there is a "preferred sequence." The notion of "degree involvement" can be applied to the analysis of the letters & subsequently to a reclassification of Winter's categories. Modified AA.