A Dimensional Characterisation of Word Order in Modern English Genres

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As pointed out by Taavitsainen (2001: 141), we assume that genres or text types involve particular codifications of linguistic features and, in consequence, the choice of a given genre or text type affects the set of grammatical choices. Following the trend initiated by Biber's (1988) multidimensional analysis of textual variation, we aim at describing genres (or, better, text types) by paying attention to exclusively grammatical features. In this paper we are concerned with the connection between word order and genre, and focus on the arquitecture of the clause in a number of genres. More specifically, we analyse a representative number of clauses and classify them according to the syntactic design of their main syntactic elements. The taxonomy includes unmarked subject-verb-complement word order and, among the wide range of marked structural choices, we focus on those affecting the thematic component of the clause and involving the topicalisation of complements, the topicalisation of adjuncts and the left- dislocation of a major constituent. The examples belong to a number of genres, namely biography, diary, drama, education, fiction, handbook, history, law, letters, philosophy, science, sermon, travelogue and trials. We reach the following conclusions:(i) left-dislocation constitutes a feature of non-speech-based genres; (ii) the topicalisation of complements was associated with non-iconic/situational genres and becomes statistically more unmarked in the course of time; and (iii) the topicalisation of adjuncts is an unmarked syntactic strategy in the recent history of English. The data also pave the way for the so-called ‘hybridity’ of the genres since, as Biber and Finegan (1988: 3) point out, “for some genre categories, greater linguistic differences exist among texts within the categories than across them”.