forground & background, boundry markers -Longacre's Model

c stirling bartholomew cc.constantine at worldnet.att.net
Fri Nov 2 17:08:52 EST 2001


R. Longacre's notion of using formal language features to determine
discourse structure in Hebrew Narrative has now been subject to an extensive
critique by Jean-Marc Heimerdinger*.

Heimerdinger argues that semantic structure of a narrative is only loosely
coupled to formal criteria and that reliance on formal features to determine
discourse boundaries will lead to a distortion of the semantic structure.
Gosh, this sounds a lot like an argument Cindy Westfall and I were having a
year or two ago.

Anyway, anyone who is using Longacre's DA model in their research will want
to read this book*. This applies just as much to NT Greek studies as it does
to OT Hebrew. 


--  
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062

*Heimerdinger, Jean-Marc. Topic, focus and foreground in ancient Hebrew
narratives, Sheffield Academic Press, c1999. See pages 52-100 for critique
of Longacre's Model. If you are short on time skip to page 75 and start
reading there. 




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