The FARS draws on earlier studies on discourse structure, textual coherence, and functions of textual relations. It has been influenced by a line of research into text coherence and discourse relations outlined in Part 1 of this topic. The FARS model provides a functional account of the structure of text in terms of the writer’s communicative purposes. It displays a pattern of discourse relations utilised by the writer to achieve his/her communicative purposes. Discourse relations have been referred to as ‘rhetorical predicates’, or ‘interclausal relations’ by Grimes (1975), ‘conjunctive relations’ by Halliday and Hasan (1976), ‘deep structure relations’ by Longacre (1983), ‘logico-semantic’ relations by Martin (1992), ‘discourse relations’ by Hobbs (1985), ‘relational propositions’ by Mann et al. (1992), ‘rhetorical relations’ by Grosz and Sidner (1986) and ‘coherence relations’ by Sanders et al. (1992). FARS identifies the following clusters of relations which exist between conceptual entities representing parts of text and which are involved in the production and reception of a coherent discourse. As seen in table 6.1, a substantial degree of delicacy is introduced within broad relational categories.
FARS shows how all parts of a text work together, complementing each other in the production of the text’s global message. It describes the meaning of text based on the writer’s perceived general and specific textual goals. It bears similarities to the RST theory. However, while RST analysts investigated mainly persuasive and directive prose, such as advertisements, offers, administrative memos, instructions, personal letters, fundraising letters, when building their model, the construction of FARS has been mainly based on the analysis of research articles. The FARS framework is seen to be applicable for the relational analysis of other academic genres as well as other types of texts. It is also suggested that FARS can be adapted to the analysis of discourse written in languages other than English and produced in languacultures other than ‘Anglo’.
The hierarchical structure
It has been claimed that hierarchy is a general structure of all discourse types (Mann, Matthiessen & Thompson 1992; Polanyi 1988). The writer’s intentions, expressed through the organisation and staging of his/her discourse and assigning rhetorical functions to the text, play a significant role in the interpretation of the meaning of text. As the writer’s main goals translate into ways of detailed presentation, higher level discoursal phenomena control those at lower levels.
The macropropositions at the global level of discourse are the most abstract and represent sets of propositions found at the meso-level, and macropropositions at the meso-level represent sets of propositions formulated on the basis of the meaning of units at micro-level. You will find the illustration of a hierarchical structure of text in the sample FARS analysis of Text 6.9 in this topic.
Macropropositions
The top level of FARS analysis determines the macrostructure of text. Macrostructure is understood as a theoretical construct which constitutes a semantic representation of discourse, consisting of acropropositions representing the meaning of text at a global level. Following van Dijk (1981), it is suggested that propositions which build the macrostructure represent the most important, relevant and abstract information. They are textual topics defined in propositional terms. Macropropositions indicate the intended denotation of text – they specify what text as a whole is about, through organising, summarising and interpreting complex information to a manageable size. The formulation of major macropropositions expressing the gist of respective text spans is essential in the identification of coherence relations between the denotata of textual segments. Consider text 6.8 (an earlier quotation from Grice):
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