Brainard Sherri. Theme, result, and contrast: a study in expository discourse in upper Tanudan Kalinga

The Australian National University, Research School of Pacific Studies, 1991. — 214 p. — (Pacific Linguistics: Series B 106).Expository discourse in Upper Tanudan Kalinga is a discourse type that is used to carry out two basic speaker purposes: to explain and to prove. It can also be used to carry out a third purpose: to persuade. If the communicative purpose of an expository text is mainly to explain or to prove, then the surface structure is a fairly straightforward reflection of the underlying purpose. Because there is little skewing between the underlying purpose and the surface structure, explanation and proof are considered to be the basic purposes of expository discourse. If the main intent of the text, however, is to persuade, then there can be considerable skewing between the expository surface structure and the underlying hortatory purpose. For this reason, persuasion is not considered to be a basic purpose of expositiory discourse. This kind of skewing usually takes place when the speaker wants to advise or exhort the hearer but lacks the appropriate qualifications to present what he wants to say as a direct exhortation. By reframing what he wants to say in the form of an expository speech, he gains a hearing he would otherwise be denied. Even though the exhortation is given in a mitigated or more indirect form, the hearer clearly understands the speaker's underlying intent. In this study, because expository discourse employs a kind of surface structure that is used for different communication purposes, texts are identified as expository discourses according to their surface structure.