Hills Like White Elephants: Analysis according to Seven Standards of Text Linguistics

 By Hilal Demir

 

INTRODUCTION

           

The chosen text, Hills Like White Elephants is written by Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961). He was born and grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, with summer in nothern Michigan. By the time he wrote this story he had been wounded in Italy during World War I; had travelled extensively i n Europe as a correspondent and writer; had married, fathered a son, been divorced and remarried.

 

As the typical of Hemingway’s stories, this story has dialogues between two people and the dialogues look simple and sometimes meaningless but in fact there are different meaning and  implications in deeper part. For me his stories look like an iceberg you can only see smaller part, if you go deeper and deeper you can discover new parts and pieces. Also conflicts involve two opposing beliefs, ideas or feelings. The sentences have other roles in a conflict like opposing, reacting or agreeing. Hemingway manages to reflect the real conversation by the help of sentences and small details. 

 

The article which was chosen from the Newsweek is about pandas past and future of them. What are the reasons to make them almost extinct. The writer Anna Kuchment made a reserch about their habitants and way of life. A different subject is examined and the seven standards of textuality will be studied in following parts in parallel with the short story, Hills Like White Elephants.

 

ANALYSES OF THE TEXTS

 

            The short story Hills Like White Elephants and the article, Loving Pandas to Death, from Newsweek magazine will be analyzed according to the seven standards of textuality :

 

I. Cohesion

II. Coherence

III. Intentionality

IV. Acceptabilty

V. Informativity

VI. Situationality

VII. Intertextuality

 

 

I.                    COHESION

 

When the text is analyzed in terms of cohesion, the continuity has an important role at a grammatical level. The continuity can be supported by sub-items which helps to form and give meaning to a text.

           

1.1  Recurrence: It’s the straighforward repetitions of elements or patterns

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    The hills.... . The American and the girl ......

 

The woman brought.....

 

The girl was looking...

 

The man called.....  The woman came out from the bar.

 

- “You started.” said the girl

 

 

Þ    - With water? (waiter)

- Do you want it with water? (man)

 

- Is it good with water? (girl)

 

- Yes ,with water. (man)

 

 

Þ    - What should we drink? (girl)

 

- Let’s drink beer. (girl)

 

- Anis del Toro. It’s a drink. (man)

 

- I wanted to try this new drink. That’s all we do, isn’t it _ look at the things and try new drinks. (girl)

 

- Should we have another drink. (man)

 

- He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people.

 

Þ    - It’s an awfully simple operation, Jig. .... It’s not really an operation at all. (man)

 

Þ    - I was having fine time. (girl)

 

- Well let’s have fine time. (man)

- We’ll be fine afterwards. (man)

 

- I feel fine...I feel fine. (girl)

 

-... everything will be fine. (girl)

 

Þ    - I don’t want you to feel that way. (man)

 

- You mustn’t feel that way. (man)

 

                        - I don’t feel that way. (girl)

           

Þ    - I don’t care about me. (girl)

 

- Well, I care about you. (man)

 

Þ    - And we could have all this. ... And we could have everything... (girl)

 

- I said we could have everything. (girl)

 

- We can have everything. (man)

 

- We can have whole world. (man)

 

Þ    - No, we can’t. (girl)

 

- No, we can’t. (girl)

 

- No, we can’t. (girl)

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    ... China’s national treasure, the panda

... the tourists move on to the Panda center to experience the real thing: 43 pandas ...

... China’s pandas, is the largest...

... pandas are left.

... close to where the pandas live.

... the pandas thrive..

... a panda expert at the....

 

Þ    ... the tourists move on ...

At Wolong, tourists have...

... 30000 tourists visit each year

The problem is not the tourists ...

 

Þ    ... population for decades.

... population in Wolong ...

... segments of the population from one another..

the population of local residents...

 

1.2 Partial Recurrence: It’s the repetition of already used words in different classes.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    - Do you feel better. (man)

 

- I feel fine, she said. (girl)

 

 

Þ    - Let’s drink beer. (girl)

 

- It’s a drink. (waitress)

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    tour, tourist, tourism

Þ    science, scientist

Þ    conservation, conservationist

 

1.3 Parallelism: Being a narrative, the structure is repeated  but filled with new elements.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.

 

- “They’re lovely hills,” she said. “They really look like white elephants. I just meant the colouring of their skin through the trees.” (girl)

 

Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    ... 43 pandas being raised in concrete pens. Wolong, nome to about 10 percent of all China’s pandas, is the largest of 33 reserves in the country and the most popular by far

 

The bears, which live only in China and were put un the endangered-species list in 1984..

 

            1.4 Paraphrase: It’s the recurrence of content but conveying it with different expressions.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    - ... that I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to . ... I’m perfectly willing to go through ... (girl)

 

Þ    Across, on the other side, were fields of...

 

Þ    -... that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy. (man)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    ... Wolong forest has deteriorated... trees have actually been dissappearing at a faster rate than before the reserve was created

 

Þ    once scientists had identified the problem, the cause became obvious.

 

a. Synonyms:

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    - ... you will be happy. ... (man)

 

- ... we’ll be right and be happy. (girl)

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    raise, updgrade, swell

Þ    raise, grow up

 

 

1.5 Proforms:

a. Anaphora: Using a proform after the co-reffering expression.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt....

 

Þ    The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was ...

 

- They look like white elephants. (girl)

 

Þ    - The beer’s nice and cool. (man)

 

- It’s lovely. (girl)

 

Þ    ... the man said. She smiled at him.

...

He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the barroom, where people waiting for the train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people .... He went out through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him.

 

“Do you feel better?” he asked.

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    Chinese authorities say 30.000 tourists visit each year; a local paper says it’s more like 140.000 a year.

Þ    Although logging is illegal, locals have managed to clear away ... they started going to higher elevations.

 

b. Cataphora: Using a proform before the co-reffering expression.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    They’re lovely hills.

 

Þ     It’s really an awfully simple operation,Jig. (man)

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    Cigarettes, lighters, packbacks and almost everything else for sale bears the likeness of China’s national treasure, the panda

 

1.6 Ellipsis:

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

a. Sharing of structural components among clauses of the surface text.

Þ    The beer’s nice and cool.

 

Þ    The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the strings of beads.

 

 

b. Follow-up stuctures lack the verb.

Þ    You want them with water? Asked the woman.

Yes, with water.       (here ‘I want them’ part is missing.)

 

Þ    And you really want to? ( here ‘do’ is missing.)

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

a.      Females give birth only once every two years and prefer to raise their cubes inside hollow trees.

b.     Exacerbating the problem, the population of local residents... (‘if it’s exacerbated’ part is missing.)

 

1.7 Tense and Aspect:

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Tense : Simple Past and in dialogues Simple Present.

Þ    “I realize,” the girl said.  “Can’t we stop talking?

 

Aspect : In the story, time is used as a tool that helps the reader to join in it. That’s why the way the story develops as Simple present in speech and it’s in Simple Past in written part. As a whole it manages to involve the reader so the aspect is well-built.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Tense : Simple Past is used in the article.

Aspect : The title was given and a short information was anounced before the whole article. This is a typical of news articles.

 

1.8 Junction: It’s a device for signalling the relationship among evetns or situations.

 

a.      Conjuction: Links things which have the same status, e.g. both true in the textual world.

 

 

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun.

Þ    I ‘ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time... (man)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    Females give birth only once every two years and prefer to raise their cubes inside hollow trees.

Þ    Local farmers serve  as tour guides, sell handmade crafts and stage cultural performances

 

b. Disjunction: Links things which have the alternative status, e.g. two things of which only one can be true in the textual world.

 

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    “Nor that isn’t good for me.” she said. “I just know things.”

                  There aren’t many examples about disjunction. This has a meaning in the story. In my opinion the man doesn’t let the girl think any other choices, he wants her to do what he really wants. There is no way out for him except the operation.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    The disjunction words wasn’t used in this text.

 

      c. Contrajunction: Links things having the same status but appearing incogruous or  incompatible in the textual world, e.g. a cause and an unticipated effect.

 

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you really don’t want to. (man)

Þ    Of course it does. But I don’t want anybody but you... (man)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    The problem is not the tourists per se, but the ýndustry that has sprung up to service them.

Þ    Electricity is available, but you have to pay for it.

d. Subordination: Links thins when the status of one depends on the of the other, e.g. things true under dsertain conditions or for certain motives.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    ... just because you say you wouldn’t ... (man)

Þ    then I will do it. Because  I don’t care about me. (girl)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    but if you more tourists buying more smoked pork, that will encourage local residents to produce more.

 

1.9 Updating :

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

            As this story is an example of modern literature the language used is simple and easy to understand and we can say that this story wasn’t  written in  an updated language form.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

This article is a 20th century  science and technology article so there is no need to use updated language

 

 

II.                  COHERENCE

If meaning is used to designate the potential of a language expression for representing and conveying knowledge then we can use sense to designate the knowledge that actually is conveyed by expressions occuring in a text. A text makes sense because there is continuity of senses among the knowledge. This continuity is defined as coherence.

 

            2.1 Concept: Configuration of knowledge that can be recovered or activated with more or less consistency and unity.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    The American and the girl.... (to know about the people and to learn what the relationship is between them, the contiunity of the story is important, readers have to read the whole story.)

Þ    It’s really an awfully  simple operation, Jig. ( What does ‘operation’ mean?, is it about heart or anything else.)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    The first tour buses pull up to China’s Wolong Nature Reserve just after lunch. (the reader can’t understand what is reserve for, if they don’t read the following part.)

 

a.      Decomposition: Concepts can be seperated into more basic units.

 HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ                                   drink

beer                          anis del toro                      absenthe

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ                                  souvenir

cigarette                         lighter                         back pack

 

b.      Spreading Activation: The words used in the text remind each other.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ                                      valley

                     trees              hills          sun           mountains          shade

Þ                                      train

         express                      station                  bag                     tracks

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ                                      panda

the bear             endangered species           tragic animal 

Þ                                     forest

reserve                habitat                    tree                     region  

 

 

c.      Use of Global Patterns: Complete chunks because of their usefulness in many tasks.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    In the story there isn’t any global patterns that show it’s a short story

Þ    Other patterns in the text are:  pad, white elephant, barroom, 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    “Loving Pandas to Death”  is the title of the article and using an idiom is a general way to attract the readers attention.

Þ    Also other concepts: endangered-species, habitat, illegal, residents, consevation.

 

d.      Procedural Attachment: Producing and receiving the texts.

 

a.Frame: How a topic might be developed.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    The main subject ‘abortion’ is not reflected directly. The reader can infer from the dialogues what the characters talk about. The arguement between them what the man and the girl thinks about the situation.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    From the topic to the ed the problem is faced directly. First the situation is introduced and then the reasons are given in the end the solutions are told.

 

b. Schema: How an event sequence will progress.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    Explanation: the scene is explained to help the reader to understand the situation, where the characters are, who the characters are. But these information is given in a restricted way. The more the readers read, the more they learn about the story.

Þ    Identification: ýn this part readers have an idea about their relationship but not everything is certain yet like the problem between them.

Þ    Clarification: In this part the readers can understand what the real problem is and the reactions of the two people in the story.

Þ    Ending: There is an end but what the girl is going to do or man isn’t given. It’s an open-ended story.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    Introduction: The place and the real character pandas are introduced.

Þ    Explanation: The problem and the reasons about the pandas are explained.

Þ    Ending: In this part the text is finished by giving the solutions

 

c.Plans: How text users or characters in textual worlds will pursue their goals.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    The characters pursue their goals by the help of their sentences in the dialogues. For example the reader can infer that the girl doesn’t want to have that operation but the man does. We can understand it from their conversation.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    In this text the writer tries to pursue her goal by giving concrete results of surveys and the speeches of authorities.

 

d. Script: How situations are set up so that certain texts can be presented at the opportune moment.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    The text is aimed to have an effect on the reader that’s why all the participants is suitable to present the text.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    The aim of the text is to reflect the reality of pandas and to find reason and the solution altogether. All participants is suitable for presenting the text.

 

 

2.6 Discovery of control centres: The extent of processing expended will vary according to whatever is required and useful for that task. Attention would be directed particularly toward the discoveryos control centres.

a.Primary Concepts:

 

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

1.Object : Conceptual entities with a stable identity and constituion.

Þ    Station, barroom, hills

2. Situation : Configurations of mutually present objects in their  current states.

Þ    In a barroom at the station

3. Event : Occurences which change a situation or a state within a situation.

Þ    The man and the girl argues about the abortion.

4. Action : Events intentionally brought about by an agent.

Þ    The arguement about other simple things, the observation of the hills by the girl, the disturbance of real subject matter and the disagreement of the subject.

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

1.Object :

Þ    Surveys and researches, interviews

2. Situation :

Þ    China, Wolong region.

 

 

 

3. Event :

Þ    The new solution may help the pandas to survive and the new survey helped people to realise the ral situation.

4. Action :

Þ    The tourists, the survey and the interview come together to make the reader realize the real situation of the pandas and the emphasize the importance of them.

 

b.Secondary Concepts:

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

1.      State: The temporary, rather than characteristic, condition of an entity.

Þ    The disagreement about the subject.(abortion)

2. Agent: The force possesing entity that performs an action and thus changes the situation.

Þ    First the girl and the man argues about the drink and simple things then the reason turns out to be the real subject, abortion.

3. Affected entity: The entity whose situation is changed by an event or action in which it figures as neither agent nor instrument.

Þ    In this story we can see the baby as an affected entity because its situation can change according to the decision of the girl and the man.

4. Relation: A residual category for incidental, detailed relationships.

Þ    Skin of the hills – baby,  drink - new things 

5. Attribute: The characteristics conditition of the entity.

Þ    A short story shows the different attitudes of different sexes.

6. Location: Spatial position of the entity.

Þ    An unknown  train station and a barroom in it.

7. Time: Temporal position of a situation or event.

Þ    20th century in the afternoon.

8. Motion: Change of location.

Þ    Characaters move from the barroom to the station.

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

1. State:

Þ    The danger that the pandas are in.

2. Agent:

Þ    The survey changes the situation because it clarifies  the problem and converts it into the solution.

3. Affected entity:

Þ    The pandas are affected entity because their situation can change according to the solutions.

4. Relation:

Þ    Tourism – pandas

5. Attribute:

Þ    This article tries to attract the readers attention to the problem and calls for their sensitivity.

6. Location:

Þ    China, Wolong

7. Time:

Þ    20th century.

8. Motion:

Þ    Location does not change.

 

III.                INTENTIONALITY

Intentionality designates all the ways in which text procuders utilize texts to pursue and fulfill their intentions.

The writer’s intention as a whole, in my opinion, is that there is a big problem which is a pregnancy and different attitudes of the girl and the man makes the problem bigger. In the story the man is the mean one and the girl is more sensitive. The writer shows the different views of the point he doesn’t give a specific and it can change for each receiver who reads the story.

            Austin distinguishes text performs in ‘Speech Act Theory’

 

            3.1 Speech Act Theory:

 

            a. Utterance Acts: Simple uttering of words and sentences.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    Anis Del Toro. It’s a drink. (waitress)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    Electricity is available, but you have to pay for it.

 

b. Propositional Acts: The use of content and reference.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    It’s an awfully simple operation,Jig. (man)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    We are exploring the area for suitable sites at the moment to find out what can be arrenged.

 

c. Illocutionary Acts: Conventional activities accomplished by discourse.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    You know how I get when I worry. (man) It’s a kind of threat.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    Firewood is free – just cut down a tree.

 

 

d. Perlocutionary Acts: The achieving of effects on text receivers

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    It’s pretty hot. (man)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    You can’t do conservation in a vacuum.

 

3.2 Maxims of Conversation: Strategies and precepts, not rules.

 

a. Co-operation: It’ s demanded in situations where someone is in need of advice or assistance.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    Anis del Toro. It's a drink.

Could we try it?

The man called 'Listen' through the curtain. The woman came out from the bar.

Four reales.' 'We want two Anis del Toro.'

'With water?'

Do you want it with water?'

'I don't know,' the girl said. 'Is it good with water?'

'It's all right.'

'You want them with water?' asked the woman.

'Yes, with water.'

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    The bears, which live in China and were put on the endangered-species list in 1984, have been declining in population for decades.

b. Quantity: Contribution is informative.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    It's really an awfully simple operation, Jig,' the man said. 'It's not really an operation at all.’ (since the reader doesn’t know about the subject here ‘it’ has another meaning and ‘operation’ is more informative.)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    Now scientists know why the animals are dissappearing.

c. Quality: The truthness of what the writer says.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    As the people, place and time wasn’t given exactly, the situation can be true in any condition.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    A survey in 1974 showing that pandas in the Wolong forest had dropped to an alarminglylow 145 prompted the goverment to set aside the 500.000-acre reserve.

d. Relation: Relevance of topics and knowledge.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    The characters, the place, the main problem in the story are all related to each other.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    Pandas, Wolong where the pandas live and people who lives there are related to each other.

e. Manner: The intentions must be plainly served in the story. Being clear in the way what is said.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    At first the character are not clear for what they say and it causes ambiguity and after some time the main problem is argued and reader can understand the situation. It becomes more clear.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    From the beginning to the end the situation and the problem is clear because it’s an article and it has to be clearly informative.

3.3 Conversational Implicatures: The knowledge conveyed when people imply, suggest, meant something distinct from what they say.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    ‘It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.’  (The writer’s implicature is that the eventsand dialogues happen in a short time.)

 

Þ    'They look like white elephants,' she said.

'I've never seen one,' the man drank his beer.

'No, you wouldn't have.'

'I might have,' the man said. 'Just because you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything.'

The girl looked at the bead curtain. 'They've painted something on it,' she said. 'What does it say?' (here the girl’s implicature is to change the subject. She doesn’t want to talk about the real subject.)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    “You can’t do a conservation in  a vacuum” means that you can’t just divide the animals from where they live actually and with whom they live. (the residents)

IV.               ACCEPTABILITY

It’s the text receiver’s attitude in communication. Text receivers must accept a language configuration as a cohesive and coherent text capable of utilization.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

In the acceptability part the receiver may not accept the man’s role. Some sensitive man reader may reject the character and when they think themselves as the man in the story they may not react like him. 

The writer intentionally doesn’t end the story. It changes from receiver to receiver. Some of the readers may say that the girl will have the operation and some of them can say she won’t. The acceptability depends on the reader’ attitude. If they accept the man’s reaction the girl will have the operation but if they don’t accept it probably the girl won’t have it.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

The acceptability is very important in this article that’s why the writer tries to protect the rights of pandas and shows different proofs for it. She intentionally wants to make it acceptable for the reader. She gives some results of surveys and finds some solution with help of authorities. If this subject is accepted by the readers it will help the situation improve in a better way.

The situation that pandas are in is obvious and the people should be more sensitive to this subject for this purposde they need to accept this article. The writer tries to do it in any way she can.

V.                 INFORMATIVITY

It’s used to designate the extent to which a presentation is new or unexpected for the receivers.

5.1 The Orders of Informativity:

      a. First Order Informativity: It’s fully predictable in cohesion, coherence and planning, the situation is obvious. Grammar rules are clear.

      b. Second Order Informativity: Occurences are below the upper rande of probality. The normal standards for textual communication.

      c. Third Order Informativity: In the text occurences appear to be outside the set of more or less probable options and demand much attention and processing resources like footnotes etc.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

The text types have importance in informativity because the text type has the frameworks to controll the range of options. In a scientific text ,for example, as there is more new information it will be in the third order of informativity. Short stories are literary texts so the usual order is either the first or the second order of informativity. But this doesn’t mean that literary texts don’t attract the readers attention. They have different ways to draw the spacial focus. For instance in  the short story the dialogues come after the other and at first they are in the first order of informativity   but later on the reader understand that there is something unknown between the characters and the story joins in the second order of informativity. As the text is easy to understand the writer doesn’t need to  downgrade it.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

The text, in general, is in second order informativity. There is new information in it like the pandas are about to be extinct and they need help to survive and also they live in forest and eat plants. In some parts it goes into the third order informativity. For instance the results of surveys and the reaction of the residents are new for the readers. The writer mixes them in the article so it becomes more attractive and easy to read. If the text begins with third order informativity it gets boring and difficult to read so the writer won’t be able to fulfil her aim. Also if it just develops in second order of informativity the reader may think that they have already known it and won’t need to read the rest of the article. Again it won’t be a successfull article. In this article the writer manages to mix the orders successfully.

After the introduction the writer upgrades the order and give the results of the surveys. For the first time the reader comes accross with this kind of information.

VI.               SITUATIONALITY

Situationality is a general designation for the factors which render a text relevant to a current or recoverable situation of occurence.

 

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

The story takes place at a station that is unknown in the introduction part the scene is given to help the reader to visualize the situation but some parts are given in an undetailed way for the reader to fill it. By this way the writer takes the reader in the story.

In the story situation management is being carried out because there is a problem between characters and they are trying to manage it according to their decisions. The events go in a normal way in their conversation and after some time the main problem is faced by the characters. The recurrence is obvious about the problem, some words are repeated for many times.

Þ    If you don't want to you don't have to. I wouldn't have you do it if you didn't want to. (man)

... But I don't want you to do it if you don't really want to. (man)

... I don't want you to do it if you feel that way. (man)

I don't want you to do anything that you don't want to do. (man)

... that I don't want you to do it if you don't want to. (man)

... But I don't want you to... (man)

Moreover the man threatens the girl in a smooth way.

Þ    You know how I get when I worry. (man)

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

In this article just because of the type of the text and the informativity the writer gives the spesific information about the situation not in the very beginning but after some time, reader can understand it easily.

In this article situation management is applied. The writer tries to express the importance of the situation and she also tries to prove it with other important aspects. While she does it, she invokes the situation which means that the writer gives already known information like the pandas are about to be extinct and some solutions have to be found to save them. In addition to this she informs the reader with the help of some surveys and interviews.

Þ    A survey in 1974 showing that the pandas ...

Þ    “In the past” says Liu, who grew up in Hunan province...

 

VII.             INTERTEXTUALITY

 

Intertextuality is used to subsume the ways in which the production and reception of a given text depends upon the participants’ knowledge of other texts. Text types are classes of texts expected to have certain traits for certain purposes.

 

7.1 Narrative Texts:

The text type is a literary text and it has some typical characteristics that makes it a short story. It also has the function of narration. The events and actions are arranged in a sequential order.

 

 

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

a. Cause:

Þ    The cause can be reflected as the hills in the story . The girl is effected by the scene and she remembers the reality that grows in her.

b. Reason:

Þ    The reason for the girl and the man to come together is the pregnancy and the solution for it.

c. Purpose:

Þ    The purpose is differnt for two characters. The man’s purpose is to get rid of the unborn baby while the girl wants to have it.

d. Enablement:

Þ    The man tries to enable the girl to have that operation.

e. Time Proximity:

Þ    The time is restricted and the characters know it and try to solve their problem in a short time as much  as possible.

 

These relations show that this is a kind of literary text and we can see the same characteristics in other texts.

 

7.2 Descriptive Texts:

This kind of  texts are those utilized to enrich knowledge spaces whose control centers are objects and situations and the article is about the situation of pandas.

 

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

a. Attribute:

Þ    Now scientists know why the animals are dissappearing. A team lead by Jianguo Liu, an ecologist at Michigan State University, compared satellite images of Wolong taken in 1965, 1974 and 1997 and did some scouting on the ground.

 

b. States:

Þ    The bears, which live in China and were put on the endangered-species list in 1984, have been declining in population for decades.

c. Instances:

Þ    In China’s Wanglang region, for instance, local farmers serve as tour guides, sell handmade crafts and stage cultural performances.

 

            d. Spesifications:

Þ    The population swelled 70 percent between 1975 and 1995 to 4.260.

 

7.2    Text Allusion: The way people use or refer to well-known texts.

Both texts don’t have text allusion.

 

7.3    Topic: It emerges from the density of concepts and relations within the worlds of constituent texts. In a topic problems and variables can involve.

 

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Þ    In the short story the topic is based on a problem between two people and how they react to the problem.

LOVING PANDAS TO DEATH

Þ    Pandas are being extinct.

 

CONCLUSION

In this work the two diferrent text types are studied according to the seven standards of textuality. The short story which was written by Hemingway and the article which was chosen from the Newsweek show some characteristics according to their types but as the seven standars of textuality doesn’t focus on the text types most characteristics of both texts are the same. Of course they have different aspects that changes their text type but these seven standards don’t emphasize their types.

 

As a result the short story and the article are studied and their characteristics are expressed. They have some common parts and differences. Both of the texts are suitable for the seven standards of the text.