Exophora

Abstract: The intent of the study was to determine the effects of age (4 and 5 years) and play centers (constructive and dramatic) on children's production of imaginative language (explicit language and language which takes people away from their immediate surroundings, i.e., displaced reference). Explicit language was characterized as endo‐phoric text and elaborated nominal groups. Displaced reference was marked by cognitive and linguistic verbs, third‐person pronouns and non‐present tense verbs. The ten 4‐year‐olds and ten 5‐year‐olds were observed in same‐age and same‐sex dyads on four occasions (twice in a constructive context and twice in a dramatic context) in an experimental playroom. Results indicated that older children used more explicit language than younger children. Play context effected language to the extent that children used more exophora in the constructive context and more linguistic verbs, third‐person pronouns, and displaced reference tenses in the dramatic context.

Abstract: The paper discusses types of references within the systemic functional framework. Reference is a relationship between things or facts, and it may be established at various distances in texts, and, although, it usually serves to relate single elements that have a function within the clause, it can also turn any passage of text into a clause participant. In this paper we discuss the main two types of references: exophoric which points outwards to the environment and endophoric which points inwards to the text, emphasizing the idea that both types of references have the function of showing how the message fits into context, acting as cohesive elements.

Abstract: Introduction Reference in the systemic framework In their influential book Cohesion in English, published in 1976, Halliday & Hasan state what they mean by their use of the term reference: “There are certain items in every language which have the property of reference, that is to say, instead of being interpreted semantically in their own right, they make reference to something else for their interpretation. In English these items are personals, demonstratives and comparatives” (p. 31). According to them, this class of items indicate the way the information is to be retrieved from elsewhere in the text. What is idiosyncratic in reference as a cohesive device is not the process of retrieval itself but, as the authors put it, “the specific nature of the information that is signalled for retrieval”, that is “the identity of the particular thing or class of things that is being referred to” (p. 31). After this general characterization, Halliday & Hasan establish a categorization of Reference according to the way it is activated in the English language. They establish a separation between two different cases of referencing (Exophora and Endophora) and first one refers to as situational, and the second as textual. As the authors put it (p. 33): “Exophora is not simply a synonym for referential meaning. Lexical items like John or tree or run have referential meaning in that they are names for something: object, class of objects, process and the like”. An exophoric item, does not name anything, and it signals that reference must be made to the context of situation. Both exophoric and endophoric reference embody an instruction to be interpreted from elsewhere that the required information is for interpreting the passage in question. What is essential to every instance of reference whether endophoric (textual) or exophoric (situational) is that there is a presupposition that must be considered. The main difference between Exophora and Endophora, for the purpose of the system of cohesion, is that Exophora is not cohesive. By linking the language to the context of situation, it helps the creation of text, but is does not help the establishment of links between different passages in a text. It means that, ‘exophoric reference does not contribute directly to the implementation of cohesion in a text, since it does not contribute, as the authors put it, to the INTEGRATION of one passage with another so that the two together form part of the SAME text” (p. 37). Endophora, on the contrary, is cohesive, as it contributes to the texture of a text, that is, it helps establishing links between different passages of a text. As a cohesive device, endophoric reference establishes itself in two different ways,