Speech is an utterance – any form of verbal communication – spoken or written by an enunciator for a recipient. There are four main forms of speech, depending on the intention of the speaker:
narrative speech
descriptive speech
the explanatory speech
argumentative speech.
The text is an organized set comprising most of the time several types of speech. The type of text is determined by its dominant function (narration, description, argumentation, explanation).
The same text usually contains several forms of speech: it is a mixed text.
A. Narrative discourse.
Basis of the story, it shows characters in the process of performing actions which are linked by successive modifications of situations.
1. The organization of the narration.
A story is organized in an order called a narrative scheme.
2. The status of the narrator.
The pronoun ” I ” represents the author, whether he is telling his own story or facts that he has witnessed. This is the case in an autobiography, a diary, memories … In this case, the narrator and the author are one. The pronoun ” I ” does not represent the author, but a character-narrator who tells a story in which he participates either as a hero or as a simple witness.
3. Chronological indications in the narration.
The chronological details make it possible to situate the story in time and the different actions to each other. The imperfect will be used for secondary actions, description, portrait, etc. Making a statement of the various temporal landmarks often allows us to know how long a story takes.
4. Mastery of chronology.
The length of the story rarely matches the actual length of the story being told. The narrator chooses to develop certain episodes, or on the contrary to condense others. This alternation of developed passages, called scenes, and condensed passages, called summaries, gives the story its rhythm. We can say that the time of the novel is “elastic”.
1. The linear narrative
The story can unfold in chronological order, that is, the actions are reported in the order they unfolded.
2. Changes to the timeline
The narrator can choose to introduce temporal breaks in the story, that is to say not to respect the chronology, by upsetting the linear unfolding by flashbacks or anticipations.
B. Descriptive discourse.
Its purpose is to “show”, to say what something or someone is, to name it, to characterize it, to qualify it, to appeal to the imagination. In a story or a narrative discourse, to describe something is to allow the recipient to imagine this thing. For this, we appeal to our senses (primarily sight and hearing, but without neglecting smell, touch, or even taste). Any narration is required to have descriptive notations, even if it does not include a descriptive passage strictly speaking. The reader or listener needs pictures to join the story.
1. Characteristics of descriptive speech in the narrative.
These are passages of the story where the action slows down markedly (description in movement) or marks a pause in the narration, during which we are content to detail an image to the narratee. The imperfect as opposed to the simple past is often used in the story.
2. Functions of descriptive speech.
– The description is informative, it gives information on the circumstances (places, atmosphere) and the characters of the story. It can even give encyclopedic information.
– It also makes the elements of the story more plausible (authentication effect) and makes it possible to create the illusion of reality. This is why the description can sometimes seem to encumber itself with unnecessary details, which have no other function than to create “effects of reality”.
– By arousing impressions, by creating an atmosphere, it has an expressive function that allows the narrator to share an emotion with the reader.
– As a pause, it delays the rest of the narration by creating an effect of suspense.
3. Organization of descriptive speech.
The narrator or character does not show everything: it selects some of the most evocative elements than others. Also, he chooses a logical order of presentation of these elements, an order which depends on the position he occupies as an observer.
4. The tools of descriptive discourse.
– Spatial vocabulary (identification of characters and places in space).
– Vocabulary of perceptions and sensations.
– Expansions of the noun (qualifying adjectives, GN appended or complements of the noun, relative subordinate clauses) which allow characterization (indicate the characteristics of what we are talking about).
– Figures: comparisons, metaphors, metonymies, periphrases,… which allow us to establish connections between elements that present a certain number of similarities.
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C. The explanatory speech.
In texts other than works of fiction, the explanatory discourse has:
– a documentary function: it provides information in the works that are called “usual” (dictionaries, encyclopedias, school books, guides). He tries to make people understand.
– a know-how function: it helps the recipient to take concrete action (instructions for use, recipe, rules of a game).
In works of fiction, the explanatory discourse has the functions of:
– giving the reader the illusion of reality ( effect of reality )
– informing the reader, allowing him to become familiar with the world he is discovering ( effect of authentication )
The tools of explanatory discourse.
– precise vocabulary, technical words
– explanation of concepts in sentences in parentheses or between dashes, presence of tool words: that is to say, in other words, …
– generic terms (or hyperonyms )
– neutrality of tone (otherwise the explanation becomes argumentation) and objectivity.
– justifications, reference to a scientific authority: according to specialists, it has been proven (established) that…, we consider…
– usual tenses: the presence of a general truth or, in the instructions for use, the recipe: the infinitive, the imperative.
D. Argumentative discourse.
In an explanation, the goal of the enunciator is to bring knowledge, information to the recipient, s without giving his opinion. In an argument, the goal of the enunciator is to express his opinion and to convince or persuade his addressee that he is the most correct.