Twentieth-century fiction: From text to context Ed. by Peter Verdonk and Jean Jacques Weber (review)

BOOK NOTICES 461 ten discourse. The volume consists of eleven articles in five chapters and a six-page introduction. In Ch. 1 (3-33), Motsch devises a model oftextual structure. He is particularly interested in the incorporation of illocutionary acts into such a model. As many discourse analysts ignore the systematic relationship between the structure of conversations as a whole and the structure of turns, M suggests a model of illocutionary hierarchies. He distinguishes between the global illocution of a text and the supporting illocutions of turns, which contribute to the overall success of a communicative act. Ch. 2 (37-1 17, three articles) is devoted to textual structures that are used to ensure comprehension. Focusing on self-repairs, Elisabeth Guelich and Thomas Kotschi analyze text production strategies in spoken French. Martina Drescher studies generalizations as further indicators of text production strategies (also in French). Eckard Rolf is interested in the occurrence, status, and function of notes and comments. Based on a highly diverse German corpus (hterary, legal, and theological comments; notes on train schedules; heating bills; etc.) he distinguishes between comments/notes that accompany a text, and thus constitute a separate text, comments/notes within a text (e.g. as a separate paragraph), and comments/notes within a sentence (e.g. appositional clauses). Like self-repairs and generalizations, comments/notes make it easier to understand a text. Ch. 3 (121-208, three articles) focuses on the structure of illocutions. Baerbel Techtmeier studies speakers' strategies for ensuring their contribution's acceptability. Her corpus is a 1990 GDR round table discourse, in which representatives ofthe various poUtical and social groups publicly discussed problems of the GDR's disintegration. In this highly loaded situation, participants exhibited all kinds of communicative behavior to tone down the confrontational content of their utterances. Markku Moilanen uses a German letter to the editor to investigate the sequencing of iUocutions. This topic is further elaborated in M's analysis of a business letter. In Ch. 4 (211-71, two articles), a separate level of 'information structure' is advocated. Margareta Brandt is interested in the weighting ofinformation: How are more important items distinguished from less important ones? She studies this 'information relief in a German business letter. Kotschi explains why the information structure should be considered a separate textual level and proceeds to collect the units of such a level in French. Ch. 5 (275-323), 'Further perspectives', brings together an article on modal reference in legal texts by Ulrike Sayatz, and one on nonfictional segments in fiction by Rolf. Despite the volume's many contributors , it is surprisingly coherent. It provides interesting new theoretical ideas about the structure of the language level 'text,' which are well-grounded empirically. [Ingrid Piller, University of Hamburg .] Twentieth-century fiction: From text to context. Ed. by Peter Verdonk and Jean Jacques Weber. (The interface series.) London & New York: Routledge , 1995. Pp. 269. Paper $17.95. This volume marries literary and language theory to twentieth-century fiction. In combining the various essays within this text, Verdonk and Weber formulate a continuity of language and literature in a natural and organic format. The result is a 'creation of a cognitive text world, . . . different for the writer andfor each reader since we all use different assumptions , values, beliefs, and expectations in the processing ofthe text' (3). The various essays look at a range oftwentieth-century authors, which includes such luminaries as ?.?. Forster, Doris Lessing, and Raymond Carver. The essays are grouped to provide a focus on three levels: textual, narrative, and contextual. Chs. 1 and 2 cover the textual level, elaborating on lexical repetition 'as an element ofmeaning production' (3). This textual device creates an emotional style of writing, making it an easy target for emulation or parody, which then results in what might be called intertextual repetition (italics mine). Any writer can regard this intertextual repetition or spoken text—literary or nonliterary—that is produced and interpreted through conscious or unconscious thought filtered through a person's experience or awareness of other texts. The next level, narrative, has two chapters dealing with dialogue: In Ch. 3, Mick Short focuses on 'character talk' where '[d] iscourse analysis concentrates on describing the "structure" of spoken and...