Public discourse syndrome: Reformulating for clarity

Dana P. Skopal; Maria Herke

doi:10.1515/text-2016-0041

Article

Public discourse syndrome: Reformulating for clarity

Dana P. Skopal
Dana Skopal is a Director of Opal Affinity Pty Ltd and a staff member of the Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. She has extensive professional experience in organizational communication processes in government departments and Australian companies. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on organizational discourse, including writing processes and the relationship between features of the written text and perceptions of readability.
and Maria Herke
Maria Herke is a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. She has extensive teaching and research experience in the meaning making resources used in academic and professional discourse. Her research has been applied in a range of organizations including hospital emergency departments, Family Planning NSW and the Australia Securities and Investments Commission.

Published/Copyright: January 7, 2017

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From the journal Text & Talk Volume 37 Issue 1

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide insights into the processes of public discourse and how information can be reformulated for public consumption. The article draws on data from readability research of public information documents conducted in Australia. Public information documents need to be understood by members of the public and a lexicogrammatical analysis, centred on a Theme and Rheme analysis, provides a platform through which readability, or a text’s coherence, can be further examined. The readability data combined with text analyses demonstrate readers’ preferences for clearer Theme structures and coherent development of information within the Rheme. The analysis highlights the functional differences between a text-section judged as difficult-to-read and a text-section preferred by the reader-participants, providing insights into the requirements for achieving clearer public discourse.

Keywords: information flow; plain English; public discourse; Theme and Rheme; text analysis

Funding statement: This research was funded by a Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship. Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Macquarie University Ethics Review Committee.

About the authors

Dana P. Skopal

Dana Skopal is a Director of Opal Affinity Pty Ltd and a staff member of the Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. She has extensive professional experience in organizational communication processes in government departments and Australian companies. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on organizational discourse, including writing processes and the relationship between features of the written text and perceptions of readability.

Maria Herke

Maria Herke is a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. She has extensive teaching and research experience in the meaning making resources used in academic and professional discourse. Her research has been applied in a range of organizations including hospital emergency departments, Family Planning NSW and the Australia Securities and Investments Commission.

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to the staff at the City of Ryde for access to the procedures and volunteer program processes. The authors are also grateful to the reviewers for their valuable feedback.

Appendix 1. City of Ryde Bushcare program

Figure 2 shows the first two pages of the extract read by the reader-participants, which include the section “Where Bushcare Groups and Bushcare Volunteers Can Work”.

Figure 2:

Extract from “City of Ryde Bushcare Program”.

Figure 2:

(continued)

Appendix 2. Revised text

Figure 3 shows the first two pages of the revised text, which include the section “Where Bushcare Volunteers Can Work”.

Figure 3:

Extract from revised text.

Figure 3:

(continued)

Appendix 3. Text A

In Table 1, the concepts of Policies and Procedures and Bushcare Program, which are taken from the wording in the document’s title and section title, are underlined. The two main points from the sub-heading of location (Where) and action (Work) are marked in grey, while the Bushcare Groups and Bushcare Volunteers are highlighted in bold. The new concepts of authority and insurance are marked in black, with arrows marking the flow of information.

In the tables, where interpersonal and textual Themes exist, they are separated by a double back-slash (//). The Themes that mark or provide additional information to the main topical theme are also indented. In addition, the bracketing symbol (^), followed by text in capital letters, is used to indicate where words were added by the researchers in order to complete the deemed full sentence structure (reconstituted ellipted items). These additional words were not included in the calculation for average sentence length, etc.

Embedded clauses are marked inside double square brackets [[]] and embedded phrases are in single square brackets []. If an embedded clause contains another clause, the notation convention of two parallel lines (ǁ) separates the two clauses.

Note: all calculations in the study were rounded up/down to whole numbers.

Table 1:

Text A.

Additional explanations and comments for particular clauses:

Clause 6 A complex verbal group (see Halliday 1994a: 278;
Halliday and Matthiessen2004: 459) realizes a modulated process that is expressed in passive voice.

Clause 9 The expansion to undertake work on private property is linked to the noun authority and relocated to the Theme position (as in clause 12). The original sentence reads: In no instance will authority be given by the City of Ryde to Bushcare groups or individuals to undertake work on private property.

Clause 17 In the imperative statement the most important information for a reader is the verb and it is consequently placed in the Theme position
(Halliday and Matthiessen 2004: 77).

Appendix 4. Text B

In Table 2, as with Text A, the concepts of Policies and Procedures and Bushcare Program, which are taken from the wording in the document’s title, are underlined. The two main points from the sub-heading of location (Where), and action (Work) are marked in grey, while the Bushcare Groups and Bushcare Volunteers are highlighted in bold. The new concepts of authority and insurance are marked in black, with arrows marking the conceptual development. The term dismissal is positioned in a new heading, and the development of the information is marked by dash-arrows. The pronoun we is marked in bold and italicized as it illustrates the simple recurrent Theme adopted in this section.

Appendix 4 adopts the symbols used in Appendix 3 to mark interpersonal and textual Themes and embedded clauses/phrases.

Table 2:

Text B.

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Published Online: 2017-1-7

Published in Print: 2017-1-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2016-0041

Keywords for this article

information flow; plain English; public discourse; Theme and Rheme; text analysis