From text genres to grammar

Abstract

This paper aims at developing the hypothesis that the relationship between grammar and text should not be reduced to a matter of mere application. In this sense, grammatical phenomena, previously described, would be simply reconsidered at textual level, as the higher level of linguistic analysis. Although this process remains probably necessary, a different point of view must be simultaneously developed. Arguing for a concept of text as a communicative action necessarily embedded in a context of a specific social activity, the point will be to understand what texts can reveal about grammar. More precisely, we will be dealing with a grammatical representation of language (as it is described by grammarians and linguists) and the way the language appears in texts, according to communicative social requests.