Introducing People

Martin & Rose (2007: 157-8):

Helena’s story has three main characters: Helena and her first and second loves. Helena is introduced to us by Tutu:

The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation's radio team covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission received a letter from a woman calling herself Helena (she wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals).

And Helena in turn introduces her two loves; her first love is introduced as follows:

I met a young man in his twenties.

How are these people introduced? As we can see, the basic strategy here is to use ‘a’ to introduce a woman and a young man. The word ‘a’ tells us that this is someone whose identity we can’t assume. When we can’t assume an identity it is ‘indefinite’, so a participant with ‘a’ is traditionally known as ‘indefinite’. On the other hand ‘the’ tells us that we can assume an identity, so a participant with ‘the’ is traditionally known as ‘definite’. …

When she meets her first love again, it is through a friend, who is also indefinite:

I met my first love again through a good friend.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, introducing an 'indefinite' participant whose identity can not be presumed is neither participant identification nor textual reference. In terms of identification, the participant is not specified, since the indefinite article is a non-specific determiner.  In terms of reference, non-specific determiners do not serve as reference items because they do not present an identity as recoverable. Halliday & Hasan (1976: 33):

What is essential to every instance of reference whether endophoric (textual) or exophoric (situational) is that there is a presupposition that must be satisfied: the thing referred to has to be identifiable somehow.

On the other hand, the referent through which the identity of a reference item is recoverable can be marked as indefinite or definite, as demonstrated by the fact that the reference item he can refer to a singer or the singer.