"Generic Participants" And "Text Reference"

Martin & Rose (2007: 180-1):

Where generic participants are presumed, it’s often whole classes of people that are involved and the reference will tend to be local (within the same sentence) and not sustained (just 1 or 2 pronouns involved):

because amnesty is only given to those who plead guilty, who accept responsibility for what they have done 

It is also not true that the granting of amnesty encourages impunity in the sense that perpetrators can escape completely the consequences of their actions

With text reference as well, tracking tends to be fairly local, with just one or two references back to what’s been said. Here of course the reference is typically between sentences:

For some it has been so traumatic that marriages have broken up.
That is quite a price to pay. 

It is important to note too that the amnesty provision is an ad hoc arrangement meant for this specific purpose.
This is not how justice is to be administered in South Africa for ever,
it is for a limited and definite period and purpose.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, these "generic references" are just simple cases of demonstrative and personal reference:

• those refers cataphorically (and structurally, not cohesively) to who plead guilty;
• they refers anaphorically to those who plead guilty; and
• their refers anaphorically to perpetrators.

[2] To be clear, this unsupported claim is invalidated by every text in which this type of reference is made beyond the clause complex ("sentence") by more than 2 reference items.

[3] To be clear, the reference highlighted in these "text reference" instances is actually as follows:

• that only refers to marriages have broken up;
• this only refers to the amnesty provision; and
• it only refers to the amnesty provision.

[4] As previously demonstrated, the misunderstanding of reference as 'tracking' leads to absurdities. Here the claim is that 'the break up of marriages' is being tracked by that.

[5] To be clear, this unsupported claim is invalidated by every text in which this type of reference is typically made within the clause complex; that is, where clauses are related structurally, as in spoken mode, rather than cohesively, as exemplified by the agnates of the above quotes:

For some it has been so traumatic that marriages have broken up, and that is quite a price to pay. 

It is important to note too that the amnesty provision is an ad hoc arrangement meant for this specific purpose, and this is not how justice is to be administered in South Africa for ever: it is for a limited and definite period and purpose.