Each of the three types just discussed are centred around concrete events and things,
whether realized or potential. In contrast, expository and argumentative texts are cogni-
tively oriented. This is the case because they are concerned with the mental processes of
explanation and persuasion, although the former may include a considerable amount of
description and the latter may have consequences in future action.
Expository texts identify and characterize phenomena. As such they include text forms
such as definitions, explications, summaries and many types of essay. Once again they
may be subjective (essay) or objective (summary, explication, definition). They may also
be analytical, starting from a concept and then characterizing its parts, as in definitions
and the ‘Lunch’ text. On the other hand, expository texts may proceed in the opposite,
synthetic direction as well, recounting characteristics and ending with an appropriate
concept or conclusion, as in summaries, which exist as the sum of their parts. Typical
syntactic constructions which may be appropriately expanded when forming expository
texts are identifying statements with state verbs (Pop music has a strong rhythmic
beat), or epistemic modals (Texts may consist of one or more sentences), or with verbs
indicating characteristic activities or qualities (Fruit flies feed on yeast; Most geraniums
are red).
Argumentative texts start from the assumption that the reader’s beliefs must be
changed. A writer might therefore begin with the negation of a statement which attrib-
utes a quality or characteristic activity to something. Even when a scholarly text provides
positive support for a particular hypothesis there is almost always at least implicit nega-
tion of previous assumptions. Advertising texts, often at the extreme opposite pole of
academic texts in terms of style, also try to persuade their readers that a particular product
is somehow better than others, at least implicitly.
Mixtures of text type elements Few texts are pure realizations of a single type.
Advertisements, for instance, are frequently both argumentative/persuasive (This is good
because) and directive (So buy now!; Click here!). The ‘Lunch’ text is expository (text
form, definition), but also argumentative inasmuch as it implicitly pursues the thesis,
‘Lunch is not what you think it is; it’s really a socially problematic phenomenon’.
Expository texts can be neutral or contain evaluative elements (reviews, references,
letters to the editor, rules and regulations etc.). Whether or not they have directive force
depends: in a review or newscast the information given is primary; a set of instructions
contains information, but the directive function predominates. Laws, decrees and treaties
fulfil the double function of informing the members of the society in question as well as
directing their behaviour. They are thus partially expository and partially directive texts.
The ‘Lunch’ text shows some features of the aesthetic, the argumentative and the infor-
mative functions. The frequent repetitions, the alliteration (e.g. cafeteria and kitchen) and
the wide use of parallel structures are evidence of delight in language for its own sake,
which is no doubt part of the author’s intention to entertain. Such features of the aesthetic
function can also be seen in the well turned phrase festivals of cholesterol [12] and in
speech rhythms, e.g. with ease and affluence . . . for deals and dalliance [6]. Although
there are features which show that it is argumentative (the writer wants his readers to
share his belief that lunch poses a problem in English society), the overall function of the
text is to inform readers, not to get them to do something. While the text is nearest to
exposition (definition of lunch), it also has features of the other text types: In common
154 USES AND USERS OF ENGLISH