discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...

-based grammatical theory, information flow is any tracking of

referential Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''name'' ...

information by speakers. Information may be ''new,'' just introduced into the conversation; ''given,'' already active in the speakers' consciousness; or ''old,'' no longer active. The various types of activation, and how these are defined, are model-dependent. Information flow affects grammatical structures such as: *

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

( topic,

focus Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film *''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore * ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based ...

, and afterthought constructions). *active, passive, or middle

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

. *choice of

deixis In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words ''tomorrow'', ''there'', and ''they''. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their de ...

, such as

articles Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: ...

; "medial" deictics such as

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

''ese'' and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

''sore'' are generally determined by the familiarity of a referent rather than by physical distance. *overtness of information, such as whether an

argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialecti ...

of a

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

is indicated by a lexical

noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...

, a

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...

, or not mentioned at all. *Clefting: Splitting a single clause into two clauses, each with its own verb, e.g. ‘The

chicken turtle The chicken turtle (''Deirochelys reticularia'') is a turtle native to the southeastern United States. It is the only extant member of the genus ''Deirochelys'' and is a member of the freshwater marsh turtle family Emydidae. The chicken turtle' ...

s tasted like chicken.’ becomes ‘It was the chicken turtle , that tasted like chicken.’ In this case, clefting is used to shift the focus of the sentence to the subject, chicken turtle. *Front Focus: Placing at the start (front) of a sentence information that would normally occur later in the sentence, to give it extra prominence. For example, in pop culture,

Yoda Yoda () is a fictional character in the ''Star Wars'' universe, first appearing in the 1980 film ''The Empire Strikes Back''. He is a small, green humanoid alien who is powerful with the Force and is a leading member of the Jedi Order until it ...

's speech often utilises such syntactic construction, such as when he says 'much to learn you still have' to

Luke Skywalker Luke Skywalker is a fictional character and the protagonist of the original film trilogy of the ''Star Wars'' franchise created by George Lucas. Portrayed by Mark Hamill, Luke first appeared in ''Star Wars'' (1977), and he returned in ''The E ...

. *End Focus (End Weight): Given or familiar information followed by new information. This gives prominence to the final part of the sentences and can enable suspense to build, e.g. ‘Through the door came a gigantic wolf’.(Umer Prince)

References

Discourse analysis Information science {{sociolinguistics-stub