Empirical studies of text coherence often use tree-like structures in the spirit of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) as representational device. This paper identifies several sources of ambiguity in RST-inspired trees and argues that such structures are therefore not as explanatory as a text representation should be. As an alternative, an approach toward multi-level annotation (MLA) of texts i...

This paper provides a corpus-based generic characterization of appointment-scheduling dialogues—a type of task-oriented conversation—by concentrating on the rhetorical and thematic choices made by the speakers that produce them. The analytical tools used for this study are Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), the notion of Theme as defined in Systemic Functional Linguistics, and Thematic Progress...

This study investigates the prosodic realization of organizational features of texts. Twenty read aloud news reports were annotated according to Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). This theory defines the clustering of elementary units (clauses) into larger segments (hierarchical organization), the relative importance of units (nuclearity) and the rhetorical relations between segments. The proso...

In this paper, we offer a novel method for processing given information in discourse, paying particular attention to definite descriptions. We argue that extant theories don’t do justice to the complexity of interaction between the knowledge resources that are used. In line with Hobbs (1979), we claim that discourse structure—as defined by the rhetorical connections between the propositions int...

The paper discusses the development of rhetorical analyses of political addresses from classical antiquity to modern political communication. A specific genre, the ‘epideictic address’, is described in detail. It concerns addresses by representative persons. Most epideictic addresses turn out to be ‘hybrid’ texts because they combine an orientation towards (rhetorical-political) persuasion with...

Scott and Souza (1990) have posed the problem of how a rhetorical structure (in which propositions are linked by rhetorical relations, but not yet arranged in a linear order) can be realized by a text structure (in which propositions are ordered and linked up by appropriate discourse connectives). Almost all work on this problem assumes, implicitly or explicitly, that this mapping is governed b...

Early formulations of discourse coherence constraints postulated a connection between coreference likelihood and distance within a discourse parse, e.g. in the framework of Veins Theory (Cristea et al. 1998%CristeaIdeRomary1998), which proposes that coreference is expected to be encapsulated within tightly linked areas of discourse parses, called Domains of Referential Accessibility (DRAs). Usi...

This study was set to reveal how second language learners use rhetorical relations in their written narratives in terms of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) primarily proposed by Mann & Thompson (1987) and developed by Mann, Matthiessen & Thompson (1992). To this end, sixty written narratives based on the picture story book ‘Frog, where are you?’ were collected from EFL learners and were put to...

Document-level sentiment analysis is among the most popular research fields of nature language processing in recent years, in which one of major challenges is that discourse structural information can be hardly captured by existing approaches. In this paper, a domain-independent framework for documentlevel sentiment classification with weighting rules based on Rhetorical Structure Theory is pro...

AIMS To determine the likelihood of finding an antivaccination site on the world wide web and to characterise their explicit claims and rhetorical appeals. METHODS Using "vaccination" and "immunisation", examining the first 10 sites displayed on seven leading search engines. Detailed examination of content of 100 antivaccination sites found on Google. RESULTS 43% of websites were antivaccin...