Verbum Tip 4c: Bible Browser - Longacre genres Part 2
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Basic Longacre classification
Drawn from Longacre, Robert E. The Grammar of Discourse, (New York: Springer), 1996.
It can be useful to understand what parameters are used by Longacre to assign a discourse analysis genre. Here is a summary in two charts.
[quote]“Contingent temporal succession (henceforth contingent succession) refers to a framework of temporal succession in which some (often most) of the events or doings are contingent on previous events or doings.”
[quote]“Agent orientation refers to a orientation toward agents with at least a partial identity of agent reference running through the discourse.”
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+ contingent temporal succession |
- contingent temporary succession |
|
+ agent orientation |
Narrative discourse |
Behavioral discourse |
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- agent orientation |
Procedural discourse |
Expository discourse |
[quote]“Projection has to do with a situation or action which is contemplated, enjoined, or anticipated, but not realized.”
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+ projection |
- projection |
|
Narrative discourse |
Future |
Story |
|
Procedural discourse |
How to do it |
How it used to be done |
|
Behavioral discourse |
Hortatory |
Evaluation |
|
Expository discourse |
What things will be like |
What things are or were like |
Multiple genres
Context Menu and Information Panel
When a passage meets the criteria for more than one discourse genre, the Information panel shows the primary and the secondary genres (1). However, the Context Menu shows only the primary genre.
Label
From Verbum Help:
[quote]Label
A label is a special data type that affixes a classifying name and a series of optional attributes and their values that further describe the properties or characteristics to a range of resource text.
Consider how Psalm 8 might be labeled:
Psalm / Attribution: David / Genre: Praise / Structure: Chiastic / Tags: Messianic, Superscription
“Psalm” in this example is the label name that classifies the text as a Psalm. The attributes (Genre, Structure, etc) further describe the Psalm’s characteristics.
Once such labels have been affixed to resource text, the Label extension allows for them to be searched by class name with optional constraints based on parameters within the label.
Search for any labeled text, regardless of what its labeled with:
{Label *}
Search only for text labeled as a Psalm:
{Label Psalm}
Add a WHERE clause after the label name to specify further constraints. Add an attribute name only to find labels that specify that attribute regardless of its value:
{Label Psalm WHERE Genre}
Add an attribute value to further narrow results down to only Psalms in the praise genre:
{Label Psalm WHERE Genre ~ "Praise"}
Label attribute constraints come in the form attributeName operator attributeValue. The attribute name is the name of the attribute to match against, for example Attribution or Genre. Label attributes have one or more values of a given type, so the attributeValue specifies what the value a given attribute must have.
In this example, note that the Tags attribute has multiple values. The = operator is used to specify that the attribute is as specified and only as specified while no other values for that attribute are also present, and the operator means that the specified value may be one of many in the matched label. Use the operator, for maximum flexibility.
The attribute values can be of a specific type. In this example, the Attribution attribute is specified with a Person data type reference. The syntax for specifying attribute values is:
• true or false — Specifies a true or false value. This is case-sensitive, so true will match, but True and TRUE will not.
• 123 or some other number — Specifies a numeric value.
• "Text" — Specifies a text value. Note that one must use quotation marks here, even if one only wants to match one word.
• <...> — Specifies a data type value, using the same syntax as data type reference terms discussed above.
Use AND to specify more constraints based on properties, for example, messianic praise Psalms attributed to David:
{Label Psalm WHERE Tag ~ "Messianic" AND Genre ~ "Praise" AND Attribution ~ "David"}
OR is not supported within Labels. To search for praise or lament Psalms, two separate Label terms are needed:
{Label Psalm WHERE Genre ~ "Praise"} OR {Label Psalm WHERE Genre ~ "Lament"}
If the Attribution were not a text value but a data type value, then it would be proper to specify the data type value instead:
{Label Psalm WHERE Tag ~ "Messianic" AND Genre ~ "Praise" AND Attribution ~ <Person David>}
For a list of all currently shipping labels and their attributes, see Searchable Labels.[1]
Search
Here one cannot take the Verbum advice to find an example and use the Context Menu to create the Search. The Context Menu ignores the second genre coding. Rather, you may copy an example from the documentation:
[quote]{Label Longacre Genre WHERE Primary ~ <LongacreGenre Behavioral: Evaluation> AND Secondary ~ <LongacreGenre Expository: What things are or were like>}[2]
This search yields:
Visual Filter
Step 1: Add secondary highlighting to the Highlighting Palette:
Step 2: Add the new highlights to the visual filter:
Step 3: View Bible with filter on:
Okay, I’ll agree that my use of lines on the left and right borders isn’t highly visible but I had to work with in Verbum restrictions and I wished to retain the color scheme taken from the Bible Book Explorer.
List of allowable values
Many of the values used to be available on the Search cookbook pages. I can find no documentation of the short forms.
Longacre Genre = lgenre
Narrative: Story = Narr: Story
Narrative: Future events = Narr: Future
Procedural: How it was done = Proc: How done
Procedural: How to do it = Proc: How to
Behavioral: Evaluation = Behav: Eval
Behavioral: Hortatory = Behav: Hort
Expository: What things are or were like = Expos: What were
Expository: What things will be like = Expos: What will be
Primary
Secondary
Anki vocabulary file
I strongly believe in the school of thought that says you need to be able to classify text correctly before you use someone else’s tagging. Or put another way, understanding should precede use even if you have a shortcut at your fingertips. Therefore, I strongly believe that Verbum needs to expand its Word List function to include English words with technical meanings within Verbum. I also believe that the user should be able to review the list on the desktop, not just the mobile app. In the meantime, I convert most glossaries into vocabulary lists for use in Anki – a free program that serves this purpose well.
Finally, I suggest that you answer the question “What do I learn through Longacre’s Discourse Genre that I would have otherwise missed in the text?” The answer to this question for each piece of data helps one to focus on useful skills rather than spending much time studying while learning nothing.
[1] Verbum Help (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2018).
[2] Jeremy Thompson, Longacre Genre Analysis of the Bible Dataset Documentation (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2016).
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."