Characteristics of Text Types and Language Functions

Literary Texts

• Mastery of poetics
• Innovative character
• Realization process (Never exactly reflects the outside world)
• Connotation and polysemy (Words take on particular contextual meaning)
• Appellative structure

Scientific Texts

• Objectivity
• Universality (Affirming truths for all phenomena: past, present, and future)
• Precision and clarity
• Cryptic character (Vocabulary available only to a privileged few, see points 1, 2, 3)

Legal Texts

• Imperative nature
• Predominance of appellative and expository functions
• Reference to other texts
• Necessarily written
• Conservative language
• Tendency towards objectivity
• Seeks precision and clarity

Advertising Texts

• Internal unity of image-text (topic)
• Brevity and condensation
• Structure: Headline (hook) - Body (product description and arguments) - Slogan (short, direct, memorable phrase)
• Great signifying capacity (Common advertising topics: eroticism, power, prestige, national identity)

Functions of Language

Representative Function

It is used when we wish merely to transmit information without making judgments about it or expecting reactions from our interlocutor. This function focuses, within the elements of communication, on the message, although some say that it focuses on the external reality or referent.

Emotive Function

It is used when the sender (the element this feature focuses on) intends to express their emotional or psychological state.

Appellative Function

Using this function, we normally intend to provoke a reaction in the recipient, which is the key element here. That is, we want them to do something or stop doing something.

Phatic Function

We use it to verify that the channel (element) remains open, i.e., that communication is physically possible.

Poetic Function

It aims to create beauty in language. It is the primary role in poems, novels, plays, and songs. It is also one of the main functions of proverbs. This function, like the representative, focuses on the message, but unlike it, focuses on its form and not its content.

Metalinguistic Function

It is used when you use language to talk about the language itself or any other language. This feature focuses on the code, i.e., the respective language being spoken.