Classification of Legal, Literary, and Media Texts

Legal and Administrative Texts

Legislative and judicial texts are related to the legal field. Not so with administrative texts that are used in administration. In legislative and judicial texts, we can find another text type: the instructive function of which is the dominant conative. The legal and administrative are texts which use an external structure with a predetermined pattern; in other words, their structure is already fixed according to the letter and it has a structure. These or other types of texts are used in the field of Government and Administration.

Literary Texts

Literary texts, whose basic function is the poetic, may appear as a key element as in the case of poetry, or as a secondary ornament. In literary texts, it is common to find rhetorical texts, even though you can find all kinds of texts. The structure has no default as it depends on the genre of the text. However, the internal structure is, in many cases, like that of the narrative, i.e., approach, knot, and denouement. Literary texts are used in:

• Poetry
• Advertising
• Politics
• Proverbs

Normally, this type of text uses rhetorical forms (antithesis, synesthesia, paronomasia, metaphors, etc.) to decorate and embellish the text.

Mass Media: The Press

The mass media, whose primary function is to disseminate information to a mass audience, have a language with certain characteristics that govern the preparation of texts. The press is the oldest social media. The written language is used for reporting. The press uses verbal language with other resources such as typography and photography. Usually, in the world of journalism, a standard language level is used.

Journalistic Genres and Styles

Within the press are various types of texts: the news and the reportage. The first is the genre more inherent to journalism as it recounts events of interest and currently uses an impersonal style; theoretically, it is a kind of objective text. In contrast to the news, the reportage is a genre that delves into the news with more amplitude. Also developing it and giving other kinds of genres like opinion: editorial, letters to the editor, and mixed genres: the chronicle, interview, and cultural criticism.

Radio and Television

Radio, whose primary function is to inform and entertain, is also used in a didactic mode. In radio, oral language is used primarily, with added music, sound effects, and silence. On television, however, the language used is composed of verbal and nonverbal codes. In the world of the small screen, we can distinguish three types of genres: news, entertainment, and education.