y/heriever the identity of a participant is presumed, that identity has to be
■ re c o v e re d . This can be done in various ways depending where the relevant information is.
Looking back or forward: anaphoric or cataphoric reference
In writing, the obvious place to look for a presumed identity is the surrounding text; usually we look back, like we did from herself to a woman in Tutu’s introduction to Helenas story. But we may have to look forward, in order to find out what it means for example at the beginning of the Act, where it refers forward to the whole Act:
be itthereforeenacted by the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, as follows: ■ CHAPTER 1
interpretation and application Definitions
1. (1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise indicates -
At other times, the information assumed isn’t actually in the text, but somewhere outside. If so, it might be sensible: something we can see, hear, touch, taste or smell, for example Pass the salt. Alternatively, it might be something virtually present, that we just all know about because of what we know, for example You should tell the President.
Figure 5.2 Recovering identities
As we noted in section 5.2, some tracking devices tell us where to look for presumed information. When we read the said period we look back in the preceding text to find the time referred to:
gross violations of human rights committed during the period from 1 March 1960 to the cut-off date contemplated in the Constitution
acts associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflicts of the past during the said period
refer forward it - the Act
inside text
RECOVERABIU
outside text
virtually the president sensibly the salt
We may also be given instructions to look forward, although this is [€ss common in most registers, except in legal and administrative discourse. p0r example, at the beginning of the Act th e following Act refers forward to the Act itself that follows:
It is hereby notified that the President has assented to the following Act which r hereby published for general information:
ACT
To provide for the investigation and the establishment of as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human .,.
Legal and administrative discourse also depends quite a lot on its numbering system for forward reference. This allows specific connections to be made to following discourse:
1. (1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise indicates -
(i) "act associated with a political objective" has the meaning ascribed thereto in section 20(2) and (3)
The technical term for reference that points back is anaphora; and the term for reference that points forward is cataphora.
Looking outside: exophoric and homophoric reference
It may also be the case that presumed identities are to be found outside the verbal text. There are two main places to look for these identities: outside in the culture or outside in the situation of speaking. The first involves information which is to be found in the cultural knowledge that writer and reader share. Examples are Helena’s reference to the Boer Afrikaners and E W. de Klerk, who her readers are aware of. Proper names are usually used in this way, and so align a group of people who know who’s being talked about, for example Eastern Free State, God, Mpumalanga, Steve Biko.
Definite reference can also be used in this way when the reference is obvious;
Helena talks about the truth, ‘those at the top\ ‘the cliques', the Truth Commission, the operations, the old White South Africa and the struggle in this way. The scare quotes around those at the top and the cliques indicate that she is addressing a special group of readers in the know. This communal reference, whether realized through names or definite nominal groups, is called homophora.
The second type of reference outside the text is harder to illustrate from our examples, because these written texts are so self-sufficient; the story, argument and act don’t depend on accompanying images or action to make their meaning. So let’s imagine that we are right now in Australia looking at an Aboriginal flag outside our
indow If so> when we say the black band, the red band or the yellow circle in the following text, then we are referring outside what we are saying to something we can sense (see, hear, touch, taste or feel):
The black band stands for Australian indigenous people (and for the night sky on which the Dreaming is written in the stars); the red band stands for the red Australian earth (and for the blood that Aboriginal people have shed struggling to share it with Europeans); and the yellow circle symbolizes the sun (and a new dawn for social justice for Aboriginal people).
Likewise, if Helena had read her story to us over the radio, then we could argue that her reference to herself is exophoric (from her words to the person speaking):
My story begins in my late teenage years as a farm girl in the Bethlehem district of Eastern Free State.
The Act also refers to itself in a similar way, using both locative and demonstrative reference:
It is hereby notified that the President has assented to the following Act which is hereby published for general information:
1. (1) in this Act, unless the context otherwise indicates
This kind of reference from language to outside the text is called exophora.
Referring indirectly: bridging reference
To this point, the resources we’ve looked at refer directly to the participant they identify. Less commonly, participants can be presumed indirectly. To illustrate we can use some examples from other stories in Tutu’s book:
Tshikalanga stabbed first.., and he couldn't get the knife out of the chest of Mxenge [96]
In this story the identity of the knife is presumed even though it hasn’t been directly introduced before; but it has been indirectly introduced, since the m ost likely thing for someone to stab with is a knife.
Similarly with the plastic in the following example; it hasn’t been directly mentioned, but plastic bags are obviously made of plastic, and so its ‘presence’ is obvious:
they started to take a plastic bag ... then one person held both my hands down and the other person put it on my head. Then they seated it so that I wouldn't be able to
breathe and kept it on for at least two minutes, by which time the plastic was ciina'
to my eyelids [105] ^
This kind of inferred anaphoric reference is called bridging. Helena uses this kind of reference to presume the bed from her second love’s sleeping habits in the following extract:
instead of resting at night, he wouid wander from window to window. He tried u- hide his wild consuming fear, but I saw it.
In the early hours of the morning between two and half-past-two, I jolt
awake
from his rushed breathing.
Rolls this way, that side of the bed.
Self-identification: esphoric refence
Finally there is one resource that identifies participants without us having to look elsewhere in the text. This happens when one thing modifies another one and answers the question ‘Which one?’. If for example Helena had referred simply to the Bethlehem district, the realities, the people or the answer we might have been entitled to ask ‘Where’s that?\ ‘Which realities?’, ‘Which people?’, ‘Which answer?' But Helena short-circuits the questions by expanding a thing with a qualifier which tells us which district, which realities, which people and which answer she means:
the Bethlehem district of Eastern Free State the realities of the Truth Commission the people of the struggle
the answer to all my questions and heartache Facets of things work in the same way:
the bottom of his soul the rest of my life
the role of 'those at the top'
So the information presumed by the in these elements is resolved by the time we get to the end of them. When elements simply point into themselves like this it’s called esphora.
Kinds of reference
The reference terms we have introduced above were nouns: cataphora, anaphora, exophora, etc. But each also has an adjective, which is more common than the noun, including cataphoric, anaphoric, exophoric. Here’s a table summarizing what each term means. In Table 5.5, esphora is treated as a kind of pointing forward, and
5 ‘Iging as a P°*nt*nS ^ ac^- We can refer t0 system as a whole as
rEcovi-:rab1lity-
Table 5.5 Types of reference
where to look example
backward a plastic bag it
indirectly backward a plastic bag ■■■■■ the plastic
forward the following Act - Act
forward within same nominal group the people of the struggle out to shared knowledge the Truth Commission out to the situation (Look at) that view
aw. c-n r.
The way in which participants are identified is an important aspect of how a text unfolds. Of all genres, stories make by far the greatest use of reference resources to introduce and track participants through a discourse. In other genres, such as Tutu’s exposition and the Act, general participants are presented and only briefly tracked. We’ve also already looked at the way in which reference helps construct the Act’s staging, using pronouns and determiners to track information within sections but not between, relying on names to refer between sections. So weTl concentrate on Helena’s story here.
Helena is in one sense the main character in her story. Tutu introduces us to her by name, and she uses this pseudonym to sign off at the end of her letter. In the story itself she appears more often than anyone else, always as pronouns (/, my, we, our and also you when she’s quoting from her second love). Helena, however, is not so much telling us a story about herself as about her two loves, and the devastating effect their bloody work has had on them. Not surprisingly, the way in which these two key protagonists are tracked is more varied and more interesting than the steady pronominal reference to Helena. In addition other key participants are introduced and tracked through various phases, including her second husband’s three friends, ‘those at the top’ and the people of the struggle.
Table 5.6 gives an overview of the resources used to introduce and track the main characters in Helena’s story.
After Helena’s name is presented by Tutu in his introduction to her letter, she is referred to with first and second person pronouns throughout the other stages.
Lexical resources are used to introduce her two loves (a young man, another policeman) and they are then tracked with pronouns until lexical resources are