ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter I pointed out a number of ways in which the linguist can describe how literary texts exemplify the system of English as represented in his grammar, or if they do not exemplify it in what respects they deviate from the rules. But a piece of language use, literary or otherwise, is not only an exemplification of linguistic categories—that is to say it is not only text in the sense in which I have defined that term—but is also a piece of communication, a discourse of one kind or another. The question arises then as to what significance textual features have for an understanding of literature as discourse.
