Logique du texte

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Un texte n'est pas une séquence arbitraire de phrases. Il doit idéalement avoir une unité et une structure.

Texte: Robert Ludlum: The Bourne Ultimatum
David Webb walked through the National Airport terminal and out the automatic doors onto the crowded platform. He studied the signs and proceeded along the walkway leading to the Short Term Parking area. According to plan, he was to go to the farthest aisle on the right, turn left, and continue down the row of parked cars until he saw a metallic grey Pontiac LeMans with an ornamental crucifix suspended from the rearview mirror. A man would be in the driver’s seat wearing a white cap, the window lowered. Webb was to approach him and say «the flight was very smooth». If the man removed his cap and started the engine, David was to climb in the backseat. Nothing more would be said.
This text is given its cohesion through recourse to a number of devices :
Unity of time is achieved via tense : narrative in simple past, ref. to instructions with would or was to + inf., final return to narrative in «nothing was said», which also confirms that all the instructions were successfully followed.
Unity of space (the airport : marked by lexical chains, progressive lexical subordination, and frequently by identification (partly dependent on background world knowledge): look at the frequency of definite the. The step technique (in both space and time) allows to follow Webb’s movement from his entrance until his departure.
Unity of person (achieved via lexical and anaphoric pronominal (i.e. gramm.) reference): the theme remains David Webb, and the rheme is constituted by what he does or must do.

• Principes de structuration : GI / sd, Plan Dialectique, etc. + liens adverbiaux utiles.
• Topic and clincher sentences (énoncé initial, résumé final).
• Rôle du choix de la forme verbale (Philistines).

Voir aussi: => Résumer un texte