Tense in context

Skilled writers have to think in Harder’s (1994) terms and decide whether his/her text is to be based in the present or in the past. The decision tends to be influenced by genre; narratives are typically written in the simple past, whereas argumentative texts tend to be written in the simple present (Albrechtsen et al., 1991:81). However, a text does not usually consist of one single, uniform structure that is kept exclusively in one single tense. Rather, a text can consist of both a main structure and side structures, kept apart by means of separate use of tense and aspect (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000:278). This macro syntactic way of organising chunks of text, which has been compared to the micro syntactic structuring of sentences, is referred to as grounding or narrative subordination (Fleischman, 1985:853f).

In narratives, the main structure depicts the succession of events in the plot, moving the story forwards in time, (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000:278; Klein, 1994:230). Clauses in the main structure are called foreground clauses and in English they tend to be kept in the simple past (see Bardovi-Harlig, 2000:278). The chain of events in the foreground is also referred to as narrative event line and the principle of natural order (Fleischman, 1990:60; Klein, 1994:231). When the principle of natural order is violated in a narrative, side structures appear. They support the foreground by either setting the scene or evaluating or commenting on the events in the plot. Clauses in the side structures are called background clauses, and they are set apart from the natural succession of events in the foreground by their tendency to take on a different tense (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000:282; Klein, 1994:230). The tense shift highlights that the information provided forms a subunit that breaks the narrative line (Fleischman, 1990:60). One type of subunit are background clauses that go back to events that happened some time in the past, prior to the position in time within the foreground. In such cases, a foreground in the simple past would be combined with a background in the past perfect, as in (1).

(1) She went to sleep after a day that had been absolutely fantastic.

Other types of subunits appear in external evaluations, e.g. predictions about the future, comments on events that are occurring at the same time as events in the foreground, and evaluations of events in the foreground (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000:282f).

Again, there is a relation to genre. Within academic writing, for instance, tense/aspect can e.g. be used as an indication of the relevance of concepts, the simple present being used for relevant ones and the simple past for irrelevant ones (Biber et al., 1999:458). In oral narratives, on the other hand, speakers tend to shift tense and aspect quite freely in order to bring variation into the narrative and to obtain certain effects. Moreover, studies on children have shown that the tendency to make use of different verb tenses appeared to be positively correlated with age (Berman, 2001:25f; Berman & Slobin, 1994:134f). Nevertheless, in L1 research in English it has been found that while the simple past is the most common verb form in the foreground, it is also frequently used in the background (Dry, 1983:47f). Therefore, it has been argued that definitions of foreground and background have a tendency to be ambiguous (Dry, 1983:47). Fleischman (1985:854) even suggests that the foreground- background contrast should be seen as a continuum rather than a dichotomy.

Apart from genre, narrative type has also been found to influence the use of backgrounding. In distinguishing between third person and first person narratives, Bardovi-Harlig points out that a first person narrative might trigger more frequent references to backgrounding since the narrator is likely to be motivated to explain and comment on the foreground story (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000:320). This effect can also be created in fictive narratives, by personalising the subject matter, which makes the writer take on the perspective of the narrator (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000:332).

5.1.2.1 Global text perspective

As mentioned in 5.1.2, the use of a different tense serves, among other things, to set apart a background side structure from the natural order in the main structure of the foreground. In order for a reader to perceive the text as a unity rather than a set of juxtaposed sentences and structures, it is essential that it is coherent. That means that the underlying ideas have to be linked and that the thematic content of foreground as well as background clauses must be logically organised and developed. In effect, coherence works on a higher text level and concerns the logical relatedness between sequences of text. Engebretsen (2000:8) chooses to define the link between two neighbouring text sequences as local coherence, while he defines the hierarchical structure in which all text sequences are logically fitted in as global coherence. Thus, global coherence has to do with the relationship between the main structure and the side structures

of a narrative. As Berman (2001:2) points out, a global text perspective is a demanding cognitive undertaking which requires preplanning in order for the main structure to be hierarchically related to the side structures.

5.1.2.2 Conversation in narratives

In their grammar, Biber et al. (1999) distinguish between four registers: conversation, fiction, newspaper language and academic prose. With respect to the distribution of tense, they found differences in the different registers (Biber et al., 1999:456). In fiction, which is the register of the compositions in this study, writers most often use the past tense. In conversation, on the other hand, the present tense is generally preferred. Conversation in a narrative can be reported in different ways. If it is reported directly, it becomes a side structure in the form of dialogue. In (2) there is an example of dialogue presented as direct speech. A presentation like this calls for a tense shift from the simple past of the main structure into the simple present in the quoted speech.

(2) ‘You are too noisy,’ Pamela told them. (Quirk et al., 1985:1029/my italics/)

However, speech can also be reported indirectly. In that case it normally appears in the same time frame as the surrounding text. If the piece of dialogue in (2) were to be presented as indirect speech, the simple past would be kept up and there would be no tense shift, as can be seen in (2’):

(2’) Pamela told them that they were too noisy. (Quirk et al., 1985:1029 /my italics/)

Consequently, when indirect speech is used, no side structure emerges that calls for a different tense from that in the main structure. Therefore, a replacement of are for were in (2’) could never be considered motivated in a past tense framework.

In fiction, dialogue is occasionally presented in the form of free direct speech. This term is used for the presentation of direct speech without the use of overt indications (Quirk et al., 1985:1032f), as in the italicised sentence in (3).

(3) I sat on the grass staring at the passers-by. Everybody seemed in a hurry. Why can’t I have something to rush to? (Quirk et al., 1985:1033)

In effect, stretches of free direct speech are side structures that stand out from the surrounding past time frame of the main structure only through their use of present-tense forms. Therefore, it is up to the reader to identify these side structures as dialogue.

5.1.2.3 Generic statements and meta-comments

Some side sections stand free from the chain of events in the main structure as well as from dialogue. This is the case for evaluative or extra-textual sections, which can be found in generic statements and meta-comments. Generic statements refer to sections where a writer makes generalisations or refers to things that are true regardless of time, or at least at the moment of writing (see Quirk et al., 1985:175ff). Meta-comments, on the other hand, are comments on the subject matter of a text (see e.g. Teufel, 1998:45). They are directed straight at the reader, and thus stand out from the text. In both cases the temporal stance is in the present time of writing, which means that irrespective of the temporal stance of the narrative, generic statements and meta-comments are based in the present.