The paraphraser is used in many contexts, even if the person using it does not realize it. On a daily basis, speakers communicate through different types and genres of text, passing on information to other people who pass it on again. Thus, ideas are reproduced and reused.
It consists of the rewriting of a text, but keeping its essence in thematic terms, being a kind of translation within the language itself. It is a process of recreation that does not use resources such as irony or humor and does not detach from the central idea previously presented.
The main features are:
- It presents the same thematic chain as the original text;
- There is the use of words and style different from the source material;
- There is no critical commentary, humor and irony regarding the paraphrased ideas;
- Expressions such as this or that may occur;
Paraphrase differs from parody and summary. The first is also the rewriting of a text, but there is often the use of irony and humor to create a new meaning.
Imagine a song that is already rooted in collective memory: it can be rewritten by another composer who changes its thematic core, with the aim of ridiculing or criticizing the source text. The second consists only of the synthesis of a text, removing its secondary information.
There are two types of paraphrase and they differ in the way the original text is repackaged. In reproductive, there is a synthesis and reiteration. In the creative area, the thematic content is expanded.
Reproductive: it has a close link with the complete reproduction of ideas, that is, it is almost a matter of copying information from a text. In this type of paraphrase, the primary skill is the ability to re-elaborate sentences without copying them outright. This is not a summary, as there is no exclusion of secondary information.
Creative: it does not consist only in a summary of ideas, but in the construction of new meanings that refer to the thematic field of the main text.
Therefore, anyone such as students or even writers can write in different ways giving the same meaning and context to the sentence.