Abstracts of Parallel Papers
Ferdows
Agha-Golzadeh, Dept. of Linguistics,
Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran
Functional linguistics and the problem solution
pattern in Text analysis
This paper, largely
motivated by Hoey (2001), revisits the issue of written discourse analysis and,
in particular, the problem – solution pattern. Much discussion surrounds
the way in which texts are produced and understood. The different functional
approaches include, Halliday and Hasan’s approach, van Dijk’s
process–oriented approach, the procedural approach of de Beaugrande and
Dressler, and the problem solution approach of Michael Hoey. These approaches
attempt to answer the question: what is a text? How is it constructed and how
can it be interpreted?
While functionalist approach focuses on the needs of speakers, and looks at linguistic ways of meeting those needs, for Hoey’s point of view, the processes of reading and writing in any discourse are based on culturally popular patterns of organization between writer and reader. Text may be seen as an interaction between writer and reader in which the writer seeks to anticipate the questions that the writer is going to answer. In conclusion, analyzing some texts indicates that the problem–Solution method is a comprehensive and easy method for producing narrative and non- narrative texts.
M.A.
Ajibola, Federal College of
Education, Zaria, Nigeria
A Functional Analysis of the Discourse Structure
of Television Interview Programme
Linguists, especially those of
the structuralist aspect have long believed that spontaneously produced verbal
communication is the only form of language worthy of analysis from a discourse
point of view .To these structuralists, institutionalised language events do
not lend themselves to analysis, as they do not demonstrate flexible discourse
structures. However, discourse analysts have demonstrated that even language
institutional contexts have discernable discourse patterns. This is why the present research has
attempted to study the discourse structure of television news interviews using
the eyewitness news which is transmitted on the Nigerian Television Authority.
We shall apply the interpersonal metafunction components of functional grammar
for the analysis of some episodes of this programme. This would help us to determine both the nature and function
of elements above and beyond the level of the clause discourse.
Ernest S
Akerejola, Department of Linguistics
& Psychology, Centre for Language in Social Life, Macquarie University,
Sydney
Resource for organising the message in
Òkó
The paper will attempt to
explore the various resources for organising information in Òkó
from the perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar. It is an exploration into how textual meaning is coded in the
language. In other words it is an investigation into how Textual Metafunctional system works in
the language, with the clause as the point of entry.
Òkó
is spoken in at the Middle Belt of Nigeria, West Africa by a population of
about 60,000 people. It belongs in the Kwa, Niger-Kordofanian family. At
present, the language exists only in the spoken mode. The paper is a product of
an on-going PhD research at Macquarie University, Sydney, aimed at providing a
systematic description of the language across linguistic strata in order to
make it available for literary and literacy interests. The data have been
collected from a range of natural contexts of situation (Halliday and Hasan
1985).
References:
Butt, D., Fahey, R., Feez, S., Sue, S., & Yallop,
C. (2000). Using Functional Grammar: an Explorer's Guide (2nd ed.). Sydney: National Centre for English
Language Teaching and Research, Macquarie University.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An Introduction to
Functional Grammar (2nd Edition,
1994 ed.). London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1985). Language,
Context, and Text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Melbourne: Deakin University.
Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (1995). Lexicogrammatical
Cartography: English systems. Tokyo:
International Language Sciences.
Adewole
Alagbe, Zaria Academy, Shika, Zaria,
Nigeria
This paper is aimed at
exploring the level of understanding of students in terms of accurate and
meaningful use of the modal verbs in English. It is a fact that students, when making use of modal verbs
in their continuous writings, are notable to relate the interpersonal meanings
contained in each of the modal verbs appropriately. Thus, they mix up the meanings. The students are such that can read and write and are at the
peak of their secondary education. Test administration which demands the
students to write an essay on a prescribed topic will be used to collect data
from one hundred such secondary school students.
In
this paper, we intend to use the interpersonal metafunction of Functional
Grammar to interpret the various uses of the modal verbs by our subjects. Thesemodal verbs in question are: need,
dare, can, could, will, would, shall, should,may, might, must (have/had + to),
am/are/is/ was/were + to, ought + to, used +to. In the analysis, we hope to expose the flaws that will be
found in theiressays.
The
paper will reveal in details how the functional theory of grammar has handled
the use of modal operators in verbal group in sentences.
Abdullahi
Aliyu, Lecturer, Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria, Nigeria
Harmony between language and content in Ayi Kwei
Armah`s The beautiful ones are not yet born: A systemic functional linguistic
interpretation
Very little studies have
been conducted using the systemic functional linguistic model in the analysis
and interpretation of literary texts to examine how meaning is negotiated in
communicative relations as a pragmatic phenomenon and as an instrument for
communicative purposes in literary expressions. There is dearth of material,
competence and expertise in the application of the model in the studies Africa
writers series. Studies available on the series are critical essays and
literary criticisms which are heavily subjective and judgmental. Thus the need
to apply this model in the studies of African writers series. This paper,
therefore, attempts to examine the harmony between language and content in Ayi
Kwei Armah`s The Beautiful ones are not yet born: how he uses language to project corruption in the
society. The paper adapts the functional grammar by Halliday (1978, 1985,
1994). It demonstrates that language is used to mean, project and fight
corruption. Systemic functional linguistic model is a powerful tool for
describing social phenomenon.
Mehranghiz
Anvarhaghighi, Dept.
of Translation Studies, University College of Nabi Akram, Tabriz, Iran
The issue of Themeless Sentences in Farsi Language
For agglutinative languages,
of which Farsi is one, thematic structure of some interrogatives, imperatives
and declaratives does not accord with their English equivalents in regard to
the position of the Theme element as the psychological subject of the clause.
In this contrastive study,
having determined the Theme in different Farsi elements, an attempt is made to
know where the theme element can be readily left out in Farsi clauses.
To show the fact, James
Joyce ‘Dubliners’ along with its Farsi translation have been
studied to see in what situation the translated themeless clauses in Farsi
still convey the same information with the same cognitive effect.
The problem proved itself to
be that of “markedness” and “unmarkedness”
Esmat
Babaii, University for Teacher
Education, Iran and Hasan
Ansary, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
The Impact of Disciplinary
Variation on Transitivity:
The Case of Academic Book
Reviews
The purpose of this study was twofold. First, an attempt was made to
systematically characterize Book Reviews (BRs) as a genre in terms of the
elements of transitivity system. Secondly, the possible effect(s) of
disciplinary variation (physics, sociology, and literature) on the
lexico-grammatical features of this genre was investigated. In so doing, a
corpus of 90 academic BRs from
discipline-related professional journals were randomly selected and analyzed. Significant differences were
observed in terms of both the type and the frequency of processes and
participants in BR texts. This, it seems, points to a difference in semantic
configuration of BRs peculiar to each discipline, though they all seem to
fulfill a similar communicative purpose of evaluating knowledge production in
the academic milieu. From a theoretical
perspective, it is believed here that the results of the present investigation
have cast new light on the linguistic features of BRs as an academic written
genre.
Carl
Bache, Institute of Language and
Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Tense and aspect in Systemic Functional
Linguistics
According to e.g. Halliday
(1994) and Matthiessen (1996), tense in English is to be interpreted at group
rank. It is located within the logical
mode of the ideational metafunction.
The basic system contains a three-way recursive distinction (past, present, future), which makes it possible to
view tense in terms of a serial
model. As a result the tense category in English comprises a large number of
complex tenses in addition to simple present and simple past, and the aspect
category is rendered superfluous.
Though
the notion of choice is central to the SFL approach to tense in English, I
shall argue that it is not taken seriously enough. A close examination of the
choice relations involved reveals that the values of the three-way system
change significantly when selections are repeated recursively. To capture the
finer semantic distinctions which may influence the speaker's choice, I shall
suggest certain amendments to the SFL approach.
Felix
Banda, Department of Linguistics,
University of the Western Cape, South Africa
(De)constructing Difference and Distance in
Multilingual/Multicultural Learning Contexts: Mediated Academic Texts as Social
Process
Although English is medium
of instruction at most universities in South Africa, the majority of learners,
even at universities “reserved” for whites only during apartheid,
are African languages speakers. To the majority of these learners English is at
best a second language and at worst a foreign language. It is not uncommon then
for learners to discuss class assignments and other class work among themselves
in an African language (most often even in a classroom situation), before
proceeding to answer, as requested, orally or written in English. The question
then relates to the licensing constraints governing the transformation and
recontextualisation of the text as it is (re)produced and interpreted.
Therefore,
following on the one hand, studies in New Literacies (Gee, 2000; Baynham, 2000,
2001; Street, 2001; Barton, 1999; Prinsloo & Breier, 1996) which take
literacy as social practice; and studies on the analysis of values, identities,
ideologies and power relations embedded in texts (Fairclough 2000; Eggins &
Slade 1997), on the other, the study attempts to answer the following
questions:
·
how is mediation
accomplished textually in multilingual/multicultural context?
·
how do learners use the
multilingual/multicultural set up to negotiate meaning in literacy events (such
as discussing assignments among themselves or with their tutors and/or
lecturers before writing and submission for marking)?
·
what values, power
relations and ideologies are at play during such discussions?
In answering these questions, we hope to investigate how learners through discussions relating to their academic work assert their own identity as well as bridge the gap and differences resulting from multilingual literacy practices in multilingual context.
Leila
Barbára, Sao Paulo Catholic University (PUCSP), Sao Paulo,
Brazil
A Discourse Analysis of I
have a dream
This paper aims at developing a study on discourse analysis centered in
the speech – I have a dream –of the great pacifist, Martin Luther
King. This speech will be compared to twenty-three other MLK's speeches. The
paper will be developed under a Systemic functional approach with the
methodological support of Corpus Linguistics tools concentrating on the
ideational metafunction. The
analysis aims at showing linguistic evidence for that speech to be MLK´s
most famous speech and emblematic of his views and pacifism.
Tom
Bartlett, University of Edinburgh,
UK
Exploring the elephant: Combining functional perspectives
Whereas mainstream SFL
approaches to language generally focus on the relationship between
culture/society and language use, applying realisation rules from concept to
form that largely bypass considerations of the mental representation of
prelinguistic form, approaches such as Dik’s FG and RRG focus on the
latter aspect with little if any consideration of sociocultural factors. However, it seems necessary for
linguistic work in all areas to be underpinned by a coherent theory of the
relationship between language, culture and the mind in order to explain
processes of production, reception, acquisition, reproduction and change. Similarly, for theories in general
linguistics and in the evolution of language to be robust, each must be able to
account for the other.
This
paper therefore considers the common ground of various functional theories of
language and explores how they might inform each other with respect to
constructing a coherent model of the interplay of language, culture and the
mind.
Biook
Behnam, English Department,
Azarbaijan University for Teacher Education, Tabriz, Iran and Manijeh Alamy, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran
Critical linguistics is a
socially-oriented application of linguistic analysis which seeks to explore the
relationships between ideas and their social contexts. Its basic claim is that
linguistic usage encodes ideological patterns which represents the world in
language. In other words, ideology can be materialized in language, so the main
aim of critical linguistic analysis is to examine the ideologies which underlie
texts.
Kress
(1993:174) claims that “all texts equally encode the ideological
positions of their producers. But they do not reveal or mask their ideological
provenance to the same degree”.
Applying
some aspects of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar, we are going to
examine the headlines and opening texts of four English newspapers published in
Iran: Kayhan International, Iran
Daily, Iran News and Tehran Times. The ideational function of language will be worked
as the main methodological source to unmask ideological uses of textual
elements.
Within
this function the transitivity model provides a means of investigating how the
linguistic structures of a text effectively encode a particular world-view or
ideology.
The
pedagogical implications of this type of analysis is that, on the one hand it
helps English students to read texts differently, to be careful and to pay
attention to the writer’s intention. On the other hand, reflecting upon
the ideological forces of the words and structures in texts is an unescapable
duty of a translator.
Tony
Berber-Sardinha and Leila Bárbara, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de
São Paulo, Brazil
Lexical choice and
metafunction prominence
This paper will present an investigation into the lexicogrammar of
meetings, more specifically into the collocations employed by participants in a
series of meetings held in Brazil. All the collocations present in a corpus of
meetings were extracted using a concordancing package, and word association
statistics were calculated. The collocations were then analyzed systemically,
in terms of their relevance to the interaction. We explore the role of
collocations as they are employed by participants to control the flow of talk,
to introduce topics, to take the floor and in a range of other strategies. We
also classify the collocations in terms of the roles they seem to perform in
terms of metafunctions. Although each collocation realizes all three
metafunctions at once, for a number of them one metafunction seems to be most
salient. In this way, we are able to explore how ideational, interpersonal and
textual roles are realized more prominently by the lexicogrammar through
collocational choices.
Surabhi
Bharati, CIEFL, Hyderabad, India
Language Development in Multilingual Children
This paper attempts to
analyze the development of English in multilingual children. The data are
interpreted from a systemic theoretical viewpoint as developed by Halliday
(1975, 1978, 1979, 1984) and Painter (1984, 1999).
Halliday’s
account of language development is based on first language development. An
important aim of this research is therefore to take tentative steps towards
extending the data base on which the systemic theory rests. This is done by
examining the data related to development of English as a third /fourth
language. An attempt is made to
examine the systemic expansion of the children’s meaning potential by
reference to the functions they are making language serve for them at a given
point in time and the ‘metafunctional’ organization of the
(multilingual) adult language to which they are gradually approximating.
The Proverb and its Definition: A Karmik ( Systemic Functional ) Linguistic Approach
Ever since the time of
Aristotle, many scholars and critics have made a number of attempts to
understand the complex nature of the proverb and define it. Most of these
attempts centered round either the formal or the sociolinguistic or sometimes
the functional linguistic properties of proverbs. Nonetheless, these attempts have not produced a
satisfactory definition of the proverb that is free of the defects of ativyapti (over extension),and avyapti ( under extension),and inclusive of the asadharana
karana (the uncommon characteristic
) as applied in the testing of the definition of Brahman in advaitha ( theory of non-dualism) by Sri Adi Samkara Bhagavatpujyapada.
In this paper ,an attempt is
made to identify the asadharana karana of proverbs by a *karmic linguistic analysis ; avoid the defects of ativyapti , avyapti, and asambhava (impossible
property); and propose a karmic ( systemic functional ) linguisticdefinition as follows:
A proverb is a
culturally confirmed frozen text of a prototypical practice used as an
(impressional ) illocution over its categorical action for a projected view of
life in a setting.
Such a definition, it is
hoped , offers a more precise understanding of “What a proverb is, how it
derives its meaning, what its content is, and where it comes from ( Mieder
1993: 13)”
Mieder,Wolfgang (1993). ‘The Wit of One and the Wisdom of
Many’. Proverbs are Never out of Season. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Karmik linguistic theory
(proposed by me) considers language as an impressional cognitional
representational action of action. In other words, it considers language as
karmik action and proposes that it is used as a resource for the construction
of karmik reality of which the impressional cognitional reality, the social
reality, and the material actional reality are the derived constituents in a
hierarchical structure. As such this theory integrates the formal and functional
properties of language via an interconnected complex network of
actions into a unified theory that considers proverbs as a karmik option
in the semiotic representation of action.
Stephen
Carey, Canadian Association of
Applied Linguistics, and Lynn
Luo, Language and Literacy Education
Department, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Using Systemic Linguistics to Analyze Online
Academic Discourse
This study explores the
relationship of context to students' language use in an asynchronous online
bulletin board in a mixed-mode graduate seminar. As with traditional form of writing across disciplines,
online writing in academic settings is closely connected to the social
structure or organizational setting where people write (Anson, 1988). The
contextual reality heavily influences the functional and semantic features of
their discourse (Halliday & Hasan, 1980, 1989). The current study
investigates the use of English by native and non-native English speakers in
online discussion on second language acquisition through the analyses of both
students/ electronic messages and interview data with the participants.
Through
discourse analyses of online messages and interview data, we attempt to provide
a more complete explanation of language use related to social environments in
electronic communication. The notion of context for writing in the electronic
form is eminently local, historical and interactive (Casanave, 1995).
Peter
Chaban, Canada
Standardized literacy testing and teacher training:
do teachers with a background in SFL have better
outcomes?
The Province of Ontario,
like many other jurisdictions around the world has moved towards standardized
testing as an outcome measure for student performance in the educational
system. One such test is the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT).
The OSSLT, which measures reading and writing skills, is used as a graduation
requirement for Ontario students. In order to support the expectations set out
by this test, a new curriculum was set out and teacher training programs were
implemented. The teacher training programs included pre-service education for
new teachers and in-service education for established teachers. After five test
sessions over two and a half years, there has been no marked improvement in the
test scores. The failure rate has been consistently within the 25% range. This
score is consistent with other literacy research studies.
It
is the hypothesis of this presentation that traditional teacher training
programs do not properly prepare teachers to work with the weakest quarter of
the student population. Teachers lack an understanding of the relationship
between language resources and contextual categories necessary to produce
meaning within texts.
This
presentation proposes to review the expectations set by OSSLT, Ministry of
Education curriculums and teacher training programs in Ontario Universities in
order to identify whether systems gaps do exist. It will also compare the
competencies set out for teachers trained in language and literacy education in
Ontario with those trained through a SFL programs in Australia.
Maria
Herke-Couchman, Sydney Language
Technology Research Group, School of Information Technologies, University of
Sydney, Australia and Centre for Language and Social Life, Division of
Linguistics and Psychology, Macquarie University, Australia
Arresting the Scams: Using Systemic Functional Theory to solve a
hi-tech social problem
In the last decade, the
internet has networked the planet, providing a diverse population with an
awesome information repository as well as a communication vehicle par
excellence.
However, this technology's
rapid growth has disadvantages as well as advantages. New opportunities have
been created, many of which are
economically motivated. Adequate legal surveillance has, up until now,
been unable to keep pace with a burgeoning hoard of internet opportunists. The
internet, then, is more than an information repository and a communication
vehicle ... it is also an environment that is well-suited to the activities of
scammers.
In this paper, I will
present an interim report on my PhD research. SCAMSEEK is an internet
surveillance system being developed by Professor Jon Patrick's team in the
Language Technology Research Group at the University of Sydney for the
Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The system uses linguistic
analysis to identify and classify scam texts. The interesting challenge of this
research is how the rich findings of high level manual discourse analysis may
be drawn upon in order to inform the development of a computational system, the
foundation of which consists of automatable patterns of low level analysis.
If we are successful, this
research will represent a breakthough in useful, informative and interesting
large scale analysis of texts applicable to a wide range of research and
applications.
References:
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994).
An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London, Edward Arnold.
Martin, J. R., S. Eggins, et
al. (1993). The discourse of history: distancing the recoverable past. Register
Analysis: theory and practice. M. Ghadessy. London, Pinter: 75-109.
Martin, J. R. (2000). Beyond
Exchange: APPRAISAL systems in English. Evaluation in Text: authorial stance
and the construction of discourse. S. Hunston and G. Thompson. Oxford, England,
Oxford University Press: 142--175.
Matthiessen, C. M. I. M.
(1993). Register in the round, or diversity in a unified theory of register.
Register Analysis. Theory and Practice. M. Ghadessy. London, Pinter: 221--292.
Matthiessen, C. M. I. M.
(1995). Lexico-grammatical Cartography: English Systems. Tokyo, International
Language Sciences Publishers.
Saedeh
Ahangari Dehkharghani, Tabriz
Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran
Cross-linguistic study of vocabulary equivalence:
English vs. Farsi
Every language is a unique
system and it has its own special grammatical, lexical and phonological
patterns. AS far as we are concerned only with our own native language, there
wouldn't be any problem. But the flow of enthusiasm to get to the thoughts,
ideas, and information of other nations make it inevitable to learn the other
languages as well and to try to translate from one language to another
language.
Translation
is usually defined as the process of establishing equivalence between the
source language (SL) and target language (TL) texts (Lotfipour, 1987). On the
basis of the modern trends in discourse analysis and textlinguistics, TE
(translation equivalence) should be characterized in terms of different factors
including: vocabulary, structure, texture, language varieties, cognitive
effect, aesthetic effect.
In this paper an attempt has been made to make a contrastive
study of Farsi and English vocabulary items, because in determining the TL
equivalents of the SL vocabulary one should take care of different layers of
meaning reflected in the lexical items, including denotative, connotative,
collocative, stylistic, contrastive, figurative and implicative.
Different
languages employ different strategies for the lexicalization of the same
meaning; for example, an English word {recognize } has a wider denotational
range than its Farsi equivalent and it must be translated differently in the
following sentences :
1-I
recognized my old friend.
2-He
refused to recognize a new government.
3-He
recognized that he was not qualified for the post.
4-Everyone
recognized him to be the greatest living authority on ancient Roman coins.
Geetha
Durairajan, Dept. of Evaluation,
CIEFL, Hyderabad, India
Towards a Principled Means of Expressing Qualitative
Differences Between Levels of Language Proficiency in a Developmental Model
Language proficiency, treated
as an individual’s ability or capability is a theoretical construct. In measuring proficiency it is
performance that is actually observed and quantified with proficiency being
something that is inferred from it.
In this procedure the focus remains on the end product of
performance. While this may be acceptable in the field of
summative language testing, it does not capture the kind of learning and
languaging that is a part of ongoing learning, or a developing language
proficiency, which is the focus of pedagogic practice. To capture developmental language
learning, it is necessary to be able to describe language, not as a system of
rules, representing
the end product of language activity/performance/use, but as something that is in the process of becoming;
something that is modified. To do
this, it is necessary to find a different language to talk about proficiency,
one that will enable a focusing on varied and individual processes of language
learning and use.
This paper is an
attempt to articulate a description of language proficiency from the
perspective of processes of learning.
To do this, insights will be drawn from the base premises of a
Hallidayan construal of language learning and use. This assumes that languaging grows from an initial
protolanguage, through a stage where a differentiation between a pragmatic and
mathetic language use is possible, to a stage where language can be modified to
incorporate the ideational, the interpersonal and textual nuances of
meaning. A final fourth stage,
Brunerian in its conceptualization, of being able to go meta, is also added on
to it. In order to apply this
conceptualization of language learning, which is developmental to pedagogy and
the description of stages of proficiency, it will be construed as a learning
based theory of language learning.
This
conceptualization is theoretical at present and is seen as an initial attempt
towards modelling language proficiency on a developmental cline.
John
Eliezer, Sana'a, Yemen
The fact that jokes
translate from one language to another without loss of effect suggests that
they must possess some universal features. This expectation is only falsified by jokes that exploit
language specific features such as puns and alliterations. This paper aims to make a
cross-linguistic study of jokes to uncover the linguistic and cognitive
features that make them just as significant a form social interaction as other
widely studied forms of discourse.
Peter
Fankhauser, Institut fuer
Integrierte Publikations und Informationassysteme, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft,
Darmstadt, Germany and
Elke
Teich, Institut fuer Angewandte
Sprachwissenschaft sowie Uebersetzen und Dolmetschen, Universitat des
Saarlandes, Saarbruecken, Germany
Lexical cohesion analysis using WordNet
Lexical cohesion is commonly
acknowledged as the means of making text hang together experientially. However,
it is an extremely tedious task to analyze large amounts of texts in terms of
lexical cohesion manually and, in contrast to the analysis of other cohesive
devices, such as reference or substitution, only insufficient intersubjective
agreement can be achieved. Large, analyzed corpora are needed, however, to
investigate the nature of lexical cohesion, e.g., for testing which kinds of
taxonomic lexical relations are primarily involved in lexical cohesion, whether
it is best to think of lexical cohesion as organized in pairs of cohesive
items, as suggested by Halliday & Hasan (1976), or chains (as proposed in
most computational-linguistic work, such as Morris & Hirst (1991)), or more
as topologies, as suggested in Hoey (1991). Also, only with a large corpus
analyzed for cohesive relations can we provide research on lexical cohesion
with an empirical basis and carry out calculations of the overall frequency of
a lexical item and its taxonomic proximity to other items in the lexical
system, measure the distance separating one lexical item from another one in a
lexical chain, or analyze the internal make-up of lexical patterns as well as
their interaction (cohesive harmony) (cf. Halliday & Hasan 1976; Hasan
1984; Hoey 1991; Martin 1992).
From
the perspective of the lexical SYSTEM, having available corpora analyzed for
lexical cohesion allows to assess the potential of a lexical item to contract a
cohesive relation in terms of the relative probability with which it tends to
co-occur with other lexical items. From the perspective of the TEXT, it allows
to investigate the relative strength of a lexical pattern and its contribution
to the overall texture of a text in collaboration with other kinds of cohesive
means. Finally, from the perspective of application, being able to detect
lexical cohesion patterns automatically is highly relevant for registerial and
generic text classification in contexts of content syndication, e.g., topic
demarcation as needed in automatic text summarization, abstracting or
information retrieval.
In
this paper, we propose a method of lexical cohesion analysis using WordNet
(Fellbaum 1993; 1998), an electronic lexical resource that organizes the
vocabulary of English content words in terms of basic sense relations
(synonymy, hyponymy/supernymy, antonymy, meronymy). Taking the sense-tagged
version of the Brown corpus as a data basis, we enrich texts with potential
lexical connections by matching the (partially transitive) semantic
neighbourhood of each token with its subsequent tokens. Each connection is
attributed with the kind and semantic distance of the underlying sense
relation, the degree of specificity and part-of-speech of the connected tokens,
and the number of intervening sentences between the tokens. By means of simple
constraints on these attributes, potential lexical chains or lexical topologies
can be determined automatically (or ruled out).
Fellbaum C. (ed.), 1993.
Five papers on WordNet. http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/
Fellbaum C. (ed.), 1998.
WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database. MIT Press
Halliday MAK & R. Hasan,
1976. Cohesion in English. Longman
Hasan R., 1984. Coherence
and cohesive harmony. In Flood J. (ed.), Understanding Reading Comprehension,
pp. 181-219. IRA
Martin J.R., 1992. English
text: system and structure. Benjamins
Morris J. & Hirst G.,
1991. Lexical cohesion computed by thesaural relations as an indicator of the
structure of text. Computational Linguistics 17(1):21-48
Hoey M., 1991. Patterns of
lexis in text. Oxford University Press
John
Flowerdew, Dept. of English and
Comm., City University, Hong Kong
Textual analysis in the discursive construction of
a world class city
With the coming of
globalization there has been increased competition among cities internationally
to become so-called World Cities, i.e. centres of high technology, industry,
trade, banking, finance, professional activity, higher education, and the arts.
This paper analyzes three texts to show how one city, Hong Kong, has attempted
to discursively construct itself as such a city. Applying ideas from critical
discourse analysis, genre theory and branding, and using a functional systemic
approach to textual analysis, the paper considers the governmental consultation
process designed to promote Hong Kong as a world city and shows how this is
influenced not only by the government's control of the various genres which
make up the consultation, but also by its use of language. Textual
analysis, as demonstrated in the analysis of the three documents, grounded in
the political situation, highlights the manipulative nature of the consultation
process.
Lynne Flowerdew, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,
Hong Kong
Analysing evaluative lexis in professional and
apprentice report writing
using insights from APPRAISAL theory
One aspect of
Halliday’s SFL system which has been developed over the past few years
most notably by Jim Martin and Peter White is APPRAISAL. The APPRAISAL
framework, which specifically concerns the way language is used to evaluate and
to manage interpersonal meanings, has mainly been applied to the analysis of
media discourse, casual conversation and literature (see White 2001). The
research presented here applies the framework to the analysis of professional
and apprentice report writing, which very often follows a Problem-Solution
organizational pattern. The presenter will describe how the APPRAISAL framework
has been used, with some modifications, for coding key evaluative lexis
signaling either the Problem or the Solution elements of the discourse under
investigation. The importance of taking into account the ‘context of
situation’ and ‘context of culture’ for classifying
evaluative lexis as either Problem or Solution elements of the discourse will
also be discussed.
Gail
Forey, Dept. of English, Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
Evoking Authority in Business Texts:
Projecting your Thoughts, Beliefs and Decisions
This paper explores thematic
choices and the meanings they realise in an authentic corpus of written English
business texts (letters, memos and reports). The data consists of 62 texts collected during research
undertaken in Hong Kong and the U.K.
This
paper argues that marked Theme choices play a significant role in written
business English. In particular the paper will focuses on how, at a clause
complex level, the writer uses the marked choice of projection to express
personal and institutional viewpoints; and how the authority of the writer or
institution is embedded within this grammatical structure. The paper concludes
by offering suggested categories of projection and discussing implications for
business English pedagogy.
Gail
Forey, Sima Sengupta and Arthur Firkins, Dept. of
English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Applying a genre based approach to the teaching of
English to students with learning disabilities
This paper presents
collaborative work between teacher educators and schools. It focuses on
investigating the teaching and learning of English with a group of students
identified as having learning disabilities. The aim is to understand the
context of the special needs English classroom and to enhance the teaching and
learning of English. Material, based on a genre approach to teaching writing,
was developed and adopted for the EFL classroom in Hong Kong. The paper will
explore some of the initial findings from data collected from teaching
encounters with students, interviews with students, teachers and the parent of
participating students. We will consider some of the ways in which the findings
could provide recommendations to improve EFL pedagogy for students with
learning disabilities in and beyond Hong Kong. In addition, we will discuss the
issues related to undertaking such university-school collaborative research.
Folashade
Frank, Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria, Nigeria
Intra-Textuality in News Essays in Nigeria:
Analysis of Selected Samples from TELL Magazine
The paper categorises news
essay writing in TELL magazine as an instance of the use of English for
specific purposes ESP in Nigeria.
As an academically oriented essay, the news essay is short and expresses
the writer s opinion on political, social, religious economic and educational
subject matters supported by evidence. Tell News essay, provides this study a
sample of Standard Educated Nigerian English (SENE)and is a lofty example of
essay in content, length, form and language .
The
study examines the features of intra-textuality -the internal structure and
meaning relationships within the text, adopting the functional approach
specifically textual analysis. It identifies the syntactic, cohesive and
organisational features that ensure the texture within the text.
The
paper suggests ways of promoting effective news essay writing through which
Nigerians could contribute to and become relevant in national and international
discussions in the global village.
Helen
Fraser, Language and Learning in
Medicine Program, Medical Education Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences,
University of Adelaide, Australia, and Carole Gannon
Collaborative learning - using functional analysis
of texts written by peers
Students rarely have the
opportunity to see each other's examination answers. Expanding their knowledge through functional analysis of
fraternal/s or oral work becomes part of collaborative learning. This paper discusses the teaching of
writing medical explanations in an EAP class for Year 2 Medicine students,
using a number of texts written by students in a previous Year 2 examination.
Two central texts are used,
one by a student with a language background other than English, another by a
local student.
The
former included:
•
a lack of complexity in causal relations, frequent restatement of given
information, in paratactical clauses
•
overuse of pronouns as Subjects, mental processes in projecting clauses
•
nominal groups representing symptoms or hypotheses, used with relational processes
without causal expansion.
The
latter included:
•
a mix of clause types using material processes as lexicalised verbs, in
hypotactic elaboration
•
nominal groups, generated from symptoms and mechanisms, used in Thematic
positions.
Analysis and comparisons
assist the development of student writing.
Wee Bee
Geok, English Language &
Literature, Nanyang Technological University, National Institute of Education,
Singapore.
Metaphors and clauses: A preliminary study of the
degree of complexity in the writing of students from three Singapore secondary
schools
Twenty written texts from
the disciplines of History Geography, Science and Composition writing from
three secondary schools are examined for clause complexing and grammatical
metaphor use. The complexity in writing in this study is measured by the degree
of clause complexing and density of grammatical metaphors in the written texts.
A move from the primary school to the secondary school, which introduces
students to the learning of the humanities and the pure sciences, engenders a
greater degree of complexity both in the course content as well as in the
written English. The secondary school disciplines thus necessitate a gradual
move away from the congruent type of writing to a more metaphorical mode of expression.
The study is interested to find out if there is a similar move in
students’ written English and if this is accompanied by a greater degree
of clause complexing.
Maryam
S. Ghiasian, Dept. of Linguistics,
Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran
The functional classification of Persian verbs and
its application to media
This article tries to
classify Persian verbs in the Halliday’s (1994) framework i.e. systemic
functional grammar. In this framework four linguistic metafunctions are
introduced as linguistic universals: experiential, interpersonal, textual,
logical. This article aims at introducing and explaining the first one, namely:
experiential metafunction in Persian.
In
Halliday’s view one’s experiences are represented in the transitivity
system of the grammar of one’s language as a set of processes.
Transitivity, as a part of experiential metafunction, has three elements:
process, participant and circumstantial, represented in the clause by verb
phrase, noun phrase and adverb respectively. According to external and internal
experiences Persian verbs can be classified into six processes: 1- material
process 2- mental process 3-relational process 4- verbal process 5- behavioral
process 6- existential process.
As
a conclusion, it may be said that this metafunction put forward by Halliday is
valid for Persian language so that the result of this article will accommodate
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in scrutinizing the media.
Sandra
Gollin, Learning Skills Unit, Office
of the Dean of Students, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Collaborative writing: competing voices in the
re-contextualization process
According to Bakhtin, all
texts draw deliberately or unconsciously on previous texts or other voices.
This characteristic of texts is particularly noticeable, and available for
analysis, in a close examination of the process of collaboration, where a team
of writers attempt to merge or blend their different agendas and interests in
one document. This paper analyses an instance of collaborative writing where
two writers have attempted to combine their voices in one coherent stretch of
text. Although they appear to have successfully collaborated, a systemic
functional analysis reveals how each writer has managed to retain the key
elements of their own ideology in the text through successive drafts. The
concept of re-contextualization is a useful lens through which to view changes
across different drafts of the emerging text. Notions of intertextuality in its
various forms, and hybridity are also used to bring the analysis into sharper
focus.
John
Grierson, Learning Skills Unit,
University of Western Sydney, Australia
The semantics of written argument
Argumentation is a key
strategy and mode of reasoning in university discourses. Written arguments, and
persuasive essays in particular, are used to assess students' production and
critique of knowledge, yet students and lecturers alike often lack a clearly
articulated framework of what counts as effective argument. Analytical theories
and tools that have been used in analysing and creating arguments include
formal and informal logic (the procession from premises to conclusion),
rhetoric (argument as persuasion rather than proof, e.g. Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca), Toulmin's account of argumentation as the social act of
making, supporting and challenging claims, and pragma-dialectics (e.g. van
Eemeren). This paper compares and contrasts these approaches, and argues that
they are limited, to different degrees, by a failure to adequately recognise
the importance of context in shaping the language of arguments. This paper
discusses some ways a semantics of argumentation, informed by the work of
Christian Matthiessen and David Butt, can be used to provide teachers of
academic discourse and student writers with a detailed, contextually-sensitive
and explicit description of arguments in different discourse situations.
Hanita
Hassan, Dept. of Modern Languages,
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Centre for Language and Communication,
Cardiff University, UK; and Theo van Leeuwen, Centre
for Language and Communication, Cardiff University. UK
The Functions of Verbal Texts on Corporate Web
Sites
This paper examines closely the functions of verbal texts
found on multinational worldwide corporate Web sites using a metafunctional
concept of Systemic Functional Linguistic approach. The strategic nature of the texts, i.e. the extensive use of
first and third pronouns as topical Themes, material and relational processes,
and declarative mood, suggests that the texts aim to disseminate information
about the corporation to Web readers.
Is that it? The paper
concludes by arguing that the functions of verbal texts, beside disseminating
information about the corporation, include to advertise not only company
products but also the corporate identity.
Susan
Hood, Faculty of Education,
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Evaluative strategies in academic writing:
Subjectifying the objective
Written academic argument is
often characterized in EAP writing guides as ‘personalised’,
suggesting that the task for the novice/L2 writer is to objectify subjective or
interpersonal meanings. But is this in fact what writers do?
This paper reports on some
aspects of a larger study of evaluation in the introductory sections of a set
of published research articles and student dissertations in the general area of
language and communication. The study draws on Appraisal Theory (Martin, 2000;
Martin and Rose 2003), and in this paper I focus in particular on the nature and
function of resources of graduation, and the role of graduation in evoking
attitudinal meanings. Analyses reveal that a key rhetorical strategy used by
the writers in construing an argument for their own research is, in fact, to
give an interpersonal orientation to experiential meanings by grading those
meanings, in other words to ‘subjectify’ the objective.
Noriko
Ito, Toru Sugimoto, Yusuke
Takahashi, Ichiro Kobayashi, Michio Sugeno, Lab. for
Language-based Intelligent Systems, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, Japan
A Systemic-Functional Approach to Japanese Text
Understanding
We have implemented a Japanese text processing system,
combining the existing parser and dictionary with the linguistic resources that
we developed based on systemic functional linguistics. In this paper, we
explain the text understanding algorithm of our system that utilizes the
various linguistic resources in the Semiotic Base suggested by Halliday.
First,
we describe the structure of the SB and the linguistic resources stored in it.
Then, we depict the text understanding algorithm using the SB and the outputs
of the process. The process starts with morphological and dependency analyses
by the non-SFL-based existing parser, followed by looking up the dictionary to
enrich the input for SFL-based analysis.
After
mapping the pre-processing results onto systemic features, the path
identification of selected features and unification based on O'Donnell (1994)
are conducted with reference to the linguistic resource represented in the system
networks. Consequently, we obtain graphological, lexicogrammatical, semantic
and conceptual annotations of a given text.
Girish
Nath Jha, Special Centre for
Sanskrit Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
The present paper is adapted
from a course paper by me for an advanced phonology graduate course (LIN
G 442), at University of
Illinois during 1997. The paper attempts to re-investigate Hindi stress
patterns from the Optimality Theory (OT) point of view. Hindi stress pattern has been
investigated by several people - Kelkar (1968), Hayes (1991), Prince &
Smolensky (1993) which has generated interest due to its variability and
instability. However, Hindi stress
system has been found to be more unstable and complicated than it may appear to
be. Therefore, there is a need to re-investigate the relevant first hand data
from more than one native speakers to see if the given OT constraint ordering
is valid for Hindi or needs to be re-configured to handle variable cases, if
any.
Based on Kelkar's
(1968) observations, Hayes'
(1991) generalized that
"stress falls on the heaviest available syllable, and in the event of a
tie, the rightmost nonfinal candidate wins". This has some obvious complications
as noted by Prince & Smolensky (1993). The latter have interpreted Hayes'
"heaviest" to be the normal heavy syllable in the three way hierarchy
of Hindi syllable weight:
CVVC,
CVCC > CVV,CVC > CV
The syllable weight to
stress relationship has been explained by the PK-PROM (peak prominence)
constraint. The second complication
in Hindi stress system as noted in Prince & Smolensky (1993) is the NONFINALITY constraint in stress
assignment by which the prosodic head is nonfinal. The EDGEMOST constraint which requires the peak to be
maximally near the edge has also been found to be operative in Hindi but ranked
lowest in the hierarchy:
PK-PROM>>
NONFINALITY>> EDGEMOST
This ranking of constraints
has been used to explain valid and
invalid (starred) stress markings in words with the following competing
syllables
a. light vs. light:
s .mI'.tI
(committee)
*s '.mI.tI
*s .mI.tI'
b. heavy vs. light:
kI.dh
'r (which way)
*kI'.dh
r
c. heavy vs. heavy vs.
light:
pU's.t
.kee (books)
*pUs.t
.ke'e
*pUs.t
'.kee
d. superheavy vs.
superheavy:
a'as.maa.jaah ?
(Is this a Hindi word)
*aas.maa.ja'ah
*aas.ma'a.jaah
(These examples are from
Hayes (1991) as quoted in Prince & Smolensky (1993)). The paper will
examine the OT constraint ordering given above.
Carys L
Jones, Dept. of Education and
Professional Studies, King's College London, United Kingdom
Thematic Organisation in Mediating the Development
of Second Language in Use
This paper examines the case
for linking two theoretical frameworks to underpin a pedagogical framework for
developing second language in use. The first concerns the thematic organisation
of text from a systemic functional perspective and the second concerns the
process of second language learning from a socio-cultural perspective. More
specifically I will consider the contribution that a textual analysis of
students’ essays might make to our conceptualising the mediation of
students’ development in their academic writing through drawing on activity
theory as the pedagogical construct.
I
will refer to a study of the progress made by Japanese students in their
written texts using English as a second language over a period of five months
(presented at Liverpool, ISFC29) to examine the dynamic interplay between thought
and language, and between the ideational and the textual functions of language
use.
Aliyeh
K.Z.Kambuziya, Linguistics
Department, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiyat Modares University
In Persian, a rule which is
called /v/-weakening converts the fricative/v/ to the approximant [w] whenever
it occurs in the coda of a syllable after the vowel [a]. A subsequent rule
shifts [a] to [o] before this [w]. For example, the root [rav] ‘go’
is realized as such in [mi-rav-am] ‘I am going’, but is modified in
the imperative [bo-row] ‘go!’. Similarly, the [v] of [nov] emerges
in a syllable onset in [nov-in] ‘ now’, but appears as [w] in the
coda of [now-ruz] ‘ new year’.
[v]
–weakening fails to affect syllable-final [v], whenever it forms the half
of a geminate, or whenever [v] occurs in the onset of a syllable or after a
consonant.
Ichiro
Kobayashi, Dept. of Information
Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, Ochanomizu University, Japan
A Study on Language-based Knowledge Representation
from a Systemic Functional Viewpoint
In the field of artificial
intelligence technology, several methods to represent human knowledge have been
proposed. However, most of them do not relate to language representation
nevertheless human intelligence considerably relates to language activity.
Considering this, this
paper aims to explain the
relationship between knowledge representation and language representation.
Kenneth
Kong, Department of English, Hong
Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong.
The multiple functions of evaluative nominals in
academic discourse
The study proposes to
investigate the function of ‘evaluative nominals’, which exhibit
the ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions in Halliday’s
terms. This type of nominals, seldom defined in the literature, used to be
regarded as having the potential of realizing the ideational metafunction and
includes such words as challenge, danger, task, need, and tendency. Despite their frequent occurrence particularly in academic discourse,
very little attention has been paid to this important class of words, except
for a few recent studies (Flowerdew, 2003; Schmid, 2000). Besides the
conventional ability of conveying ideational meanings, these nominals also have
the interpersonal function of negotiating relationships with potential readers,
as well as the textual function of signalling logical relationships across
clauses. Their collocation patterns with premodifiers and postmodifiers in the
different sections of academic discourse will also be discussed.
Thao Le, Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania,
Australia and Shane
How
Euphemism is a strong
evidence of sociolinguistic strategies employed in communicative interaction.
While euphemism is considered as the appropriate linguistic use of language,
the opposite is dysphemism, which is offensive language. However, there is
another genre of language which cannot be comfortably assigned to the dichotomy
of euphemism and dysphemism. It is how to tell lies effectively.
Communicative competence has been discussed and researched for many decades.
Recently some interesting studies have dealt with sociolinguistic and pragmatic
issues which contribute great insights into our understanding of systemic
functional linguistics, for instance communication strategies, gossip genre,
greeting genre across cultures. However, it seems that study of verbal lying
has not received any research attention in Vietnamese at all and it could be
the case in English. This paper examines the genre of lying in Vietnamese and
argues that ‘how to tell lies’ reflects language users’
communicative competence.
Eleanor
Uchenna Leleji, Ahmedu Bello
University, Zaria, Nigeria
A Functional Analysis Of Nigerian Secondary School
Students Summary Writing
Summary writing is an
important reading and study skill, which constitutes a major component of the
certifying examinations that Nigerian secondary school students are expected to
sit for. A pass at the credit level in English language is a pre requisite for
admission into tertiaryinstitutions in Nigeria, yet less than 10% of the
candidates pass English language and summary writing at the credit level
annually.
This
paper analyses the summaries students in a quasi experimental study. A pre-test
post test experimental-control group research design was used. Data was
collected by means of summary writing tests. A functional analysis of the
summaries of the research subjects showed that while some students summarize
effectively and efficiently most students do not. It is recommended that
teachers explicitly explain summary writing and its rules, model the processes
of summarization, ask process and product questions and give students copious
practice.
Karen
Malcolm, University of Winnipeg,
Canada
Car Advertsiements: A Barometer of Cultural
Stereotypes
In the past I have quite
enjoyed using car advertisements as texts when
introducing students to
various type of linguistic analyses. Unusual lexical collocations and marked
phonological patterning become quite clear when analyzing the texts, and make
for some interesting discussions concerning register, communicative purpose
etc.
However, it is not until recently that I have begun to realize the extent to which car advertisements serve as a barometer of the ever-changing cultural stereotypes prevalent in our society year after year. In a sense, it is no news, we know how much money goes into marketing research in advertising agencies, and we know how vulnerable consumers are to the very specific information that advertising agencies have and use to manipulate the consumer and persuade him/her to buy their product.
Still,
linguistic analysis, specifically phasal analysis and the visual
analysis of Kress and Van
Leeuwen, show how thoroughly
cultural norms are encoded in printed car advertisements. Not only do these
analyses show evidence of how cultural stereotypes contrast from year to year,
but also how they are directed to specific readers. In women's magazines, a
particular car is advertised in one way; in men's magazines, another. In
science magazines, certain features of a car are selected to appeal to that
decoder; in golf magazines, other features are selected to appeal to another
type of decoder. The net effect is that car advertisements play an important
role in creating, maintaining and
perpetuating the cultural stereotypes, that many of us wish they had
transcended long ago.
Alvin
Leong Ping, National Institute of
Education, Nanyang Technological University
Subject Omission in Colloquial Singaporean English
Many writers have observed
that Colloquial Singaporean English (CSE) is a null-subject language, where the
grammatical subject of a finite clause can be omitted so long as it is
retrievable from context (eg. Gupta 1994: 10-11). The conditions which permit the omission of the grammatical
subject, however, need to be worded more precisely since the notion of
“context” is a slippery one.
This paper explores the pro-drop feature of CSE using the theme-rheme
framework of the Prague school, one that gives prominence to the contextual
(in)dependence of each clausal element and the role it plays in contributing to
the further development of the discourse.
It hopes to shed light on which thematic element is favoured for
omission, and so clarify the role context plays in facilitating such omission.
Reference: Gupta, Anthea Frase. 1994. The Step-Tongue: Children’s English in Singapore. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Maria
Martinez Lirola, Dept. of English
Philology, University of Alicante, Spain
A systemic functional analysis of three
syntactical marked structures (existential sentence, extraposition and passive)
in Martin Luther King’s speeches
This paper is within the
framework of Systemic Functional Grammar for two main reasons: the importance
of the context for the analysis of the main syntactical processes of
postponement in English and because it studies language in relation to society
and analyses the main reasons for choosing between some linguistic forms or
others, fact that is always determined for the function that those linguistic
forms have in society.
Instead
of having chosen independent examples coming from a computational corpus, we
have decided to analyse in detail three postposition structures in English
(existential sentences, extraposition and passive) in Martin Luther
King’s speeches.
Due
to the recurrent use of these postposition structures we can perceive
King’s feelings and thoughts. We have also observed that these structures
are used in situations of climax and allow the author create social reality
through language. In the same way, these syntactical structures contribute to
the vividness and expression of the speeches and highlight the unfair social
situation that surrounded black people in America.
We
will prove that the main reason for the author to use these structures in a
recurrent way is to point out the social situation that surrounded him, which
is clearly marked by racial segregation.
Liu,
Zequan, Yanshan University, Hebei,
China and National University of Singapore
Evaluating Textual Equivalence in Translation:
A Register-Based Approach
The main aim of the present
paper is to inquire into the suitability of methods deriving from a functional
approach to the evaluation of translations. Using the Chinese version of an English
beauty advertisement, both from popular Singapore newspapers, the paper
illustrates the application of the mode of discourse, one of the three
variables of register, to the evaluation of the version. After reviewing the
key elements of the mode of discourse and their relations to the textual
function of text, the paper makes a detailed analysis of the Chinese text with
reference to its choices of topical, textual and interpersonal themes and
justifies the solutions the translator made in these respects. It is found that
it is easy for the version to achieve high (100%) equivalence in terms of both
the role language plays and the channel of discourse. However, as far as the
medium of discourse is concerned, it obtained high (100%) correspondence in retaining
the explicit topical themes of the original, but only 31% and 25%
correspondence with reference to the textual and interpersonal themes
respectively. This is because Chinese does not resort to more explicit markers
to make the semantic and logical relations between clauses and paragraphs more
transparent. This analytical exercise justifies the suitability of register
analysis as a tool for both parallel textual analysis and translation quality
assessment in translation studies.
Graham
Lock and Champa Detaramani, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Being Indian in Hong Kong: the discursive construal of ethnic identity, culture and language by Sindhis and Sikhs in post-colonial Hong Kong
As the Hong Kong SAR passes
through a period of sociopolitical and linguistic realignment, shifting
patterns of language use and
ethnic identities become interesting and important areas of study. The Indian
Community, estimated at about 23 thousand, is one of the largest minority
groups in Hong Kong and it has a history dating back to at least the middle of
the nineteenth century.
This
paper looks at how notions of ethnic identity, culture and language are
construed by Hong Kong Sindhi and Sikh participants in four focus group
meetings. Using data from transcripts of the four meetings, recurrent
lexicogrammatical patterns are identified and related to characteristic
metaphors of race/ethnicity, culture and language, and to the cultural models
that appear to underlie them. A preliminary attempt is then made to relate
these cultural models to the broader discourses of enacting
“Indian-ness” in Hong Kong.
Gillian
Moss, Colectivo Urdimbre,
Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Columbia
Issues in the analysis of grammatical metaphor in
Spanish texts
This paper presents aspects
of the results of a long-term research project on the language of school
textbooks in Natural and Social
Sciences used in Barranquilla, Colombia. The first part of this project
concentrated on comprehensibility. The second part aims to analyze linguistic
features that represent ideological positions. The methodology used has combined systemic functional
analysis of the texts with ethnographic description and interpretation of
text-teacher-learner interaction. One of the analyses applied to the texts was
that of grammatical metaphor. Some of the difficulties which have arisen in the
course of the analysis are related to the application to Spanish of analysis
originally intended for English; others appear to belanguage-independent. The
paper will describe some of these problems: metaphorical nature of causal
verbs, process-describing nouns,
nominalizations based on Latin verbs where no verb exists in the modern
language, ‘chicken-and-egg’ cases; and invite comments and
suggestions.
Bernard
Nolan, Centre for Language and
Communication Research, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
Halliday, semantics, and the meaning of meaning
potential
What does Halliday’s
notion of meaning potential really mean? While there are a variety of candidate
interpretations to be considered (not least those provided by Halliday
himself), the claim of this short paper is that once considered, the meaning of
meaning in meaning potential is founded upon an indeterminate and largely
assumed theory of reference, akin to the nomenclature view of semantics that
Saussure, among others, showed to be untenable. From this (largely tacit)
theoretical allegiance it follows that the structure of language can be taken
to be the reflection of its communicative function - it is organised with respect
to the requirement to refer to things, to exchange information, to communicate.
The problem for this however is that communicative functions cannot be the
basis of linguistic organisation because communicative functions presuppose
language. That is, a semantics based on something we do with language
(communicating, referring) assumes that meaning can be modelled independently
of the mechanisms by which a language institutes and makes available what can
be referred to or communicated. Halliday’s view of meaning thus excludes
the significance of how a language allocates meaning to its units relationally,
i.e., from the meaning-systems in which they are embedded, and guarantees that
the potential for pre-existing units of meaning to support an open-ended number
of contextually-unique meaning-intentions remains a complete mystery (since no
semantic-theory of reference or denotation could ever explain it). The
suggestion here is that many of the key problems of modelling and describing
meaning in the SFL tradition stem from the liability of Halliday’s
initial assumption that the exchange of meanings rather than the categorisation
of experience is the primary function of language, and thus the key, both to
its structure and to its meaning potential.
David
Olatunde, Dept. of French, Ahmadu
Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria
Structure romanesque et vision sociale
dans Pluie et vent sur Telumée Miracle de
Simone Schwarzt-Bart
et La vie et demie de Sony Labou Tamsi
Comme indiqué dans le
titre, cette etude se divisera en deux parties. Nous avons affaire à
deux auteurs de la même génération. Les deux romans
reflètent une grande diversité du monde noir au carrefour de la
tradition et de la modernité représentée par
I’Occident avec ses contradictions, ses tensions, et ses formes nouvelles
de domination et d’ exploitation.
D’une
part au monde d’épouvante et d’angoisse que furent la traite
et l’esclavage correspond une faune spéciale où nous avons
un roman paysan don’t la femme, la dynastie féminine des lougandor
est le centre d’intérêt. La mise en question de certaines
structures de povdoir, héritées du passé et d’autres
instaurées par les temps nouveaux constitue, d’autre part, pour
l’essentiel la trame de La vie et demie dont Chaïdana est
I’héroine.
L’étude
s’intéresse à la création du mythe de la force et de
la permanence des deux femmes qui semblent se livrer à leurs
qualités exceptionnelles malgré I’ingratitude et
I’humiliation de leur condition.
La deuxième partie
sera une réflexion sur le refus du langage transparent de la prose
classique, ce qui est une attaque contre I’ordre social et moral mais
aussi qui est en même temps une ecriture à la recherche
d’une identité et d’un idiolecte qui lui est
nécessaire pour rendre I’émotion et pour inventer un ordre
nouveau.
Dans
ce sens nous essayerons de passer en revue nos observations des traits qui
singularisent les deux romans par rapport à la norme d’emploi du
francais à trois séries de remarques portant essentiellement sur
I’emploi des verbes, le langage métaphorique et le lexique
proprement dit.
Pan Yin, Foreign Language Dept., Guizhou Technological
University, Guiyang City, PR of China.
The teaching of argumentative writing to
undergraduates in China --
The
present study set out to discover the specific difficulties experienced by
the Chinese EFL learners in mastering the argumentative genre with a view
to helping them cope with those difficulties. It also aimed
at identifying the correlation of occurrence of the generic features
between the model texts used in teaching the subjects and those of the
subjects' sequentially written essays, thus showing how a genre-based
approach to teaching argumentative writing improved the students' writing abilities. A four-week
experiment comprising 20 instructional sessions was conducted in one class
of 28 undergraduates. In order to assess the progress made as well as
to record the processes that contributed to the progress, the subjects'
four essays written during the experiment were analyzed in terms of
the rhetorical patterns and generic structures employed. From these
analyses, positive results were observed. Most importantly, three factors
were found to contribute to helping the students to overcome
their difficulties in argumentative writing, which include:
a) the
cognitive development that empowers them to construct effective and
convincing arguments;
b) the writing skills that make for better organization and development in
terms of rhetorical patterns that conform to the appropriate
genre requirement;
c) and the language itself that enable them to express and refute ideas
appropriately and adequately.
The study
also showed that after several weeks of instruction and practice, students
began to show a strong tendency toward the native-like
deductive reasoning pattern which indicates that
appropriate instruction to equip Chinese university students with the
required rhetorical knowledge seems both necessary and beneficial to the
improvement of their writings in the genre type in question.
Pattama Patpong, Macquarie University, Australia
Serial verb constructions: a
systemic functional approach to Thai narrative discourse
Serial verb construction is a grammatical
phenomenon where a string of verbs is constructed in a single clause without
any intervening conjunctions or subordinators. Verbs are combined
logico-semantically through expansion and projection. This verb serialization
seems to be cross-linguistic phenomenon. It occurs in a wide range of languages
around the world e.g. Kwa languages in Africa such as Oko, Akan, some of the Austronesian
languages in Oceanic (e.g. Jabeßm, Sakao, Utithian
(Durie, 1988)), Sino-Tibetan (e.g. Chinese (Li and Thompson (1973)),
Austro-Asiatic (e.g. Vietnamese) Cambodian in Southeast Asian region and
Thai-Kadai (e.g. Thai, Lao).
This
paper aims to explore Thai serial verb constructions, based on narrative
discourse data and using Systemic Functional Linguistics as linguistic
framework. It orients toward meaning making resources and grammatical choices
underlying meaning potential. A notion of logical interdependency is a key
perspective defining Thai serial verb constructions.
The
study is based on a corpus consisting of fourteen folktales ¾ seven simple and seven complex; the criteria for
folktale type are based on those of Aarne-Thompson (1946). The logical
structure of verbal group complex made up the serial verb constructions is
discussed. A system network of Thai serial verb constructions is proposed. This
is followed by a detailed discussion of types of expansion in logical-serial
verb dependency structure ¾ elaborating, expanding, and enhancing.
References:
Durie,
Mark. 1988. “Verb serialization and ‘verbal-prepositions’ in
oceanic languages.” Oceanic Linguistics. 27, 1-2: 1-23.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1994. An
Introduction to Functional Grammar.
2nd ed. London: Edward Arnold.
Li, Charles N. and Sandra A.
Thompson.1973. “Serial verb constructions in Mandarin Chinese:
Subordination or coordination?” in Your take the high node and
I’ll take the low node.
Chicago Linguistics Society. 96-103.
Matthiessen, Christian, M.I.M. 1995. Lexicogrammatical
Cartography: English Systems. Tokyo:
International Language Sciences Publishers.
Thompson, Stith. 1946. The Folktale. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. (Reprinted 1977.
Berkeley: University of California Press.)
K.
Sundara Raj, Acharya Patashala
College, Bangalore, India
[Abstract not yet available.]
Yusuke
Takahashi, Ichiro Kobayashi, Toru Sugimoto, Noriko Ito and Michio Sugeno, Laboratory
for Language-Based Intelligent Systems, Japan
Text Generation with the Semiotic Base: a Systemic-Functional
Approach
We show the algorithm for
the text generation using the Semiotic Base suggested by Halliday, which stores
contextual and linguistic (semantic, lexicogrammatical and expressional)
resources. This algorithm generates Japanese texts through some steps including
“Global Plan” which describes metafunctional properties of a text
to be generated, “Local Plan” which specifies the text structure
corresponding to Global Plan and lexical selection with Situation Specific
Dictionary: the machine readable dictionary containing lexical items with
contextual and linguistic features. Based on the Semiotic Base, our algorithm
considers contextual as well as linguistic features. We show the overall
structure of the Semiotic Base and some examples of the generating process
using the algorithm explained above.
K. Rajamani, Department of English, Mepco Schlenk
Engineering College, Sivakasi - 626 005, Tamil Nadu, India
Systemic Functional Grammar: Conjunctive Cohesion
The
goal of learning a second language is to acquire general linguistics
competencies. In the Engineering colleges, students face campus interviews for
placement. The companies expect the students to communicate in writing. After
successful placement they have to carry out routine business transaction, give
& obtain factual information and establish & maintain business
contacts. Exposure to Language use, class room instruction and practice can
improve learner’s ability to write. In exams like GRE, TOEFL and IELTS writing skill is tested.
Grammar
accounts for what the speaker can do’ linguistically, that is to say,
what he ‘can mean’ and indeed how he can represent the meaning
thorough the lexico-grammar and the phonology. Language is a social activity
taking place in a situational context and that it fulfils a number of social
functions. The social and instrumental functions, which are concerned with
social and instrument interaction, are often grouped together as the
international function. The grammar thus has a functional input and a structural
output. Conjunctive cohesion serves to relate sentences to each other in
various types of logical relation. According to Halliday, there are four main
conjunctive adjuncts such as
additive, adversative, casual and temporal. Additive conjunction serves
to further the discourse topic. It differs from the paratactic relation of
coordination by introducing the new clause as an extra piece of information,
perhaps reinforcing what has already been said. Adversative conjunction is
explained as introducing an item of information which is ‘contrary to
expectation’. Casual conjunction marks to relationships of reason.
Temporal conjunction specifies the time sequence relationship which exists
between sentences. The four main headings have their own sub-classes. Conjunctive
cohesion plays a vital role in technical writing.
Christopher
Taylor, University of Trieste, Italy
Some lessons for the Subtitler: analysing
multimodal texts for screen translation purposes
Following previous SF
analyses of large amounts of film material, the author proposes to continue
examining this phenomenon in two distinct ways. Firstly the comparison of film
language with genuine spoken discourse extracted from spoken language corpora
will continue, adopting ever more sophisticated statistical techniques.
Secondly, the kind of ‘phrasal analysis’ devised by Gregory (2001)
will be applied to multimodal texts in order to gain a more cogent
understanding of how dynamic texts work, and how they can be best transposed
into another language/culture. All of this has a general purpose in adding to
the already existing material on multimodal text analysis and the specific goal
of harnessing greater understanding of such texts to the formulation of
successful translation strategies, particularly for subtitling.
Sharon
Thomas and Thao Le, Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania,
Australia
Cultural meaning in children's world of words
Children' semantic
development has been studied for decades. Eve Clark is among one of the
influential research pioneers on how children develop words and their meanings.
Most research tends to focus on the cognitive or referential meaning. However
the mystery of children's world of words has still attracted researchers,
particularly from an intercultural perspective. Bilingual children tend to
develop code mixing and code switching in their use of two languages. At the
University of Tasmania, research on children' semantic development started with
verbal explanation and definition strategies. Our recent focus is on aspects of
cultural meanings with their cultural metaphors in children's words. For example, what do words with social
meanings such as 'wife', 'teacher', 'neighbour' etc. mean to children of
different cultural backgrounds? This paper attempts to discuss this question
with examples from Australian and Vietnamese children.
Geoff
Thompson, School of English,
University of Liverpool, UK
Hearing voices: the recognition of Free Indirect
Discourse in narrative
The phenomenon of Free
Indirect Discourse (FID), an intermediate blend in projection between quoting
and reporting, has been exhaustively explored in text, particularly literary
texts. As Halliday (1994: 261fn) notes, “‘Free indirect
speech’ encompasses a range of different feature combinations; it is a projection
‘space’ rather than a single invariant pattern”. This means
that it is not always easy to pin down precisely where particular instances of
FID are located in the ‘space’. However, in many (though by no
means all) of the studies, the recognition of FID is taken as largely
unproblematic: examples are labelled as FID on the basis of often unspecified
intuition. Indeed, the general attitude towards the question of how FID can be
recognised is reflected in the claim by Leech et al. (1997: 100) that it “is more or less defined
by the absence of formal features to identify it”. In this paper, I
present counter-arguments in favour of the view that it is, in fact, possible
to draw up a list of features by which FID can be recognised, which can be
systematically related to functional considerations.
References:
Halliday, M. A. K. 1994. An Introduction to
Functional Grammar. London: Edward
Arnold.
Leech, G., McEnery, T. & Wynne, M. 1997.
“Further levels of annotation.” In R. Garside, G. Leech & T.
McEnery (eds) Corpus Annotation: Linguistic information from computer text
corpora. London: Longman.
Anne
Thwaite, Edith Cowan University,
Australia
Realisations of commands in teacher discourse in
classrooms where children have Conductive Hearing Loss
Conductive Hearing Loss is a
problem which occurs in many communities around the world, including India,
Nepal (Prasad, 1993), China (Deng & Wang, 1993), Thailand (Prasansuk et
al., 1993) and Australia, and which can affect children’s learning.
This
paper will discuss realisations of Commands in the discourse of teachers who
are aware that children in their class may have Conductive Hearing Loss. The
main analyses employed will be based on Speech Function, Mood and Reference.
Data
for this paper were collected as part of the Conductive Hearing Loss project
being conducted by Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia. This project was funded by an Australian Research
Council Strategic Partnerships with Industry [SPIRT] Grant and the industry
partners: Department of Education Western Australia, Catholic Education
Commission of Western Australia and Aboriginal Independent Community Schools,
Western Australia.
Deng Y. C. & Wang R. F. (1993) “Issues of
Otitis Media in the Beijing Area”. In W. A. Otitis Media Group (1993),
pp.117-121.
Prasad, R. (1993) “Otitis Media in Childhood: A National Health Problem in Nepal”. In W. A. Otitis Media Group (1993), pp.23-27.
Prasansuk, S., A. Na-nakorn & C. Siriyananda
(1993) “Otitis Media in Thailand”. In W. A. Otitis Media Group
(1993), p. 427.
Western Australian Otitis Media Group (1993) Conference
Proceedings. Otitis Media in Childhood: Issues, Consequences and Management. Perth, Australia: W.A. Otitis Media Group.
Mohammad
Mehdi Vahedi and Arezu Najafian, Dept. of Linguistics, Tarbiat Modares University,
Tehran, Iran
“Classes” in the “Unit”
Verb Phrase in Persian
In an influential, and the
first descriptive analysis of Persian language based on the theory of
“Scale and Category”, (Halliday, M. A. K. (1961: pp.241-292)),
Bateni (1969) has provided a detailed analysis of Persian syntax. He recognizes
four categories for “Grammar”, namely: unit, structure, class, and
system. He, then, divides the units of Persian into 5, namely: sentence,
clause, phrase, word, and morpheme. He, then, goes on dividing the unit
“phrase” into three classes, namely, noun phrase, verb phrase, and
adverbial phrase. My concern in this paper is the class of “verb
phrase” (VP) which occupies the “predicate Position” in the
higher structure, i.e. the unit of “clause”. The largest VP,
according to Bateni, may have at most six constituents (or classes), which come
in the fixed order below:
I- Na-bâyad bar-dâšte šode bâšad
1
2
3
4
5
6
(it)
not must on- taken become be.Subjunctive
It
must not have been taken.
Sentence (I) is a(n)
(apparent) passive sentence in Persian. In (I), the 1st constituent,
or class, stands for the closed class “negative element”, the 2nd
for the closed class “defective verb”, the 3rd for the
closed class “non-verbal element” of the prefixed, or compound,
verbs, the 4th for the
open class “lexical verb”, the 5th for the closed class
“passive verb”, and the 6th for the closed class
“aspect auxiliary”. However, we argue that even though
“classes” 3 and 4 count as separate “morphemes” in
Persian, they do not (necessarily) count as separate “classes”,
contrary to Bateni. Rather, 3-4 count as the same class, i.e. “lexical
verb” which may have from 1 to 5 constituents/morphemes, but all occupy
the same “class” position in Persian; since “class” is
a paradigmatic notion in Halliday’s theory, and may (also) be substituted
by a single/sole constituent in the paradigmatic axis in Persian. Persian is a
language with abundant complex predicates (CP); the CPs may constitute from one
to five independent constituents in syntax and all occupy the same
“class” position, i.e. “lexical verb”. The second claim
that we intend to substantiate in my article is to show that in an apparent passive
sentence like (I), above, the classes 3-4, and 5 count as a CP made up of the
“class” non-verbal element, i.e. 3-4, and the class “(light)
lexical verb”, 5. To be precise, we make the strong claim that there are
no passive structures in Persian, and that the constituent 5 in (I) belongs to
the main “lexical verb” class. As a result of this analysis 3-4
plus 5 in (I) count as a single “unit”, CP, made up of two
“classes”, the open class, “nonverbal element” and the
closed class “light verb element” in Persian.
Sita
Yiemkuntitavorn, Faculty of
Education, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia
Systemic Functional Grammar on Thai TRANSITIVITY
The study is based on the
theoretical framework of systemic functional theory developed by Halliday and
other systemicists. Though systemic functional theory has been widely used in
the West for linguistic analysis, it has not captured the attention of research
in Thai linguistics. Thus, this proposed study attempts to make this research
transition as its contribution to Thai linguistics. The focus is on the
description of the experiential grammar of the clause or the system of
TRANSITIVITY. In functional grammar, formal units in natural language display a
variety of simultaneous grammatical structures, which are fused together in the
process of realisation. These structures are the syntagmatic expressions of
paradigmatic choices which are themselves realisationally related to the
metafunctions of language. Both the paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects of the
experiential grammar of the Thai clause will be examined. This study consists
of three components: (a) reviewing the linguistic analysis of Thai from
different grammatical perspectives, (b) examining the reasons why Functional
Grammar provides deep linguistic insights into the understanding of Thai
linguistics, and (c) conducting a comprehensive analysis of Thai system of
transitivity.