Subliminal construal of world order clause by clause

Abstract

In this paper, I will present a text analysis showing the world order that is construed subliminally in a retelling for children, Noah's Ark, of the 'flood story' of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible (Genesis 6-9). I will focus on that aspect of world order that is concerned with who or what can act on whom or what - i.e. on the hierarchy of control that is part of the order of the world. The analysis is based on the system of transitivity of the experiential grammar of the clause; this system is the resource for construing quanta of change in our experience of the flow of events as a configuration of a process, participants directly involved in this process and less directly involved, attendant circumstances.