Clause Complex Research Articles

Exploring Clause Complexity: A Detailed Analysis Within a Specific Text

This study investigates the role of clause complexity in students' academic writing, focusing on the application of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) symbols to create persuasive and coherent discourse. Employing a qualitative single-case method, the analysis examines a specific text on the dangers of smoking produced by students. The findings showcase the students' effective use of varied clause types and relationships, as well as their ability to present a systematic and logical flow of ideas supported by factual evidence. The results emphasize the importance of mastering multiple elements, such as utilizing diverse clause types and maintaining a strategic narrative flow, for successful academic writing. These insights can serve as valuable information for educators and academic writers alike, offering a deeper understanding of the implications of clause complexity and its role in fostering effective communication in academic writing.

A CORPUS‐DRIVEN STUDY OF THE CORRELATION BETWEEN THE SYNTACTIC COMBINATION STRENGTH AND THE SEMANTIC CONTRIBUTION IN THE ENGLISH “V‐TO‐V” CONSTRUCTION

AbstractThis paper conducted a corpus‐driven study on the syntactic and semantic features of the first verb and the to‐infinitive in the “V‐to‐V” construction. It was found that the syntactic combination strength of the “V‐to‐V” construction and the semantic contribution of the first verb are in general negatively correlated. The “V‐to‐V” construction can, therefore, be classified into three types: (1) Hypotactic clause complex of expansion, where the two verbs in the “V‐to‐V” construction construe the two processes, with weak syntactic combination and high semantic contribution of the first verb; (2) Single verbal group, where the two verbs construe one process with the first verb being auxiliary, with strong syntactic combination and low semantic contribution of the first verb; (3) Hypotactic clause complex of projection, where the two verbs construe two processes, with flexible syntactic combination and high semantic contribution of the first verb. Such correlation can thus form a cline from hypotactic clause complex of expansion through hypotactic clause complex of projection to single verbal groups.

A CLAUSE COMPLEX ANALYSIS OF PROBLEM STATEMENT SECTIONS IN MPHIL THESES ACROSS THREE DISCIPLINES IN A GHANAIAN UNIVERSITY

Academic writing is considered persuasive (Hyland 2008) and as post-graduate-students negotiate their entry into the research community, they are expected to build a formidable argument to create a research space for themselves in their research problem statements. As such, how they build logical connections of ideas in their problem statements is key, varying from one discipline to the other. This study explores the Problem Statement sections of MPhil theses, using Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004/2014) notion of clause complexing in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Specifically, the study focused on the tactic and the logico-semantic relations of the Problem Statements sections of three disciplines: Mathematics, Nursing, and English Language in the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. The findings reveal that regarding the basic clause complex structure of the three disciplines, English Language uses a lot of clause complexes compared to the other disciplines. Also, all three disciplines use considerable hypotactic relations and hypotactic projection of locution instead of idea since in the problem statements, writers report what others have said and not their own thoughts. In terms of relations of expansion, there are variations in the three disciplines, with English language favoring elaboration whilst Mathematics favor extension and enhancement. The use of expansion relations for Nursing is closer to that of English language. It is suggested that clause complexing is not only determined by genre and mode but also conventions of academic discipline. The findings have implication for theory and disciplinarity in academic writing.

Logical Relations and Noun Phrase Complexity of EFL Students’ Academic Writing to Promote Literacy Development Cycle Teaching Model

Academic writing has become more important, especially for academicians who are required to publish articles in a reputable journal. However, meeting journals’ quality standards is not an easy task. Graduate students as prospective academicians need to improve their writing style to be competent academic writers because previous studies revealed that writing style covering clause simplex, clause complex, and complex noun phrase are problematic for them. This qualitative case study explored the logical relations of clause complexes and complex noun phrases of clause simplexes found in graduate students' unpublished academic writing. It employed genre analysis for examining 20 graduate students' unpublished research papers collected using purposive sampling technique. The findings revealed that the students mostly produced choppy texts. They utilized parataxis (47.3%) and hypotaxis (52.7%). Concerning logico-semantic relation, the expansion relation is dominant (76.8%). In terms of complex noun phrase, 20.7% occurrences were found in clause simplexes, in which attributive adjective pre-modifiers and prepositional phrase post modifiers were dominant. Furthermore, the interviews revealed that the students' writing problems derived from their lack of awareness and low literacy of academic writing characteristics. Based on the research findings, a teaching model of the literacy development cycle is recommended to enhance students’ skills in academic writing.

Kazakhstani Gansu Dungan as a Contact Language: An Analysis of Russian Influence

This paper discusses extensive language contact and its results in Kazakhstani Gansu Dungan, a divergent variety of Mandarin Chinese. Based primarily on recorded conversational source materials, this study offers a contact linguistic overview of the language, introducing both phonological and morphosyntactic contact phenomena. It is shown that Kazakhstani Gansu Dungan is currently under extensive Russian influence. The influence permeates all layers of the language and exceeds lexical borrowing mentioned in earlier Dungan studies. For instance, clause combining and complex clauses in Dungan have shifted to the direction of a Russian model, which makes the language stand out among other Sinitic varieties. This study demonstrates that, in addition to introducing new structures, extensive Russian influence on Dungan also reinforces earlier development that has led the language further away from the Sinitic prototype. In all, Kazakhstani Gansu Dungan forms its own kind of divergent Russianized Sinitic variety and thus offers a contribution to both researching language contact in the Russophone world and to understanding the typological diversity of Sinitic languages.

The intricate construction of projection in news reports

Abstract This paper looks at projection in the discourse of news reports in English and Spanish. The analysis reveals the extent to which projection pervades these texts, not only at clause complex level – the traditional object of study of projection – but also below the clause complex, at clause simple and at group level. The discussion of a number of examples from English and Spanish news reports serves to answer the three research questions guiding this research, which concern (a) the preferred types of projection in news reports, (b) the preferred realizations of the different types of projection in news reports, and (c) the main cross-linguistic similarities and contrasts of projection in news reports. The answers to these issues ultimately contribute to a broader understanding of the concept of projection.

Longitudinal Grammaticality Judgments of Tense Marking in Complex Questions in Children With and Without Specific Language Impairment, Ages 5-18 Years.

Identification of children with specific language impairment (SLI) can be difficult even though their language can lag that of age peers throughout childhood. A clinical grammar marker featuring tense marking in simple clauses is valid and reliable for young children but is limited by ceiling effects around the age of 8 years. This study evaluated a new, more grammatically challenging complex sentence task in children affected or unaffected with SLI in longitudinal data, ages 5-18 years. Four hundred eighty-three children (213 unaffected, 270 affected) between 5 and 18 years of age participated, following a rolling recruitment longitudinal design encompassing a total of 4,148 observations. The new experimental grammaticality judgment task followed linguistic concepts of syntactic sites for finiteness and movement within complex clauses. Growth modeling methods evaluated group differences over time for four different outcomes; three were hypothesized to evaluate optional omissions of overt finiteness forms in authorized sentence sites, and one evaluated an overt error of tense marking. As in earlier studies of younger children, growth models for the SLI group were consistently lower than the unaffected group, although the growth trajectories across groups did not differ. The results replicated across four item types defined by omissions with minor differences for an item with an overt error of tense marking. Covariates of child nonverbal IQ, mother's education, and child sex did not significantly moderate these effects. The outcomes support the task as having potential screening value for identification of children with SLI and are consistent with linguistic interpretations of task demands.

Exploration of Logical Meta-functions in ICLE: An Analysis of Pakistani Argumentative Essays

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) studies how a language functions in a social context, concerning the meaning of clauses at three different levels: interpersonal, ideational, and textual. The aim of this corpus-based research is to find out the logical structures of clauses in Pakistani academic writings by evaluating two main elements of clause complexity: taxis and logico-semantics relations. For this purpose, Halliday & Matthiessen’s (2014) system of clause complexing was employed as an analytical framework. A sample size of 100 argumentative essays was taken from the ICLE corpus, which was written by Pakistani students. This corpus was annotated by using the UAM corpus tool manually. Furthermore, the comparative distributions of different types of clause complexes were studied and evaluated accordingly. It helped to identify and understand lexico-grammatical variations at the clause level in non-native Pakistani academic writings. The findings showed that Pakistani students composed hypotactic and paratactic with almost the same ratio in their writing with a minor deviation. They also tend to build different types of logico-semantic relations of clauses during the argumentation; however, the occurrences of expansion were high in contrast to projection. The null hypothesis was tested by deploying the Wilcoxon signed rank test. It revealed no significant difference between paratactic and hypotactic approaches. However, their various logico-semantic relations displayed significant differences (p<0.05).

Syntactic complexity of spoken language in the diagnosis of schizophrenia: A probabilistic Bayes network model.

In the clinical linguistics of schizophrenia, syntactic complexity has received much attention. In this study, we address whether syntactic complexity deteriorates within the six months following the first episode of psychosis in those who develop a diagnosis of schizophrenia. We collected data from a cohort of twenty-six first-episode psychosis and 12 healthy control subjects using the Thought and Language Index interview in response to three pictures from the Thematic Apperception Test at first assessment and after six months (the time of consensus diagnosis). An automated labeling (part-of-speech tagging) for specific syntactic elements calculated large and granular syntactic complexity indices with a focus on clause complexity as a particular case from this spoken language data. Probabilistic reasoning leveraging the conditional independence properties of Bayes networks revealed that consensus diagnosis of schizophrenia predicted a decrease in nominal subjects per clause among individuals with first episode psychosis. From the entire sample, we estimate a 95.4% probability that a 50% decrease in mean nominal subjects per clause after six months is explained by the presence of first episode psychosis. Among those with psychosis, a 30% decrease in this clause-complexity index after six months of experiencing the first episode predicted with 95% probability a consensus diagnosis of schizophrenia, representing a conditional relationship between a longitudinal decrease in syntactic complexity and a diagnosis of schizophrenia. We conclude that an early drift towards linguistic disorganization/impoverishment of clause complexity-at the granular level of nominal subject per clause-is a distinctive feature of schizophrenia that decreases longitudinally, thus differentiating schizophrenia from other psychotic illnesses with shared phenomenology.

Logico-Semantic Relation of Clause Complexes in Figurative Languages in The Devil Wears Prada Film

The research aimed to determine types of logico-semantic relation of clause complexes in figurative languages and how The Devil Wears Prada film's logic-semantic realization. This study's data consisted of logico-semantic relation of complex clauses observed in the figurative languages in its film. This study took a qualitative method. There were 30 clause complexes in figurative languages as the sample. According to the analysis, the researcher found that logico-semantic relation types of clause complexes in the figurative languages were expansion and projection. There were 30 logico-semantic relations or 100% of the entire number of logico-semantic relations, with 28 items or 94% of expansion and 2 items or 6% of projection. In the case of expansion, it involved elaboration, extension, and enhancement, whereas projection comprised the projection. The locution projection is not employed at all. The expansion (elaboration) becomes the dominating sort of logico-semantic relation employed in the text, occurring 13 times (46%). Then, expansion (extension) happens 10 times or 34%, while expansion (enhancement) occurs 3 times or 10%. Furthermore, the projection (idea) appears twice, for a total of 7%. The last logico-semantic relation is projection (locution), which has no proportion (0 times or 0.00%).

Identifying Taxis and Logico-Semantic Relations in Chinese EFL Writing Samples

In the context of EFL writing in China, there is a prevalent tendency among students to heavily rely on the provided model essays from teachers, leading to a phenomenon known as sameness. This overreliance often results in confusion when it comes to expressing ideas effectively in sentences. To address this issue, this paper adopts an analytical framework based on the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL is a linguistic theory that emphasizes language’s social context and meaning (Halliday, 1985; 1994). Notably, SFL prioritizes meaning over form and examines the organization of texts as well as individual sentences. The theory has been widely applied in discourse analysis and language teaching. This paper offers a brief literature review on key SFL terms, such as language rank, clause, clause complex, taxis, and logico-semantic relation. Additionally, the paper presents examples of identifying taxis and logico-semantic relations using two types of EFL writing samples from SFL perspective. The analysis reveals that the first text, a comparison and contrast essay, predominantly employs the relation of extension, whereas the second text, an argumentative piece, prominently exhibits the logico-semantic relation of enhancement. The paper provides insight into the use of SFL as an analytical tool for analyzing variable text types. Students learning from these analytical tools may have more grammatical awareness in identifying clause boundaries and logico-semantic relations across different writing genres.

Logico-Semantic Relation in The World Health Organization’s Covid-19 Myth-Busters

In delivering the contents of the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 Myth-busters, the creator realized clause complexes besides clause simplexes. This research focuses on analyzing logico-semantic relation of clause complex. Thus, it can reveal the creator’s intention in realizing the clause complexes when conveying the myth-busters to the people of the world. This research utilizes a qualitative-descriptive research method. There are 48 expansion relationships in the myth-busters. They include one elaboration relationship, 22 extension relationships, and 25 enhancement relationships. Enhancement is the most-realized clause relationship in the myth-busters. This means that the creator intended to convey complementary ideas in the clause complexes by referencing time, condition, reason, purpose, and cause related to managing misinformation about Covid-19.

Language of Vietnamese School Science Textbooks

This paper explores textual meanings realised in the theme resources of a Vietnamese lower secondary school science textbook – Sinh h?c 8 (Biology 8). The theoretical framework employed for analysis is Systemic Functional Linguistics. The data for analysis is ten texts selected randomly from the textbook. The units of analysis are major independent clause simplexes and hypotactic clause complexes which have a subordinate clause in initial position. The research has brought to light a number of significant findings of which eight stand out. First, all five types of general Themes: simple Theme, multiple Theme, clausal Theme, unmarked Theme, and marked Theme are employed in the texts. Second, of the four mood function Themes: Subject Theme, Predicator Theme, Complement Theme, and Adjunct Theme, Subject Theme takes up the largest proportion. Third, of the three mood function simple Themes: simple Subject Theme, simple Predicator Theme and simple Adjunct Theme, simple Subject Theme has the highest number. Fourth, between textual + topical Theme and interpersonal + topical Theme, textual + topical Theme predominates. Fifth, of the three mood type simple Subject Theme: simple Subject Theme in declarative clause, simple Subject Theme in imperative clause and simple Subject Theme in interrogative clause, simple Subject Theme in declarative clause accounts for the highest number. Sixth, between simple Predicator Theme and multiple Predicator Theme, simple Predicator Theme has a much higher proportion. Seventh, of the nine types of simple Adjunct Theme examined, six are found in the texts, among which spatial location Adjunct Theme takes the highest number. And Eighth, Complement Theme, multiple Adjunct Theme, textual + interpersonal + topical Theme, interpersonal + topical/Subject Theme, matter Adjunct Theme, role Adjunct Theme, and stance Adjunct Theme are not found in the texts. It is concluded that Vietnamese textbook writers have employed quite a variety of theme resources to construct textual meanings and to create coherence and continuity of their texts.

Projections in Indenesian Newspapers' Headlines

People cannot attain a communicative goal unless their words address specific cultural or contextual challenges. Thus, language is viewed as a social tool to assist humans in conveying meaning; but, this meaning cannot be obtained if words are conveyed in isolation. As a result, we require contexts or settings in which more phrases and words can be placed in order for listeners or readers to comprehend the meaning behind utterances and words. By applying Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics Theory, this study aims to observe one of three types of meanings, it was ideational meanings. It focuses on language which is used by people in both types of local and regional newspapers to convey information or messages about the experiences of the speakers. Each speaker used different clauses which contained dependent and independent clauses that we call clause complex. To analyze the aspect of projection; Hypotactic Locution, Paratactic Locution, Hypotactic Idea, Paratactic Idea, and Quasi-Projection which were used or appeared in Indonesian newspapers’ story texts. The significance of the study is to improve students’ linguistic knowledge and their writing skill by mastering text structures.

Development of Clause Complexity in Children with Specific Language Impairment/Language Development Disorder: A Longitudinal Study.

This paper addresses the grammatical challenges associated with the development of clause complexity, focusing on the performance of a group of monolingual Spanish-speaking schoolchildren with Specific Language Impairment/Developmental Language Disorder (SLI/DLD) in a longitudinal corpus of oral narrative samples. The study examines the presence of interclause relations of subordination and equivalence (hypotaxis and parataxis) in language samples of two groups: an experimental group made up of 24 schoolchildren with SLI/DLD and a control group made up of 24 schoolchildren with typical development (TD). The results show that while both groups use parataxis as the most common relation between clauses in all school grades, there is a significant decrease in paratactic relations and a significant increase in hypotactic relations from first to fourth grade of primary education. Although the development patterns are highly similar, the SLI/DLD group shows greater difficulties in mastering more complex (hypotactic) relations in fourth grade compared to the control group, indicating that it is less sophisticated in the use of these types of complex relations. These findings suggest that focused support on the most complex structures is needed towards the fourth grade of primary education, given the demands of the school academic register from 6 and 7 years of age and the potential problems that the development of clause complexity can cause in school-age children.

A THEME ANALYSIS OF PARATACTIC AND HYPOTACTIC CLAUSE COMPLEXES ON LUKE CHAPTER 17 OF THE ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION BIBLE IN THE ESV.org

This study aimed to analyze the textual function of the theme types in Luke Chapter 17 of the English Standard Version bible texts on the ESV.org website. The data of this study were English Standard Version (ESV) clauses consisting of 56 clauses from 5 subtopics of Luke Chapter 17, which were analyzed using the qualitative descriptive method because it explains the textual function of biblical texts. The data source for this research is the text of the 2016 edition of the English Standard Version (ESV) Bible on the online Bible site ESV.org. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 17, consists of five subtitles: (1) Temptation to Sin, (2) Increase Our Faith, (3) Unworthy Servants, (4) Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers, and (5) The Coming of the Kingdom. The theory used in this study is Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics. The technical model approach for data analysis in this study is Eggins (2004) regarding (1) four types of themes; (2) theme analysis in declarative sentences; (3) theme analysis in declarative ellipses; (4) theme analysis in the WH interrogative; (5) analysis of themes in imperatives; (6) the theme in the paratactic clause complex; (7) the theme in the hypotactic clause complex; and (8) three types of additions. The results of this study are: 1) four types of themes, namely: (1) topical themes with as many as 46 items (62%), (2) interpersonal themes with as many as 6 items (8%), (3) textual themes. with 19 items (26%) and (4) dual themes with 3 items (4%); 2) topical themes (62%) are the dominant types of themes.

CLIL students’ production of cognitive discourse functions: comparing Finnish and Spanish contexts

This article presents findings from an empirical study in which we investigated Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) students’ linguistic resources in the L2 (English) to convey different Cognitive Discourse Functions (Dalton-Puffer 2013; 2016)—Describe, Compare (Categorize), Report, Evaluate and Explore—in two different contexts. The participants were primary school students (grade 6) participating in CLIL programs in Finland and Spain. To allow comparison, two sets of data were obtained by asking the students to write in response to a similar prompt in the area of social science (History in the Spanish context and Geography in the Finnish context). We compared the frequency of the Cognitive Discourse Functions (CDFs) produced, and the fluency and complexity of students’ realizations of CDFs, using tools of Systemic Functional Linguistics. The results reveal similarities across contexts in the frequency and extension of some of the CDFs produced, and differences in terms of CDF complexity, measured in students’ use of clause complexes, Appraisal resources and complex nominal groups to express different CDFs.

A Feature Analysis of Clause Complex in Scientific News from China Daily: A Case Study of Clean Energy News Reports

This paper selected three clean energy news reports from China Daily to analyze the logico-semantic relations and function of the clause complex in the discourse based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar. The study aims to explore the characteristics of logico-semantic relations in the scientific news report, so as to have a deeper understanding of the sentence structure in the text. According to the five categories of logico-semantic relations, the study found that there are 64 clause complexes, with 22 locution projection, 13 enhancement relation, 12 elaboration relation, 9 idea projection and 8 extension relation. Projection clause type is generally used to evaluate the progress and effect of energy development projects; extension clause type usually emphasizes the impact of energy development or energy projects; enhancement clause type indicates when, where and why the energy transition and energy development projects are taking place and elaboration clause type is used to provide additional instruction of the project. In addition, this study also provides a reference for English learners and news write.rs

Reliability of a Linguistic Segmentation Procedure Specified by Systemic Functional Linguistics to Examine Extemporaneous Speech.

Extemporaneous speech tasks provide an ecologically valid sample to examine speech acoustics, but differing methodologies exist in the literature for segmentation. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the utility and reliability of a segmentation approach for extemporaneous speech specified by systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and its potential research and clinical applications. Ten speakers without communication disorders served as participants in this study, and they responded to self-selected extemporaneous speaking prompts. Two expert analysts and one clinician analyst utilized a segmentation procedure specified by SFL to segment the extemporaneous speech samples into clauses and clause complexes. Intra- and interrater reliability were calculated for each analyst and pair of analysts. Acoustic measures of duration, speech rate, and intercomplex pause durations were calculated for each clause complex. Analyses for both intra- and interrater reliability revealed high percent agreement that was significantly greater than chance for expert and clinician analysts and between each pair of analysts (p < .001). Acoustic analyses revealed expected variation in number and duration of spoken syllables of clause complexes between and within speakers. The segmentation approach for extemporaneous speech specified by SFL is a reliable method for trained analysts that is informed by lexico-grammar and allows for acoustic measurement of speech production. It is also a reliable method for clinician analysts for speakers without communication disorders, and future work will investigate its utility for speakers with motor speech disorders. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.22357138.

Deconstructing Political Ideologies of Benazir Bhutto: A Transitivity Analysis of ‘Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West’

Lexical items employed in a talk or text are not impartial. They own potential meanings and ideologies. The present study is an endeavor to deconstruct political ideologies of Benazir Bhutto in her posthumous write up Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West from the perspective of SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics). In her book, she strives to authenticate her thesis that democracy and Islam are mutually inclusive. The objective of the research is to locate the frequency indices of the processes, participants and circumstances and how among various existing political ideologies Benazir Bhutto incorporates her own political ideologies. In order to achieve the aimed targets, transitivity, a framework of SFL has been inducted to conduct the transitivity analysis of the selected text extracts. Transitivity analysis of the text discovered 128 complex clauses and 278 simplex clauses. Moreover, maximum types of processes, participants and circumstances have been used in the text. Employment of maximum transitivity elements signifies author’s encyclopedic range concerning the ideological conflict between Islam and the West. Among processes, material processes out number all other processes which indicates she is an action lady and believes in concrete action. The experiential analysis in the study also found that besides playing the role of a pacifist to reconcile democratic ideals and Islamic ideals to fill the widening lacuna between the Orients (particularly Islam) and the Occidents, Benazir Bhutto projects her own political ideologies; secularism, socialism and liberal feminism.