Functional Linguistic Analysis Research Articles

Analyzing the Language of an Adapted Primary Literature Article

Learning the unique linguistic forms and structures that construct and communicate scientific principles, knowledge, and beliefs is important for developing students’ disciplinary literacy. The use of scientific language is apparent in the texts that scientists produce to communicate their findings to other scientists—the research articles. Texts are underused in the science classroom and the texts that students do read often do not reflect the core attributes of authentic scientific reasoning. Adapted primary literature (APL) refers to an educational genre that enables the use of scientific articles in high school. In the adaptation process, the language of the article is changed to make it more accessible for high school students. Here, we present a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) analysis of an APL article compared to the original research article and to a popular article. The three texts were systematically scanned and compared for specific lexicogrammatical items that characterize five linguistic features of scientific writing: informational density, abstraction, technicality, authoritativeness, and hedging. We found that the adaptation process lowered the lexical complexity, while retaining the authenticity of the scientific writing. APL articles, as suggested by the linguistic analysis presented here, may serve as models of scientific reasoning and communication and may promote students’ language awareness and disciplinary literacy. We suggest using APL articles as an apprenticeship genre, for learning about the unique features of authentic scientific texts, and the reasoning that is reflected in the way the articles are written.

Reading, writing and co-authorship in blogs

The blog is a co-constructed online space that rivals the website as a publication platform. While adults, teens and children author blogs, little is known about the younger participants’ practices. Further, despite the blog’s interactive nature, the impact of collaborative affordances on meaning is yet to be fully articulated. This paper reveals how blog authors employ the technical affordances of blogs to position readers as meaning co-constructors. Child blog authors and their readers achieve three types of co-authorship by using tags and comments, as revealed by a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) analysis. Analysis shows that blog co-authorship blurs the line between ‘author’ and ‘reader’, unsettling traditional notions of writing and reading. Curriculum and policy definitions of literacy that separate reading and writing are placed under pressure by the co-constructive nature of web-mediated texts of power such as blogs, suggesting that collaborative text realisation may need to be accounted for in future curriculum design.

APPLYING CORRECTION GAME IN TEACHING NOMINALIZATION TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ WRITING OF DISCUSSION TEXT

Related to curriculum 2013 which is currently applied in Indonesia, students are required to learn genres and later write the text independently. One of the genre types learned at higher level of students, grade XII is argumentative discussion. However, they often face difficulties in delivering and elaborating their opinions and reasons in writing discussion text since they do not know exactly how to do so. Using qualitative design and Systemic Functional Linguistics analysis, this study attempts to find out the analysis result of the discussion text written by expert in which becomes the basic reference to identify the main problem found in the students’ texts which later help to discover pedagogical implication to improve their writings. The results show that the expert’s text is considered as an ideal model of discussion text. Besides, there are two problems appeared in the students’ texts in term of the situational contexts such as lack of nominalization and the absence of passive sentence. The former becomes the major problem since it is assumed to affect the appearance of the latter. The implementation of Correction Game which is integrated in the genre based approach teaching reveals as pedagogical implication.

PRAGMATIC COMMENT RELATIONS IN THE SYSTEM OF ENGLISH DISCOURSE FUNCTIONAL LINKS

The article considers the issue of adjacent utterances functional interaction through which discourse sense space is formed. In particular, the input of the pragmatic comment relation in this process is analysed. The topicality of the stated problem arises out of the necessity to reveal the participation of linguistic means in building up constructive and promising, or, conversely, destructive and hopeless for society, role of verbal communication. Methods of the functional linguistic analysis make an optimal research basis to this end. Examples of English discourse from books by American and British writers of the XX–XXI centuries are taken as the empirical material which models typical communicative situations. Proceeding from works by T.A. van Dijk, functional relations are defined as pragmasemantic links between utterances in a speech chain in the process of communication between the sender and the recipient of the message.The author looks into the specificity of the pragmatic comment relation in comparison with other functional links of discourse, the range of the pragmasemantic meanings under discussion, different variants of contamination of pragmatic comment functional components with relations of other types. The pragmatic comment relation is special due to the fact that, unlike other links, it does not advance the narration propositionally; it only discloses the speaker’s personal impression and modality of his/her perception of the situation. It is this emotional sensation that makes the purport of superphrasal unities which actualize the given functional relation. The growing frequency of such emotive linguistic means is also noted in business communication, which usually shows the communicativepartners’ strife for solving their professional tasks by exerting the desired rhetorical impact on each other.Finally, the author concludes that pragmatic comment as a special type of pragmasemantic links in English discourse reveals a variety of the meanings expressed, stylistic effectiveness and wide occurrence in fiction and actual speech.

Translated science textbooks in dual language programs: A comparative English-Spanish functional linguistic analysis

ABSTRACTA comparative lexicogrammatical and logicosemantic systemic functional analysis of two third-grade science curricular units on the topic of “matter” written in Spanish is presented. One of these curricular units, translated from an English textbook, or “mirror text,” is used in dual language programs (Spanish-English) in the United States; the other is used in regular elementary science for monolingual Spanish students in some Latin American countries, including Colombia and Venezuela. After a discussion on how standards-aligned textbooks contribute to the deskilling and further disenfranchising of teachers that corresponds to a neoliberal agenda for education, the cross-linguistic analysis reveals that while the mirror text reflected a knower-code structure preoccupied with the here and now and with building interpersonal affiliations, the authentic Spanish text was concerned with building knowledge codes related to global themes seeking to build disciplinary science knowledge. That is, by foregrounding English structure and curricular pacing, the use of translated or mirror texts in dual language programs (in this case translated Spanish versions of English regular textbooks) unintentionally but effectively served as a lexicogrammatical, semantic, and curricular straightjacket not only preventing students and teachers from making potential key meaningful connections between languages but calling into question the possibility of a real language separation.

A Hispanic mother’s beliefs about stuttering aetiology: A systemic functional linguistic analysis

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to identify the linguistic resources a Hispanic mother used to convey her beliefs about the aetiology of her adult son’s stuttering. A qualitative research paradigm was adopted for data collection and analysis. An Ecuadorian mother and her adult son who stutters recorded a conversation in Spanish about the son’s stuttering. Tools derived from systemic functional linguistic (SFL) theory were used to analyse conversation transcripts and to describe the word choices and sentence structures the mother used to talk about her son’s stuttering. The mother deflected community-assigned blame for causing her son’s stuttering by configuring her ‘strong’ temperament as a separate, uncontrollable entity. She structured the pervasiveness of stigma, lack of resources and misinformation within the community as causes for her inability to identify and seek help for her son’s stuttering, which also served as a means for deflecting blame. SFL-based analyses were appropriate tools for the investigation of how a Hispanic mother construes her views, attitudes and experiences relative to her son’s stuttering. Clinical implications of findings regarding parent education and the utility of SFL-based tools in the speech–language therapy setting are discussed.

PENGGUNAAN ADJEKTIVA EVALUATIF SEBAGAI CERMINAN SIKAP TOKOH DALAM KARYA SASTRA REMAJA PRADA AND PREJUDICE KARYA MANDY HUBBARD

Abstract. Studies on young adult literature has been flourised since late 20th century and early 21st century and have been interested in identifying defining characteristics of those literary works aimed for young or teen readers. Those studies have focused on the themes, conflicts and characters reflecting the interests of young readers in their search for self identity, adventures, dreams and life problems (Brown and Stephens, 1995; Tri Pramesti, 2016). Other studies examines the language features in young adult literature (Bushman and Haas, 2002; Tri Pramesti, 2015) and language style (Dwi Noverini Djenar, 2008). This article reports a study on the use of evaluative adjectives, a specific language aspect in young adult literature that seems to be employed by the author to express characters’ evaluation toward self and others. The study is conducted within the theoretical framework of systemic functional linguistics analysis of appraisal, particularly the aspects of affect whose realisations involves the use of evaluative adjectives expressing the senses of happiness, security and satisfaction (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014; Martin and White, 2005). The data were 388 lexical items collected from Mandy Hubbard’s Prada and Prejudice, focusing on the main character’s evaluation of herself and other characters in the novel. The result of the study shows that Prada and Prejudice employs a variety of evaluative adjectives expressing the main character’s evaluation that are related to the sense of happiness, security and satisfaction. This study contributes to better understanding some aspects of language style in literature aiming at young readerships.
 
 Keywords: young adult literature, evaluative adjectives, Prada and Prejudice

Translating Textual Theme in Maba Belo Selambar Dialogue of Karonese Society into English

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News comments on facebook – a systemic functional linguistic analysis of moves and appraisal language in reader-reader interaction

ABSTRACT Many news publishers have integrated their news on Facebook to attract wider readership. On this popular social networking site, online news readers can contribute their comments to the news post and interact with their fellow readers. This form of user-generated contents has attracted increasing scholarship and raised concerns over the salient conflict and incivility in its language, the low quality of polarized argumentation, and the complex interaction among news commenters. To contribute to the current lack of in-depth qualitative description of such reader-reader interaction, the current study explores the types of communicative moves performed by Facebook users in their news comments, the patterning of those moves, and the attitudinal language used to realize such moves. Based on the two Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) frameworks of speech functions and appraisal for a close analysis of the moves and attitudinal lexis in Facebook news readers’ comments to one news article, the research has shown that exchanges of Facebook news comments developed in different directions with varying levels and complex patterns of support and confrontation between interactants as well as different appraisal language use. Besides substantiating the existing description of online news readers’ interaction, the paper argues that the SFL frameworks of conversation analysis are helpful for understanding CMC but more updated descriptions and a more visual approach to presentation of findings are needed to make the frameworks more relevant for online interactive discourses.

A Systemic Functional Grammar of French: A Simple Introduction by David Banks

Reviewed by: A Systemic Functional Grammar of French: A Simple Introduction by David Banks Lindsy L. Myers Banks, David. A Systemic Functional Grammar of French: A Simple Introduction. Routledge, 2017. ISBN 978-0-415-78514-3. Pp. vi + 110. Whereas some monographs in linguistics require a strong cup of coffee, scheduled breaks and multiple rereadings for successful navigation, this book represents a clear exception. Of particular interest to linguists unfamiliar with functional approaches or literary scholars seeking a concrete approach to analyzing text, this short introductory text presents M.A.K. Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) as applied to French. It begins (ch. 1) with a straightforward contextualization of SFG within the linguistic landscape. Functional linguistics, as contrasted with formal linguistics and cognitive linguistics, is interested in language use. The heart of the book describes the lexicogrammatical functions to encode meaning (ch. 2) and the metafunctions, or types of meaning, central to the framework: ideational (ch. 3), interpersonal (ch. 4), and textual (ch. 5). The remaining chapters succinctly address the role of context (ch. 6), the use and effect of grammatical metaphor (ch. 7), which contrasts with traditional metaphor, and a description of an extension of the interpersonal function, known as Appraisal Theory (ch. 8). The readability and accessibility of these content chapters are enhanced by the consistent layout of examples and analysis followed by practical bullet-point summaries at the conclusion of chapters 2 through 8. Throughout the book, examples from twenty-first-century, authentic, written texts including magazines such as Elle and Femme Actuelle, newspapers including Le Monde and Le Télégramme, but also tourist leaflets and academic prose, are followed by detailed demonstrations of the application of the analytical approach. The 111 examples range from clear-cut to potentially problematic for analysis and serve to nicely illustrate both differences between French and English and how a theory originally elaborated in and about English applies more universally. Furthermore, they offer a template that could be readily applied to other texts and genres. The brief conclusion (ch. 9) serves as a segue to further study, application, and the carefully constructed back matter, which begins with annotated suggestions for further reading. Another notably useful resource, even to those who do not read the book in its entirety, is the extensive English-French glossary of linguistic jargon relevant to (functional) linguistic analysis. In short, [End Page 200] this book is an exemplar of distilling a complex theoretical approach to language and supporting further exploration. Lindsy L. Myers University of Missouri, Kansas City Copyright © 2018 American Association of Teachers of French

A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis of Cohesion and Coherence in Written Nursing Care Reports

This study analyses 25 nursing care reports written by nursing students majoring in the International Class of Nursing Diploma at a higher education institution in Indonesia. The main research focus is to assess the cohesion and coherence of nursing care reports in relation to their grades. The Systemic Functional Linguistics framework, with a focus on the textual metafunction, serves as a tool for analyzing cohesion, Thematic structures and Thematic development of the texts. The analysis of text cohesion revealed that all texts predominantly used lexical cohesion and reference to build internal ties within the texts. Reiteration of the same lexical items throughout the texts and heavy use of personal pronouns indicated the exploitation of these systems. In terms of coherence via Thematic structure, it was found that textual Themes were predominantly used. All the texts relied heavily on unmarked Themes, with no evidence indicating a proportional use of marked and unmarked Themes. In terms of Thematic development, Theme reiteration was the main method of text development for all texts. However, a few instances of Zig-zag Thematic development were found in texts in the higher graded categories. None of the texts used multiple Rheme patterns as an alternative method of text development.

Discourses of functional bilingualism in the Sami curriculum in Sweden

ABSTRACTSami are Indigenous languages spoken by the Sami people in the northern parts of Scandinavia and Russia. All Sami languages are endangered because of historically aggressive assimilation policies. Currently Sami communities are working actively with language revitalisation processes. This article examines pupils’ access to knowledge in and about Sami languages and functional bilingualism in Sami and Swedish within the curriculum for the Sami schools in Sweden. Through a multifaceted lens of functional linguistic analysis, Bloom’s revised taxonomy of knowledge types and processes, and Bernstein’s concepts of vertical and horizontal discourse we examine the learning outcomes in the Sami and Swedish syllabi. The findings show an unequal balance between the two languages with the Sami syllabus containing fewer knowledge types, cognitive processes, verb processes, a stronger focus on oracy, and a stronger horizontal discourse than the Swedish syllabus. We conclude that the discourses about functional bilingualism that underpin these policy documents is contradictory and does not support Sami to be a fully functional language for all domains of society.

What’s in a Name? A Critical Literacy and Functional Linguistic Analysis of Immigrant Acculturation in Contemporary Picture Books

ABSTRACTThis article investigates how immigrant children’s acculturation experiences are characterized through the symbolic literary feature of name in children’s literature and how the language of the text functions to communicate these messages. We draw on the theoretical frameworks of Critical Literacy (CL) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to inform our analysis, showcasing how the connection and interrelation of these theories maximizes the potential for meaning-making. Texts were examined to reveal dominant themes around acculturation communicated through the use of protagonists’ names and trends in the language used to construct young readers’ understandings. Findings indicate that the construct of a name is a key theme in the literature used to forge a cultural identity for immigrant children, generate cultural conflict, and stimulate others’ judgment.

Nominal Group as Qualifier to ‘Someone’

The paper titled Nominal Group as Qualifier to ‘Someone’ investigated types of qualifiers which are embedded to the head ‘someone’ in a nominal group. This research was conducted in the light of Systemic Functional Linguistics analysis. The data was analyzed, classified then described using descriptive qualitative method. This research produced four classifications of nominal group as qualifier, which were clauses, prepositional phrases, nominal groups, and linked independent element. The clause as qualifier is sub-classified into finite and non-finite clauses. Further sub-classification is conducted over finite clause into Full Relative Clause (FRC), Relative Clause with Preposition (RCP), and Contact Clause (CC). Further sub-classification over non-finite clause resulted in Operative Imperfective Non Finite Clause (OINFC), Receptive Imperfective Non Finite Clause (RINFC), and Operative Perfective Non Finite Clause (OPNFC). This research also found qualifiers which consisted of two or more linked non-embedding elements.

Statistical and Qualitative Analyses of Students� Answers to a Constructed Response Test of Science Inquiry Knowledge

Objective: We report on a comparative study of the language used by middle school students in their answers to a constructed response test of science inquiry knowledge. Background: Text analyses using statistical models have been conducted across a number of disciplines to identify topics in a journal, to extract topics in Twitter messages, and to investigate political preferences. In education, relatively few studies have analyzed the text of students’ written answers to investigate topics underlying the answers. Methodology: Two types of linguistic analysis were compared to investigate their utility in understanding students’ learning of scientific investigation practices. A statistical method, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), was used to extract topics from the texts of student responses. In the LDA model, topics are viewed as multinomial distributions over the vocabulary of documents. These topics were examined for content and used to characterize student responses on the constructed response items. The change from pre-test to post-test in proportions of use of each of the topics was related to students’ learning. Next, a qualitative method, systemic functional linguistic (SFL) analysis, was used to analyze the text of student responses on the same test of science inquiry knowledge. Student assessments were analyzed for two linguistic features that are important for convincing scientific communication: technical vocabulary usage and high lexical density. In this way, we investigated whether human judgement regarding the changes observed from texts based on the SFL framework agreed with the inference regarding the changes observed from the texts through LDA. Research questions: Two research questions were investigated in this study: (1) What do the LDA and SFL analyses tell us about students’ answers? (2) What are the similarities and differences of the two analyses? Data: The data for this study were taken from an NSF-funded host study on teaching science inquiry skills to middle school students who were a mix of both native English speakers and English-language learners. The primary objective was to enable participants to learn to take ownership of scientific language through the use of language-rich science investigation practices. The LDA analysis used a sample of 252 students’ pre-and post-assessments. The SFL analysis used a second sample of 90 students’ pre- and post-assessments. Results: In the LDA analysis, three topics were detected in student responses: “preponderance of everyday language (Topic 1),” “preponderance of general academic language (Topic 2),” and “preponderance of discipline-specific language (Topic 3).” Students’ use of topics changed from pre-test to post-test. Students on the post-test tended to have higher proportions of Topic 3 than students on the pre-test. In the SFL analysis, students tended to use more technical vocabulary and have higher lexical density in their written responses on the post-test than on the pre-test. Discussion: Results from the LDA and SFL analyses suggest that students responded using more discipline-specific language on the post-test than on the pre-test. In addition, the results of the two linguistic features from the SFL analysis, technical vocabulary usage and lexical density, were compared with the results from the LDA analysis. • Conclusion: Results of the LDA and SFL analyses were consistent with each other and clearly showed that students improved in their ability to use the discipline-specific and academic terminology of the language of scientific communication.

Understanding and Evaluating L2 Personal Letter Writing: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis of Student Texts in German

Adopting a genre lens informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (cf. Halliday & Matthiessen, ; Martin & Rose, ), this paper explores the text‐structural and lexico‐grammatical choices that second language (L2) writers of German make in personal letter writing. Close analysis of two student texts from an advanced, content‐based, college‐level German course help to illustrate more and less successful realizations of a complex letter task. Both genre and register analyses of these texts show how letter writing can offer L2 learners opportunities to practice evaluative (especially affective) discourse and develop understanding for different subject positions. Key text‐structural and linguistic patterns are summarized in a writing rubric that teachers can use to guide and assess students’ personal letter writing. As the writing task at the center of the study is based on the young‐adult novel, Damals war es Friedrich (1961), and is situated within an instructional unit on German memories of the Holocaust, the analysis additionally contributes to ongoing dialogue concerning the teaching of the Holocaust (cf. Hirsch & Kacandes, ), by focusing on students’ engagement with the content material through a linguistic perspective.

«Вот что я вам скажу...»: стратегии манипулирования аудиторией в предвыборной речи Трампа, Клинтон и Сандерса

Throughout the 2016 campaign, presidential candidate Donald Trump surprised observers with his ability to maintain his popularity in the face of unorthodox and often offensive statements. Trump likely bolstered his electoral chances by appealing to a large segment of voters with whom other candidates failed to align themselves. To quote one news anchor, “People tried to attack Trump; it just didn’t work - voters liked him anyway”. As previous work by Miller (2002; 2004) has shown, systemic functional linguistic (SFL) analysis (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) can illuminate particular strategies politicians employ to strengthen their arguments and exhort their audiences to join their efforts. In this paper, we employ the SFL-based Engagement framework (White, 2003; Martin & White, 2005) to examine ways in which the 2016 presidential candidates aligned themselves with their audiences. Our analysis of the speeches of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders reveals markedly different patterns of interaction with the voters in terms of ways expansive and contractive dialogic strategies are used, an intended audience is identified and thematized, and shared assumptions are made. While Trump makes his arguments in a highly constrained dialogic space, taking the agreement with the audience for granted, his opponents often employ a mix of contractive and expansive argumentative strategies and make more explicit overtures to the audiences whose perspectives they share. This study offers insights as to how each candidate identifies and addresses his or her ideological sympathizers or opponents and exhorts the former to intensify their support.

A Systemic Functional Linguistic Analysis of the Application of Theme and Thematic Progression Patterns in College English Writing Teaching—A Study of Sample Writings of CET-4

Theories of Theme and Thematic Progression are considered important methods which can be widely applied inmany aspects of foreign language teaching. Writing teaching is one of the important field in which those theories canbe applied. CET-4 is now regarded as a national examination; it has already become the final goal which collegenon-majors make great efforts to achieve, and also an important method to which teachers can refer in daily writingteaching. Thus the analysis of sample writings of CET-4 will bring lots of benefits not only for passing the exam, butfor daily writing teaching. It is found in the study that Themes can yield useful information; successful writings usevarious Theme types. Besides, thematic choices and TP Patterns help a lot in the realization of cohesion andcoherence of discourses.

The Functions of Reflection in High‐Stakes Assessment of World Language Teacher Candidates

AbstractIn response to the call for improving teacher candidates' familiarity with the assessment tasks and format of the edTPA (Hildebrandt & Swanson, 2014), this single case study investigated the reflective writing development of Jena, a K–12 Spanish teacher candidate, and her evolution in a pedagogy that focused on the development of writing two reflective genres: personal private reflection (PPR) and critical academic reflection (CAR). Findings from functional linguistic analysis provide insights into the impact of explicit instruction in the organizational and linguistic features of CAR and clearly differentiate it in function and purpose from PPR. The linguistic analysis is supported by qualitative data regarding Jena's writing development and her performance on the edTPA. Data suggest that further research could investigate the positioning of PPR as a resource for developing CAR in ways that value the contribution of each type of writing in supporting the development of teacher candidates as individuals and as professionals.

Linking Neuroimaging with Functional Linguistic Analysis to Understand Processes of Successful Communication

Functional linguistic models posit a systematic link between language FORM and the FUNCTIONS for which language is used. This is a systematic (and therefore quantifiable) relationship. Yet many open questions remain about the mechanisms that link form, function and communication relevant outcomes. Neuroimaging methods can provide insight into such processes that are not apparent from other methods. We argue that the combination of neural and linguistic measures will allow insight into both individual and population-level communication processes that would not be possible using either method in isolation. We present examples illustrating this methodological integration and notes regarding the most amenable linguistic tools. We summarize a framework in which language presented to and produced by participants undergoing neuroimaging is correlated with the resulting neural data and other proximal communication outcomes allowing the triangulation of individual experimental with population level outcomes, thereby linking between micro and macro levels of analysis.