Discourse Grammar Research Articles

How #Trad Catholics Challenge Current Constructions of Christian Nationalism: Counterknowledge, Masculinity, and Elite Aesthetics on Instagram

ABSTRACT I analyze traditionalist Catholic (or Trad) content on Instagram to add digital hyperconnectivity to current conversations about Christian nationalism in the United States. Building on studies of both epistemological and affective shifts in the age of digital hyperconnectivity, I argue that some pockets of right-wing Christian content are not anti-intellectual, but rather construct alternative knowledge bases to challenge mainstream authorities. This populist strategy of counterknowledge is mediatized in Trad Instagram, creating an epistemic community to counter those of the mainstream. The affordances of Instagram as a platform, characterized by its emphasis on visual content, brevity, and rapid consumption, have resulted in the decontextualized presentation of fragmented elements of Catholic philosophy and social teaching. This reconfiguration not only reshapes the public perception of Catholic thought but also fundamentally alters the grammar of public discourse. I draw on studies of affective polarization to argue that counterknowledge is not primarily about building a substantive alternative knowledge base, but rather about constructing an identity around the media image of an epistemic community under threat. The Trad aesthetic representation of intellectualism is distinctly gendered, presenting intellectual pursuit and reason as masculine virtues. I conclude by explaining how Trad Instagram contributes to and challenges current discourses on Christian nationalism by centering digital hyperconnectivity instead of a rationalist analysis of motivating beliefs, providing insights not only about shifts in authority and populism, but also moving beyond ideology to highlight aesthetic, affect, and the algorithmic curation of knowledge.

Analisis Kohesi Leksikal dalam Cerita Pendek Karya Halima Khatun "No One Ever Asks Mum"

This study analyzed the types of lexical cohesion and measured the degree of cohesiveness in “No One Ever Asks Mum,” a short story by Halima Khatun. It used Brian Paltridge’s theory of lexical Cohesion within the framework of Discourse Grammar and Scinto’s Formula, employing a qualitative descriptive method. The data for this study were collected through a documentation-collecting technique involving browsing and selecting the short story from Google Books. The chosen story consists of 67 paragraphs and 670 sentences, which are classified based on the types of lexical cohesion. The findings reveal the presence of 15 repetitions, 7 synonymy, 12 antonymy, 18 meronymy, 16 hyponymy, and 6 collocations in the short story. Additionally, the research also assesses the degree of cohesiveness in the short story using Scinto’s Formula, resulting in a score of 110,44%. This high percentage indicates a strong level of cohesiveness, indicating that the cohesive lexical devices employed by the author effectively contribute to the overall flow and coherence of the narrative.

Pinpointing Linguistic Emphasis in Classical Greek

Abstract Emphasis is a ubiquitous notion in classical scholarship, but its vagueness has repeatedly been criticized (and its usefulness, consequently, questioned) by Greek linguists. This brief study seeks to identify (and secure) a place for this notion in the analytical toolbox for the description of Classical Greek by applying the strict but nuanced definition of emphasis in Functional Discourse Grammar (Hengeveld and Mackenzie 2008) to the identification and classification of linguistic devices in the ancient language. In particular, this study argues for a distinction between emphasis as a rhetorical effect and emphasis as a communicative intention. In the former understanding, emphasis may be produced secondarily by a number of linguistic and rhetorical devices. Conversely, linguistic emphasis stricto sensu would only be conveyed by linguistic devices used primarily to intensify linguistic entities of any level (discourse acts, propositional contents, subacts).

Sulle costruzioni relative non-restrittive del romeno (a confronto con l’italiano)

Non-restrictive (or appositive) relative clauses can either belong to sentence grammar (integrated non-restrictive relatives) or to the grammar of discourse (non-integrated non-restrictive relatives). Italian has both constructions (the former employs che and cui relative pronouns, while the latter employs the il quale paradigm, with distinct properties). The evidence discussed in the present article induces one to analyse the non-restrictive relatives of Standard (non colloquial) Romanian as belonging to the grammar of discourse.

On the place and role of ‘discourse’ in the Functional Discourse Grammar model. The interface between language system and language use

Mackenzie (2020) is a defense of the position adopted by the architects of the standard model of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG): namely that the model cannot (and even could never) be considered a ‘grammar of discourse’. The article examines the arguments given for rejecting the ‘discourse’ dimension from the FDG model, proposes an independent account of discourse, and suggests a means of dovetailing it within a model of the wider utterance context. On the one hand, the author's arguments are in the main valid: for ‘discourse’, as characterized in section 3, is not a formal, clearly delineated object amenable to systematic treatment within a grammatical model of a given language. Yet on the other, it is arguable that even the presence of the term ‘discourse’ in the model's name is not in fine justified. Notwithstanding, in order to include the ‘discourse dimension’ (section 3), it is argued that the Core FDG model could be integrated with a broader model of the utterance context involved. This would enable it to account more adequately, for example, for the ways in which indexical reference, the lexicon and adjectival modification operate in actual texts. In turn, it would influence certain of the other characterizations independently assigned within the Core model.

Exploiting Functional Discourse Grammar to Enhance Complex Arabic Relation Extraction using a Hybrid Semantic Knowledge Base - Machine Learning Approach

Relation extraction from unstructured Arabic text is especially challenging due to the Arabic language complex morphology and the variation in word semantics and lexical categories. The research documented in this paper presents a hybrid Semantic Knowledge base - Machine Learning (SKML) approach for extracting complex Arabic relations from unstructured Arabic documents; the proposed approach exploits the principles of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) to emphasise the semantic and pragmatic properties of the language and facilitate the identification of relation elements. At the initial phase, the novel FDG-SKML relation extraction approach deploys a lexical-based mechanism that utilises a purposely built domain-specific Semantic Knowledge to encode the semantic association between the identified relations’ elements. The evaluation of the initial stage evidenced improved accuracy for extracting most complex Arabic relations. The initial relation extraction mechanism was further extended by integrating its output into a Machine Learning classifier that facilitated extracting especially complex relations with significant disparity in the relation elements’ presence, order, and correlation. Using Economics as the problem domain, experimental evaluation evidenced the high accuracy of our FDG-SKML approach in complex Arabic relation extraction task and demonstrated its further improvement upon integration with machine learning classifiers.

When English complement clauses meet evidential adverbs

There is much literature about the licensing of complement clauses by complement-taking predicates. However, less has been written about the licensing of adverbs in a complement clause. This article addresses the licensing of English evidential adverbs in complement clauses extracted from the NOW corpus. The article discusses three factors that determine the distribution of evidential adverbs in complement clauses. These are the nature of the evidential adverbs, the constraints of the complement clause and the anchor of the evidential adverb. To explore the role of these three factors, I adopt the hierarchical scopal theory of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). If a complement clause licenses the inclusion of the evidential adverb, then there is a match. Should there be no alignment between the complement clause and the adverb, there will be a mismatch. The results of the analysis of the data show that there are mostly matches, which occur with either a current speaker anchor or an actor anchor. Secondly, it appears that in cases of mismatches, there is always a current speaker. It thus appears that a current speaker anchor can override the constraints of the complement clause.

Latin particles in De Tristitia Christi: the fine-tuning of word choice

This paper aims to identify and analyze some of the substitutions of the particle sed (> ceterum/verum/at), visible in the manuscript of More’s De Tristitia. In this study, the theoretical framework of Functional Discourse Grammar is applied for the first time, and it helps to explain some of the reasons underlying More’s final choices. One of the clearest conclusions is that More tries to show that the particle chosen does not function as a conjunction at the sentence level but as an adversative connector at the presentational level; this level has to do with the presentation and organization of the information in the text, and can serve to offer an explanation, justification, clarification, context, etc. between the various textual units. The examination of the passages in context also shows how More was careful to avoid repetitions which could diminish the elegance of the chosen linguistic expression.

Multifunctionality of mas ‘but’ in Portuguese

Hengeveld/Mackenzie (2008: 52) consider that the constructions with mas ‘but’ result from the combination of two Discursive Acts with different communicative statutes, there being a Nuclear Discursive Act, with greater communicative weight, and a Subsidiary Discursive Act, which will have a rhetorical function named “Concession”. This paper aims to investigate the various uses of mas ‘but’, according to Functional Discourse Grammar, in order to determine the pragmatic, semantic, and morphosyntactic properties of each case in real occurrences of Portuguese. The combination of linguistic units through mas ‘but’ always indicates interpersonal strategies, which are differentiated by the communicative intention of the speaker as well as reflected in the layer involved. However, mas maintains the capacity to attribute the most salient status of information to the unit it scopes or operates on. We identified four uses of mas ‘but’ in different layers: Move Operator in the Move layer, Emphasis Operator and Concession rhetorical function in the Discursive Act layer, and the Contrast pragmatic function in the Communicated Content layer.

Ambiguous Grammar of Legal Discourse

Ambiguous Grammar of Legal Discourse

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction

“It’s way too intriguing!” The fuzzy status of emergent intensifiers: A Functional Discourse Grammar account

AbstractThis article seeks to explore the function and linguistic status of non-central members of the class of “degree words,” focusing on specific cases in English and Spanish, namely, the English adverbswayandproper, the Spanish trendy phrase “Adjno, lo siguiente” and the adverbmuy.These intensifiers will be explored in the light of the architecture of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), specifically in relation to the levels of linguistic representation that are distinguished in this theory, mainly the Interpersonal (or pragmatic) Level (IL) and the Representational (or semantic) Level (RL) and in terms of FDG’s distinction between lexical and grammatical units. It will be shown that the various functional properties of these expressions can be easily accommodated in this theory. As intensifying devices, these expressions are represented as units specifying the Lexical Property at the RL. In addition, some of these expressions can be used with an emphatic function, pertaining to the set of pragmatic distinctions that are represented at the IL.

Similatives are Manners, comparatives are Quantities (except when they aren’t)

Abstract This article proposes a fine-grained semantic analysis of similative and comparative constructions within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). The core idea is that, when used in their prototypical modifying functions, the two types of constructions are built upon two semantic frames that share an identical structure but differ as regards the semantic category that underlies the whole modifying expression – whence the title of the article: similatives are Manners and comparatives are Quantities. At the same time, I argue that similatives can also be put to modifying and predicative uses in which they do not express a Manner but a Configurational Property (i.e., a “nuclear predication”) and that comparatives do not express a Quantity when occurring as arguments of lexical(ized) ditransitive predicates like prefer or would rather, nor when the two terms of the comparison are introduced by a specific type of temporal expression. Finally, the paper refines previous FDG approaches to the alternation between analytic and synthetic expression of comparison in such languages as English and Latin, proposing that the English comparative suffix -er is liable to being modified by narrow-scope measure expressions and is therefore a partly lexical element and not a fully grammaticalized marker of comparison.

Modification as a linguistic ‘relationship’: Ajust soproblem in Functional Discourse Grammar

AbstractThis study traces the relationship between two erstwhile separate linguistic elements,justandso, within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). In keeping with FDG’s form-oriented function-to-form approach, the study proceeds semasiologically by, first, examining the uses of relatively independent forms (i.e.the focus particlejustmodifyingsoas a degree word and a manner proform), then turning to more tightly-knit structures (i.e. just soas a subordinator of purpose and condition), and finally, looking at the fixed expressionjust soused as a part of a pragmatic marker. Using data from theCorpus of Contemporary American Englishand theCorpus of Historical American English, we argue that the different meanings ofjust soraise a number of issues related to the analysis of modification in FDG, namely the status and function of the modifierjustin the constructions under discussion and the concomitant representation ofso. Furthermore, the analysis shows that FDG can model very precisely the interplay of semantic and pragmatic information in the stages whenjust sois still compositional, withjustproviding interpersonal (i.e.pragmatic) andsorepresentational (i.e.semantic) information, as well as its development into the non-compositional and purely pragmatic discourse markerjust so you know.

Insubordinateif-clauses in FDG: Degrees of independence

AbstractThe so-called insubordinate clauses have received an increasing amount of attention in recent years in a wide variety of typologically different languages and from different analytical perspectives. This article concerns itself with one particular type of insubordination, namely insubordinateif-clauses (e.g. If you’ll just come next door,if you hadn’t noticed,if I may ask). So far, the extensive literature on these clauses has concentrated mainly on their discourse-pragmatic functions, their degree of autonomy, and their degree of conventionalization. Relatively little work has been done on the formal (syntactic and prosodic) features of these clauses, nor on the relationship between these formal features and the functions they perform. The aim of this article is to investigate insubordinateif-clauses from the perspective of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) in order to establish a taxonomy reflecting (and linking) their functional and formal properties. It is argued that FDG is ideally suited for this task as (i) it takes a function-to-form approach; (ii) it does not take the clause or sentence as its basic unit of analysis, but rather the (independent or subsidiary) Discourse Act; and (iii) it recognizes a range of interpersonal and representational modifiers. The basis for the classification proposed is corpus data from a range of corpora of spoken and written English and Dutch.

Modification in Functional Discourse Grammar: State of the art and issues addressed

AbstractThis is an introduction to the Special Issue on Modification in Functional Discourse Grammar.

American Spanish dizque from a Functional Discourse Grammar perspective

Abstract This article discusses the diachronic development and the different uses of the reportative word dizque (diachronically based on diz que ‘she/he/it says that’) using data from Colombian and Mexican Spanish. The study presents a predominantly qualitative analysis of diachronic, twentieth- and twenty-first-century written data. The theoretical framework applied in this article is Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), which is particularly useful in this context as it distinguishes between the interpersonal and representational functions of language. The main points made are: (i) dizque is an adverb that arose from a process of lexicalization rather than grammaticalization; (ii) in most of its uses, dizque has an interpersonal function in the sense that the Speaker instructs the Addressee that she/he is not the source of the information provided; (iii) by means of diachronic, dialectal, and typological data, it is shown that the scope of dizque is gradually decreasing; (iv) the only scope decrease that leads to a functional change of dizque is its application outside the context of speech-reports. FDG serves to account for each step in the scope decrease of dizque by means of its hierarchical approach to the actional and descriptive functions of verbal interaction.

Modifier-numeral word order in the English NP: An FDG analysis

Abstract It is generally accepted that the order of elements within the English noun phrase is relatively fixed, and that, in the prefield, determiners (primary and secondary) precede modifiers. This article is concerned with a group of noun phrases exhibiting non-canonical word order, namely those cases in which a modifier precedes a numeral, such as a fabulous two years, a staggering 30 singles, that short fourteen months, and the largest two markets. Using corpus data from the British National Corpus, it is shown that such noun phrases are far more heterogeneous (in terms of the kind of noun, the scope and type of the modifier, the form and number of the determiner, and subject-verb agreement) than assumed in previous studies. It is argued that the variation observed in the data can only be accounted for if different subtypes of such NPs are distinguished, each characterized by its own combination of functional and formal properties. Finally, it is demonstrated how Functional Discourse Grammar, with its function-to-form approach and its different levels and layers of representation, is particularly well-suited to capture the main features of the construction as a whole, as well as the more specific semantic and syntactic properties of each of the subtypes.

English evidential -lyadverbs in the noun phrase from a functional perspective

AbstractThis article addresses the question of how the distribution and role of English evidential -lyadverbs in the noun phrase can be accounted for using the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). Both adverbs and adjectives occurring in noun phrases are categorized in various ways. The results of the categorization offer insights into the distribution of these adverbs and adjectives. Four generalizations are arrived at concerning the combination of evidential adverbs and adjectives in noun phrases. First, the lower in the FDG hierarchy the category of an adverb, the less frequent the occurrence of that category in the noun phrase. Thus, higher reportative adverbs are very frequent, and lower adverbs of event perception are very infrequent. Second, evidential adverbs do not modify adjectives that express the speaker’s subjective evaluation of the referent. Third, the higher-level reportative and inferential adverbs modify adjectives expressing permanent properties, whereas the lower adverbs of deduction and event perception do not. Finally, neither restrictiveness nor the evaluative vs descriptive nature of the adjective appears to solely determine the category of evidential modification of the adjective. We furthermore discuss the pragmatic effects of the evidential adverb in the noun phrase, such as distancing, and the stress shift that may accompany it.

Modification and context

AbstractFunctional Discourse Grammar (FDG) assumes a strict separation between representational and interpersonal meaning, which are captured in independent levels within the grammar, and utterance meaning, which arises in contexts of language use. This article argues that this division of labour is problematic for the treatment of modifiers in the noun phrase (non-subsective adjectives in particular), which induce semantic changes in the designation of the noun they modify. It is further claimed that the view of semantics in the model should pivot around a weak interpretation of the notion of compositionality, which allows the modulation of linguistic meaning in context in the dynamic construction of term structures. This is shown to be compatible with the basic tenets of functional linguistics that FDG endorses and very much in line with the contextualist tradition that treats linguistic expressions as propositionally underspecified units which can be truth-conditionally enriched in actual use. The article shows that only minor modifications are necessary in the model, which basically amount to increasing the functional role of the Contextualizer.