Halliday's Functional Grammar Research Articles

Impact of marketization on the interpersonal relation between the university and students in modern university prospectuses

ABSTRACT To survive amid fierce competition and reduced government funding, educational institutions struggle at various levels, from launching programs to publicizing them. Consequently, the promotional content they produce has changed over the years in many countries. This study investigated whether these neo-liberal trends have impacted the discourse of Pakistani universities’ promotional content, especially the interpersonal relationship between the prospective students and the university. Incorporating Halliday's Functional Grammar with a Critical Discourse Analytical perspective, the textual analysis of the interpersonal meta-function of language reveals that the universities predominantly employ declarative to realize the speech function of a statement; thus, conveying information without generating an imagined dialogue with the students. Following this, imperatives are used to perform the illocutionary function of offer and in rare cases conditional, optative and question statements. The results also established that the universities employ modalities and modulations sparingly which accounts for the text producers’ preference for conveying their propositions in the form of facts, hence leaving no scope for the reader to form his/her opinion. The infrequent use of pronouns in Pakistani universities leads to a lack of liveliness and affinity in writing. The textual analysis reveals that the universities uphold a manifest distance from potential students.

A Scientific Study of Language through the Human Communication System Notion

Abstract This paper proposes a notion that in order to analyse and describe a language reasonably and scientifically is through a framework that recognises language as a human communication system and utilises discourse as data, and not as an abstract competence system, structural-oriented, or based on a personal-idiolectal created and context-independent sentences framework. One of the frameworks that recognise language as a human communication system is Halliday's functional grammar. According to this notion, language is a medium for people in modelling and representing their world of experience that is manifested by the element of’process’ in a clause. This paper will show how a scientific grammatical analysis method is done that is based on functional grammar framework and utilises a real data of creative text with a special reference to the Malay language of Malaysia. The focus will be on the element of processes because it is the core element in the notion of language as the human communication system.

Catching Butterflies

Adopting a linguistic-based stylistic approach, this article proposes a new interpretation of classical Chinese ci-poetry by Li Yu (937-978) and Li Qingzhao (1084-1155?). Based on Halliday's Functional Grammar, analysing the three contextual meanings interwoven in the dense fabric of the poetic discourse, taking into account also of deviation and foregrounding, this study challenges the traditional Chinese dichotomy of wanyue and haofang schools. It argues that although both Li Yu and Li Qingzhao are regarded as, arguably, most important representative poets of wanyue style, their poetry is in fact quite different from wanyue convention. By accounting for certain judgments of value made on an intuitive basis by a comparatively objective and consistent procedure, this paper hopes to shed new light on the characteristics of the lyrics by Li Yu and Li Qingzhao. It also demonstrates how a combination of traditional Chinese scholarship - marked for the most part by its intuitive and impressionistic approach - and a more systematic and analytical Western methodology may enlarge the horizons of Chinese literary studies, while also enhancing the ability of Westerners to appreciate classical Chinese poetry.

On emotions and the journalistic ideals of factuality and objectivity—Tools for analysis

Reporting on emotions inherently challenges the journalistic ideals of objectivity and factuality. This paper presents two complementary approaches that can be used to reveal what is ‘hidden’ under news texts. One of them draws on central concepts of Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar, while the other is based on the Appraisal framework. My data come from the wire reports of two global news agencies, AP and Reuters. Three central grammatical systems of Halliday's Functional Grammar – transitivity, nominalization and grammatical metaphor – are especially well suited for examining issues of responsibility. Nominalization transforms processes (verbs) or properties (adjectives) into nouns after metaphorical rewording. Nominalized emotions can then function as a participant in processes, according to various options of transitivity, or as a part of a prepositional phrase. When participant roles of the original (mental) process of feeling remain hidden, the language often becomes vague and obscure. Appraisal is divided into three interacting systems: Attitude, Engagement and Graduation, and one of the sub-systems of Attitude, namely Affect, deals with emotions. Affect values can be explicit or implicit. The analysis of implicit values, in particular, can help to reveal the writer's subjective point of view; e.g., the strategies s/he has used to align the reader into feeling.

Multimodal science teachers' discourse in modeling the water cycle

The paper presents an intensive study of a micro-event aiming at the character- ization of teacher's discourse from a multimodal communication perspective in a secondary school science classroom dealing with the topic of water cycle. The research addresses the following questions: (a) What communicative modes are used by the teacher?, (b) what role do the different communicative modes play within teacher's discourse?, and (c) what are the relationships among communicative modes being used by the teacher? Theoretical framework is developed based on three strands: multimodal communication, science teach- ing and learning as modeling, and social semotics and Halliday's functional grammar. An analytic scheme guiding teachers' discourse analysis is presented and results discussed. Im- plications for science teacher education are drawn that would contribute to the improvement of science teacher education. C

Language and Gender in the Fairy Tale Tradition: A Linguistic Analysis of Old and New Story Telling (review)

Reviewed by: Language and Gender in the Fairy Tale Tradition: A Linguistic Analysis of Old and New Story Telling Jeana Jorgensen (bio) Language and Gender in the Fairy Tale Tradition: A Linguistic Analysis of Old and New Story Telling. By Alessandra Levorato . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 230 pp. In Language and Gender in the Fairy Tale Tradition, Alessandra Levorato utilizes a linguistic approach to analyze the ideologies at work in fairy tales, namely "Little Red Riding Hood" (AT 333). Levorato examines both traditional and radical versions of the tale in the light of how ideologies are embedded in texts at various levels and thus produce meaning. Her book is a refreshing examination of how linguistic and formal qualities of fairy tales are not only [End Page 316] significant components of the tales in their own right but also influence the construction of fairy-tale gender roles and sexuality in a way that is inextricably linked with the production and expression of ideological biases on the part of both readers and writers. Levorato outlines her methodological approach and her data choices in the first chapter, "Introduction: Exploring Gender Issues in Fairy Tales." She considers her book to be unique for its melding of complementary critical (though not folkloristic) strategies. Levorato names as her primary theoretical influences M. A. K. Halliday's functional grammar, based on the notion that "every choice regarding the structure of a text is a choice about how to signify" (3); Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional framework of analysis, which views a text as simultaneously "a discursive practice, text and social practice" (3); and Theo Van Leeuwen's theory of social actors, founded upon a "set of sociological categories" that "investigate the way social actors and social action are represented in discourse" (4). Levorato also cites computer-based quantitative analysis as one of her main tools. Her use of quantitative analysis reveals, for instance, that "ideological standpoints are passed on not just by means of single words but also, and especially, in grammatical and lexical patterns" (12). This standpoint is reflected in the progression of her analysis from the simplest constituent of fairy tales, the word, to the more syntactically and semantically complex relational clauses and social roles within the tales. Next, Levorato gives synopses of twelve versions of "Little Red Riding Hood" spanning three hundred years, ranging from Paul Delarue's reconstruction of a French oral version to literary versions, some overtly patriarchal, such as the versions of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, and some radically feminist, such as versions written by Angela Carter and the Merseyside Fairy Story Collective. As The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, the latter is a useful companion volume to Levorato's book. In chapter 2, "Words, Gender, and Power," Levorato shares the results of the quantitative analysis she performed, filtered through terminology belonging to linguistics. The insights obtained from comparing word counts and collocations (the habitual co-occurrence of words) in different versions of the tale demonstrate that "patterns of co-occurrence, the frequency and distribution of items, and even the syntactic structures in which words are embedded deeply affect meaning" (31), to the point that the underlying assumptions of various words can be used to develop different meanings. Also, this type of analysis shows "how a word which in itself is not in the least sexist can indeed become so if used asymmetrically" (31). Attention to asymmetries continues to inform Levorato's analysis in chapter 3, "The Representation of Social Practice." After a somewhat unwieldy explication of Van Leeuwen's terminology that she uses in this chapter, Levorato [End Page 317] launches into an analysis of how the authors of the dozen tales represent their respective characters. Her analysis demonstrates that the characters' identities are often described in radically different ways according to gender; for instance, female characters are likely to be situated only in relationships to other characters, whereas male characters are more likely to be portrayed with independent identities. At the end of this chapter, Levorato summarizes her findings to show how the writers of these tales all make choices through which "they have variously contributed to the maintenance of patterns of subordination...

Transitivity-Based Foregrounding in the Acts of the Apostles: A Functional-Grammatical Approach to the Lukan Perspective

Transitivity-Based Foregrounding in the Acts of the Apostles: A Functional-Grammatical Approach to the Lukan Perspective, by Gustavo Martin-Asensio. JSNTSup 202. Studies in New Testament Greek 8. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000, Pp. 198. $59.00. This study, the published form of a doctoral thesis written under the direction of Stanley Porter at the University of Surrey Roehampton, should be of particular interest to practitioners of narrative analysis, rhetorical criticism, and Greek language and linguistic methods. This study is not, however, method looking for an opportunity. It should also be of great interest to students of Acts, because the method used is in service to the question of the major themes) of Acts and of the agenda of its author. The approach to this central question is to examine foregrounding in the text of Acts. MartinAsensio states in his conclusion that his intention at the outset was to examine a cluster of foregrounding devices, but his analysis revealed that transitivity-based foregrounding-foregrounding based on choices reflected in the narrative regarding processes and participants-have a particularly powerful effect on one's perception of the author's purposes. In the introduction, he develops the notion of transitivity in relation to Vladimir Propp's insights regarding actants and their functions in narrative and states his intention to develop these insights using the tools of M. A. K. Halliday's systemic functional grammar, making a case for a theoretical approach to linguistic description. In ch. 1, Martin-Asensio makes the case for using Halliday's theoretical approach to linguistic description. He does this by demonstrating that Halliday's approach is successful at goals that rhetorical criticism has set but not achieved. If rhetoric is the practice of using language effectively to accomplish one's purposes, then an approach that studies how texts function in social context is a fitting heir to rhetorical criticism. MartinAsensio provides an overview of features of Halliday's theory that make it particularly attractive for his purposes, namely, its focus on structure as the realization of purposeful choices, its focus on texts as the basic unit of language, its aim to expose and exploit links between text and context, and its functional view of the clause. Halliday's functional grammar is used to analyze the text of Acts for the marking of degrees of saliency of participants by which the narrator aims to effect the desired responses) in the reader. Chapter 2 defines the textual feature of foregrounding within the context of Halliday's theory and applies textual analysis with this focus in a case study of the shipwreck narrative of Acts 27. Foregrounding is defined as linguistic prominence in a text that is consistent and motivated. Martin-Asensio argues that foregrounded transitivity patterns are more revealing in this text than foregrounded events based on patterns of aspect usage or foregrounding based on the ordering of clause constituents. He uses an analysis of ergativity to provide an objective test of theories as to the literary purpose of this text. Contrary to the expectation that major characters in a narrative are agents of actions that succeed, Paul's escort and the ship's crew are agents of actions that fail, whereas Paul and his companions are predominantly recipients of actions rather than agents. MartinAsensio concludes that the story is artfully shaped to communicate the providence of God succeeding against opposition. Chapters 3 through 5 extend the case study of ch. 2 to other key episodes in Acts with an aim of giving a linguistic account of the compositional and rhetorical aims of the author. Chapter 3 is an examination of the Stephen episode in Acts 6-7. Chapter 4 analyzes the mission speech in Acts 13:16-25, comparing how this second survey of Israel's history in Acts compares to the first in Acts 7:2-53. Chapter 5 interprets the episode of Paul's arrest and defense in Acts 21-22. …

Applying Functional Grammar: A Discourse Analysis of Sexually Explicit Stories Written in Adult Magazines

A number of studies have addressed the relationship between sexual orientation and its effect on erotic discourse. Taken together, these studies provide limited evidence that heterosexuals in general may talk less explicitly and less candidly about sexual matters. Adopting the tools of Halliday's functional grammar, I undertake a discourse analysis to compare and contrast two erotic stories published in mainstream sexually explicit adult magazines. These two texts include depictions of: (1) cross-sex sexual activities written for heterosexual men; and (2) male same-sex sexual activities written for gay men. I analyze the mechanisms employed by the narrators for the purposes of thematic development, the representation of the processes, participants and circumstances, and the establishment of interpersonal relationships between the stories' narrators and the readers. I provide evidence that the narrators exploit parallel linguistic devices. I argue that this is not surprising given that the texts' purposes are similar: to provide erotic pleasure to those readers who choose to read them. The linguistic means of deriving erotic pleasure is thus not so much argued to be a function of sexual orientation, but rather personal sexual preferences that vary from individual to individual within the heterosexual and gay male communities.

An Analysis of Obliqueness in Student Writing

When required to use knowledge in a given source to answer a question, many student writers reproduce content information from the source without restructuring it to address the focal demand of the question. The result is an oblique answer. This paper analyses obliqueness as a writing problem from the perspectives of cognitive process writing theory and Halliday's functional grammar, using from the latter the concepts of Theme/Rheme (Halliday, 1985, 1994). A cognitivist study of oblique answers suggests that the lack of fit between answer and question arises from limitations in the mental processes of task interpretation and rhetorical goal setting. The student writer interprets the task posed by the teacher's question as an information recount task and consequently the writing is driven by goals that are essentially content- and sentence-based. A Theme/ Rheme analysis of oblique answers reveals that inappropriate choice of information for Theme position in sentences contributes towards the gap between an oblique answer and the question. Analysing obliqueness in students' texts from a cognitive as well as a thematization perspective uncovers insights about students' composing processes that have implications for the academic writing classroom.

Equalizing Gender Relations: A Case of Double-Talk

In recent years, an issue that has received plenty of national publicity in Singapore is the growing trend for well-educated women to remain single. The oft-cited reason for the trend is male dispreference for marrying women of an equal or higher educational standing than themselves. Arising from this situation, a series of `educational' ads was launched by the government. In this study, two such ads are closely analysed within a critical discourse analysis approach which draws upon M.A.K. Halliday's functional grammar. I argue that although one of the ads contains potential ingredients for correcting male chauvinism and promoting true gender equality, the ads taken as a set are really concerned with maintaining the social status quo between the sexes.

Constituency, multi-functionality and grammaticalization in Halliday's Functional Grammar

Constituency, multi-functionality and grammaticalization in Halliday's Functional Grammar

Young children's writing: From spoken to written genre

Abstract. This paper reports on some aspects of an investigation into young children's writing development. The object was to consider the kinds of written genres the children produce and why they produce them. Martin & Rothery (1980–1981) had proposed a typology of children's written genres. The writer sought to examine how these were generated, and this led to an investigation of the curriculum context, more specifically of the spoken discourse in which the writing tasks were generated. The pattern of classroom discourse, it is argued, is itself a genre — a ‘staged goal‐oriented, purposeful activity’. By means of using Halliday's Functional Grammar (1985), it is argued that we may demonstrate both (i) the ways in which meanings are generated in the discourse patterns, and (ii) the relationship of the meanings of the written genres to the meanings of the spoken genre. This focus upon meanings and upon how these are realised in texts is invaluable in revealing a great deal about the kinds of knowledge val...