Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistics Research Articles

Including visual representations within senior high school biology assessment: Considerations of grammatical complexity

AbstractThis paper analyses the opportunities for presenting knowledge that are created when assessment allows senior high school biology students to draw on linguistic and visual resources when constructing meaning in response to short‐answer examination‐style questions requiring a sequential explanation. Students within one senior high school biology class were given the opportunity to respond to an examination‐style question through both written and visual representations. Analysis of the student responses for high and middle‐achieving students, from a systemic functional linguistics perspective, indicates that high‐achieving students use a broader range of grammatical forms more often than middle‐achieving students to present key understandings of classification and composition within both written and visual representations. Including opportunities within assessment for students to express knowledge through written and visual representations allows for students to elaborate within their short‐answer responses and to construct the broader range of representations that is valued within the discipline, but explicit guidance is required to support all students to make use of the complex grammatical patterns within written and visual representation. For senior high school biology students to be successful in the final stages of schooling, explicitness about the complex grammars of visual and written representations is required within curriculum and pedagogy.

A corpus analysis of disciplinary identity in evaluative journal articles: A Systemic Functional Linguistics approach

This study investigates the discursive construction of identity in the largely neglected register of evaluative journal articles (e.g., critiques, rebuttals). The study looks at how disciplinary identity is constructed in this register through the use of the subjective first-person pronoun I from a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective. This is done through the analysis of: (1) the variation of I in evaluative journal articles across six disciplines (i.e., Applied Linguistics, Biology, History, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science) and (2) the process types (e.g., material, mental) that authors use with I to construct a particular disciplinary identity. Findings show that social science and humanities authors use I much more frequently than hard science authors, but also that the frequency of I in the hard sciences is not negligible when compared to previous research. Another important finding is that disciplinary differences are reflected in both the frequency and use of process types. The findings are highly relevant for teaching graduate students discipline-appropriate ways of identity construction in evaluative registers, such as critiques.

Transitivity Analysis on Sri Mulyani’s Speech at Singapore Summit: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

Transitivity Analysis on Sri Mulyani’s Speech at Singapore Summit: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

On Translation of Modal Verbs in Political Documents from Systemic Functional Linguistics

This paper discusses the translation of modal verbs in political papers and the translation strategies used by translators from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics, exemplified by the report of the 19th National Congress. The result shows that the transla-tor’s use of equivalent translation and adaptation for different situations when translating high-value modal verbs can not only reflect the Chinese government’s firmness on matters of principle but also enable the international community to better accept the Chinese gove-rnment’s positions and propositions. Besides, the collocation “we will,” which appears frequently in the strategy of amplification, refle-cts the authority of the information in the 19th National Congress Report and brings Western readers closer, calling on them to answer China’s call on international issues.

AN SFL ANALYSIS OF PROCESS AND MOOD TYPES IN ENGLISH JOURNAL ARTICLES ON FINANCE

Journal articles written by Vietnamese authors have received strong criticism against their weaknesses, one of which is their failure to comply with international requirements (State Council for Professorship, 2016-2017). What are common international requirements for journal articles is therefore an essential subject of research, and the analysis in this paper from Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective is one of such attempts. A total of 50 articles randomly selected from 10 Scopus-indexed journals on finance and finance-related fields published in English are analyzed in order to answer the following specific questions: (1) what types of process and mood are used in English journal articles on finance?, and (2) what are they used for? This critical knowledge of processes and moods and their functions in English journal articles on finance will help Vietnamese authors to improve the quality of their articles for international publication.

The Concept of ‘Translation Equivalence’

This paper focuses on how Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) conceptualizes translation equivalence (TE) – a concept which seems to resist any satisfactory treatment. To provide background for the study, the paper first examines some widely known formal and non-systemic functional (non-SF) perspectives on TE. Then it presents the SFL perspective on TE, focusing in particular on the current SFL perspective on TE as expounded by Halliday (2001, 2017) and Matthiessen (2001). To demonstrate the ‘appliability’ (Halliday, 2017: 34) and relevance of SFL to TE studies and translation practice, a mini-case study is conducted in which, using the current SFL model as the theoretical framework, the paper analyzes, compares, and establishes equivalent as well as non-equivalent points between a source language text passage from ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by the American Nobel Laureate in literature, Ernest Hemmingway, and its Vietnamese translated version from ‘Ông già và bien ca’ by Huy Phuong. The study shows that SFL is highly relevant for TE. It is an ‘extravagant’ (Halliday and Martin, 2005: 26), comprehensive, coherent, and multidimensional model of language which can open huge potential for researchers and translators to use it as a theoretical framework for TE studies and translation practice.

A Review on Directions for Discussing Forest Governance and Discourses from a Linguistic Perspective

Studies investigating forest discourses both from within and outside the forest discourse community have seen a growing interest in how forest policies and their governance affect forest communities, the people, and the countries. There has been a debate on whether these studies, which claimed to be studied following Foucault’s concepts of discourse, power, knowledge and governmentality have contributed to deriving empirical findings on how forest discourses have impacted and affected those involved in the implementation of the discourses. Additionally, it was found that forest communities pointed out the need for studies to be conducted to probe into how forest information is used, by whom and for what purpose. To date, little is known about those involved in forest discourses, what functions the discourses serve to those involved, and their impact on the forest community in general. Thus, this paper reviews the discussions on forest discourses that lack insights into those involved in forest discourses. This paper proceeds by providing relevant details on the concepts of discourse and genre from a linguistic perspective. Additionally, some possible ways to understand forest discourses and policy governance, particularly drawing from the linguistic perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The paper concludes with the possible inclusion of another possible direction for further studies in forest discourses, particularly from a linguistic perspective on forest discourses concerning forest policies and governance.

Students’ Motivation in English Learning amid Covid-19 Pandemic: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

The pandemic of covid-19 has had a negative impact on schooling quality around the world. The lack of student enthusiasm to learn using digital platforms is one issue leading to the low quality of education. Several prior types of research have looked into how students perceive their motivation to learn in the face of pandemic covid-19. However, modal analysis to reveal students' motivation through their written personal views on learning during the epidemic of Covid-19 remains a relatively unexplored area. This research aims to expose the students’ motivation to learn during the outbreak of covid-19 using modality theory. 20 English Department students, Faculty of Language and Arts, University of HKBP Nommensen were involved in this research. The students were assigned to write an essay about their experiences and opinions of learning amid the covid-19 outbreak. The essay consists of approximately 250 words. The research was conducted in a mixed method. The results showed that the most modality used in the text is probability 39.82%, afterwards frequency 27.60%, obligation 17.19%, and inclination 15.39%, respectively. A medium level or category dominated each type of modality. Regarding polarity, 159 (71.95%) of modal words were in the positive range, and the rest of the modality 62 (28.05%) were located in the negative range. This demonstrates that students' enthusiasm to learn throughout the pandemic was characterized as medium and highly positive. The findings were relatively different from the previous research on the same topic. Most of the research revealed low student motivation amid the covid-19 pandemic. However, this research showed different results that the EFL students were still motivated to study their lessons amid the covid-19 pandemic. The results bring consequences to the future educational research to consider using linguistic perspectives in the research method, especially the application of Systemic Functional Linguistics to reveal the meanings of the students’ perspectives on certain educational issues.

Investigating the Realization of Speech Function in a Speech through Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

This research aims to classify the type of Speech function process. This research employed systemic functional linguistics theory of Halliday, particularly speech function as a tool of analysis, more specific this research analyzed process of speech function. The phenomenon of speech function, in communicating people need other people who will be our listeners as well as our talking partners at the same time. These actions give rise to various different phenomena due to variations in the ability of each person to apply language and linguistics as well as their cultural background. Because of these divergences, it is undeniable that misunderstandings between listeners and speakers often occur, especially when both participants in a communication are non-native speakers. The data collected from President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. speech at United State of America from white House You-Tube on March 11th 2021. The researchers used qualitative research design to answer the research question and choose content analysis because the result of the data analyzed is in descriptive phenomenon such as word, clause and utterance. The researchers used documentation as the research instrument. The researchers collected the data that is posted on March, 11th 2021. The findings of this research showed 294 Data that Statement is 292data (99%), Question find 2(1%) data, 0 data for command and offer. The most type of speech function is Statement. In contrast which just 2 question and nothing data for command and offer in his speech

Analysis of Generic Structure and Grammatical Problem of Students in Writing English Paragraphs in Online Learning at Muhammadiyah University of Riau

The purpose of this research is to find out the generic structure and grammatical problems encountered by the non-English students at Muhammadiyah University of Riau. The data was obtained through students writing task namely writing English paragraphs of descriptive text. The writing task was given through Learning System Management (LSM) of the university named Sikuli. The participants of this research were the Non-English students taking the English subject in the first semester in academic year of 2021/2022 at Muhammadiyah University of Riau. The samples of this research were 4 classes consisting of a number of students for each class taken randomly spreading in eight faculties. They were from Computer Science faculty (40), Communication Science faculty (28), Natural Science and Health faculty (45), and Teacher Training and Education faculty (25). The total number of students are 138. The researchers applied the theory of Gerot and Wignel (1994) and Halliday et al. (2014) from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics. In generic structure, the appropriateness and inappropriateness in formulating identification and descriptions in descriptive text were described. While, in grammatical case, the writing students were analyzed based on the theory proposed by Yarber and Yarber (2010) and Dye (2005). After the data was analyzed, the results were obtained. It was showed that the non-English students at Muhammadiyah University of Riau in writing English paragraphs of descriptive text got serious problem on writing identification (115/83%) as one of the generic structure in descriptive text. In addition, they also encountered grammatical problems such as noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, parallelism, modifiers, subject-verb agreement, punctuation, and capitalization. Based on the numbers and the percentage of the grammatical problems above, it showed that the non-English students at Muhammadiyah University of Riau got serious problem on subject-verb agreement (129 / 14,16%).
 Keywords: Generic structure, Grammatical problems, Writing English paragraphs, Online learning

Lexical Metaphor in Proverbs in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, and A Man of the People: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

This study was aimed at analyzing lexical metaphors identified in proverbs Achebe’s two novels: Things Fall Apart and A Man of the People. Objectives of this study were to identify these lexical metaphors from Achebe’s novels, discuss their meanings, functions, and ideolological implications in the novels under study. To achieve these objectives, the study was anchored on Systemic Functional Grammar, a social semiotic theory to highlight the signifier - signified relationship of these lexical metaphors and their ideological implications of Igbo people. The lexical metaphors are identified and their meanings discussed as represented in the novels. The functions are exemplified and marked as positive and negative. Positive behaviours are upheld because they help in nation building while negative functions help to shape attitude and effect behaviours. Functions and Ideologies identified include indispensability of palm oil, struggle for survival through hard work, belief in ‘chukwu’ who determines success and destinies of individuals, belief in reincarnation, peaceful coexistence, strength for procreation, strive for success and shun arrogance, anti imperialism, any child whose mother died at childbirth is an evil child, political propaganda, ineffective leadership, do and die rivalry of politicians, materialistic attitude of rural prospective father- in-law that could lead to forced marriage, and given picture of how one looks like. The implication of the themes and ideologies realized from the two books shows that in Things Fall Apart lexical metaphors are used as ethical and ideological indicators while in A Man of the People they are used to gain social advantage, cover evil doings and justify perversities.

The Ancient Greek Nominal Group, with Attention to the Greek New Testament

Together with Latin, Ancient Greek has had a strong influence on grammatical theories and descriptions. This is reflected in traditional descriptions of the Ancient Greek nominal group (i.e., noun phrase), which are heavily syntagmatic and dependent on conventional parts-of-speech. In this paper, we explore the nominal group from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics. This allows for a more overtly paradigmatic description, yet one that is nevertheless still grounded in the syntagmatic patterns observed by traditional Greek grammar. We begin by discussing some systems expressed by inflectional morphology, namely gender and number. We then present systems realized through the insertion of what we call “substantive” nominal group functions, namely speech role, naming, description, differentiation, distribution, association, and reiteration. The functions that realize these systems can each serve as the syntagmatic head of an Ancient Greek nominal group, but where more than one of them is realized, the most substantive one will serve as head. By contrast, the specification system is realized by a grammatical marker with left-to-right scope. To conclude the paper, we briefly discuss linear ordering in Ancient Greek nominal groups and some functional explanations of their many possible orderings.

Exploring Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards Genre-based Pedagogy Developed in Persuasive Writing Teaching: The Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

Exploring Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards Genre-based Pedagogy Developed in Persuasive Writing Teaching: The Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

Exploring ecological identity from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics

AbstractEcological identity, acting as the baton to guide the public’s behavior in nature, is closely correlated with environmental crises that threaten human survival. Previous studies of ecological identity are mostly conducted in the domain of sociopsychology with an emphasis on human’s attitude and behavior. Less attention, however, has been paid to the discursive construction of one’s ecological identity. The current study aims to build a framework to explore the mechanism of discursive strategies in constructing one’s ecological identity. To this end, this article classifies different ecological identities according to their impact on nature and the ecosophy of holism. It then puts forward a framework based on systemic functional linguistics to explore how lexicogrammatical resources can be employed strategically in the construction of ecological identity. The framework is significant for ecolinguistic investigations of identity and the cultivation of human’s critical language awareness related to the protection of ecosystems.

Exploring Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards Genre-based Pedagogy Developed in Persuasive Writing Teaching: The Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

Previous studies in genre-based pedagogy mainly concerned with its teaching effects, few studies involved with students’ perceptions and attitudes which is actually playing a role in teaching and learning activities. The present study intends to make some explorations in this aspect. A quasi-experimental study to designed to answer the research question “What are students’ perceptions and attitudes towards the genre-based pedagogy developed in Chinese university students’ persuasive writings?” Thirty-four students participated in the study and a four-point Likert scale questionnaire and an interview were applied to collect the data. After the quantitative and qualitative analysis, the study find that most participants hold positive attitudes towards every item of the questionnaire and think highly of the genre-based teaching pedagogy from the following six aspects: the mastery of textual features, the genre-awareness of persuasion, confidence in writing an effective persuasion, attitudes towards group writing in the teaching instruction, interests in the application of the curriculum cycle to other genres and other program instruction related comments such as being difficult to master certain required language features and following the teaching patterns involved in the textual construction of persuasion. However, the general indication is that the curriculum cycle can help and enhance students’ understandings of each of the textual features of persuasion. Finally, the study provides implications for future teaching: the genre-based approach could be effectively and widely applied in Chinese university students’ genre writing as the apprenticeship involved allows the students to be more creative as their writing skills develop.

Generic structure of descriptive text written English language learner and teachers

The objective of this research is to describe the appropriateness and inappropriateness of participants in formulating identification in descriptive text. The researcher applies the theory of Gerot and Wignel (1994) from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics. To achieve the aim of this research, the researcher used a descriptive qualitative research design. The participants of this research come from three different groups (students at junior high school, English department students, and English teachers). It was chosen since the whole group is familiar with this kind of genre. Since the pandemic situation, the researcher used WhatsUp as a supporting instrument to collect the data. After analyzing the data (interactive data analysis) through the implementation of the systemic functional linguistics perspective, the researcher got the result. This research shows that 50% of junior high school students categorized appropriately in writing identification, 20% of English department students categorized appropriately, and 60% of English teachers categorized appropriately. Based on the results above, it can be concluded that the participants have a poor ability to write identification. It suggests that the English teachers' training program and English teachers have a better pedagogical plan and knowledge of the genre before teaching descriptive text.

The linguistic construction of business decisions

AbstractThis paper models analytical tools for identifying the linguistic resources at play in constructingbusiness decision-makingin high-scoring undergraduate business reports from a systemic functional linguistic perspective. Drawing on the discourse semantic system ofappraisaland coupling theory in systemic functional linguistics, this paper illustrates a process for analysing the linguistic construction of investment opportunities and risks in undergraduate business reports through the ‘coupling’ of different types of discourse semantic meanings. This study has pedagogical implications for making explicit the key language resources critical for constructing business decisions in undergraduate business studies.

A Functional Analysis of Theme and Thematic Progression of Private Hospital Websites

Medical tourism has been seriously affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that has become a huge threat to global economy. In mitigating this issue, attention needs to be given to the online promotional message strategy to boost medical tourism. However, there is a scarcity of work on medical tourism promotional discourse from the textual function perspective despite the considerable number of studies in other types of discourse. This study, therefore, aims to examine and compare the promotional discourse message strategies in Malaysia and Thailand’s private hospital websites. The analysis was based on Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) perspective, using Halliday & Matthiessen’s model of textual analysis (2004) and Danes’ classification of thematic patterns (1974). A total of six webpages with three webpages of one Malaysian website and one Thai website were analysed in relation to theme type and thematic progression. The findings show that texts derived from the hospital websites in Malaysia and Thailand display similarities and differences pertaining to how the texts are organised in relation to their theme types and thematic patterns. Both websites from Malaysia and Thailand combined objectivity with subjectivity in choosing their themes and thematic progression since they have a preference for unmarked themes in combination with marked theme to inform and persuade readers. However, the Prince Court Medical Centre (PCMC, Malaysia) website was direct and cohesive with its short texts and use of textual themes, while the message in Samitivej Hospital (SH, Thailand) website was more indirect, less compact, and less cohesive as the texts were rather lengthy and interspersed with interpersonal themes. The findings can be a guide for copywriters, website designers or medical tourism stakeholders to be aware of meaning-making strategies in promoting medical websites for medical tourism purpose. Keywords: Textual Analysis; Theme and Thematic Progression; Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL); online promotional discourse; Medical Tourism

The use of semiotic resources in traffic policing: an exploration of genre structure and exchanges in traffic accident handling in China

Abstract In China, the increasing traffic pressure has created traffic policing problems such as the heavy workloads of traffic police, as well as more conflicts between traffic police and road users. The treatment of traffic policing as a semiotic practice provides both a new perspective in and a helpful approach to dealing with these problems, yet few studies have investigated how semiotic resources are used in traffic policing interactions. This article examines the supportive role of semiotic resources in traffic policing, and draws upon genre and exchanges involved as an illustration. The data include three audio recordings of traffic accident handling cases in Shanghai, China. Through qualitative analysis of the data from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics, this article identifies the genre stages (both obligatory and optional stages) in traffic accident handling and their logico-semantic relations, and situates the typical exchanges and moves used by traffic police in different stages. It also discusses the usefulness of semiotic resources for traffic policing and the implications of these resources in tackling the existing problems of traffic policing in China.

A Genre and Appraisal Analysis of Critical Review Texts in Academic Writing From a Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspective

A critical review is one of the text types (i.e., genres) assigned for academic writing in Australian universities; yet, the study of this genre remains underexamined in academic discourse. This qualitative study was designed to analyse the schematic structures and lexical choices in evaluative meanings within critical review texts to provide a description of the critical analysis genre that could help to familiarise students with the characteristics of the genre. Texts used for the analysis were a tutor’s model text, provided to the students in the Introductory Academic Program (IAP) at the University of Adelaide, and the critical review writing of 2 Indonesian students in the IAP class. Using both genre analysis (Martin & Rose, 2003) and the appreciation framework (Martin & White, 2005) from systemic functional linguistics (SFL), the study applied “a genre-analytic approach” (Nodoushan & Khakbaz, 2011, p.112) to analysing and describing the structure and language use of the critical review texts. Analysis of the schematic structure identified 5 stages: Introduction, Summary of the Article, Analysis of the Article: Positive Critique, Analysis of the Article: Negative Critique, and Conclusion. The values of appreciation that contributed to the evaluative purpose of the critical review genre were categorised as valuation, composition, and reaction. Based on the analysis, this report provides suggestions for structural and lexical resources for the realisation of the purpose of a critical review text and for the expression of evaluative meanings.