Systemic Functional Approach Research Articles

Соотношение членов предложения и фразеологизмов в эрзянском языке

the article considers phraseological units (semantically close to a word), which can structurally correspond to such syntactic constructions as a whole sentence, a phrase (subordinating or coordinating) or a case-postpositional combination. Objective: to establish correlations of phraseological units with members of a sentence as part of syntactic constructions. Research materials: phraseological units extracted from bilingual Erzya-Russian and phraseological dictionaries; contexts with phraseological units from works of fiction by Mordovian authors in the Erzya language. Results and novelty of the research: for the first time in Mordovian linguistics, the article presents the correlation of members of a sentence and phraseological units on the material of the Erzya language. Using a system-functional approach 259 Bulletin of Ugric Studies. Vol. 14. № 2 (57). 2024. within the contextual analysis methodology, the main patterns of the syntactic functioning of phraseological units are analyzed. Phraseological units corresponding to a whole sentence, phrase or case-postpositional combination are fixed. It is indicated that a phraseological unit is fully revealed only in context, so identifying its syntactic functions becomes important. Analysis of theoretical and illustrative material allowed us to come to the conclusion that it can perform the function of all members of a sentence. To the least extent (even for a substantive phraseological unit), it has the function of a subject, since in its semantics it is most often a predicate word, but this allows it to often function as a predicate. As part of a sentence, a phraseological unit can be isolated from other members of the sentence, perform the function of a generalizing word, be included in a number of homogeneous members, create predicative parts in conjunctionless complex sentences, act as the main or subordinate part of a compound sentence

Review of Kim, Martin, Shin & Choi (2023): Korean grammar: A systemic functional approach

Review of Kim, Martin, Shin & Choi (2023): Korean grammar: A systemic functional approach

Environmental Consequences of the Explosion of the Kahovsky Hydroelectric Plant on Biodiversity

The purpose of this article is to determine the ecological consequences of the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant (southern Ukraine) on the biological diversity of the region. The main research methods were: theoretical generalization and system-functional approach, analysis, synthesis, expedition method. The ecological consequences of the destruction of a hydroelectric dam are divided into two types: drainage and flooding. As a result of the flooding, 48 objects of the nature reserve fund, with a total area of 120 thousand hectares, were affected. Aquatic biotopes and biotopes characteristic of overmoistened areas were the most affected by drainage. 38 rare types of biotopes, which are under the protection of the Bern Convention, were affected by the ecological disaster; wetlands of international importance (so-called Ramsar) with an area of 33,000 hectares in the Dnipro delta and seven objects of the Emerald network. Prospects for further research are related to the study of biotope restoration after an ecological disaster.

BEHAVIORAL PROCESS IN ANGKOLA LANGUAGE

The purpose of this study is to reveal how the behavioral process that is seen from the point of view of the Angkola language as one of the archipelago languages that still persists until now. The method used is descriptive qualitative through the Systemic Functional Linguistics approach. The research results show that the Angkola language behavior process has different variants. Patterns and pattern variants in verbal behavior processes are three times more numerous than patterns and pattern variants in mental behavior processes. This proves that the process of verbal behavior is more concrete in its form while the mental behavior process is more abstract in its form. Thus, the behavior process in the Angkola language can be an additional theoretical framework in an effort to understand the languages of the other archipelago.

Внешнеполитический имидж Эстонии как страны-члена Европейского союза в контексте укрепления евроскептицизма

The author explores the transformation of Estonia’s foreign policy image in the context of a systemic crisis. A significant strengthening of the Eurosceptic political camp in Estonia, destabilizing the Euro-optimistic reputation carefully formed since the country regained its independence in 1991, leads to the formation of a negative foreign policy image of Estonia both in Brussels and inside the state. The study examines the image policy of Estonia in the European Union. The purpose of the article is to study the transformation of Estonia’s foreign policy image as a European Union member during the strengthening of hard Euroscepticism in this state. The problems of Estonia’s image in Brussels are becoming increasingly relevant due to the presence of Eurosceptic Conservative People’s Party of Estonia in the government coalition in 2019–2021. A system-functional approach has been used to study Estonia’s foreign policy image as an integral system, which consists of a number of interconnected elements. The research uses the scientific method of system analysis, comparative method, which allowed to compare the foreign policy image of Estonia at different chronological stages; genetic method, which helped to investigate the genesis of the Estonia’s foreign policy image, reveal its content and show the stages of its transformation; case study method, which allowed to explore a self-sufficient and unique Estonian case. The research is based on the theory of image in international relations. In order to identify the elements that influence the formation of the modern foreign policy image of Estonia, the author uses the method of content analysis. As a result of Eurosceptics’ presence in the government coalition the positive image of the country in European Union underwent significant erosion and partial destruction.

REPRESENTASI PEREMPUAN DALAM LAGU RAP PRANCIS

This research aims to reveal the strategies used to represent women in French rap songs and identify the various identities of women depicted in French rap songs. This research utilizes Sara Mills' Critical Discourse Analysis theory and Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics approach on Transitivity. The data were then analyzed using Sara Mills' Critical Discourse Analysis theory, focusing on the subject and object positions. These clauses were classified based on transitivity elements, including participants, processes, and circumstances. The results show differences in the representation of women carried out by male and female rappers. In songs performed by male rappers, women are represented as object. Women are portrayed as materialistic, seductive, traditional, and passive. Based on the transitivity analysis, which indicates that the dominant processes are Material, Mental, and Relational processes. On the other hand, in rap songs performed by female rappers, women are represented as subject, capable of presenting themselves and offering representations that tend to empower women. This representation manifests as strong, confident, independent, and competitive women. This is also evident from the transitivity analysis, which indicates that the dominant process is the Material process

Review of Kim, Martin, Shin & Choi (2023): Korean grammar: A systemic functional approach

Review of Kim, Martin, Shin & Choi (2023): Korean grammar: A systemic functional approach

Взаимосвязь системы «Я» и регуляторных качеств студентов в различных ситуациях учебной деятельности

<p>The article is devoted to the study of the “Self” system’s role in the mental state’s self-regulation. The research is based on the concept of states mental regulation and the system-functional approach to the human psychic. According to the empirical research the specifics of the relationship between the “Self” system components and the factors combining various students’ regulatory qualities (self-regulation methods, copings, regulatory abilities, social self-control) are shown. The closest connections between regulatory qualities and the "Self" system components form, on the one hand, an integral indicator of the cognitive aspect of self—regulation, on the other - the self-esteem of personal qualities, self-confidence, as well as the cognitive component of the self-attitude. The features of the interrelation of the “Self” system components and the effectiveness of mental states self-regulation in various forms of educational activity (lecture, seminar, exam) are revealed. Decreasing the level of self-regulation effectiveness with increasing intensity of the educational situation is established. Consequently, the importance of the “Self” system in the regulation of mental states is shown. Which is revealed through the organization of relationships with regulatory qualities, the effectiveness of self-regulation, the choice of regulating ways in various life situations. The results of the study can be useful for psychologists developing techniques for mental states regulation supporting in various conditions of life.</p>

Systemic Functional Linguistic Approach to Language Policy-Problems in Sri Lanka: From Colonialism to Post-war Reconciliation

There is a vast body of literature on Language Policy (LP) produced during the last six decades in the newly independent countries from colonial subjugation. Language policy as an umbrella term penetrates several other areas. The present study has been confined to the problems of language status planning in Sri Lanka. This research was conducted to scrutinise LP-relevant problems in the light of Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory and give a fresh insight into the existing problems based on the SFL approach for Sri Lankan LP ecology. The study is mostly a qualitative study that hardly utilises quantitative data. Apart from the secondary data sources, in-depth interviews were used as an interactive data collection instrument. Almost all the analyses are thematic apart from very few other types of analyses such as content analysis. Among the significant findings of this study, suppression of vernaculars during the colonial language status planning efforts and building up the feeling of superiority and inferiority based on language status planning are identified. This situation has further been established by pitching it to growthism and classism. The present study has also recognised bundles of LP-relevant real-world problems that occurred due to LP adoptions in and around LP practices. At the macro level, the lack of human, financial and material resources, violation of official language policy, the poor language proficiency of public officers, the gap between policies and implementation, lack of official language policy awareness, and legislative and machinery issues were identified. Among the other major problems, polarising linguistic communities, marginalising tiny language communities, lack of language skills of public officers, lack of officers to implement the LP, insufficient training given to the public service, lack of physical resources, resourcing LP implementing bodies poorly, and receiving public service merely in majority’s language in some places are influential findings. Several rank scales and system networks of the LP practices within the new model have been introduced to better reflect the problems systemically with some other exploratory tools. Significantly, the present study has yielded a new model which is called Cyclical Functional Model for LP in Sri Lanka. The researcher has given an entirely new insight into Sri Lankan LP ecology based on SFL. The appliable possibility that was introduced by M. A. K. Halliday to expand the SFL theory as a holistic model was the justification of this theoretical expansion. The researcher has also been able to demonstrate a causal relationship among the factors/entities from socio-political background to immediate factors involved in language policy-making, and from the language policy itself to the current social problems. The current study further concludes that the country started with some critical monolingual language policy discourse, and has moved to a fertile situation where the languages are considered as resources in principle in its orientation, nonetheless still they appear as written policies that are yet to seek practical realisations to stabilise this language ecology of the country.

Textual periphrases in the semantic structure of N.M. Karamzin's sentimental historical novel "Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter"

The work is devoted to the problem of the functioning of the lexical figurative means of artistic expression – periphrase as an integral component of the semantic structure of the literary text created in the line of sentimentalism aesthetics in the genre of historical story against the background of the ongoing process of the formation of the norms of the Russian literary language in the context of linguistic polemics of the turn of the XVIII–XIX centuries. The study of the semantic structure of a literary text involves the analysis of the types of nomination techniques and their aesthetic content. However, the use of peripheral expressions has a certain specificity, which is associated with their heterogeneity in thematic marking, structure and object of nomination. The subject of the study is periphrases, the paper presents the classification of periphrases of N.M. Karamzin's story "Natalia, the boyar's Daughter" as works of the genre of sentimental historical story. Using the example of the analysis of the text of the story, the peripheral combinations in the thematic groups love and time (time/period: life, year) are considered, the models of periphrases, metonymic nomination are described, the functions of periphrases are considered. The study of the functioning of periphrases is focused on determining the place and role occupied by this technique in the semantic structure of the text. The relevance of the research is connected with the choice of the research material – N.M. Karamzin's novella "Natalia, the boyar's daughter", its consideration in order to identify the features of the semantic structure and is due to the general interest of modern linguistics in the interpretation of a literary text based on a system-functional approach to the study of the object.

Sesotho ideophones as personal names: A systemic functional linguistics approach

This article explores Sesotho ideophones as personal names. These ideophones are described with a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory framework as they were awarded as enacted messages that explicate social functions. The study is a further alleviation of the problem of complacency of taking personal names for granted, a problem facing Sesotho speakers, unaware that these names arise from their daily discourse and have social functions. It is a qualitative study and data was collected from academic institutions – their enrolment, pass and graduation lists – and from radio and TV broadcasts, telephone directories, neighbours and many other sources. The aim is to establish that Sesotho ideophones deployed as onomastics reflect as the context of reference, the semiotic view that Basotho functionally capture their socio-cultural context to portray their experiences and views. The names employ various linguistic qualities to display the interpersonal ‘social fabric’ among speakers. Their application displays the name givers skill to realise an ideophone as a permanent onomastic inscription that reveals the name givers’ modality or evaluation of a birth context. It is concluded that these ideophones significantly illuminate the aspired form-meaning description of functional Sesotho normally overlooked by Sesotho grammarians. The study finds that a ideophone-onomastic feature supersedes the verb quality of ideophones and makes the verbal group and the nominal group interrelate. Further, it magnifies SFL in the description of Sesotho grammar and strengthens that Sesotho names are context-based texts. Further research could establish the real contexts that describe these ideophone choices as personal names. This study has implications for linguistics, language education, media and advertising and applied linguistics.

Systemic Functional Linguistics to Preserve Interpersonal and Ideational Meaning in English-Indonesian Translation

Systemic functional linguistic (SFL) is a language theory that emphasize social function of a language in realizing meaning. Traditional ways of translating Indonesian text has relied heavily on generative grammar or grammar translation method. Using this method, the grammatical function of an utterance may be well preserved yet at the stake of meaning shift. Register (field, mode and tenor) is an important feature in SFL that may help translators preserving ideational meaning and tenor from the source language to target language. English sentences on specific scenarios are translated into Indonesian and vice versa using grammar translation method and systemic functional linguistic. The results are compared to observe translation shift, ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning. The findings showed that grammar translation method fail to transfer the ideational meaning into Indonesian despite preserving experiential features are intact. This does not happen in systemic functional linguistic approach since the approach requires preserving the functional meaning of a sentence instead of the grammar. The grammar categories may change using SFL but the functional meaning is well preserved. Emphasizing functional meaning instead of grammatical function enable translators to deliver equal meaning in Indonesian. While tenor is not a problem in the translation of Indonesian to English, translators need to carefully consider field, mode and tenor when translation texts from English to Indonesian.

The value of models to support students' voice in middle school social studies argument writing

Teachers are often advised to use model texts, sentence starters, and paragraph frames to support student writers, but little empirical research reports on how K-12 students take up language from such models. We use a systemic functional linguistics fine-grained approach to analyze 19 middle school students’ writing in social studies as they engaged in inquiry with sources across two years, reporting on how they drew on models to write arguments with evidence from sources. Students represent different reading levels and seventeen speak languages other than English. We report that students drew on the models but added ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings of their own. We then analyze the interpersonal meanings that project students’ own voices, characterizing these voices as expansive or contractive and relating them to the argument tasks. We also discuss language choices that realize less formal registers. The study contributes to debates about models by demonstrating how the constraints and choices presented enabled students to meet disciplinary demands while bringing their own voices to their writing. We discuss implications for the use of models and for how students’ voices are valued and highlight methodological contributions to the analysis of voice.

The Use of Infographics as a Systemic Functional Approach to Improve Students' Understanding of Shakespeare's Drama

The Use of Infographics as a Systemic Functional Approach to Improve Students' Understanding of Shakespeare's Drama

Revisiting Halliday (1990) ‘New Ways of Meaning: The Challenge to Applied Linguistics’

Three decades ago, M. A. K. Halliday, the founder of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), presented a paper to AILA in Greece entitled ‘New Ways of Meaning: A Challenge to Applied Linguistics’ (Halliday, 1990), which introduced the notion of an ecological study of language (Fill and Mühlhäusler, 2001). In this seminal paper, Halliday emphasizes that ‘language does not passively reflect reality; language actively creates reality’ (cf. Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999) and that ‘lexicogrammar... shapes experience and transforms our perceptions into meanings’ (Halliday, 1990: 65). He identifies three ‘problematic spheres’ as foreseeable challenges – language planning, the register of scientific discourse and of language and prejudice, involving the deployment of resources within the system that constructs sexism, racism, growthism, and classism; and highlights the role of future applied linguists – ‘to use our theory of grammar... as a metatheory for understanding how grammar functions as a theory of experience’ (1990: 69) and ‘to learn to educate five billion children ... at such a time it is as well to reflect on how language construes the world’ (1990: 91), one that contains numerous ecosystems essential to the human survival. Three decades later, at a time when we humans continue to destroy the only habitable planet known in the universe, ‘ecolinguistics’ has been established and recognized as a field of research and activity (one involving ideological tensions, cf. Martin, 1986), drawing centrally on Halliday (1990), but is his challenge being met outside the academic community? We revisit the challenge and mission envisaged by Halliday to answer the questions, ‘What has changed?’ and ‘What still needs to be done?’ We adopt a systemic functional linguistics approach to investigate the questions in a wide range of registers where environmental issues are being processed semiotically and opinions are being formed, including examples from political discourse, news media, social media, and late-night talk shows on topics surrounding climate change, renewable energy, wildlife conservation and extinction, and economic inequality. We also pay attention to texts likely to be influential in the life of children and their gradual construal of their own world views with associated value systems (cf. Matthiessen, 2015).

Meaning in EFL textbooks delivered to Chilean public schools: knowledge construction from a Systemic Functional approach

This study examines the knowledge built through the 1st and 2nd-grade English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks used in Chilean public schools. From a linguistic perspective, knowledge is addressed as meaning, developed through the selection of linguistic resources that a given language offers. Textbooks are fundamental in teaching and learning a foreign language, because they provide a great part of these resources; consequently, it is essential to understand how meaning begins to be built and develops through the curriculum. With that aim, with a mixed-method approach and from a Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective, we examined the lexical resources employed in textbooks that contribute to the construction of meaning. We conducted discourse analysis to identify the relations among lexical items and the kind of knowledge they build. Corpus analysis was used to estimate how lexical complexity increases from one level to the next. We found that the two books build commonsense knowledge, corresponding to what children know about the world in their mother tongue. We also found that lexical complexity increases from one book to the other, thus enlarging learners’ repertoire of words in English.

Deployment of gestures in the semiotic construction of scientific knowledge: a systemic functional approach to pedagogic semiosis

Abstract A variety of semiotic resources makes the construction of scientific knowledge possible and meaning-making resources are conveyed by certain semiotic modes. Next, numerous studies have demonstrated the pedagogical importance of gestures in the demonstration of scientific knowledge in the classroom. Drawing on social semiotic systemic functional theory and legitimation code theory, this study explores the types and the role of gestures in the semiotic construction of scientific knowledge in pedagogic semiosis and their pedagogical values for the meaning-making of science content. With this aim, a gesture observation protocol (GOP) is developed to annotate and analyze data. Two science lectures, which are broadcast remotely for middle school students including gifted students, are observed. Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) method is employed to analyze and evaluate data. Results demonstrated that the deployment of gestures that contributes to the construction of scientific knowledge is low and deployed gestures mostly do not have pedagogical value. It is recommended that teachers should be more conscious and educated about deploying gestures to present scientific knowledge efficiently.

POLA STRUKTUR TEMATIK KONTEN BANTUAN LAYANAN GOOGLE BAHASA INGGRIS DAN VERSI TERJEMAHANNYA

Every language in the world has its own means to convey information that is poured through sentences. The structural patterns used also vary between languages as different thoughts of speakers of the language are also different. In the language localization industries, translation in the level of information structure from the source language into the target language must be done according to the rules that apply in the target language so that information can be conveyed precisely to the target language reader. This study aims to describe the thematic pattern in English declarative sentences found in Google's help content and their transformation in French and Indonesian using the Systemic Functional Linguistics analysis model approach developed by Halliday. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative. The findings obtained suggest that: 1) there are no structure shifts found in thematic structures from SL to TL 1 nor from SL to TL 2, 2) there are structure shifts found in thematic structures from SL to TL 1, but no change happened from SL to TL 2, and 3) there are no structure shifts found in thematic structures from SL to TL 1, but there are changes from SL to TL 2.

An appraisal perspective on students’ use of attitudinal resources in university EFL academic oral presentations

Research in evaluative language classroom becomes paramount to improving students’ critical skills. Despite this fact, studies on the evaluative language of EFL students’ attitudinal resources in Indonesian universities remain tenuous. This study aims to examine the attitudinal resources in fiction book reviews by EFL students for academic oral presentations at an Indonesian private university. The analysis of attitudinal resources in this study is based on the theory of Martin and White (2005). The study applied the systemic functional linguistics approach proposed by M. A. K. Halliday (Citation1994). Data were taken from video recordings and transcripts. The findings show that students expressed all three types of attitudinal resources; Appreciation was used most often, followed by Affect and Judgement. It shows that when reviewing books, students tend to express their appreciation, evaluate the books contents and express their feelings or emotions rather than evaluating the authors’ behaviour or character. In addition, the lexical features used by the students imply criticizing, evaluating, admiring, and praising the quality of the book. The study also found that the students used both positive and negative features. As a result, EFL students need to be empowered in universities as critical thinking skills offer the potential for effective learning that can transform them into professional users of information rather than passive recipients.

Construction of Gender in Linguistic Signs in Selected Kenyan Secondary School English Textbooks

In countries such as Kenya, where textbooks are a core component of classroom experience, the materials have the potential to shape socially enacted identities. Gender representation via linguistic signs in textbooks can have a substantial impact on how students perceive men and women in society. In order to achieve equity in education, which is a key mandate of both the Education for All (EFA) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), gender bias in textbooks must be addressed. The National Policy on Gender and Development (NPGAD) in Kenya sought to enhance equal participation among men, women, girls and boys in education and other thematic areas. This paper contributes to the discourse on gender representation in textbooks by examining gender portrayal in linguistic signs found in selected English secondary school textbooks using Halliday’s (1985, 2014) systemic functional grammar approach. The study applied the explanatory sequential research design (Creswell Plano Clark, 2011). A document analysis guide derived from the model for analyzing linguistic signs by Halliday (1985, 2014) was employed in the analysis of quantitative data from the linguistic signs in four English textbooks. Results showed that in the selected textbooks, masculine representations were more prevalent than those of females. The study also revealed that males were more involved in all the three mood types namely; declarative, interrogative and imperative. Again, more males than females appeared as theme and rheme of clauses. Additionally, it emerged that males engaged more in verbal processes than females did. The study concludes that men are either implicitly or explicitly portrayed as being superior to women in the linguistic signs in the analysed textbooks. The study recommends that Ministry of Education in Kenya initiates measures to alleviate gender disparity by focusing on the issue of gender representation in textbooks. On the other hand, the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) may find these results useful in improving the textbooks evaluation based on gender equality prototypes. Improved evaluation, could be used as a basis to revise textbooks currently in use and guide in the development of new ones.