Systemic Functional Linguistics Research Articles

Transitivity Analysis in Academic Writing: A Case Study of Feminist, Female, Feminine

<p>As one of the metafunctions in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), experiential meaning plays a vital role in interpreting texts. The transitivity system identifies the experiential meaning and captures how reality is construed by manifold linguistics choices. Despite the widespread application of Holliday’s transitivity system, academic discourse receives far less attention than it deserves. In response, the study is set to analyze an extracted passage from the academic essay <em>The Feminist Reader</em> and to reveal the author’s underlying ideology of feminism by using the transitivity system as a theoretical framework. Among the six processes outlined in the framework, the study discovers that relational processes highly dominate writing, distantly followed by material, while verbal and mental processes respectively come third. Moreover, it is the genre and register of academic writing and the author’s writing intentions that contribute to different proportions of processes. In addition to exploring those hidden reasons, it is admitted that the transitivity choices the author makes are covert manifestations of her perspective on femininity.</p>

A Corpus-Based Study of Nominalizations in the Sports News of Shanghai Gazette (1919–1920)

With the theory of grammatical metaphor in systemic functional linguistics as the theoretical basis, this study explores the nominalizations used in the sports news of Shanghai Gazette (1919–1920), an English-language newspaper. By retrieving the nominalizations with a self-written Python script and by analyzing the phenomena in context, we found that the resource of nominalization is employed in the reporting of sports events for various purposes, including demonstrating sports variety and vitality, establishing a positive image of Western athletes, and building up emotional bonds with western residents in Shanghai, in particular, the Americans. Based on the corpus results and historical investigation, it may be concluded that the nominalization strategy adopted in sports news not only helps improve cultural publicity but also carries rich ideological implications.

An SFL perspective on EFL textbooks and its pedagogical implications in language teaching

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) offers a framework for analyzing EFL textbooks by considering three metafunctions of language: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. This study aims to explore how SFL can provide insights into the linguistic features and discourse patterns that contribute to establishing these metafunctions in EFL textbooks, focusing on the pedagogical implications for language teaching. Specifically, the study investigates the transitivity pattern, mood system, and nominal group analysis, focusing on two selected EFL textbooks from different publishers. For the convenience of the research process, the researcher selected dialogue samples from the textbooks through convenience sampling and transformed them into clauses for analysis. The findings revealed that material process types were the most frequently employed, while interrogative forms predominated among the clause types. Additionally, the analysis of nominal groups indicated that the most common were nominal group types Thing (T) and Noun and Thing (NT). These findings shed light on the linguistic features of EFL textbooks and suggest that a closer examination of the metafunction of language can enhance our understanding of how language is utilized to achieve learning objectives. Consequently, to support students' language learning and proficiency development, EFL teachers should incorporate instructional focus, contextualized language teaching, integration of SFL concepts, promotion of language awareness, and differentiated instruction.

A Transitivity Analysis of English Newspapers Headlines on the Ukraine-Russia War: A Study with Critical Discourse Analysis and Systematic Functional Linguistics’ Perspective

Newspaper is the representative of what happens in society. It uses different writing strategies. The language of the newspaper emerged from beliefs, speech and writing practices (Joseph, 2006). There are different lexical, grammatical, and discursive strategies that the author uses in his article or headline. This study aims to explore the lexical and discursive choices that are used in newspaper headlines depicting the Ukraine-Russia war. It uses a descriptive research method and Halliday’s transitivity system as a research instrument. The researcher investigated how language features are used to create an emotional impact and influence the common public. The study highlights the hidden ideologies that are the basis of the lexical choices or different representations of the same event. The results show that "Stars and Strips", a German newspaper, shows Vladimir Putin as a leader of Russia who has authority and a great impact on the people of Russia but “The New York Post” and “The Guardian” depict him as a murderer who is responsible for this war and attacks Ukraine and kill people violently because of his desire.

Linguistic Trends in Doctor-Patient Communication

Effective communication between doctors and patients is vital for successful consultations. Language plays a key role in making the communication between the doctor and the patient effective. Discourse studies that study language at its micro, as well as at its macro level, provide valuable insights into medical consultations. The objective of the present study is to provide an overview of various linguistic trends that emerged over time to examine talk in doctor-patient consultations. Studies examining doctor-patient discourse have been grouped under Interaction Analysis system, Rhetorical Genre Studies, Conversation analysis, sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Ethnography, and Systemic Functional Linguistics. It was observed that the linguistic trends that emerged in other contexts were rarely applied to Indian medical consultations. Therefore, there is a need to study Indian doctor-patient consultations using discourse frameworks to arrive at findings that may be used to promote effective communication between the participants.

Transitivity Analysis under Ideational Function in Systemic Functional Linguistics—Taking Present Xi's Idioms as an Example

Transitivity Analysis under Ideational Function in Systemic Functional Linguistics—Taking Present Xi's Idioms as an Example

An Appraisal Analysis of the Performance of Malaysian Fresh Graduates in a Job Interview

The current study was undertaken to investigate how fresh graduates perform in English and why they were successful, reserved, or unsuccessful in job interviews from the perspective of the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Appraisal Theory namely from the Attitude subsystem. The theory focuses on the English language proficiency of the candidates in terms of their ability to express their stances in English. A qualitative method was employed in the present study. The data of the study comprised of walk-in interview transcripts of 10 fresh graduates for the post of Administrative Officer (s). An Appraisal analysis was conducted to reveal stances for the answers to the general interview question, “How do you face challenges?” and it was used as a theme to analyze the data. The findings revealed that the Appreciation subsystem of Attitude was used predominantly by candidates who were successful. The current study is expected to advance knowledge on the performance of graduates in job interviews and contribute to the field of SFL and Educational Linguistics.

Features of Translation on Ancient Memorials Based on Interpersonal Function Analysis-Exemplified by a Selection of Classical Chinese Essays from Guwen Guanzhi

Translation has been a prominent focus in linguistics for six decades, yet scant attention has been paid to the stylistic nuances found in ancient Chinese memorials. The study aims to find out the linguistic features of translations of the ancient memorials. The paper starts with a brief introduction of Halliday’s interpersonal function theory and the definition of the memorial. Through analyzing the data, we collected from the two well-known Chinese ancient memorials. The former is State of Dispatching Troops and the later is Memorial to the Emperor Stating My Case. Results show the features of memorials regarding mood, modality, and personal pronoun and how these features achieve interpersonal functions through quantitative and qualitative research. This paper provides a simple model for analyzing Chinese ancient literary style memorials and compensates for the lack of theory about stylistic linguistic and systemic-functional linguistics in the English-Chinese translation field. The realization of interpersonal functions reflects the speaker’s status, intentions, tendencies and, the other information. In essays, more polite usage is used instead of the common first-person I and second-person pronoun you. The above analysis is considered by translators when they translate the memorials into English.

Analysis of Language Variants and Social Differences from the Perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics— A Case Study of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Analysis of Language Variants and Social Differences from the Perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics— A Case Study of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

An analysis of the image-text relationship in English advertising from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics

An analysis of the image-text relationship in English advertising from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics

THE TRANSLATION OF THEMES FROM ENGLISH INTO VIETNAMESE: THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN NOVEL “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD” AND THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION “GIẾT CON CHIM NHẠI”

This paper attempts to examine how Themes in English are translated into Vietnamese. The data for the study are taken from the novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ written by the eminent American novelist Harper Lee and the Vietnamese version ‘Giết con chim nhại’ translated by two Vietnamese translators Huỳnh Kim Oanh and Phạm Viêm Phương. The theoretical framework employed in the study is Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The unit of analysis is independent major clause simplexes in the source text (ST) and their corresponding major independent clause simplexes in the target text (TT). The aspects of analysis and comparison are simple and multiple Themes in declarative, imperative and interrogative clause simplexes. The study shows that most Themes in English clause simplexes are closely translated and retained as Themes in corresponding Vietnamese clause simplexes. The study also indicates that there are a number of translation shifts which are partly due to the differences in clause structure of English and Vietnamese, partly due to the semantic complexity (ambiguity) of some ST question words, and partly due to the translators’ negligence of the role of Theme and its delicate choices in constructing textual meaning in the clause and developing meaning in the texts. It is clear from the study that SFL is highly relevant to translation theory and translation practice: It can stand to benefit the translator from analysis of the ST, to discussion of translation problems, to explanation for establishment of points of translation equivalence and translation shift between the choices in the TT and those in the ST, and to synthesis of the TT – the final product of the translation process.

Types of Grammatical Elements in Indonesian ELT Textbook: SFL Perspective

Transitivity analysis is used to study news, reading, speeches, and other discourses. However, recent textbooks on grammatical element participants and processes have little transitivity analysis research. Teachers who understand transitivity analysis can help students understand grammar and improve their oral and written communication skills by developing grammar and using proper teaching methods to teach about sentence subjects and predicates. This study seeks to identify the transitivity participants and processes that define grammatical elements in English for Nusantara for Grade 7. This study employed a textbook for qualitative content analysis. Subsequently, Halliday and Matthiessen's (2014) transitivity analysis is applied to the data. The types of participants found in this study were carrier (93 words), actor (79 words), senser (29 words), token (18 words), sayer (17 words), and behaver (8 words). Additionally, the relational processes (112 words) include attributing (94 words) and identifying (18 words), material processes (111 words), mental processes (32 words), verbal processes (18 words), existential processes (8 words), and behavioral processes (7 words). This study suggests that teachers employ transitivity to create activities and strategies to help students learn English grammar. It should assist students meet Merdeka Belajar curriculum goals, including speaking and writing English well. Keywords: Grammatical Elements, English Textbook, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Transitivity

Identification of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor in Saraiki Language and its Deployment in Different Registers of Saraiki and English: A Contrastive Study

Grammatical Metaphor refers to a set of lexico-grammatical choices offered by a language to create formality of expression and pithiness. Firstly, this linguistic feature was discussed by Halliday in 1985 who classified one of its types -the Ideational Grammatical Metaphor (IGM) into 13 types and regarded it as a scientific or academic discourse characteristic. The IGM phenomenon is now considered central in SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics)- inspired language teaching and significant for translators in understanding the Metafunctional meanings across SL (Source Language) or TL (Target Language). However, this worthwhile linguistic phenomenon has been understudied in the context of Pakistani languages. This work studies the Saraiki language for its identification and deployment in different English and Saraiki registers. The study follows the SFL Grammatical Metaphor Theory of Halliday (1998; 1999; 2006) as a theoretical framework and Content analysis as a tool for the identification and categorization of IGMs. The text consisted of the undergraduate course books of Saraiki and English, and its sample is delimited to 15 excerpts from both languages. The research results in the identification of all thirteen IGM categories in Saraiki, as in English; while regarding the IGM deployment in different registers of both languages, it is observed that the extent of IGM usage in Saraiki written text (1.14 per Clause) is greater than in English (0.83 per Clause), and academic text of both languages is found to have more instances of Ideational Grammatical Metaphors than the works of fiction in these languages. The study contributes to the body of research on Grammatical Metaphor and SFL-inspired comparative studies on Indo-Aryan languages of the world.

The Morphosemantics of Complex Numbers

Gender-based violence, which includes domestic abuse, sexual assault, and femicide, persists as a pervasive issue in Nigeria. This study aims to investigate the transitivity system and the embedded ideology in news headlines reporting instances of gender-based violence in the country. Grounded in Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) Ideational Metafunction of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the research employs a content analysis method, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyze data. A purposive selection of 20 news headlines from each of two prominent mainstream Nigerian media outlets, The Punch and Nigerian Tribune, published between May and August 2022, constitutes the dataset, totalling 40 news headlines. The analysis of the transitivity system in The Punch online news reveals the utilization of thirty (30) processes in the selected twenty (20) news headlines portraying crimes against women in Nigeria. Notably, twenty-nine (96.7%) of these processes are material, with the remaining one (3.3%) being behavioural. The prevalence of material processes is similarly reflected in the news headlines from the Nigerian Tribune, where twenty-five (25) processes are observed across the selected twenty (20) headlines. Here, material processes constitute twenty-four instances (96%), while verbal processes appear only once (4%). The consistent use of material processes allows both media houses – The Punch and Nigerian Tribune – to articulate various physical and violent actions perpetrated against Nigerian women, as well as actions taken by law enforcement agencies to seek justice for the victims. The analysis further uncovers a representation of gender roles and power dynamics, highlighting that all material processes related to violence, such as ‘rape’, ‘shot’, ‘abducts’, ‘kills’, and ‘punches’, are associated with males. Consequently, men are portrayed as the perpetrators of violent crimes, while women are depicted as the victims—vulnerable, subject to gang rape, rape, shooting, killing, and stabbing. Additionally, the study reveals that women, along with related entities, are frequently assigned the participant role of the goal in news headlines, implying an ideological representation that positions women as susceptible targets of violent crimes. In conclusion, this study asserts that Nigerian media outlets predominantly utilize material processes and assign goal participant roles within the transitivity system to present an amplified and sensational portrayal of various physical and aggressive actions inflicted upon women and young girls in Nigeria.

Transitivity System and Ideological Framing in News Headlines Reporting Gender-based Violence in Nigeria

Gender-based violence, encompassing domestic abuse, sexual assault, and femicide, remains an enduring and widespread issue in Nigeria. This study aims to examine the transitivity system and ideology present in news headlines reporting gender-based violence in Nigeria. While adopting Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) Ideational Metafunction of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as the theoretical framework, the study uses content analysis method which includes both qualitative and quantitative approaches in the analysis of the data. 20 news headlines each published between May and August, 2022 on the official websites of two prominent mainstream media in Nigeria – The Punch and Nigerian Tribune – are purposively selected for this study, making a total of 40 news headlines. The analysis of transitivity system in The Punch online news revealed that thirty (30) processes are employed in the twenty (20) news headlines depicting crime committed against women in Nigeria selected from the newspaper. Twenty-nine (96.7%) of these processes are material process, while one (3.3%) is behavioural process. The prevailing occurrence of material process is also evident in the news headlines selected from Nigerian Tribune. In Nigerian Tribune, twenty-five (25) processes are deployed across the twenty (20) selected news headlines; material process appears twenty-four times (96%), while verbal process appears only once (4%). The dominant use of material process in the selected news headlines permits both media houses – The Punch and Nigerian Tribune – to identify and describe various physical and violent actions that were taken against Nigerian women, and also to identify actions taken by the law enforcement agencies to ensure justice for the victims of crime. The analysis further highlighted a representation of gender roles and power dynamics by revealing that all the material processes which are related to violence, such as ‘rape’, ‘shot’, ‘abducts’, ‘kills’, and ‘punches’, are linked with the male. Hence, men are portrayed as perpetrators of violent crimes while women are represented as the victims; women are portrayed as vulnerable, gang-raped, raped, shot, killed and stabbed. It was also discovered that women, along with related entities, are often used in news headlines to perform the participant role of goal, thereby implying an ideological representation that positions women as susceptible targets of violent crimes. This study therefore concludes that Nigerian media outlets primarily deploy material processes and goal participant roles of the transitivity system to present an amplified and sensational portrayal of various physical and aggressive actions inflicted upon women and young girls in Nigeria.

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.

Taylor Swift’s Speech at New York University: Revealing Interpersonal Meaning

Interpersonal meaning has important role in communication to achieve good connection among the speaker and the hearer. There are many ways in realizing interpersonal meaning, one of which is by investigating mood and modality used. Consequently, this study aims to analyze the mood and modality types identified in Taylor Swift’s speech at New York University. This study applies systemic functional linguistics in terms of interpersonal meaning proposed by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014). This study also implements qualitative method to answer the problems of the study which taken from Taylor Swift’s utterances during her speech contained mood and modality types as the data. However, the writers use data analysis technique by Miles and Huberman (1994). As the result, there are 195 clauses indicated as mood types which are divided into three types. There are 173 clauses classified as declarative mood types which made it the most frequently used by the speaker. Besides, there are 55 clauses categorized as modality types by making the modalization type as the dominant clause occured in the speech with the occurrences of 32 clauses.

Cultural factors in foreign language teaching and their linguistic interpretation

Systemic functional linguistics, intercultural communication and linguoculturology systematically explain the relationship between language, culture and communication. They are the main theoretical basis for modern foreign language teaching research. Based on the framework of the relationship between language and culture from the perspective of three disciplines, their cultural views are analyzed. General scientific methods of analysis and comparative study are utilized for conducting research. We propose that foreign language teaching includes three kinds of cultural factors, namely, symbolic resource culture, communicative norm culture and cognitive psychology culture, and point out the adaptation relationship between different theories and foreign language teaching research directions. Each subject has its emphasis, and the combination of the three can form a closed-loop research on language teaching and culture teaching in foreign language teaching.

Multimodal Pencitraan Anies Baswedan dalam Akun Instagram @aniesbaswedan Menjelang Pemilihan Presiden 2024

The aim of this research is to analyze the visual depiction of Anies Baswedan on Instagram and highlight the role of social media in political campaign strategies. The method used is a qualitative approach with an interpretive paradigm, with a multimodality research method with a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) research design. The results of this research are an analysis of three photos uploaded to the Instagram account @aniesbaswedan which depict Anies Baswedan's political activities and campaign as a presidential candidate. Ideation, interpersonal, and textual analyzes are used to study the use of language and images in the context of political drama via social media. In conclusion, this research provides an understanding of the content and interactions that occur in @aniesbaswedan's Instagram uploads, and these photos receive a positive response from social media users. Anies Baswedan uses Instagram as a stage to show his existence in the world of politics, and he uses these uploads to achieve the goal of being accepted by other users. The photos uploaded by Anies show characteristics that match the purpose of the scene regarding his dream of becoming president. Via Instagram, Anies Baswedan appears as a candidate who is ready to become President 2024 with a serious, warm and humanist image.

SEEING BEYOND WORDS: METAFUNCTIONS ANALYSIS OF EFL TEXTBOOKS

This study carefully applies Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to identify common linguistic patterns to examine English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks. This descriptive qualitative study addresses the ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks as the research focus. The frequent use of material process, particular nominal group types such as Thing (T) and Numerative Thing (NT), the nuanced modality conveyed by "should," "would," and "will," and the use of narrative perspectives with third-person singular pronouns ("he" and "she") are noteworthy among these patterns. The identified linguistic features furnish invaluable pedagogical insights for the stakeholders of English learners, including the teachers, and provide guidance for targeted language instruction. Furthermore, these results are also invaluable for material development since the study highlights the importance of integrating SFL principles within the classroom discourse. The study also emphasizes the significance of SFL-based textbooks as learning facilitates. The study discovers that SFL-based textbook analysis provides well-informed instruction, allowing teachers to modify their teaching methods to meet students' communicative needs better. Despite limitations, the analysis remains a valuable tool in the classroom discourse as it better portrays the foreign language classroom discourse.