Functions of Language - Volume 24, Issue 3, 2017

This study explores the benefits of a synergy between ESP research on genre and theoretical dimensions of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). It models genre on SFL dimensions and employs this model to analyse 200 biodata written by Applied Linguistics scholars, 100 each from research articles and seminar posters. Data were analysed from contextual, logico-semantic and lexicogrammatical perspectives. The findings reveal five generic stages in biodata. The frequency distribution of these stages and the phases that realise them shows variation between research article bios and seminar bios. The most frequent logico-semantic (or rhetorical) relations identified among stages and phases are of the expansion type, namely addition and elaboration, Further, collocational frameworks are used in organising some generic phases into waves of meaning and in construing different identities. Finally, evaluative resources, in the form of lexical bundles, modification and circumstantial elements in the clause, are employed by writers to boost their professional achievements and promote themselves. These findings contribute to theoretical discussions on genre and the scholarship on the interface between identity construction and academic writing, and also motivate further research.

Modern Chinese confirmative shi (as in mei cuo, wo shi yao dusi ni (沒錯，我是要毒死你) ‘that’s right. I really wanted to poison you to death’) is not an auxiliary but an adverb. It derives from the adjective shi ‘true, real’ in Old Chinese (Yan zhi yan shi ye (偃之言是也) ‘what Yan said was true’). The grammaticalization pathway of the Modern Chinese confirmative shi is different from that of the copula shi (Laozhang shi huoche siji (老張是貨車司機) ‘Laozhang is a truck driver’) or the auxiliary shi (Laozhang shi kai huoche, wo shi kai keche (老張是開貨車，我是開客車) ‘Laozhang drives a truck and I drive a coach car’). Modern Chinese confirmative shi, copula shi, and auxiliary shi have the same morphological form because they all appear to derive from the adjective shi or demonstrative ( shi ke ren, shu bu ke ren (是可忍，孰不可忍) ‘if this could be endured, is there anything else that could not be endured’) in Old Chinese. Such a pattern of morphological sameness seems to be cross-linguistically rare, if not unique.

The idea of isomorphism of form and meaning has played an important role in functionalist theories of syntax and morphology. However, there have been few studies that test this hypothesis empirically on quantitative data. This study aims to fill this gap by testing the predictions made by iconicity theory with the help of statistical hypothesis-testing techniques. The paper focuses on a subtype of isomorphism, namely iconicity of cohesion. The analyses are based on a sample of lexical and analytic causatives from the British National Corpus. The study employs three different operationalisations of the degree of semantic cohesion of the causing and caused events, which are based on English and cross-linguistic data. The form-function correlation is interpreted from the point of view of three possible models of relationships between form, function and/or frequency.