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- Volume 9, Issue, 2016
English Text Construction - Volume 9, Issue 1, 2016
Volume 9, Issue 1, 2016
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Given/New: What do the terms refer to?
Author(s): Gerard O’Gradypp.: 9–32 (24)More LessPrevious studies indicate that speakers signal the informational status of referents through a combination of intonation, word order and lexical realisation. In this paper, I argue for a non-binary view of information structure with referents being (1) hearer and discourse new, (2) discourse new but hearer given and (3) hearer and discourse given. Thus there can be no simple one-to-one relationship between information structure, lexical realisation and accenting. In the spoken data examined, evidence was found to substantiate a relationship between referential distance and lexical realisation but not between referential distance and tonic accenting. Tonic accents signal speakers’ subjective projection of the importance of a referent but the exact informational meaning signalled by the referent depends on a combination of tonic accent, tone choice, key, linear position and lexical realisation.
This article is available under a CC BY 4.0 license
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Dynamism in exchange structure
Author(s): Margaret Berrypp.: 33–55 (23)More LessThis paper considers the meaning of the term ‘dynamism’ in relation to systemic functional linguistic accounts of exchange structure, in which a distinction is often drawn between ‘dynamic’ accounts and ‘synoptic’ accounts. The paper then discusses and develops a model of exchange structure which is intended to be dynamic, focusing in turn on ‘supporting moves’, ‘queries’ and ‘challenges’. The eventual aim is that the model should be applicable to various forms of discourse, bringing out the differences between them and relating these to the contexts of situation. Applications to be particularly considered in the present paper are to classroom discourse and to a sociologically interesting form of discourse such as interviews with young offenders.
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Dynamicity and dialogue
Author(s): J. Lachlan Mackenziepp.: 56–76 (21)More LessThe article surveys how Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG; Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008) has responded to Simon Dik’s call for a functional grammar to have ‘psychological adequacy’ and draws parallels to similar initiatives from other approaches. After a brief history of what has later come to be known as cognitive adequacy, the impact of psycholinguistic notions on the architecture of FDG is discussed and exemplified with emphasis on how FDG confronts the tension between the static nature of a pattern model of grammar and the dynamicity of the communicative process. The article then turns to four ways in which FDG has responded in recent years to ongoing work in psycholinguistics. The first concerns how the incrementality of language production, i.e. the gradual earlier-to-later build-up of utterances, has inspired FDG’s coverage of fragmentary discourse acts and its Depth-First Principle. The second, pertaining to the role of prediction in language comprehension, is reflected in the countdown to a clause-final position PF. The third is priming, involving the reuse of elements of structure at all levels of analysis: this interferes with the mapping of function onto form in ways that have been explored in FDG. The fourth is dialogical alignment, the manner in which participants in dialogue mutually accommodate their language use; this has led to new understandings of the respective roles of FDG’s Conceptual and Contextual Components. Taken together, these developments have moved FDG towards modelling dialoguing interactants rather than an isolated speaker.
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Temporality in speech – Linear Unit Grammar
Author(s): Anna Mauranenpp.: 77–98 (22)More LessLanguage is usually modelled through a predominantly synoptic perspective; even if the object of analysis is spoken language, we tend to look at extracts where the analysis of parts makes use of the whole. Holistic analyses can be very good for capturing realities of language in many respects, but in the case of modelling temporal aspects of processing they fall into the trap of unrealistic hindsight. The experience of speech is time-bound: a hearer will go on what he or she has heard at any given point, and will anticipate what may follow. The predictions will be either confirmed or rejected in rapid succession, as speech moves on. The time window for working memory is very brief, and processing focuses on continuously changing input. Models of this process must take into account this dynamism, and they need to take on board the fact that language must be continually processed even while utterances are still incomplete. Most models of language structure are based on completed units; this tends to lead to a hierarchical view of language, embodied in most grammars. The reality of temporally progressing speech is nevertheless fundamentally linear along the dimension of time.
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Textual dynamism as a heuristic for a delicate semantic description of ellipsis patterns
Author(s): Ben Clarkepp.: 99–114 (16)More LessThis paper puts the case that viewing text dynamically can be valuable in the practice of semantic description. Using, as its case study, the statistically significant occurrence of Subject ellipsis across consecutive clauses in a corpus of newspaper football reports, the paper demonstrates a systematic difference between the lexicogrammatical characteristics of clauses containing such patterned use of ellipsis and the clauses of their surrounding co-text. The lexicogrammatical features in question, which are analysed in detail in the paper, are: clause length in words, number of clause elements, amount of syntactic embedding, and patterns in Hallidayan transitivity process-types. Given the nature of these lexicogrammatical features, the argument is made that Subject ellipsis across consecutive clauses can iconically express an increase in pace – something only observable when the text is viewed dynamically.
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Specificational there-clefts
Author(s): Kristin Davidse and Ditte Kimpspp.: 115–142 (28)More LessIn this article we present functional-structural and information structure arguments for recognizing specificational there-clefts, i.e. clefts that specify a value for a variable. We distinguish two types which hinge on whether the matrix is a listing or a canonical existential. Listing there-clefts enumerate one or more instances as corresponding to the variable, e.g. You are quite right David, it was engineered, seems there’s only me and you who can see this. Quantifying there-clefts indicate the quantity of instantiation of the variable, e.g. Look at the shape of it. There’s only one thing that’s that shape.
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Phasal dynamism and the unfolding of meaning as text
Author(s): Tom Bartlettpp.: 143–164 (22)More LessIn this paper I explore the etic category of textuality and the emic category of Theme arguing that while Theme in English may simultaneously signal the point of departure of a clause with respect to the preceding text and also the ‘aboutness’ of the clause in relation to the method of development of a text, this is not necessarily the case with other languages. In particular I consider the rich textual resources of Scottish Gaelic, a verb-initial language with no morphological marking for Theme, to problematise standard treatments of thematicity in languages other than English. I elaborate on Cloran’s (2010) account of Rhetorical Units to present as a hypothesis for further exploration the idea that, while Gaelic and English ground clauses in both space and time, Gaelic is a process-centred language while English is a Subject-centred language and that these differences in the respective characterology of the two languages have repercussions on the process of textualisation and the method of development in each language.
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Dynamicity in the construal of complex events in Irish English and Modern Irish
Author(s): Brian Nolanpp.: 165–189 (25)More LessIn this study we take an ‘above the clause’ perspective on the conceptualisation of complex events of Irish English and Modern Irish within a functional Role and Reference Grammar perspective, using corpus based data. Functional models of language generally assume some layered structure of the clause, the noun phrase and the word. (Nolan 2012a, 2012b; Van Valin 2005). While excellent work has heretofore been achieved at clause level, the description of important linguistic phenomena above the clause has often been somewhat neglected. In this regard, a central part of the grammar of every human language is the encoding of events and their participants in a clause. This motivates an ‘above the clause’ perspective to characterise the balance between uniformity of encoding and variability in encoding within and across languages. In the functional-cognitive paradigm, form and meaning are not separated into self-contained components. Instead, syntactic structures of varying degrees of complexity and abstraction are paired with their corresponding semantic structures. We argue that the interaction of semantic relations with the hierarchy of clausal linkage is at the strongest pole with the semantic relations covering phase and modifying subevents. We also argue that light verb constructions are formed pre-syntactically in the lexicon using and defend this by applying certain criteria as a diagnostic. The function of light verbs in these constructions is to modulate the realisation of event and sub-event semantics into syntax. We provide evidence of the dynamicity in conceptualising a complex event, considered as complex predication across constructions, in Irish English and Modern Irish.
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Theme in English and Spanish
Author(s): Estela Inés Moyanopp.: 190–220 (31)More LessThis article offers a comparative view of a Systemic Functional (SF) account of Theme in English and Spanish declarative clauses. It considers the lexicogrammatical realization of Theme in both languages and shows how Themes across the clauses construe the method of development of a phase of discourse in the respective languages, unmarked Themes scaffolding textual continuity and marked Themes scaffolding transitions between discourse phases. The paper reviews the concept of Theme in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and analyzes texts in both languages, taking into account a trinocular perspective (Matthiessen & Halliday 2009): from above, considering textual discourse functions related to the lexicogrammatical function of Theme; from roundabout, considering other textual functions in the clause as New; and from below, paying attention to the role that different ranks may play in the realization of the function under focus. In addition, the paper argues for a re-interpretation of previous SFL accounts of Spanish Theme, on the assumptions of SFL language typology. Based on the analysis of fragments of Research Articles, the paper shows how English and Spanish texts perform similar strategies to maintain the method of development of a text, through the interaction between lexical strings and reference chains with the function of Theme (Fries 1981; Martin 1992). It is shown, however, that the lexicogrammatical realization of unmarked Theme differs between these languages.
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Notions of (inter)subjectivity
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A case for corpus stylistics
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