Language, Context and Text - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2019

Abstract

I present an overview of the concept of coherence in discourse and explore how one of the essential elements to that coherence, relational coherence, has been studied and partitioned in different discourse traditions. I then introduce one of the theories that deals with discourse coherence, Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). Through the description of RST, I investigate fundamental concepts in the study of coherence relations such as the classification of relations and their signalling in discourse.

Abstract

If we follow one line of development in systemic functional linguistics (SFL), from Halliday & Hasan (1976) through Martin (1992) to Martin & White (2005), we arrive at a model of discourse semantics with six major systems: ideation and connexion (ideational meaning), identification and periodicity (textual meaning) and negotiation and appraisal (interpersonal meaning). The complementarity of the latter two systems, negotiation and appraisal is the focus on this paper. Work on negotiation was inspired by Berry’s (e.g. 1981a, 1981b) development of Sinclair & Coulthard (1975) analysis of exchange structure. Later work on appraisal was inspired by Plum’s (1988) critique of Labov’s work on narrative (e.g. Labov & Waletzky 1967, Labov 1984). The interaction of the negotiation and appraisal systems is first explored in Martin (2000a) in relation to work on casual conversation by Eggins & Slade (1997). This interaction is further developed here.

Abstract

Reflection literacy (Hasan 2011 [1996]) proposes that literacy education should orient learners towards critique and the creation of new knowledge. It is a vision for literacy education which deserves deeper consideration within the SFL community and beyond. A key component of reflection literacy is argued to be metalinguistic knowledge, which facilitates conscious reflection on meaning. This paper considers one way that reflection literacy might be enacted in elementary classrooms that are ‘tilted towards reflection’, arguing that dispositions of reflection can be developed from the early school years. Evidence is drawn from a series of case studies conducted in Sydney, Australia. Consideration is also given to how Hasan’s proposal might be used to develop future studies in the field.

Abstract

Grammatical metaphors are indispensable resources that scientists employ to create scientific worlds. Nominalization, as a powerful tool of grammatical metaphor, can shed new light on the nature of economics through reconstruing human experiences in the process of economic activities. This study endeavours to initiate an innovative way to study nominalizations in economics discourses by extracting nouns in a self-built 1-million-word corpus of economics textbooks (CETB). The results show that nouns and nominalizations, accounting respectively for 21% and 10% of the total words in the corpus, have construed the vast theoretical edifice of modern economic knowledge. In addition to transmitting disciplinary knowledge to achieve ideational functions, nominalizations can also situate the participants within the economics discourse community to fulfil interpersonal functions, and facilitate the text to progress as a chain of reasoning to perform textual functions. This investigation of nouns as well as lexical bundles not only provides new insights into nominalization but also provides an important entry point to observe discipline-specific lexis and the typical co-text in which items occur. This study, as a combination of work in economics, corpus linguistics and systemic functional linguistics, has implications for education in economics as well as the study of disciplinary English in other fields.

Abstract

Peter Carey’s short story American dreams (Carey 1994 [1974]) presents a recalibration of consciousness as a small Australian town gradually becomes Americanized. The text foregrounds epistemological concerns by demonstrating a clear tendency toward delayed understanding. For this reason, I argue that the story is an instance of modernist fiction: a label not previously applied to Carey’s stories. In contrast with popular modernist techniques such as free indirect discourse and stream of consciousness, the techniques presented in the text appear to be covert, which may at least partially explain why the story has managed to avoid being labelled modernist by literary critics until now. Using analytical tools grounded in systemic functional grammar and appraisal categories, I demonstrate how linguistic analysis can lay bare the covert modernist techniques at work in the story, indicating that such an approach can be a useful complement to non-linguistic literary criticism.

Abstract

While many aspects of disciplinary communication have been effectively illuminated by systemic functional linguistics, the ‘multimodal’ turn of communication requires some rethinking of old frameworks. In academic disciplines such as History, recent epistemological changes further highlight this need. From animations used by primary school students to doctoral theses, this paper draws on the systemic functional notion of register to explore how multimodal choices contribute to field, tenor and mode, just as linguistic choices do. Such multimodal examples may occur in forms which can be described as implicitly multimodal, explicitly multimodal or fully intersemiotic. All contribute to emerging forms of epistemology in the discipline and to new textual forms, with particular implications for educational practice.

Abstract

Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen was a long-time collaborator and close friend of M. A. K. Halliday, and has co-authored various books with him, some of which have not yet been published. In this interview, he describes Halliday’s wide-ranging linguistic interests, provides details of Halliday’s time in China, discusses the influences of J. R. Firth and Karl Marx on Halliday, reflects on the development of Halliday’s theories, and describes Halliday’s contributions to phonetics, phonology and typology.

This article reviews Functional grammatics: Re-conceptualizing knowledge about language and image for school English