Appliable Linguistics

Appliable Linguistics

Related titles available from Continuum: Meaning in Context Edited by Jonathan J. Webster New Discourse on Language Edited by Monika Bednarek and J. R. Martin


Edited by Ahmar Mahboob and Naomi K. Knight

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Ahmar Mahboob, Naomi K. Knight and contributors 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1-4411-6415-5 (hardcover) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

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Contents

List of Figures List of Tables Notes on the Contributors Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Appliable Linguistics: An Introduction Ahmar Mahboob and Naomi K. Knight

vii ix xi xv

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Chapter 2 Pinpointing the Choice: Meaning and the Search for Equivalents in a Translated Text M. A. K. Halliday

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Chapter 3 Appliable Linguistics and English Language Teaching: The Scaffolding Literacy in Adult and Tertiary Environments (SLATE) Project Ahmar Mahboob, Shoshana Dreyfus, Sally Humphrey and J. R. Martin

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Chapter 4 Negotiating Evaluation: Story Structure and Appraisal in Youth Justice Conferencing J. R. Martin, Michele Zappavigna and Paul Dwyer

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Chapter 5 Modelling Social Affiliation and Genre in the Civic Domain Sally Humphrey

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Chapter 6 ‘News’ and ‘Register’: A Preliminary Investigation Annabelle Lukin

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Chapter 7 Constructing Sports Stars: Appliable Linguistics and the Language of the Media Shoshana Dreyfus and Sandra C. Jones

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Chapter 8 Naming Culture in Convivial Conversational Humour Naomi K. Knight

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Chapter 9 Visualizing Appraisal Prosody Michele Zappavigna, Chris Cléirigh, Paul Dwyer and J. R. Martin

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Contents

Chapter 10 Evaluative Stance in Humanities: Expectations and Performances Erika Matruglio

168

Chapter 11 The 3×3: Setting Up a Linguistic Toolkit for Teaching Academic Writing Sally Humphrey, J. R. Martin, Shooshi Dreyfus and Ahmar Mahboob

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Chapter 12 Why Are Logical Connectives Sometimes Detrimental to Coherence? Alan Jones

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Chapter 13 Contestable Reality: A Multi-level View on Modality in Multimodal Pedagogic Context Yumin Chen

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Chapter 14 Making Many Meanings in Popular Rap Music David Caldwell

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Chapter 15 Rank in Visual Grammar: Some Implications for Multimodal Discourse Analysis Sumin Zhao

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Chapter 16 The Meaning of ‘Not’ Is Not in ‘Not’ Ruqaiya Hasan

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Index

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List of Figures

Strata and metafunctions in SFL Teaching–learning cycle (Rothery, 1996) Feedback structure with required and optional stages Consultation process for linguistics course Appraisal systems (after Martin and White, 2005) Cultural domains of adolescents’ lives The position of elemental genres within Chilout genre complexes Figure 5.3 Orbital structure of political testimony Figure 6.1 Hartley’s presentation modes mapped onto Cloran’s continuum of the role of language in the social process (Cloran, 1994, p. 132) Figure 6.2 Hartley’s presentation modes (1982). Reading left to right 1. ‘voice over’; 2. ‘vox pop’; 3. ‘stake out’ Figure 6.3 Hasan’s 1999 network for field Figure 8.1 Levels of affiliation with examples of their construal Figure 9.1 Seating configuration of the ‘AffrayYJC’ (blurred to maintain anonymity) Figure 9.2 An example of tone group analysis performed in ELAN Figure 9.3 Configuration for recording a YJC Figure 9.4 Situating judgement within the appraisal system (based on Martin and Rose, 2003) Figure 9.5 Distribution of evaluation across the gesture space Figure 9.6 Themeriver visualization of Associated Press news wire stories (Havre et al., 2002, p. 12) Figure 9.7 An example of a simple area graph Figure 9.8 A simple example of a stacked area graph Figure 9.9 Positive and negative judgement (invoked and inscribed) in the ELO’s intervention stage Figure 9.10 An example of coupling Figure 11.1 The 3×3: a framework for describing linguistic resources of student writing in the academic domain Figure 11.2 Four domains of learning (adapted from Macken-Horarik, 1996) Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3 Figure 3.4 Figure 4.1 Figure 5.1 Figure 5.2

28 29 32 35 54 81 84 89 97

98 98 137 152 153 154 156 160 161 162 162 163 164 188 189

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List of Figures

Pathway of realization of ideational meanings in Text 11.1 194 Classifying taxonomy within phase of Text 11.1 194 Pathway of realization of interpersonal meanings in Text 11.1 195 Pathway of realization of textual meanings in Text 11.1 196 Mann and Thompson’s Discourse Relations (1988) 204 Modality scale for colour saturation (Kress and 224 Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 160) Figure 13.2 Sensory coding orientation (Excerpted from PEP Primary 226 English Students’ Book I for Year 3, 2003, p. 47). Reproduced with permission Figure 13.3 Abstract-sensory coding orientation (Excerpted from Go for it 228 Students’ Book II for Year 7, 2005, p. 15). Reproduced with permission Figure 13.4 Naturalistic coding orientation (Excerpted from New Senior 230 English for China Student’s Book 2, 2004, p. 25). Reproduced with permission Figure 14.1 System network for timing (after Van Leeuwen, 1999, p. 61) 238 Figure 14.2 System network for sound quality (Van Leeuwen, 1999, 238 p. 151) Figure 14.3 Slow to fast rapping (as syllables per minute (spm)) 241 in the Kanye West Corpus Figure 14.4 Slow to fast singing (as syllables per minute (spm)) 241 in the Kanye West Corpus Figure 14.5 Low to high rapping pitch registers in the Kanye West Corpus 242 Figure 14.6 Low to high singing pitch registers in the Kanye West Corpus 243 Figure 14.7 Smooth to rough rapping in the Kanye West Corpus 244 Figure 14.8 Smooth to rough singing in the Kanye West Corpus 244 Figure 14.9 Some attributes (or meaning potentials) in the Kanye West 245 repertoire Figure 14.10 The Kanye West repertoire from a topological perspective 245 Figure 15.1 Rank scale in English 252 Figure 15.2 A Queensland hero 253 Figure 15.3 Women cricketers fielding 255 Figure 15.4 Types of structures and types of meanings 258 Figure 15.5 The construal of membership in language and image 259 Figure 15.6 The unfolding path of the multimodal text 260 Figure 16.1 Moving and meaning (source: Halliday, 2004, p. 9) 271 Figure 16.2 Strata in a functional theory of language 274 Figure 16.3 Two systems and their relationships: realization and 279 instantiation Figure 16.4 Simplified system network of options in demanding 282 goods/services Figure 16.5 A simplified system network of options in MOOD 289 Figure 16.6 Simplified system network of options in demanding information 291 Figure 11.3 Figure 11.4 Figure 11.5 Figure 11.6 Figure 12.1 Figure 13.1

List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 4.6 Table 4.7 Table 5.1 Table 7.1 Table 10.1 Table 10.2 Table 10.3 Table 10.4 Table 10.5 Table 10.6 Table 10.7 Table 10.8 Table 10.9 Table 13.1 Table 14.1 Table 14.2 Table 16.1

Inscriptions of affect in the Interpretation stage of the mobile phone recount Inscriptions of judgement in the Interpretation stage of the mobile phone recount Inscriptions of honesty in the ELO’s Interpretation stage of the affray recount Inscriptions of capacity in the ELO’s Interpretation stage of the affray recount Inscriptions of propriety in the ELO’s Interpretation stage of the affray recount Inscriptions of impropriety in relation to Mum Inscriptions of impropriety in relation to the Muslim community HNN: Interaction of evaluative and referential phases across Involvement element Appraisal values of Cousins’ behaviour Comparison of Appraisal between syllabus rationales Comparison of attitude and graduation in student texts: percentages Inscribed Attitude in student texts as percentage of whole text Inscribed Attitude in student texts Total Attitude (inscribed and invoked) in student texts Number of instances of inscribed Attitude in student texts Number of instances of invoked Attitude in student texts Percentages of inscribed Attitude in student texts Percentages of total Attitude in student texts The distribution of visual styles in EFL textbooks for different levels of education List of Kanye West’s awards (from Aceshowbiz: Kanye West’s Awards, n.d.) The ‘moods’ of Kanye West and 50 Cent (from Birchmeier, n.d.) Lexicogrammatical realization statements for some semantic options

60 61 64 64 65 67 67 88 126 175 176 177 177 178 179 179 179 180 232 236 247 285

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List of Tables

Table 16.2 The meaning of polarity with some primary MOOD options in English Table 16.3 The meaning of ‘not’ in questions: semantic and grammatical views Table 16.4 The meaning of ‘not’ with demand information . . . apprize: specify

290 292 294

Notes on the Contributors

David Caldwell is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at the University of Sydney where he is applying social semiotics and discourse analysis to rap musician Kanye West. His research interests include discourse analysis, multimodality, and Systemic Functional Linguistics. As a discourse analyst, David has investigated and published on a range of language contexts, including rap music, post-match interviews between AFL footballers and ABC journalists, and medical consultations. Yumin Chen is a lecturer and post-doctoral research fellow in the School of Chinese as a Second Language, Sun Yat-sen University. Yumin received her PhD degrees in Linguistics from the University of Sydney and Sun Yat-sen University. Her research focus has been on the social semiotic analysis of pedagogic discourse. Major publications of hers include ‘Exploring dialogic engagement with readers in multimodal EFL textbooks in China’ in Visual Communication, and ‘The semiotic construal of attitudinal curriculum goals: Evidence from EFL textbooks in China’ in Linguistics and Education (2010). Chris Cleirigh is an unemployed linguist who received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 1999. He has worked on research projects since 1993 in both Speech Technology and Linguistics, in both the university and private sector, and has publications in both fields. Paul Dwyer is currently Chair of the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney. In addition to researching restorative justice practices in the NSW juvenile justice system (together with Jim Martin and Michele Zappavigna), he has carried out fieldwork study of reconciliation ceremonies in Bougainville (PNG) and has published widely on the use of drama in health, education and welfare settings (particularly the methods associated with Brazilian director Augusto Boal). Shoshana Dreyfus is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney where she is researching applications of Sydney School genre pedagogy in the tertiary context and attempting to describe the knowledge structure of the field of Linguistics. She completed her PhD, which studied the nonverbal multimodal communication of a child with an intellectual disability at the University of Wollongong. Her research interests include the

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intersections between critical discourse analysis and systemic functional linguistics, critical literacy and atypical language use. M. A. K. Halliday was born in the north of England in 1925, received his B.A. in Modern Chinese Language and Literature from the University of London in 1948 and his Ph.D. at Cambridge in 1954; along the way he studied linguistics at Peking University and Lingnan University in China. He taught at Cambridge and at Edinburgh, and became Professor of General Linguistics at University College London; he left to become a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and take up various short appointments, before moving to Australia as Foundation Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney, where he remained until his retirement at the end of 1987. Since then he has held visiting appointments in various countries, the latest being at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2009. Professor Halliday has been awarded honorary degrees by twelve universities in Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada. Emeritus Professor Ruqaiya Hasan taught Linguistics at Macquarie University, Australia. She is an internationally recognised linguist who has held visiting positions at various Universities in Europe and America. She has published widely in such areas as Lexicogrammar, Semantics, Sociolinguistics (with special reference to Semantic Variation), Discourse and Context Analysis, as well as Stylistics. Seven Volumes of her Collected Works edited by Jonathan J Webster are under publication by Equinox Publishing, London. The first two volumes now available are, Volume 1: Language, Society and Consciousness (2005) and Volume 2: Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics (2009) respectively. The third Volume Language and Education: Learning and Teaching in Society is expected this year. Sally Humphrey is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Linguistics at University of Sydney. She has worked for many years as a teacher and teacher educator in the field of literacy and language education in school and higher education contexts. Sally’s current research interests include: language development in Biology across the undergraduate years; the role of Joint Construction in literacy development and Appraisal in persuasive writing in academic and civic discourse. Alan Jones is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University where he convenes postgraduate programs in professional and organisational communication. He has taught and researched academic English for more than twenty years, carrying out collaborative research and co-publishing with subject area specialists in physics, accounting and law. His broader research interests include the intersection of interpersonal meanings with ideational content in writing and the implications of social theory for a social linguistics.


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He also carries out research in the cultural anthropology of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Sandra Jones is the Director of the Centre for Health Initiatives, a Research Strength at the University of Wollongong, and a Professor of Social Marketing/ Public Health. From 2004 to 2009 she was also Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Health & Behavioural Sciences. Sandra’s research focuses on the relationship between media and health, including the impacts of advertising in the print and electronic media on health behaviour, and the use of social marketing to improve population health. Sandra has published more than 100 refereed papers and been awarded in excess of $3 million in research funding. Naomi K. Knight is a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. She is the co-author of Questioning Linguistics (2008) and co-convener of the International Free Linguistics Conference with Dr. Ahmar Mahboob. She has published in the areas of conversational humour, discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics, and sociolinguistics, and has also been involved in projects in ape language studies involving data of language-competent apes Kanzi and Panbanisha. Annabelle Lukin is a Senior Lecturer and Macquarie University Research Fellow in the Centre for Language in Social Life, at Macquarie University in Sydney. Her research interests include: register and context studies from a systemic functional perspective, media and political discourse, and stylistics, including stylistics and translation. Ahmar Mahboob is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. Ahmar has published on a range of topics including: language teaching, teacher education, language policy, educational linguistics, and World Englishes. Ahmar is the co-editor of Questioning Linguistics with Naomi K. Knight (2008), Studies in Applied Linguistics and Language Learning with Caroline Lipovsky (2009), and The NNEST Lens: Nonnative English Speakers in TESOL (2010). Ahmar is the Associate Editor of the journal Linguistics and the Human Sciences. Erika Matruglio is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney. Her research interests include the construction of interpersonal stance in student writing, disciplinary differences in student literacy practices, the epistemological and axiological bases of school subjects and educational linguistics generally. She is a former high school languages and ESL teacher, has lectured in ESL and TESOL methodology and is currently involved in a project investigating disciplinary differences and the building of cumulative knowledge in high school subjects.

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J. R. Martin is Professor of Linguistics (Personal Chair) at the University of Sydney. His research interests include systemic theory, functional grammar, discourse semantics, register, genre, multimodality and critical discourse analysis, focussing on English and Tagalog - with special reference to the transdisciplinary fields of educational linguistics and social semiotics. Recent publications include The Language of Evaluation (with Peter White) Palgrave 2005; Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy (Edited with Fran Christie) Continuum 2007; and with David Rose, a second edition of Working with Discourse (Continuum 2007) and a book on genre (Genre relations: mapping culture, Equinox 2008). He has also recently completed a 2nd edition of the 1997 functional grammar workbook, with Clare Painter and Christian Matthiessen, Deploying Functional Grammar (in press with Commercial Press, Beijing) and an edited collection (with Monika Bednarek), New Discourse on Language (in press with Continuum). Professor Martin was elected a fellow the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1998, and awarded a Centenary Medal for his services to Linguistics and Philology in 2003. Michele Zappavigna is a research fellow in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. Her major research interest is electronic discourse and social media and she is currently working on a corpus-based study of the language of Microblogging. She alsohas an ongoing interest in text visualization as a tool to aid discourse analysts. Michele works on a project investigating NSW Youth Justice Conferencing, a form of restorative justice, using multimodal discourse analysis. She completed her PhD on language, tacit knowledge and technology in the School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney. Sumin Zhao is currently completing her PhD. thesis on children’s educational E-texts. As a part of an ARC discovery project, her research explores the dynamic relations between language and other semiotic recourses in hypermedia texts and the ways in which these resources are employed to construe the field of knowledge, primary history and social science in particular. She also publishes in school literacy, SFL and multimodal discourse analysis.

Acknowledgements

An edited volume is the joint effort of a number of people. It would be difficult to list all of them here, but we would like them to know that we sincerely appreciate their support and input. We would specially like to thank our contributors – their commitment to this volume and to the field has been exemplary. Special thanks are also due to the many reviewers who shall remain anonymous, but who spent hours reading, reviewing, and providing valuable feedback to the authors – without their work, this volume would not have reached its final shape. Many of the papers included in this volume were first presented at the 2nd Free Linguistics Conference (FLC), 2008. We would therefore like to recognize the significant role that this conference is playing in supporting the work in our field. We would like to thank all the volunteers and organizers of the FLC. We would also like to thank the sponsors who make it possible for FLC to remain free of cost to the presenters and attendees. These main sponsors include the Faculty of Arts, School of Letters Arts and Media (SLAM), and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. We would also like to thank Bridge Bookshop, Cafe Ottimo, the Coop Bookshop, Gleebooks, and Starbucks Coffee for supporting FLC. We would like to thank Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association (ASFLA) for providing support to help us with developing the index for this volume. We would also like to thank our families and friends, who supported us as we worked on this project and on the Free Linguistics Conference. Ahmar Mahboob and Naomi K. Knight

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Chapter 1

Appliable Linguistics: An Introduction Ahmar Mahboob and Naomi K. Knight

This chapter introduces the need to establish Appliable Linguistics as the framework through which we study language-related issues – in theoretical linguistics, Applied Linguistics and other language-related disciplines. Appliable linguistics is an approach to language that takes everyday real-life languagerelated problems – both theoretical and practical – in diverse social, professional and academic contexts as a starting point and then develops and contributes to a theoretical model of language that can respond to and is appliable in the context. The concept of Appliable Linguistics used here is built on the work of M. A. K. Halliday (1985, p. 7) who believes that ‘the value of a theory lies in the use that can be made of it’; he continues: ‘I have always considered a theory of language to be essentially consumer oriented’. Informed by this, the book considers Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Appliable Linguistics. However, before further discussing Appliable Linguistics, we will outline why such an approach is necessary by reviewing the work done under the more familiar label of ‘Applied Linguistics’. Since its inception in the mid-1940s, applied linguistics has grown to examine how language relates to and works in different social contexts. In doing so, applied linguistics has developed a number of sub-fields, each with its own body of expert knowledge, such as: bilingualism, clinical linguistics, forensic linguistics, language learning and teaching, language policy and planning, lexicography, multilingualism, and translation and interpretation. Of these, the most prolific area of research in applied linguistics is and has been second/foreign language teaching, and more specifically, teaching English as a second/foreign language. Over the last 60–70 years, while applied linguistics evolved and extended its scope, it also developed a very ambivalent relationship with theoretical/descriptive linguistics. During its early days, applied linguists (especially those working on language learning/teaching) drew on linguistic theory to examine fields of study where language played a key role. In stating this, Halliday et al. (1964) wrote that ‘the specialist [applied linguist] in this subject is a kind of middleman who exists to bridge the gap between theory and newly acquired knowledge on the one hand and the everyday problems of teaching a language

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on the other’ (pp. xiv–xv). However, by mid-1970s, researchers in applied linguistics weakened their links with linguistics. Pit Corder (1978, p. 5), in the first issue of Studies in Second Language Acquisition, deplored this weakening link between linguistics and applied linguistics (especially second language studies) and stated that It would not be too great an exaggeration to say that even as recently as six years ago a sizeable proportion of people who called themselves applied linguists would have considered that the ‘linguistics’ they were involved in applying was ‘theoretical linguistics’ or ‘descriptive linguistics’, and that, while they did not deny that there were psychological or sociological dimensions to language learning, it was not part of ‘applied linguistics’ proper to concern itself with the application of these theoretical sciences in the planning and execution of language teaching programs. While Corder did not provide a detailed discussion of why applied linguists moved away from linguistics, we posit that this shift (particularly in the United States) was a response to the nature of the theories of language that were (and continue to be) mainstream in the United States, for example, generative linguistics. The formalist paradigm, which is dominant in the United States, prioritizes ‘langue’ (system) over ‘parole’ (language use/text as an instance of the system). As such, linguistics has moved its focus away from a discussion of language as it is used and as it varies in social context. This limits its usefulness for applied linguists who see their job as the ‘investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue’ (Brumfit, 1995, p. 27). While one can see why linguistic theories such as generative grammar or optimality theory have little relevance to applied linguistics, the lack of engagement of sociolinguistics, which by definition studies language in social contexts, with applied linguistics research is slightly more complex. Beatriz Lavandera (1978) points out that sociolinguistic variation studies deal primarily with morphological, syntactic and lexical variation and ‘suffer from the lack of an articulated theory of meanings’ (p. 171). She problematizes this lack of attention to meaning in sociolinguistic research and argues that different forms mean different things and therefore should be studied as such. Without such consideration, she argues, a study of formal variables ‘can only be heuristic devices, in no sense part of a theory of language’ (p. 179). This is a severe criticism of studies in sociolinguistics that do not consider meaning to be an essential aspect of their study and also suggests why sociolinguistics does not play a central role in studies in applied linguistics. Because it looks at language use and context, applied linguistics needs to take meaning into consideration. Sociolinguistic research that does not take account of meaning is therefore not seen as useful or relevant to applied linguists. Given the limited ability of mainstream theories of language to shed light on the social and semiotic aspects of language, applied linguists have become quite

Introduction

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selective in their use of work in linguistics and sociolinguistics. For example, our review of some of the current literature in second language acquisition studies shows that there has been a steady increase in research that draws on pragmatics but not on other theories of linguistics. Pragmatics, with its focus on language in use, has been gaining interest in applied linguistics (unlike generative linguistics or other branches of sociolinguistics) because it studies language in context and therefore resonates with the needs of applied linguists. This observation is central to the arguments and studies included in this volume: to be of relevance and use, linguists need to take language use and meaning as a starting point. So far, we have criticized areas of mainstream linguistics for not developing theories that serve the needs of applied linguists. However, we can also criticize applied linguistics for not having contributed to or worked towards a comprehensive theory of language either. Given that applied linguistics focuses on language (in) use, it has a role in developing and/or contributing to a theory of language. One reason why this may not have happened is because in recent years a growing body of applied linguistics research has focused on the political, psychological and social aspects of language use without really engaging with language (as lamented by Corder in the quote above). As such, this recent body of work focuses on studies of speakers, users and uses of language rather than studying language (in) use. Once again, what is needed is a kind of linguistics that has the potential of being appliable in different contexts and for diverse purposes. The studies included in this volume use and work towards such an appliable linguistics. As stated earlier, the concept of ‘Appliable Linguistics’ used in this volume comes from M. A. K. Halliday. In keeping the users and the uses of his work in focus, Halliday has attempted to develop an appliable linguistics. Halliday (2006b, p. 19) states: I have always tried to work with a functional orientation to language; not eschewing theory, because without theory there can be no consistent and effective practice, but treating a theory as a problem-solving enterprise and trying to develop a theoretical approach, and a theoretical model of language, which can be brought to bear on everyday activities and tasks. I call this an ‘appliable’ linguistics: appliable rather than applicable, because the word ‘applicable’ refers to one particular purpose, whereas ‘appliable’ means having the general property that it can be put to use in different operational contexts. In further elaborating on the term, Halliday (2006a) stated that appliable linguistics makes it possible for us to develop a comprehensive and theoretically powerful model of language which, precisely because it was comprehensive and powerful, would be capable of being

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Appliable Linguistics applied to the problems, both research problems and practical problems, that are being faced all the time by the many groups of people in our modern society who are in some way or other having to engage with language.

The present volume takes this understanding of appliable linguistics as a starting point. The chapters included in this volume focus mostly on issues of education and multimodality and draw for the most part from (and contribute to) a systemic-functional (SFL) understanding of language. However, while the concept of an appliable linguistics is developed in this volume through SFL theory, it is not the only appliable linguistics. SFL is compatible with the idea of an appliable linguistics in that it was developed by M. A. K. Halliday to understand language in ways that were appliable in educational contexts, but other theories of linguistics may also be interpretable as ‘appliable’. One theory that is appliable in ways similar to SFL is Tagmemics (Pike, 1981). Developed by Kenneth Pike in the 1950s, the theory has been used extensively to describe previously unknown languages and for translation purposes (especially Bible translation as Pike was closely associated with SIL – Summer Institute of Linguistics). Pike’s work has also been used in a number of other disciplines. In particular, his discussion of ‘etic’ and ‘emic’ approaches to looking at any data/phenomenon has been used by linguists as well as by people working in other disciplines (e.g. anthropology, philosophy, psychology, etc.). As such, Tagmemics can be seen as another theory that is compatible with an appliable linguistics framework. It is our hope that this volume will encourage additional work that is appliable and bring together researchers and linguists who take an appliable approach to language studies. There are 15 chapters in the volume, led by Michael Halliday’s own appliable linguistic study, and ending in Chapter 16 with a consideration of linguistic meaning through the systemic functional model by Ruqaiya Hasan. The chapters are organized based on the key concepts and aspects that connect them so that not only does each chapter develop the meaning of appliable linguistics in its own unique way, but it also follows from and builds on the previous chapter. We have consciously structured the book without dividing the chapters into sections (such as ‘theoretical’ and ‘applied’) because in our pursuit of an ‘appliable linguistics’ it is our aim to dissolve these distinctions. Instead, this volume brings together what is traditionally separated, and the chapters are associated by their conceptual linguistic connections. Halliday begins the volume (in his chapter entitled ‘Pinpointing the choice: meaning and the search for equivalents in a translated text’) by contextualizing the chapters to follow within the theme of an ‘appliable linguistics’, and exemplifying this approach through a consideration of the translation of a tourist text from Chinese to English. From a model of language as the exercise of choice, Halliday exhibits how our applications of the linguistic framework can always be located as choices in the linguistic systems of meaning in terms of

Introduction

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a realizational relationship whereby ‘a theory is made manifest, or “realized”, in the processes of being applied’. ‘Appliable linguistics’ is then proposed as a unifying concept to bring together theoretical and applied linguistics, since the application of a linguistic theory always operates with, or more specifically makes choices within, systems of meaning. In this sense, linguistics – and in particular, SFL as a theory of language as choice – is shown to be a valuable resource for determining meaningful differences across contexts of application as a fundamental matter of language. As one possible application of linguistic theory, Halliday demonstrates how one may ‘pinpoint the choices’ made in linguistic terms as translators shift across strata and ranks, and explains his efforts as follows: ‘What I am trying to do, in “pinpointing the choice”, is to use the analytic tools of linguistics, and particularly perhaps of grammatics, to examine the significance of alternative renderings for a reader of English text.’ Through an informative table of findings, Halliday demonstrates how shifts occur across linguistic dimensions in the translator’s efforts to achieve equivalence in the target language. By providing the examination of this translated text, Halliday makes it clear that linguistic theory is intrinsically tied to its applications particularly when language is perceived as ‘the exercise of choice’, which leads fittingly into the following chapter exploring English language teaching and learning. In their chapter entitled ‘Appliable linguistics and English language teaching: the Scaffolding Literacy in Adult and Tertiary Environments (SLATE) project’, Mahboob, Dreyfus, Humphrey and Martin report on a project that depicts appliable linguistics through an academic literacy programme called SLATE, training students and tutors in tertiary education and online environments. Referring to this work as the ‘fourth generation of Sydney School work on genre pedagogy’, the authors exhibit language theory in practical use for the improvement of education, both in teaching and in learning. In particular, by providing tools to inform students before they perform a writing task (as the authors show in a Linguistics paper example), the SLATE project arms them with a ‘meta-discursive knowledge base’ that is achieved through a systematically principled cycle of learning, which also benefits tutors involved in their learning. Essentially, this chapter shows how genre pedagogy continues to be an effective model across levels and modes of education, and how this depends upon its constant development and adaptation in regards to the specific needs of its application. As the authors explain, the model is adapted in SLATE in response to specific problems that arise for the students. The chapter ends with promising future directions. Generic structure is further employed in the context of Youth Justice Conferencing (YJC) in the following chapter, ‘Negotiation evaluation: story structure and appraisal in youth justice conferencing’, by Martin, Zappavigna and Dwyer. Focusing on the negotiation of evaluative meaning in young persons’ accounts of their offending behaviour via appraisal analysis (Martin and White, 2005),

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they pursue the question of ‘restoration’ and how successfully these types of conferences achieve this end. The authors propose staging for what they refer to as a ‘commissioned recount’ genre, showing how this genre supports the construction of a particular identity for the young person, as evaluations are ‘co-created and guided by other participants’ through the ritualistic elements of the process. While they note that criminological research most often takes a quantitative approach, these authors provide a qualitative analysis with a background of theories across functional linguistics, social semiotics and performance studies to uncover aspects of the actual dialogue that takes place. With this approach, they conclude that the YJC offers at least a chance for the young person and victim (along with others present) to affiliate and perhaps to rehabilitate through the ‘doing’ of the conference, differing in important ways from the outcomes of the traditional criminal justice system. Humphrey adapts the semiotic model of context in SFL in her chapter, ‘Modelling social affiliation and genre in the civic domain’, in order to apply it to the speeches of social activists. Supporting the concept of a Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA) (Martin, 2004), Humphrey adjusts her use of genre theory through the notion of ‘civic domain’ in response to the fact that ‘the emphasis on relatively stable academic genres has resulted in models of genre classification which do not fully account for emerging, blended and less stable genres created in other domains of adolescents’ lives’. She draws upon data of speeches, interviews and newspaper commentaries from an Australian social movement (called ‘Chilout’) to demonstrate how these activists achieve their goal of persuasion in the text to promote their goals. By opening up the model of context to account for cultural domains, Humphrey also proposes an intermediate space of ‘social affiliations’ to describe how people come together around a common endeavour, and she exhibits this through different elements of persuasion in their texts. In this chapter, language is shown to significantly affect, and be affected by, social context in a genre model. From another point of view, Lukin offers an interesting application of Halliday’s notion of ‘register’ to hard news in her chapter, ‘“News” and “register”: a preliminary investigation’. As an initial investigation utilizing this concept in the analysis of news discourse, and following from those studies committed in the genre school, Lukin contends that the register model offers a great deal of descriptive power to be found through the parameters of social context, and that this ‘comes from its openness to the dynamism of social context, an openness which derives from it being in a dialectic (i.e. realizational) relation to social context’. Drawing on semantic tools including Cloran’s (1994) Rhetorical Unit analysis and Hasan’s (1984) Cohesive Harmony analysis, this chapter describes the registerial configuration of linguistic meanings associated with the particular situational field, tenor and mode in a news broadcast concerning the invasion of Iraq. This preliminary investigation focuses on how power relations are carried through those meanings that are the focus of register analysis, reinforcing Bernsteinian notions that inform the social linguistic model of SFL.

Introduction

7

A concern with the communication of media is also expressed in Dreyfus and Jones’ chapter entitled ‘Constructing sports stars: appliable linguistics and the language of the media’, and in particular the impact of the behaviour of sports stars through their construction in the news. The authors put forward the question of whether Ben Cousins, the well-known Australian footballer and drug abuser, was constructed in media language as responsible, and use the systemic functional tools of transitivity and ergativity analysis (displaying agency) along with an analysis of attitude to determine whether this is so. Two Australian print newspapers were considered from within the time frame of Ben Cousins’ suspension. In their findings, the subject is not often depicted as an agent in his own downfall, but is presented by the newspapers in attitudinal terms as a sports hero on the field, while a disgraced hero off the field. Dreyfus and Jones conclude that Cousins’ depiction through language as less than blameworthy may have negative effects on the young adolescents who look up to him. The way that we use language towards individuals who we identify as our ‘heroes’ is shown to be demonstrably skewed with the help of specific linguistic tools for analysis, as employed by the authors of this chapter. Attitudinal language and identity construction are equally salient in the interpretation of what we laugh at, as shown in Knight’s ‘Naming culture in convivial conversational humour’. Knight expounds a model of ‘affiliation’ that accounts for how friends in conversation negotiate community and relational identity together, both at the local and global level. Humour is presented as a strategy for affiliation by which participants at talk manage their social complexity as members of a culture, as they laugh off tensions between values that are presented in the linguistic text as couplings (Martin, 2000) of attitude with experience. Knight lays bare the implicit couplings that occur in her examples through naming of individuals, groups and communities in humorous opposition, which works to expose hierarchical roles and power relations as laughable in the service of solidarity. In applying her social model of affiliation that relates the social semiotic relations of communities (and ideologies) to evidence in text, Knight shows how ‘speakers not only share a laugh but also reaffirm their roles in society as complex members of communities that are more or less negotiable’. Zappavigna, Cléirigh, Dwyer and Martin further the affiliation model in the following chapter, ‘Visualizing appraisal prosody’, focusing on the prosodic structure of evaluative meanings across an extended text of a Youth Justice Conference (as detailed by Martin et al. in Chapter 4). Through a cross-stratal and multimodal analysis, the authors address the problem that linguists face in attempting to view long-range prosodic patterns, such as the ‘long-range evaluative patterning’ by the Ethnic Liaison Officer (ELO) in their data, by representing it visually through Text Visualization. Linguistic tools such as appraisal and phonological analysis are combined with visual and semiotic tools including gesture to further the evidence for the conclusions the authors make. In particular, phonological and gestural evidence are given to support the prosodic evaluative structure of opposites presented by the ELO. The data in this

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case compels the use of multimodal tools, and a cross-stratal perspective, exhibiting the essential interaction of theory and application. The authors explain that the ELO creates a contrast between prosodies by ‘oscillating’ between judgements of the young person, as made clear through the visual representation, and they end the chapter by proposing that this contrast has the affiliative function of integrating the young person back into the community. Evaluative meaning and the linguistic framework of appraisal are brought into the pedagogic context in ‘Evaluative stance in humanities: expectations and performances’ by Matruglio. In particular, what kinds of implicit features of language and writing are expected of students, and what they are expressing in their writing, are shown to be retrievable through the application of a linguistic framework such as appraisal analysis. Situating her study in four humanities subjects within secondary education, Matruglio considers variation in how attitudes are expressed in ‘high stakes examination writing’ (along with syllabus documents) to make explicit the evaluative work that is necessary and ‘appropriate’ for students within each subject. By gathering what she calls ‘Appraisal profiles’, differences in the use of explicit and implicit attitudes, and the interplay between them, are clarified according to these subjects. This chapter offers an important contribution to the study of interpersonal meaning and expectations in the educational context, and it turns the focus towards the pedagogic for the chapters to follow. In Humphrey, Martin, Dreyfus and Mahboob’s chapter, ‘The 3x3: setting up a linguistic toolkit for teaching academic writing’, the authors provide a ‘semiotic toolbox’ for training literacy teachers based on systemic functional genre and register theory. Based on their work in the SLATE literacy project (described in Chapter 3), the ‘3×3 framework’ combines three metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal, textual) and three language strata (social activity, discourse semantics, and grammar and expression) to distinguish areas of concern in the examination of student writing. They describe how the 3×3 maps out linguistic patterns that are relevant at each particular level in response to what is expected of students in academic writing, and they focus on the genres and hence linguistic resources that are privileged in the academic domain to make these resources appliable across disciplines. The example of a student’s science text given by the authors demonstrates the usefulness of the framework, expounding the linguistic resources in use at different strata and showing how they construe an academic register. By offering teachers a metalanguage for assessment and feedback, the authors illustrate how these aspects can be made more systematic and less ambiguous in education. Jones examines the potentially ambiguous nature of logical connectives in his chapter, ‘Why are logical connectives sometimes detrimental to coherence?’ Reviewing the categories given by linguists to logico-semantic relations, Jones imparts ‘a preference for macro-categories over micro-categories’, while arguing that all the categories proposed are polysemous and hence potentially problematic. He puts forward that implicit conjunction (or the absence of logical

Introduction

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connectives), on the other hand, is current in ‘expert’ writing as evidenced in scientific and professional texts, and functions to foreground the strategies and knowledge the reader brings to the process of meaning-construction. Jones offers a comprehensive investigation of logical connectives in the context of second language pedagogy, focusing on their ‘inappropriate’ use by language learners and their ‘underuse’ by mother tongue speakers to show the insufficiency of this feature in representing complex causal relations. Interestingly, he also discusses how relationships such as correlation and emergence rather than ‘cause and effect’ are foregrounded in current writing such as that in the sciences, furthering the backgrounding of connectives and underlining his argument that they are in essence problematic. He concludes by suggesting that second language pedagogy can benefit from a holistic approach in terms of representing cause/consequence relations. Chen suggests a multimodal perspective in education in ‘Contestable reality: a multi-level view on modality in multimodal pedagogic context’ to apply to the use of visual semiotic resources in the classroom. In a comparative examination of texts used across primary, junior and secondary school in China, Chen exhibits support for Halliday’s pinpointing of choice (introduced in Chapter 2) by considering the choices made between the texts in visual modality and what the reasons behind these choices may be. Chen takes a social semiotic approach in her analysis of the way that modality resources of visual displays are deployed in these texts, and proposes that ‘what counts as real is socially defined and specific to a given communicative context’, and involves a process of positioning the viewer in particular ways. She shows that the pictorial techniques used across the texts follow different principles and are affected by the relation of a constructed solidarity between the textbook editors and learners. The chapter exposes the construal of particular values through visual communication as a vital area of research in education, and Chen proposes that topics for the future should include the consideration of access given to different choices in regards to the particular field, or social activity, at hand. Turning from multimodal relations in the pedagogic context to those in popular culture, Caldwell pursues musical meaning in the rap music of popular artist, Kanye West, in ‘Making many meanings in popular rap music’. Van Leeuwen’s (1999) system networks for sound in language and music are applied to map the meaning potential of West’s various ‘voices’ and to create a semiotic profile of the artist for exploring why and how he appeals to such a large and diverse consumer base. Caldwell also reinforces Halliday’s emphasis on choice and the pursuit of contrasts in application of linguistic theory, as he describes his interest in ‘the meaningful choices a voice can construe, as well as the choices West has made in sampling those voices’. The chapter presents analysis of two voice types in West’s songs – the ‘rapping voice’ and the ‘singing voice’ – through the systems of rhythm, pitch register and roughness, and the author concludes that West in fact engages with (or samples) a wide range of meaning potentials to expand his repertoire, and thus ‘he makes

10


many meanings’. This informs us about his popularity and how West (in comparison to rapper 50 Cent provided in the chapter) can affiliate with so many through an inclusive and integrative style. By concentrating on the analysis of multimodality, Zhao’s chapter on ‘Rank in visual grammar: some implications for multimodal discourse analysis (MDA)’ follows suitably as an exploration of the issues that arise when a linguistic framework (and specifically the SFL concept of ‘rank’) is used to analyse modalities other than language (MOLs). In her review of the main MDA traditions in visual grammar, Zhao exhibits the issues, such as validity in theoretical borrowing, that are at the forefront of MDA. Specifically, how far can we go in extending the parameters of SFL to describe other semiotic resources? In this sense, then, the question of how ‘appliable’ a linguistic framework is in multimodal relations is made relevant. In her chapter, Zhao extrapolates the ‘missing elements’ in the current debate on rank in MDA through a re-interpretation of Halliday’s concept, and proposes that the model of constituency (parts) in MDA does not provide for its dynamic or process-oriented nature. In her words, a multimodal text is not made up of parts but ‘is a meaning making process, in which choice from one semiotic system is constantly coupling with or decoupling from the choice made in another system’, and she outlines the implications on SFL and the challenges this presents, especially in finding a metalanguage to account for this dynamism. The final chapter ends the volume on the pursuit of meaning in Hasan’s ‘The meaning of “not” is not in “not”’. Hasan ‘opens afresh’ the debate on meaning in linguistics, showing that ‘its practical participation in human social life is both profound and extensive’ through a comprehensive discussion of the history of meaning and its relationship to language as exemplified through the semantics of ‘not’. Meaning is described as ‘the essence of language’, and is shown to be central to all aspects of human life through a number of considerations. Hasan brings us through a phylogenetic history of homo sapiens in archaeological anthropology, and of the brain in this species in neuroscience; then to an ontogenetic perspective on ‘the developmental trajectory of single members of the community’ in Vygotsky’s concept of ‘semiotic mediation’, furthered by Bernstein’s notions of ideology to separate orientations to meaning that vary across social groups; and finally leading to Halliday’s conceptualization of the ontogenesis of language and the systemic functional model. The chapter is then moved into the exploration of linguistic meaning through SFL, including its major concepts, and specifically the examination of the meaning of negative polarity (‘not’) through Hasan’s semantic networks and a trinocular perspective on surrounding linguistic strata (that is to say, a view above and below the stratum of concern). While we can see the meaning of ‘not’ in its default realizations (e.g. ‘denial’ in statements), Hasan argues that non-default meanings of a category like this are just as important to consider, and we must look up into the semantics from the lexicogrammar and across the range of its paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations to gain a different view of the category’s

Introduction

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semantic identity and value. Hasan concludes, ‘the meanings of a category of wording are not in that category itself; they take particular shape in the specific environment in which the wording occurs, and significantly, this environment is most parsimoniously identified by reference to the semantic level’. Hasan ends the chapter with a final orientation to the notion of ‘appliable linguistics’ as ‘a linguistic theory that is able to explain the efficacy of language in human life’, and indicates that SFL’s commitment to ‘the idea of language as an ever renewing system’ allows for this constant appliability. The range of chapters in this volume provides a broad view of how SFL, as one possible theory of language in linguistics as a whole, can strive towards the integration of theory and application for a holistic – appliable – linguistics; in other words, a linguistics that is not separated by a dichotomy of theory and use. In Halliday’s description, these are instead connected in a token and value relationship. With language as the essential means by which we ‘do’ everyday life, we require a model of language that applies across contexts and that can be adapted according to the needs of our specific texts. Theorizing this model thus goes hand in hand with how it is used, and conversely, to use a linguistic theory we need it to be robust enough to handle that which is under our scope. In this volume, systemic functional linguistic theory provides a model that relates these concerns: one that foregrounds choice so that we may explore difference in the search for equivalence in a translated text; one that offers us a semiotic toolbox by which we can improve teaching and learning in a systematic and principled way; one that is extendable to multimodal relations; one that includes the intrinsic relation to social context that is open enough to include various concepts such as genre, register and affiliation, and so on. At the same time, SFL is a model that is constantly challenged, both in this volume and otherwise, by its various applications. What these chapters show, however, is that challenges compel change in the model, and this relates back to the essence of an appliable linguistics – constant adaptation as we shunt between theory and use, in alignment with the nature of language itself. And this is true of linguistic theories across the discipline, which are not static but constantly progressing. Hence, we offer this collection of research as an initial step in the pursuit of Appliable Linguistics, which we hope will serve as a foundation for future work across the discipline.

References Brumfit, C. J. (1995). ‘Teacher professionalism and research’, in G. Cook and B. Seidhofer (eds), Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 27–41. Cloran, C. (1994). Rhetorical Units and Decontextualisation: An Enquiry into Some Relations of Context, Meaning and Grammar. Nottingham: Department of English Studies, University of Nottingham.

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Corder, P. S. (1978). ‘“Simple codes” and the sources of second language learner’s initial heuristic hypothesis’. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 1 (1), 1–10. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). ‘Systemic background’, in J. D. Benson and W. S. Greaves (eds), Systemic Perspectives on Discourse, Volume 1. Selected theoretical papers from the 9th international systemic workshop. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, pp. 1–15. Halliday, M. A. K. (2006a). ‘Working with meaning: Towards an appliable linguistics’. Inaugural lecture to mark the launch of the Halliday Centre for intelligent applications of language studies at the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Halliday, M. A. K. (2006b). ‘Some theoretical considerations underlying the teaching of English in China’. The Journal of English Studies (Sichuan International Studies University) 4, 7–20. Halliday, M. A. K., McIntosh, A. and Strevens, P. (1964). Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hasan, R. (1984). ‘Coherence and cohesive harmony’, in J. Flood (ed.), Understanding Reading Comprehension. Newark, DE: IRA, pp. 181–219. Lavandera, B. R. (1978). ‘Where does the sociolinguistic variable stop?’ Language in Society 7 (2), 171–82. Martin, J. R. (2000). ‘Beyond exchange: appraisal systems in English’, in S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 142–75. Martin, J. R. (2004). ‘Positive discourse analysis: solidarity and change’. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 49 (Special issue on discourse analysis at work: Recent perspectives in the study of language and social practice), 179–200. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave. Pike, K. L. (1981). Tagmemics, Discourse and Verbal Art. Ann Arbor: MI Studies in the Humanities. Van Leeuwen, T. (1999). Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan.

Chapter 2

Pinpointing the Choice: Meaning and the Search for Equivalents in a Translated Text M. A. K. Halliday

2.1 Meaning as Choice At a time when meaning was largely excluded from the discourse of what was then becoming ‘mainstream’ linguistics, my teacher, J. R. Firth, perversely proclaimed that all linguistics was, in effect, the study of meaning. He used various metaphors along the way; one was that of the spectrum of visible light. Meaning was dispersed across the spectrum of language, which included the levels of phonetics, phonology, lexis, grammar and context (‘context of situation’). The linguist took account of all of these; and strategies for doing this constituted, collectively, the ‘technique of semantics’. Firth’s throwaway examples tended to obscure the message: when he said that ‘part of the meaning of a Frenchman is to sound like one’ it made the observations seem trivial. Firth’s point was that all the strata of language are implicated in the making of meaning. This is the nature of the semiotic process, and of the kind of system that is associated with such a process: a realizational system, one whose working parts are related not as cause and effect but as signified and signifier, or (as I prefer to generalize it) as value and token. In a sense what binds a theory to its applications is this relationship of value and token: a theory is made manifest, or ‘realized’, in the processes of being applied. If all aspects of the phenomenon that is being theorized – in this case, language – are implicated in the making of meaning, then any application of the theory will also involve some kind of operation with meaning. Of course, ‘applications’ of a theory will vary in where their energies are directed; some are what we would probably think of as ‘practical’, such as teaching foreign language skills to a class of technology students, while others will be of a research nature, such as the linguistic analysis of literature, where we try to explain how a text, or a canon of texts, comes to carry a particular value. But all are based on the premise that the task is in some way or other one of working with systems of meaning.

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Given the demands we make on language, in almost everything we do, it is not surprising to find a great range and variety of activities where a theory of language can be of use: where it can contribute to formulating and understanding a problem, and may sometimes even point towards a solution. One recent publication which gives an overview of more or less the whole of this extensive territory is the two-volume ‘Continuing Discourse on Language’, edited by Hasan, Matthiessen and Webster and published by Equinox (2005, 2007). This is a rich source of information about the scope of an ‘appliable’ theory of language. I use ‘appliable’ because ‘applied linguistics’ has come to function in some kind of opposition to ‘linguistics’ (meaning ‘linguistics proper’, or theoretical linguistics), whereas I want to reject that opposition; I want a single concept which unifies the two. And I don’t say ‘applicable’ because that suggests ‘applicable to’ some particular sphere of activity or other, whereas I want a general term which gives the sense of something that is capable of – having evolved in the context of – being applied. My own way into linguistics was, in fact, as a search for something to think with when faced with certain fairly specific tasks. One was my work as a foreign language teacher, teaching what was to the learners – as it had been to myself not long before – a seemingly rather exotic foreign language: teaching Chinese to (largely monolingual) speakers of English. Another was my work in the British Communist Party, as one of a group searching for a marxist, or at least marxism-compatible, linguistics: one which would give value to what were at that time undervalued languages and varieties: spoken as versus written language, non-Indo-European languages especially those emerging as national languages in former colonies, minority languages, so-called dialects as opposed to ‘standard’ languages, and so on. Another task came from my love of English literature: it seemed obvious to me that literature was made of language and so must be appreciated as language, and I wanted to find out why some texts were so effective, so compelling and so timeless. And then, fourth, I was involved in a very early machine translation project, at Cambridge in the late 1950s; this had a great effect of focusing the mind on how the whole traffic system of language actually worked. So I really needed a bag of tools that would let me come to grips with this varied set of language-grounded tasks. If there was one motif that emerged as salient in all these different contexts, it was that of choice: language as meaning, and meaning as choice. In teaching a foreign language, one was always guiding the learners through networks of choices, opening up – or helping them to open up – an expanding range of meaning potential, increasing the delicacy of the choices they were making as they went along. One of my own constant questions as a language learner was, ‘What’s the difference between . . .?’; as a teacher I had to field this question all the time. In translation, whether human or mechanical, the basic problem for the translator is the problem of choice – as is the decision of a writer whether to prefer this form of expression over that one. But these are just the occasions where the choice is, or can be brought, under focus of attention, as we can see

Pinpointing the Choice

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in poets’ notebooks, or in think-aloud protocol records of translators – they are choices that are made consciously. In fact, all use of language is the exercise of choice; most of the time the choosing remains ‘unconscious’ – that is, below the level of our conscious attention and awareness. It is nonetheless a process of choice. If we look into some of the other domains where linguistics is being ‘applied’, the principle of choice is always likely to be in the foreground. In clinical linguistic work, where one has to identify and to track disorders such as aphasia arising from dementia or from some trauma such as a stroke, the sufferer may partially lose access to their normal range of lexicogrammatical choice; lexically, for example, being unable to retrieve the word tennis, they will search out a superordinate term like ball game, or a cohyponym such as netball; or they may face a more complex dislocation of systems within the grammar, morphological or syntactic (impairment of time systems, for example), which are not easy to pinpoint with any certainty. Most sufferers will work hard to remain in the discourse – this may be unconscious, or it may be a process requiring considerable conscious effort; but in either case it is the search for a meaningful alternative choice. The therapist seeks to locate the disorder within the overall system of the language. In the discourses of psychiatric treatment, such as conversational therapy, the therapist will often attend not only to the choices made by the patient but also to those he is making himself, and perhaps make some linguistic analysis of the discourse to track the course of the therapeutic encounter. In a forensic context, where for example a linguist is being asked as expert witness whether a particular confession, or a purported suicide note, could have been written by a particular individual, the question is one of determining whether the choices made lay within that individual’s meaning potential. My former colleague John Gibbons was consulted at some length on the selection of the most appropriate choice of wording for the caution used by the police on making an arrest. Matching specimens of handwriting is perhaps the furthest removed from a concern with choice in meaning, although even here it will be assumed that the writing is the realization of some meaningful text (Gibbons, 2003). All use of language is a process of meaningful choice; and many of the applications of a linguistic theory depend on bringing out the specific choices that have been made, or that need to be made, in particular situational and textual contexts – in other words, on locating them in their function in the overall system of the language. This is what I meant by ‘pinpointing the choice’ in the title of this chapter. One form of activity in which the process, or processes, of choosing will be most clearly foregrounded is translating from one language to another; since I have lately been engaging in a translation task, let me draw on this as a repository of instances of different kinds of choice. My text is one from what is now called the ‘culture industry’ – or should be; in fact it often gets called ‘cultural industry’ instead, and that is itself an interesting example to consider: ‘culture’ here needs to function as Classifier in the

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nominal group, not as Epithet, and the adjectival form cultural is ambiguous in this respect, and could be interpreted in the somewhat oxymoronic sense of an industry which is itself of cultural value. The discourse of the culture industry includes varieties like museum texts (Ravelli, 2006), tourist guides and brochures, promotions and programmes of events like concerts or sporting ventures, and so on. The text I am working on is a tourist guide to the Chinese city of Guilin – or rather the city and its surrounding region, which is one of China’s most outstanding beauty spots. There was already an English version of the guide, and my original undertaking was just to polish up the English translation as a token to the friend who gave it to me, who happens to be advisor and consultant to the Guilin Tourist Bureau.1 I had thought this would be a fairly simple task, but it turned out that what was more appropriate was a new translation from the original Chinese text (which was both lavishly produced and very beautifully illustrated). I shall assume that we can discuss translation in terms of equivalence and shift, taking these terms from Catford’s splendid little book on translation (Catford, 1965) but more particularly as they are expounded and theorized by Matthiessen in the book edited by Erich Steiner and Colin Yallop (Matthiessen, 2001). If x in the source language has been translated by y in the target language, we ask whether the two, x and y, are equivalent, or there has been a shift. Of course, this opposition will always be ‘with respect’: it is the job of a linguistic theory of translation to specify and explain the ‘respects’ in which we may establish equivalence and shift, and this is what Matthiessen proceeds to do. These are what he refers to as the environments of translation. Matthiessen writes (2001, p. 78), ‘I shall assume that translation equivalence and translation shift are two opposite poles on a cline of difference between languages’, from ‘maximal congruence’ to ‘maximal incongruence’. ‘The general principle’, he adds, is that ‘the wider the environment of translation, the higher the degree of translation equivalence; and the narrower the environment, the higher the degree of translation shift.’ This is the principle of contextualization: the ‘widest’ environment is that in which the text is ‘maximally contextualized’ – and therefore, by the same token, is likely to be ‘maximally effective’ (ibid., pp. 74–5). Matthiessen’s ‘environments’ are defined by the dimensions along which every human language is organized: stratification, rank, instantiation, metafunction, delicacy and axis. I shall refer mainly to the first two of these, stratification and rank, in looking at some examples from my bilingual tourist text (actually quadrilingual, because it includes also versions in Korean and Japanese). What I am seeking to do is to identify points of translation shift in explicit linguistic terms, so as to be able to discuss the issues that are involved when we consider possible alternatives. This means locating particular instances in their contexts in the systems of English and of Chinese – primarily, here, in terms of their location in stratum and rank. This exercise is related to, although not identical with, the ‘error analysis’ that was popular in language teaching, or rather in linguistics when applied to


17

language teaching, in and around the 1970s. Error analysis went out of fashion fairly quickly, because it turned out that there were nearly always a number of different ways of repairing a linguistic error. This made it unpopular with teachers; but it is precisely this feature that makes it interesting to linguists, and it is a useful exercise to perform with students of linguistics since it helps them to become conscious of the various dimensions along which languages are organized. A translation shift is not the same as an error. Indeed there will almost always be shift on some dimension or other, because there is seldom total equivalence between choices in two languages; the translator shifts here to gain equivalence there, according to the value inhering in equivalence of different kinds in the nature of the task in hand. Of course there are simple errors, mistakes in the target language (we will start with one or two of these). But while these also can be usefully pinpointed, they lie outside the range of (normal) translation equivalence. In the second part of this chapter I will discuss some examples taken from one paragraph of the English translation of my tourism text. Text A below is the Chinese original; Text B is the English translation. The two were clearly identified as being equivalent, as they appeared one beneath the other in a single column (not all portions of the text were displayed as matching paragraphs in this same way). I shall try to keep in focus the concept of choice, seeing each example as the output of choices made at some particular locations in the target language. We cannot know, of course, what steps the translator may have traversed in arriving at the published translation; that is not the issue here. What I am trying to do, in ‘pinpointing the choice’, is to use the analytic tools of linguistics, and particularly perhaps of grammatics, to examine the significance of alternative renderings for a reader of the English text. In the table of examples (Appendix 1), each of the four centre columns takes a step towards pinpointing the problem in linguistic terms. The first column, headed ‘point at issue’, gives an informal characterization of the instance that is being highlighted: ‘English error’, ‘unmotivated shift’, ‘unnecessary word’, ‘unclear meaning’, and so on. The next three columns locate the point at issue on each of three dimensions in the ‘architecture’ of language: the stratum (phonetics, phonology, lexicogrammar (syntax, morphology, lexis), semantics, context); the rank (in syntax: morpheme, word, group, phrase, clause or some complex of any of these; in lexis: lexical item, collocation); the metafunction (ideational (experiential, logical), interpersonal, textual). On all these dimensions, more than one location may be involved (for example, rank: clause/verbal group). The final column suggests how an alternative choice might be made which would improve the effectiveness of the translation. To make this discussion more accessible to those who do not read Chinese, I have added a transcription of the paragraph in the roman alphabet, using the Hanyu Pinyin (the authorized spelling of standard Chinese), including the tone marks as an essential component. I have not thought it necessary, or even desirable, to add an interlinear gloss on the Chinese words, because these will

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be explained in the discussion of the examples in which they occur. There too I have used the Pinyin transcription, as well as the Chinese charactery. For the Chinese characters, rather than the simplified I have chosen the full (elaborated) variants, since these are used in Hong Kong and Taiwan (and also Japan), as well as being easily accessed electronically on the mainland.

2.2 Some Examples of Choice in Translation In its cultural context, as a tourist guide, the text describes tourist attractions and other amenities of Guilin and its surrounding country, while at the same time encouraging visitors to come and helping them to spend their money. Much of the Chinese original is descriptive and informative; but it is generously flavoured with clichés, ritually praising the environment in lyrical and romantic terms. The English reader is not familiar with them and does not expect them in a tourist guide. The Chinese translator (author of the English version) in fact left many of them out; but then he left out many other things as well. One could try to look out some suitable quotations from English poets, such as perhaps Tennyson or Wordsworth; but that would be just another kind of translation shift, and in general I have also left them out. This is a shift in semantics (and also of course in lexicogrammar) designed to achieve equivalence of the text as a whole, in the sense of operating with the same function in the same context as the original. Catford regarded this as one of the possible types of translation. To try to achieve equivalence at a lower stratum, even that of semantics, in a case like this would compromise the effectiveness of the text, introducing a component of exoticism that is entirely absent from the original. The problem of the unwanted exotic is a familiar one in translation, which also needs to be pinpointed with some care. It is related to, though not identical with, the problem of the unintended humour: passages in a translated text that a reader is likely to find funny. Here are two examples from another tourism text, this time a small brochure devoted to just one particular location: As a matter of fact, this temple is a rock cave. Its ceiling is made of rock and, therefore, it is also called ‘one piece of tile’. (The) Concert Hall was built in 1989. The design of the hall is so good that in every seat music can be heard. Here the humorous effect comes from the semantic incongruity: the anomaly between the stated cause (therefore; so good that) and the lack of any perceived causal relation: why would you call something a ‘piece of tile’ if it’s made of rock? And music being audible from every seat is a minimal requirement of a concert hall, not something to be picked out as a claim for special merit. When we talk of ‘pinpointing the choice’, in the theory and practice of translation, this means locating, within the systems of the two languages concerned,


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the moments of equivalence and shift that come to our attention. These may, of course, be almost any moments in any pair of texts that are related as source and target texts in translation, since equivalence on all dimensions is rather improbable. At the same time, the concept of translation, as process and as product, depends on the search for equivalence and the assumption that equivalence can be achieved in at least certain respects. There will always be a trade off, such that we are able to say that, in the given context, the greatest value is carried by equivalence of this or that particular kind: usually in some combination of stratum and metafunction. (My first published translation was an English rendering of a Chinese song; since this was done for performance at a recital, it had to fit the rhythm and spirit of the music.) The translator will give these forms of equivalence priority, in making choices, and accept the resulting shift in other locations. All work of translating is the exercise of choice, conscious or unconscious. But then, so is every other performance of language. When we talk of an ‘appliable linguistics’, this means a way of engaging with language that is theoretically robust and at the same time serviceable – capable of being put to use in addressing a range of problems and tasks. These two requirements support each other, because the robustness of the theory derives from its long association with activities where language plays a central part – including some educational (e.g. language across the curriculum), some computational (natural language processing) and others; while its appliability comes from its consistent grounding in theory – in this case, a theory offering functional explanations both for the system of language and for each instance of language use, and locating any feature of language in its paradigmatic context, as selection from a multidimensional meaning-making resource. Translation is one area where it is valuable to be able to reflect on what we are doing, and to explore the meaning potential of a language – of two or more languages as they are brought into contact – in an explicit and recoverable way. Translators often protest that they find little or no use for linguistics; so it is perhaps a challenge to what seeks to be an ‘appliable’ kind of linguistics to put it to work in this domain.

2.3 Texts Text A Chinese original, (i) in characters, (ii) in Pinyin romanization (i) Ёᖗऔඳ᱃咲ᰃҹⱒ䞠ⓧ∳⚎Ё䓌㍿ˈ䔏ᇘܽኌ㨫ৡⱘ㞾✊乼‫ܝ‬ǃҎ᭛ ᱃㾔ˈᾟ៤Ḗᵫቅ∈ⱘ㊒㧃Ǆ݊Ё᳝ҹⓧ∳乼‫⚎ܝ‬ҷ㸼ⱘ5㰩೟ᆊ㋮4A ᱃औ˗᳝Ϫ⬠᳔໻ⱘ䲩ลࡉ԰➳ഄᛮ㞾ῖ೦˗᳝Ϫ⬠᳔໻ⱘ㰢❞仞Ⅺ෎ ഄ䲘Ể❞㰢ቅ㥞˗Ꮦऔⱘܽ∳ಯ␪᳈ᰃᾟ៤њ‘ϔ∈ᢅජ⌕’ⱘජᏖ໻݀ ೦Ǆ݊䭧गዄⶫゟˈ乼ᚙ㨀。ˈҸҎ⼲‫ޱ‬ᔶ䞟ˈ⌕䗷ᖬ䖨Ǆ

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(ii) Zho¯ngxi¯n qu¯yù jiˇngdiaˇn shì yiˇ baˇ i liˇ Líjia¯ng wéi zho¯ng zhóuxiàn, fúshè liaˇng àn zhùmíng-de zìrán fe¯nggua¯ngǃrénwén jiˇnggua¯n, gòuchéng Guìlín sha¯nshuiˇ-de ji¯nghuá. Qízho¯ng yoˇu yiˇ Líjia¯ng fe¯nggua¯ng wéi dàibiaˇo-de 5 chù guójia¯jí 4A jiˇngqu¯; yoˇu shìjiè zuìdà-de dia¯osù chuàngzuò yíngdì Yúzì Lèyuán; yoˇu shìjiè zuìdà-de huˇ xióng yaˇ ngzhí ji¯dì Xióngse¯n Xióng Huˇ Sha¯nzhua¯ng; shìqu¯-de liaˇng jia¯ng sì hú gèng shì gòuchéng-le ‘yi¯ shuiˇ bào chéng liú’-de chéngshì dà go¯ngyuán. Qíjia¯n qia¯n fe¯ng chùlì, fe¯ngqíng wànzhoˇng, lìng rén shén níng xíng shì, liú lián wàng faˇn. Text B English translation given in the tourist guide The scenic sports of central area is taking the 100 miles of Li River as central axes, covering the famous natural landscapes and human-culture scenes on both banks which form the soul of Guilin’s landscape, including five national level 4A spots in which the scene of Li River is representative; the biggest sculpture creation campsite in the world – Yuzi Paradise; the biggest tigers & bears raising base – Xiongseng Tiger & Bear Villa; the Two-River and Four-lake scenery area form a big city-park of ‘a river flowing around the city’. In this area, there are thousands of upstanding hills and a lot of charming attractions which make your pleasure and forget to return.[sic, passim]

Notes 1

My warmest thanks to my friend Bao Jigang, Professor of Geography and Tourism at Sun Yat-sen University, for bringing this book to my attention – and for presenting my wife and myself with a handsomely bound copy on the occasion of our visit to Guilin. The Chinese text and the examples were set up for me by Joe Chen (Chen Jiansheng). I am most grateful for his assistance.

Appendix 1

Pinpointing the Choice 21

(Continued )

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AMahboob_02_Final.indd 23

Pinpointing the Choice 23

5/25/2010 11:24:52 AM

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References Catford, J. C. (1965). A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London: Oxford University Press (Language and learning series). Gibbons, J. (2003). Forensic Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell (Language in society series). Hasan, R., Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. and Webster, J. (eds) (2005/2007). Continuing Discourse on Language, Vols 1 & 2. London and Oakville: Equinox. Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2001). ‘The environments of translation’, in E. Steiner and C. Yallop (eds), Exploring Translation and Multilingual Text Production: Beyond Content. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 41–124. Ravelli, L. J. (2006). Museum Texts: Communication Frameworks. London: Routledge.

Chapter 3

Appliable Linguistics and English Language Teaching: The Scaffolding Literacy in Adult and Tertiary Environments (SLATE) Project Ahmar Mahboob, Shoshana Dreyfus, Sally Humphrey and J. R. Martin

3.1 Introduction This chapter introduces the Scaffolding Literacy in Adult and Tertiary Environments (SLATE) project1, which is an ongoing action research project that aims to scaffold the academic literacy skills of students from a non-English-speaking background (NESB) studying at an English medium university, via the use of online learning environments. The SLATE project uses an appliable linguistics framework in that it builds on and extends a theory of language in response to a real-world issue (Halliday, 2006). The SLATE project draws on Sydney School theories of genre (Martin, 1993; Kress, 1993; Martin and Rose, 2008), register (Halliday 1991; Martin, 1992) and other dimensions of language and semiosis within the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) tradition. In this chapter, we outline the broad principles and knowledge that this project is based upon, share some of the project’s achievements (with examples from one of the courses supported by the project) and indicate some future directions for the project.

3.2 Background to the SLATE Project The SLATE project evolved from a need identified by staff at the City University of Hong Kong (henceforth CityU) – namely that students at this institution are not always successful in producing appropriate academic texts in English (this issue, of course, is not only pertinent to CityU but of much broader concern, both nationally and internationally). The staff at CityU were concerned that the students’ lack of ability to write effective texts in their discipline areas had negative consequences in terms of their future employment and career opportunities. They therefore started considering ways of providing students with language

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support while enrolled in their subject classes. In the initial phase of the project, called the Language Companion Course (LCC)2, students were provided with a language coach to whom they submitted drafts of their written coursework online; the coaches provided feedback on these drafts using an online comment bank. While helpful for the students, this model is limited in that it gives the students no instruction on how to go about their writing tasks before they set out to write – the help only came ‘after the horse had bolted’, so to speak. Given that within the Sydney School pedagogy much of the support for writing is provided prior to students having to write independently, the nature of the project started to change once the University of Sydney (henceforth USYD) became involved in early 2008. The changes introduced included support for both CityU students and their language coaches. For the students, the USYD team built in some ‘frontloading’ support for students prior to writing, that included both reading support (where applicable) and a modelling stage, where students were provided with a model text that explicates the features of the texts the students were required to write. For the coaches, the USYD team developed an extensive training programme, which expanded the coaches’ own metalinguistic resources, using teaching materials such as the 3×3 matrix (see Humphrey, Martin, Dreyfus and Mahboob, this volume). The aim of the training was to extend the language coaches’ gaze beyond word-level structural units to considerations of context and unfolding of meanings across texts. Finally, the USYD team developed an expanded feedback/consultation process and the development of assessment criteria and protocols. Some of these processes and materials will be presented in the section below in relation to one linguistics course supported by USYD SLATE.

3.3 Theoretical Underpinnings to the SLATE Project The SLATE project is the fourth generation of Sydney School work on genre pedagogy based at the University of Sydney. The first generation, the Language and Social Power project, and the second generation, the Write it Right project, focused on the literacy demands of primary and secondary schools respectively (Martin, 2000). These projects identified the literacy practices crucial for success in school and made explicit the language resources needed to enact these practices, both for teachers and students. This work was supported by a number of international literacy educators, particularly those concerned with developing critical literacy practices for students from low socio-economic status (SES) and NESB (e.g. Schleppegrell and Colombi, 2002; Gee, 2000; Kalnin, 1998; Macken-Horarik, 1996; Schleppegrell, 2004). The third generation of work on genre pedagogy was developed by David Rose3 and focussed on the integration of reading and writing across sectors. The SLATE project adopts the principles developed and tested in the earlier projects and applies them to the tertiary education context in online learning environments.

English Language Teaching

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In continuing to develop a pedagogy of empowerment, the SLATE project incorporates aspects of genre theory (Martin and Rose, 2008), sociology of education (Bernstein, 2000), and socio-cultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978). Within genre theory, genres are defined as ‘staged goal-oriented social processes’ which function in society as institutionalized discourse (Martin and Rose, 2007; Martin and White, 2005). A central idea of using this understanding of genre in education, especially in teaching literacy and writing, is that learners of all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds must be taught these genres explicitly in order to succeed in society. Genre pedagogues argue that if standard genres are not taught effectively to students, they will be unable to produce texts that are valued in academic disciplines and therefore not be able to fully benefit from educational experiences. Genre pedagogies have drawn on SFL theory, which views language as a social semiotic system (Halliday, 1978), that is, a resource for making meaning in social context from which notions of ideology and power are inseparable (Eggins, 2004; Martin and Rose, 2007). In SFL theory, language as a social semiotic system is realized on five different levels of abstraction, which have been termed strata: phonology/graphology, lexicogrammar, discourse semantics, register and genre. The most basic resources for meaning-making are phonological or graphological units. At the stratum of lexicogrammar, the units of phonology and graphology are realized as words and structures (Martin and White, 2005, p. 9). At the discourse semantic-level meanings are created across phases of text as a whole, rather than just within clauses. Context, modelled as register and genre, stands at the higher levels of abstraction. In educational linguistics, inspired by the Sydney School, register has been interpreted as referring to context of situation and genre to context of culture. Register realizes genre, and is organized metafunctionally as field, tenor and mode. Field is concerned with the nature of social action, viewed as institutional practice; tenor refers to the relationship among participants, their status and affinity; and mode refers to the role language plays in organizing ideational and interpersonal meanings according to the textures different channels of communication afford. In a model of this kind it is the responsibility of genre to describe how field, mode and tenor variables combine and are phased into purposeful social semiotic processes (Martin and Rose, 2008). In academic context/texts, ideational meanings (realizing field) construe technical and specialized disciplinary knowledge. Interpersonal meanings (realizing tenor) are constructed in relatively distanced and objectified ways to position writers authoritatively in their field of knowledge. Textual meanings (construing mode) are used to package information into comprehensible pulses of news in meaning-heavy genres (Eggins, 2004; Martin and Rose, 2007; 2008). The strata and metafunctions can be mapped on to each other in diagrams such as that in Figure 3.1. Also informing Sydney School literacy practices are Bernsteinian concerns that individuals from a lower SES may not have the orientations to meaning

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Figure 3.1 Strata and metafunctions in SFL

to create texts in ways that are valued in educational contexts (Martin, 1999). Genre theory suggests that a pedagogy of empowerment must make visible these genres of power and explicitly teach people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds ways of meaning that match the social expectations of their readership. The pedagogical implications of genre theory encompass Vygotskyian notions of scaffolding4 (Bruner, 1966; Applebee and Langer, 1983). Vygotsky’s work, in addition to studies on child language development (such as Halliday, 1975; Painter, 1984), indicate that successful learning happens when teachers/carers first model the practices that need to be learnt, then jointly construct these with the learners, before allowing learners to attempt to carry out a task independently. For learning within institutional contexts, the Sydney School has formalized this set of scaffolding practices as ‘The teaching– learning cycle’ (Rothery, 1996), illustrated in Figure 3.2. Rothery’s (1996) model implements the idea that knowledge is constructed in a social context and that in order to successfully gain control of writing and reading, learners need to be led through cycles of deconstruction, joint construction and independent construction, while simultaneously building their understanding of the field. In doing so, they move towards a critical orientation to, and control of the skills, knowledge and language that is required within specific genres and valued in particular social contexts. The teaching–learning cycle requires that in the deconstruction stage, the teacher first models the text and, in thus deconstructing the text, enables students to understand its purpose, structure and important language features. Following this is the joint construction stage, where together with the teacher, who provides the leadership and guidance, students write a text of the same type on another topic. Finally, and after successfully scaffolding this writing process, learners are given the opportunity to write independently. Throughout this sequence the field


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Figure 3.2 Teaching–learning cycle (Rothery, 1996)

(i.e. disciplinary knowledge in academic contexts) needs to be built up. In the academic context, this occurs primarily through lectures and reading, as well as discussions. Reading strategies such as those advocated by Rose (2005a; 2005b) have adopted and expanded the teaching–learning cycle in ways that are relevant not only to junior and secondary school contexts but tertiary contexts as well.

3.4 Developments and Achievements of the SLATE Project The contributions of the SLATE project can loosely be divided into support for language coaches and support for students. As mentioned above, the support for the coaches included an extensive training programme, the development of the 3×3 matrix and scaffolding for an expanded feedback/consultation process involving additional assessment criteria and protocols. The support for the students consists of the implementation of one stage of the teaching–learning model that supports students prior to writing – including both a modelling stage and an expanded feedback stage that build in supplementary modelling, and in some cases reading support.

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3.4.1 SLATE support for language coaches As one initiative the SLATE project ran an 18-hour training programme for language coaches to build shared understandings about language, and to encourage a particular approach when working with the CityU student texts. This approach, as was discussed in a previous section, was based on genre and register theory. Using an understanding of SFL, the SLATE team developed a 3×3 matrix that mapped a simplified model of strata (genre, discourse, and grammar & expression) in relation to the three metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal and textual); for a detailed introduction to the 3×3, see Humphrey, Martin, Dreyfus and Mahboob, this volume. In training the language coaches, the 3×3 matrix was used to ensure consistency in the coaches’ approach to reviewing student texts and providing feedback. By using the 3×3 matrix, the coaches were able to distinguish meanings according to strata and metafunction and this enabled them to move beyond a preoccupation with the low-level grammar and expression mistakes that are common in texts written by NESB students and engage with the texts from a range of perspectives: from the whole text down through the paragraph level to the clause and on, in this contextualized manner, to problems with spelling, word choice, use of articles, subject verb agreement, punctuation, and so on. At the whole text level, for example, coaches were trained to examine whether the student’s text followed the required structure which had been modelled: did it move through the appropriate stages, and within those stages, through the appropriate phases? The training aimed to systematize the coaches’ gaze as much as possible so that all coaches were using the same understandings about language. The 3×3 matrix was also used to develop an assessment rubric. The assessment criteria used in this rubric was developed to reflect both a stratified and metafunctional view of language. The assessment rubric consisted of three main criteria: z Criteria A: Purpose and structure of text (focus on the whole text level); z Criteria B: Development of meaning across paragraphs (focus on discourse

semantics and phases); and, z Criteria C: Grammar and expression (focus on clauses, sentences and other

structural and graphological features). Each of these criteria addressed a number of language features that were needed to construe specific meanings (across the three metafunctions). Student texts were given one of the following ratings: ‘shows excellent control’, ‘shows good control’, ‘shows fair control’, ‘shows poor control’ and ‘not applicable’. The language coaches filled in a rating sheet as they read through the student’s text and then used these ratings to help identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the text and to determine what linguistic issues would be focused on in providing feedback to the students on that particular draft of the assignment. For each draft, coaches focused on only 2–3 linguistic issues, and


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provided in-depth feedback on these. The coaches were encouraged to start their feedback addressing Criteria A: Purpose and structure of text, as it is recognized that the first step in having control over a genre is getting the purpose and structure right. In addition to introducing the language coaches to the linguistic theories adopted in this project, they were also introduced to the feedback structure that the SLATE team has been developing since the project began. This feedback structure was developed based on an analysis of successful feedback (i.e. feedback that was taken up by the students) in the previous semesters. The feedback structure includes 6 stages (3 required and 3 optional) and each of the stages includes 1 or more phases. The current feedback structure used in this project is presented in Figure 3.3 with examples from two sets of feedback, one containing the required stages only, and one with both the required and the optional stages. Figure 3.3 outlines the structure of the feedback given to the students by the language coaches. It includes three required stages: Orientation, Feedback and Encouragement. The Orientation stage includes two required phases: purring (greeting and positive comment) and previewing (outlining the focus of the feedback provided). The Feedback included three required phases and one optional phase. The required phases of the Feedback stage were: stating the problem, explaining why it is a problem and suggesting how to fix it. In addition, language coaches could also suggest alternatives as part of the Feedback. In the Encouragement stage, the final stage of providing comments on students’ drafts, the language coaches ended their consultation on a positive note. In addition to the three required stages, language coaches sometimes also included three optional stages: Recap, Recommendations and Expanded Explanation. The purpose of these optional stages was to enhance the feedback provided in different ways: by summarizing and identifying priorities for the student to address in their next draft/assignment; by suggesting activities and resources for students to work on independently; and by providing additional explanations and examples. Having a consistent and structured approach to providing feedback on student drafts contributed to the success of the project. Among other things, it assisted students to identify key issues in their writing and provided ample contextualized feedback to help them understand and learn from their mistakes. The feedback structure also helped standardize and bring some consistency to the feedback provided by different language coaches and, given the large number of coaches/students in the programme, ensured quality maintenance.

3.4.2 SLATE support for students – modelling Another contribution of the SLATE project to the LCC programme has been the introduction of a modelling stage to support students prior to writing. The LCC was initially set up to provide feedback to students on the texts that they

EXAMPLE 1

EXAMPLE 2

Orientation

Purr: warm greeting

Dear TM, Well done on submitting your first draft for your second assignment. You have a very good sense of structure in terms of staging with an appropriate beginning, middle and end. Well done. There are still some things you can do to improve your work on a paragraph level. Therefore my comments this draft will deal with paragraph structure and topic sentences. I will also make some remarks about appropriate linking words, level of formality and referencing.

Dear GY, Well done on considering my feedback from draft 1. You have certainly made a good effort in strengthening your work as a comparative text. You have made a considerable improvement, especially in creating a proper introduction and conclusion and refraining from using personal pronouns. My comments this time will address ways you can help the reader to understand your points. I will focus on ways you can improve your structure on a paragraph level, as well as touching on effective use of signposting.

You have made a good attempt here at a linking phrase to introduce a comparison. However, the expression ‘On the contrary’ is not quite what you need here because you are making a specific contrast, so why not use something like ‘Contrastingly…’ or ‘In contrast…’ (NB This is one of a number of points raised by the tutor)

The two paragraphs above seem to describe some words which are difficult to classify. Try to group them together with a clear topic sentence. This will alert the reader that there is a new idea about to be discussed. (NB This is one of a number of points raised by the tutor)

Statement of strengths Preview: states what feedback will focus on

Feedback

Statement of problem Explanation of why it’s a problem Suggestion for how to remediate (including directions to Blackboard resources and model text, and alternatives)

(Recap)

Summary of what student needs to work on in next draft

This is a good comparative essay, Y. Keep my comments in mind when working on your final submission, particularly the way you can arrange your sentences in a logical sequence to move the reader through your ideas in a sensible way.


PHASE

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STAGE

Suggestions for activities or general ideas to improve student’s writing

Your essay could also be strengthened by using appropriately formal language suited to an academic essay. It can be tempting to write how we speak. This is one of the challenges of academic writing, but you must always keep this sense of formality in mind and you will improve. Your use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ is too informal for an academic essay. Personal pronouns like ‘we’ or ‘I’ are discouraged in academic writing. This is partly because the focus should not be on the author, but should remain on the subject matter. The exercise on passive voice should help you here.

(Expanded Explanation)

Provision of more detailed explanations with examples

Like I said in my feedback last time, you need to effectively integrate these definitions into your paragraphs. As it is, they are not functioning as headings nor as part of the body. Try to integrate them with linking words and introductory phrases.

Encouragement

Praise & well-wishing for their next draft

This is a good linguistic commentary, TM Please take my comments into account when working on your next draft and your work will improve. Good luck, L


(Recommendations)

Good luck and we look forward to receiving your work!

Figure 3.3 Feedback structure with required and optional stages. Note: Stages/phases in brackets are optional. 33

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wrote for their various courses using an online comment bank. The comment bank included a list of common problems faced by English as second language (ESL) students and could be inserted in the students texts as a hyperlinked numerical item. When students clicked on the hyperlink, the link took them to a web page that provided a description of the problem, examples of correct and incorrect use of the feature and sometimes an external link to additional resources/information about the problem. This use of the comment bank as the primary form of feedback did not require any support material for students to use prior to their writing. The support given to students took place once the students had completed an independent construction of a text. In moving from LCC to SLATE, the aim was to shift our support forward to inform students about the kind of text they were being asked to write before they were required to write it independently. This meant that students would come to the writing process more informed about what it is they are required to write, instead of writing blind in an uninformed manner and thus producing texts that needed wholesale ‘repair’. The aim of providing model texts is not only to guide students in their writing, but to also begin to build a shared metalanguage that would develop students’ knowledge and understandings about language. This, in turn, would mean that the support students could be given further on in the programme could assume a modicum of a shared understanding about language. The ultimate aim is to provide a spiral curriculum for writing (Bruner, 1960) whereby subsequent teaching can contribute to, build on and then assume an ever-increasing metadiscursive knowledge base. For the introduction of the modelling stage, the SLATE team developed annotated and detailed model texts of the kinds the students need to write. In recognition of the specificities of knowledge construction in each genre and field, different models are provided for different assignments and different subjects. The models show the students the kind of staging and language requirements they need to master in order to successfully complete their written assignments. These models are also accompanied by notes that explain the model text, including its purpose, structure and language features. The context of the online environment at present means that while model texts are provided, there is no teacher-led deconstruction of the text, and the students have to navigate through the modelling/deconstruction stage independently5. The chapter will now describe one course in some detail to illustrate how the SLATE project operated. It will also provide some evidence of the effectiveness of the approach used in this project.

3.5 Supporting First-year Linguistics Students Over the three semesters of its involvement in the project, the USYD SLATE team has supported approximately 1100 students in 11 courses. One of these included a first-year introductory course in linguistics. Before the SLATE intervention, students taking this course were primarily assigned problem sets that


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required them to carry out linguistic analysis, but not to write up or describe their analysis. According to staff, one key reason for this was that students’ language proficiency was not considered sufficient to write such discussions. The students were, however, required to submit a final-year research project that required such writing. The SLATE team, in discussions with the relevant staff, developed two new assignments for this course that required students to first carry out an analysis, based on their lectures, course readings and tutorials, and then write-up their results. The genre of such texts has tentatively been called an interpretation. Furthermore, since the assignments required students to compare two linguistic phenomena, the genre can be subcategorized as a comparative interpretation. The purpose of this kind of text is to compare and contrast two aspects of language or interpret the language differences in two (or more) different texts using a particular linguistic frame. Students were given annotated notes and models for working on these assignments. In addition to working with the lecturer to set up the assignments, the SLATE team also shared the rationale for the assignments with the students. The Information Sheet sent to the students informed them of the SLATE (LCC) programme and included a listing of the assignments that were supported by the SLATE team, the important dates for these assignments, the rationale for selecting these assignments for language support as well as students’ rights and responsibilities. Students submitted three drafts of each of the two LCC/SLATE assignments: Draft 1, which was based on the notes provided to the students; Draft 2, in which students integrated the feedback given to them on Draft 1; and the Final draft – submitted both to the language coaches and the subject teacher, in which students responded to and integrated the feedback given to them on their earlier writing. The turnaround time for submitting feedback or a revised draft was 48 hours for both the language coaches and the students. This deadline was strictly observed and late submissions by students were not accepted. This created a cycle of drafting and feedback for each assignment that lasted

Figure 3.4 Consultation process for linguistics course

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just under two weeks. The support for students was supplemented with annotated models and notes at various points during the cycle. The drafting and the consultation process adopted for this linguistics course is shown in Figure 3.4. Figure 3.4 represents the consultative process used for the linguistics course. The consultative process includes a number of initiatives. In the first place, students were provided annotated models and notes to help them understand the linguistic requirements of their assignment. The students used these notes to write their first draft and submitted these to their language coaches. The language coaches provided feedback on these drafts using the SLATE feedback practices. In addition to individual feedback, additional notes and activities were designed and given to the students that address common problems. Students used the individual and group feedback to revise their drafts and then resubmitted these to their coaches. The language coaches, once again, provided individual and group feedback. The students then revised their work one more time and submitted it to the language coaches, who wrote a final report on the student language, as well as to their subject teachers, who assessed the final assignment. This cycle was then repeated (SLATE supported two assignments in linguistics, but the number of cycles can be adjusted based on the number of assignments supported). As was stated earlier, the SLATE team believes that it is very important that students be explicitly informed about what it is that they need to do in order to succeed in their work before actually being asked to write their assignments. In the current stage of the SLATE project, this need was addressed by providing models of writing to students. These models were annotated and supported with notes that first aimed to focus the students’ attention on mastering the requirements of the text at the level of genre. The purpose of a comparative interpretation was introduced and the model text was annotated for stages, and also phases within stages. The functions of each stage were explained with examples from the model text showing where and how these functions were realized. Following this, the notes demonstrated and discussed the logical organization of the paragraphs within the body of the text and highlighted the comparative language used to help build the model text’s arguments. The notes then touched on some less genre-specific language issues such as providing evidence in appropriately academic ways and backgrounding personal feelings and experiences. The notes finished with a brief step-by-step procedural section on how to go about writing the interpretation. These notes were used by students as they drafted their work. Further, the language coaches also referred students to specific sections of these notes during the revision/redrafting phases. The first set of notes were supplemented by activities that the team felt were needed to help students work on specific problems. For example, it became evident in Linguistics that while students were able to produce texts that roughly followed the generic structure of the model interpretation, the texts were often lacking at the phase, paragraph and sentence levels, particularly in terms of thematic development. As a result, we introduced notes


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focusing on choice of Theme and further annotated an additional model text to assist students in building thematic development. The outcome of this intervention has shown that students who use the prepared notes and therefore engage with the modelling phase of the teaching– learning cycle are able to produce well-structured texts that followed the generic conventions. As there was no way of compelling the students to use the model texts, it was evident that the tutor comments which pointed the student to the model texts were powerful in supporting students to engage with the modelling stage. This meant, however, that some students engaged with the model text and notes only after writing their first draft. This can be seen in the following two examples from the work of one student. The examples show the student’s first attempt at writing a comparative interpretation and her final submission after two rounds of feedback. The topic of the interpretation was derivational and inflectional morphology, and the students were required to first read a short passage and analyse the words within the passage that displayed inflectional or derivational morphology, and subsequently discuss the differences between the two, using the examples they had analysed. Example 1 shows the student’s nascent attempt at the genre of comparative interpretation. However, her text is fairly unstructured generically, and, as she does not produce the required stages of the text, she also does not produce the appropriate phases within those stages. The text is presented below without the comments inserted by the tutor so that it can be read as the language coach received it, that is, in toto and in an uninterrupted manner. However, as it is important in understanding the process of support for the students, and how the tutor uses the model to guide the students in their writing, the tutor comments are listed below, each one contained between curly brackets {}, corresponding to numbers inserted in the text. Example 1: Sample of first draft of comparative interpretation. In our text book, there are two morphological processes: inflectional morphology and derivational morphology. Inflectional morphology refers to the usage of words according to the syntactic rules by adding inflectional morphemes to existing roots or base forms. Derivational morphology refers to the creation of new nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs by adding derivational morphemes to existing roots or base forms (1). New words cannot be formed though inflectional morphology, as inflectional morphemes must be use according to grammar that grammatical morphemes like –ed is for past tense and must be used when the writer want to write something that happened. For example, from the analysis above, -ed is for past tense so the word deliver-ed, remark-ed, inflict-ed from the passage that we are given all have the morpheme –ed. Moreover, -s is added on pluralnouns, nation-s, term-s, vowel-s are examples and –s is added on verbs for Singular present tense like represent-s.On the other hand, new words can be created and can enter a language though derivational morphology by (Continued)

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Example 1 (Cont’d) adding different morphemes to existing roots. For example, In the article, flat(adjective) is the root, and –ness is the morpheme added, and a new word flat-ness which is a noun is formed. Certain adjectives can also form superlative adjective, adverb and noun by adding -est, -ly, and -ity respectively. New words can be formed from a root that is a noun or a verb too. For example, in the article, tradition which is a noun, can form an adjective tradition-nal by adding –nal. And arrive which is a verb, can form a nounarrive-al by adding -al. (2) However, there are some words that may or may not be broken down into morphemes, most of them contain roots or stems that are from Latin. For example, eliminate may be broken down as e-limit(limin)-ate because e- means out of, limin is the root of limit and –ate is a loanword from Latin. Also, prominent may be can be pro-eminent, prevent may be broken down as pre-vent(venire) as venire means come in Latin, salutary may be broken down as salut-ary as salut means health in Latin. (3) Tutor comment (1): {Your introduction begins well but needs to end here, except that you need to add one more point. If you look back at the model you’ll see the introduction has 3 components and one is to introduce the language sample you are using. Your language sample is the article ‘The Australian accent’. Can you put a sentence here that introduces it? If you look at the model, you’ll see that you need one paragraph for each of the topics you are to cover: inflectional and derivational morphology, in this case. This means you need to have a topic sentence for each paragraph that introduces and defines or elaborates the brief definition of the type of morphology you’ve introduced in the introduction. Then after the topic sentence, you need to discuss the types of morphology with examples. You need to do this with all the information below, because it is not well organised.} Tutor comment (2): {Some good points, but they need reorganising as I’ve said above.} Tutor comment (3): {For this paragraph, you need to introduce it in your introduction and say whether it relates to inflectional or derivational or both. Finally, you need a conclusion. Have a look at the model you were given to get some ideas of what the conclusion is meant to contain. Good luck with working on your second draft, which I look forward to receiving.}

As the language coach points out in the first part of comment (1), the student has begun the text well by introducing and defining the topic, however the student omits the next phase of the introduction, which should identify the


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language sample that is used for the analysis. The coach provides a fairly explicit comment to support the student to include this phase of the introduction and points the student back to the model text as a way of guiding her to engage with the support materials. It is important to remember here that students are not used to frontloading (specifically the deconstruction stages of the teaching–learning cycle). Additionally, frontloading is typically mediated by a teacher in classroom interaction, whereas in the SLATE project, thus far, students must engage with the frontloading materials independently online. As can be seen from these coach’s comments, students’ engagement with the models ended up being mediated to some degree by the coaches, who pointed them to the models, and to specific points in the model that were applicable. As the coach points out in the second part of comment (1) and in comment (2), the points in the student’s text are not well organized. The coach explicitly states what the student needs to do here to shape the text into its required stages and phases. Tutor comment (3) also focuses on guiding the student towards constructing the required stages of the text as the student has both begun an explanation of something not mentioned in the introduction and has omitted the conclusion stage. The student used this feedback in revising her work. The final draft of this student’s assignment is provided below. The draft has been annotated for the stages and phases within stages to show how the student is developing control of the genre of comparative interpretation. Example 2

Sample of final draft of comparative interpretation

Stages

Text

Introduction to topic.

Fromkin discusses two morphological processes: inflectional morphology and derivational morphology. (Fromkin 2006). Inflectional morphology refers to the usage of words while derivational morphology refers to the creation of words. This essay contrasts these two morphological processes that appear in the language sample, the article “The Australian accent”. In the article, there are some words that may or may not be broken down into derivational morphemes.

Definition of topic. Preview of points to be covered and introduction to language sample. First feature to be compared with definition. Examples from the text as evidence.

Inflectional morphology refers to the usage of words according to the syntactic rules by adding inflectional morphemes to existing roots or base forms. For example, nation-s is a word from the article where nation is the existing root (or call base form) and -s is the inflectional morphemes that added on the root to form the plural noun nation-s, and term-s, vowel-s are other examples. Also, inflectional morphemes must be used according to grammar that grammatical morpheme like –ed is for past tense. It must be used to write something that happened in the past, so new words cannot be formed though inflectional morphology as only the tense or plural is indicated. -ed is for past tense so the word deliver-ed, remark-ed, inflict-ed from the passage that happened in the past all have the morpheme –ed. Moreover, –s is added on verbs for Singular present tense like represent-s.


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Second feature to be compared with definition. Examples from the text as evidence.

On the other hand, derivational morphology refers to the creation of new nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs by adding derivational morphemes to existing roots or base forms. Therefore, new words can be created and can enter English though derivational morphology by adding different morphemes to existing roots. For example, in the article, flat (adjective) is the root, and – ness is the morpheme added, and a new noun flat-ness is formed. Certain morpheme can also form superlative adjectives, adverbs and nouns by adding -est, -ly, and -ity respectively. New words can be formed from a root that is a noun or a verb too. For example, in the article, the noun tradition can form an adjective tradition-nal by adding –nal. Moreover, the verb arrive can form a noun arrive-al by adding -al.

Third feature to be discussed with explanation and examples from text

However, there are some words that may or may not be broken down into roots and derivational morphemes, because most of them contain roots or stems that are from Latin (Random House Dictionary 2009). For example, eliminate may be broken down as e-limit(limin)-ate because e-means out of, limin is the root of limit and –ate is a loanword from Latin. Also, prominent may be broken down as pro-eminent. Prevent may be broken down as prevent(venire) as venire means come in Latin ,while salutary may be broken down as salut-ary as salut means health in Latin.

Summary of points from comparison

In conclusion, apart from the words that are not sure if they are analysiable or not, all the words formed by inflectional morphology and derivational morphology are made of roots and morphemes. But they are different in the ways that inflectional morphology need to be used according to grammar, while derivational morphology can create new words by adding different morphemes to existing roots.

References

Reference: Victoria A. Fromkin (editor) 2006 An introduction to Linguistic Theory . Blackwell Publishing Ltd http://dictionary.reference.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

As can be seen from Example 2, the student took the coach’s comments seriously and attended to the recommendations. As a result, Example 2 functions as a more organized text that contains both the required stages and the phases within those stages. The student’s text is now organized into: z an introduction, which contains an orientation to the topic, a brief defini-

tion, a preview and a listing of the article used for the analysis;


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z the body of the interpretation, which contains a paragraph each on inflec-

tional and derivational morphology, as well as a paragraph on the words that don’t fit neatly into one category or the other; and z a conclusion which sums up the points. While there is still some room for improvement, particularly with the internal logic of the points within the paragraphs in the body of the interpretation6, Example 2 shows a much-improved text in comparison to the first draft. This improvement in student writing demonstrates the possible effectiveness of the current consultative process. In addition, in order to measure the impact of this process on student language development over time, we also tracked students’ writing across assignments. One question that we focused on was whether the notes and the consultation process that students engaged with during Assignment 1 influenced their writing as they worked on future assignments. There is some evidence that students do transfer their developing knowledge about language to future tasks; however, the majority of students in this group showed a similar range of problems in the first draft of their second assignment as in the first draft of their first assignment. This is not unexpected since language development requires continuous support over time to have an impact. The SLATE team is currently tracking students over a longer period of time to evaluate long-term effects of their intervention.

3.6 Future Directions The SLATE project has made significant contributions to the original LCC vision and preliminary results and analyses of student writing provide evidence that the project is successful in helping students gain control over their academic writing needs. However, there are still a number of aspects of the project that need to be developed. In particular, the SLATE project needs to expand the support provided to students before they write independently. One way of doing this would be to further expand the modelling stage and add online joint construction activities. With such expansion of the support provided to students before they write, it is envisaged that the repair work currently required will be minimized. It is here that the project raises a number of questions about the nature of online pedagogy in relation to the Sydney School pedagogical cycle (see Figure 3.2). We are yet to explore how the online deconstruction and joint construction exercises will be taken up by students and how these will impact their language development and writing. The SLATE project is currently experimenting with these new technologies and ways of supporting students’ needs. In doing so, we hope to contribute to an Appliable Linguistics that both draws from and contributes to a theory of language that relates to a real-world issue.

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Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

Funding for this project comes from the City University of Hong Kong and the University of Sydney. In the examples attached to this chapter, SLATE and LCC are sometimes used interchangeably. To access David Rose’s work, please visit: http://www.readingtolearn.com.au/#/ home/. Historically speaking, Rothery’s pedagogic initiatives drew directly on Halliday’s and Painter’s work on language development, at about the same time that Applebee and Langer popularized Bruner’s notion of scaffolding in relation to Halliday’s and Vygotsky’s work. The SLATE team is currently preparing material to pilot an online modelling and joint construction session. Notes on thematic development, discussed earlier, were developed in response to the work of students like this one, who needed support in producing thematically well-developed paragraphs within the stages of the text.

References Applebee, A. M. and Langer, J. (1983). ‘Instructional scaffolding: reading and writing as natural language activities’. Language Arts 60 (2), 168–75. Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique (revised edition). London and Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis. Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. S. (1960). The Process of Education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Eggins, S. (2004). An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics (2nd edn). London: Continuum. Gee, J. (2000). ‘New People in New Worlds: Networks, the New Capitalism and Schools’, in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds), The Powers of Literacy: A Genre Approach to Teaching Writing. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 43–69. Halliday, M. A. K. (2006). ‘Working with meaning: Working towards an Appliable Linguistics’. Inaugural lecture to mark the Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies at the City University of Hong Kong. Halliday, M. A. K. (1975). Learning How to Mean. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as a Social Semiotic. London: Arnold. Halliday M. A. K. (1991). ‘The Notion of “context’’ ’, in T. Le and M. McCausland (eds), Language Education in Language Education: Interaction and Development (Proceedings of the International Conference held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 1991), pp. 1–26. Humphrey, S., Martin, J. R., Dreyfus, S. and Mahboob, A. (this volume). ‘The 3×3: setting up a linguistic toolkit for teaching and assessing academic writing’. Kalnin, J. (1998). ‘Walking on the commons: genre as a tool in supporting adolescent literacy’, in Donna E. Alvermann, Kathleen A. Hinchman, David W. Moore,


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Stephen F. Phelps and Diane R. Waff (eds), Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 267–81. Macken-Horarik, M. (1996). ‘Literacy and learning across the curriculum: towards a model of register from secondary school teachers’, in R. Hasan and G. Williams (eds), Literacy in Society. London: Longman, pp. 232–78. Martin, J. R. (1992). ‘Macro-proposals: meaning by degree’, in W. C. Mann and S. A. Thompson (eds), Discourse Descriptions: Diverse Linguistic Analyses of a Fundraising Text. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 359–95. Martin, J. R. (1993). ‘Technicality and abstraction: language for the creation of specialized texts’, in M. A. K. Halliday and J. R. Martin (eds), Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power. London: Falmer Press, 203–20. Martin, J. R. (1999), ‘Mentoring semogenesis: “genre-based” pedagogy’, in F. Christie (ed.), Pedagogy and the Shaping of Consciousness: Linguistic and Social Processes. London: Cassell (Open Linguistic Series), pp. 123–55. Martin, J. R. (2000: Reprinted in full 2006). ‘Grammar meets genre – Reflections on the “Sydney School”’, in Educational Research on Foreign Languages and Arts 2. Guangzhou, Sun Yat Sen University, pp. 28–54. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2007). Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause (2nd edn). London, New York: Continuum. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2008). Genre Relations: Mapping Culture. London: Equinox. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Painter, C. (1984). Into the Mother Tongue: A Case Study in Early Language Development. London: Frances Pinter. Rose, D. (2005a). ‘Democratising the classroom: a literacy pedagogy for the new generation’. Journal of Education 37, 131–67. Rose, D. (2005b). Learning to Read; Reading to Learn: Teacher Resource Book. Sydney. Website: http://www.readingtolearn.com.au/#/resources. Rothery, J. (1996). ‘Making Changes: Developing an Educational Linguistics’, in R. Hasan and G. Williams (eds), Literacy in Society. London: Longman, pp. 86–123. Schleppegrell, M. J. (2004). The Language of Schooling : A Functional Linguistics Perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schleppegrell, M., and Colombi, M. C. (eds.) (2002). Developing Advanced Literacy in First and Second Languages: Meaning with Power. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chapter 4

Negotiating Evaluation: Story Structure and Appraisal in Youth Justice Conferencing J. R. Martin, Michele Zappavigna and Paul Dwyer1

4.1 Introduction Youth justice conferences operate as a diversionary form of sentencing in the juvenile justice system of New South Wales, Australia. Typically, they involve a young person who has committed an offence coming face to face with the victim of the person’s crime, in the presence of family members, community workers, police and a conference ‘convenor’. Conference participants are encouraged to discuss the full range of material, emotional and psychological impacts of the young person’s crime and to cooperate in developing an ‘outcome plan’ according to which the young person undertakes certain tasks (e.g. community service) as a way of ‘making amends’. In this chapter, we report on some of our preliminary work on genre structure, particularly in relation to the accounts young people provide of their offending behaviour. We examine the role of evaluative language in and around these accounts to show how the young person’s behaviour is being interpreted and re-framed in line with a ‘genre identity’ which the conference structure makes available to the young person. We conclude with some observations about the way this connects to the ritual-like characteristics of the genre as a whole.

4.2 Youth Justice Conferencing Youth justice conferencing, a diversionary programme operating in the juvenile justice system of New South Wales, Australia, is one of several innovative genres of legal practice that have been recently introduced in jurisdictions around the world under the banner of a reform movement generally known as ‘restorative justice’.2 In the most basic terms, these conferences involve people who have been caught up in an incident of youth crime coming together, sitting in a circle, discussing the impact of the criminal behaviour and (within certain legislative guidelines) deciding for themselves how the young person who

Negotiating Evaluation

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committed the offence can best make amends. The willingness of governments to experiment with such reforms might be seen as counter-intuitive given that many politicians owe their electoral successes to populist ‘get tough and lock ’em up’ policies and regularly engage in the rhetoric of ‘zero tolerance’ against even fairly minor criminal activity. However, as the failure of these policies to reduce crime rates becomes more apparent than ever and as prison populations continue to grow, it is not so surprising that alternatives are being considered, albeit quietly and often with minimal resources. At any rate, initiatives such as youth justice conferencing demonstrate a quite remarkable investment of hope in the power of talk to effect profound change in attitudes and behaviour. Criminological research into conferencing has predominantly taken a quantitative approach to investigating such matters as whether or not the process can help reduce recidivism rates, how the time and cost factors involved compared to those in conventional court proceedings, and the levels of satisfaction reported by conference participants (Maxwell and Morris, 2001; Palk et al., 1998; Strang et al., 1999; Trimboli, 2000). While the question of recidivism rates is perhaps not fully settled, results from these studies have generally been encouraging in this regard and have also repeatedly demonstrated that both offenders and victims overwhelmingly report a very high degree of satisfaction. There has been little research, however, of a more qualitative nature directed towards describing and explaining what it is that participants in a conference are actually doing, namely interacting through spoken discourse and other communicative modes. Most of the theoretical work carried out by criminologists and social psychologists who have sought to account for the efficacy of conferencing has instead revolved around concepts such as ‘re-integrative shaming’ (Braithwaite, 1989; Ahmed et al., 2001), ‘social bond threats’ (Retzinger and Scheff, 1996) or, via the neo-Darwinian affect theory ‘emotional contagion’ and ‘collective vulnerability’ of the psychologist Silvan Tomkins (Moore and McDonald, 2001). The ideal/typical conference, as portrayed in the restorative justice literature, is often a kind of passion play with a core sequence of remorse, apology and forgiveness (Hayes, 2006). As specialists in functional linguistics, social semiotics and performance studies, our aim is to look more closely at the verbal and non-verbal interactions in conferencing in order to describe the way in which meaning is being negotiated among participants. In our fieldwork to date (observations of 10 youth justice conferences, of which 5 were videotaped and have been transcribed), conference participants have, from time to time, made manifest their heightened emotions; however, this has not occurred as often, nor necessarily in the same ways, as suggested by the ‘passion play scenario’ described above. In what follows, we report on some of our preliminary work on genre structure, particularly in relation to the accounts young people provide of their offending behaviour. We examine the role of evaluative language in and around these accounts, using this appraisal analysis (Martin and Rose, 2007) to show how the young

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person’s behaviour is being interpreted and re-framed in line with a ‘genre identity’ which the conference structure makes available to the young person. We then conclude with some observations about the way this connects to some ritual-like characteristics of the genre as a whole.

4.3 Generic Structure Youth justice conferences take place as an alternative to sentencing in the children’s court (at the recommendation of either a magistrate or the police) in cases where a young person has admitted his/her guilt and agrees to have the matter settled by conference.3 Typically, the conference will bring the young person into a face-to-face meeting with the victim of the crime (or a victim’s representative), in the presence of each party’s family members, friends, possibly a school teacher or social worker who knows the young person, and a police youth liaison officer (also, on occasion, the arresting officer and, where relevant, an ethnic or indigenous community liaison officer). The conference is convened by a private citizen who, while trained and accredited by the state to do this work, is not acting in a direct judicial or law enforcement capacity. Rather, the convenor’s role is to facilitate a ‘structured conversation’ (Moore and McDonald, 2000, p. 14) in which the participants are encouraged to discuss not only how the crime occurred but also how they have been personally affected by any material damages, emotional/psychological distress or harm to relationships. The participants must then negotiate agreement on an ‘outcome plan’ according to which the young person commits to certain tasks (a formal apology, payment of some monetary compensation, volunteer work in a community organization, etc.) as a way of ‘putting things right’. As this description suggests, youth justice conferencing is very much a designed genre and convenors are trained to implement this design.4 As part of this training, convenors are provided with a synopsis of what are considered the major steps in a conference, along with suggested questions/prompts to use (although there is some debate in the field as to how closely these prompts should be followed; see Moore and McDonald, 2000; Hoyle et al., 2002). For us, technically speaking, conferencing is a macro-genre (Martin and Rose, 2008), involving a series of elemental genres, each of which appears to have its own recurrent configurations of meaning and staging according to the task involved. We offer the following as a provisional characterization of these elements (parentheses indicate optional elements): gathering legal framing commissioned recount of the offence exploring consequences for various parties


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(apologies and acknowledgements) tabling possible remedies (break and private negotiations) brokering a collective agreement ratification of outcome plan (apologies and acknowledgements) formal closing (shared refreshments) dispersal Even as participants arrive and gather for a conference, roles and expectations are already being negotiated (convenors, when interviewed, have commented on the impact which a participant’s choice of clothing can have on other participants and have mentioned the value of sometimes ‘stage-managing’ the order in which participants arrive, either to heighten or lessen possible feelings of tension and confrontation). Once gathered and seated in a circle, the convenor will make a brief speech during which the conference is constituted as a legal process, with confirmation of, among other things, the offender’s admission of guilt. This is succeeded by a series of recounts and rejoinders by various parties, establishing from different perspectives the events leading up to and constituting the offence, and exploring their repercussions. Often, the convenor will return at this point to the offender and ask if there is ‘anything else’ he/she want to say to any of the other conference participants (an implicit invitation to make an apology which is not always taken up). Participants are encouraged to make some initial suggestions for an outcome plan. They are offered a break, during which the different parties (associated with the offender and victim, respectively) can consider more concrete proposals. When the participants are brought back into the circle by the convenor, these proposals are collectively discussed and, following verbal agreement, the details are written up and read back to the group. Where the outcome plan explicitly requires an apology, this can sometimes be made on the spot. This is followed by a formal closing, the option of shared refreshments and dispersal.5 We are currently working towards a more precise functional labelling of the elemental genres described above and suggest the term ‘Commissioned Recount’ for the account of offending behaviour which is given by the young person just after the start of the conference. This term is intended to capture the way in which, typically, the account has to be ‘extracted’ by the convenor from a less than forthcoming adolescent. It has the following generic structure (^ signals sequence in this notation and parentheses are used to indicate optional elements of structure): Orientation ^ Record of Events ^ (Re-Orientation) ^ (Extension) ^ Interpretation ^ Ramifications

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This genre begins with an Orientation which sets the recount in time and space and introduces the main participants; it continues with a Record of Events, which presents the sequence of events leading up to and constituting the offence from the young person’s perspective; the next stage, Re-Orientation is optional and wraps up the recount and returns participants from reconstructed past events to the spatio-temporal setting of the conference itself; this is followed by an optional Extension stage which a convenor may deploy to elicit a fuller account from the young person6; in the following Interpretation stage the recount is evaluated, as emotions and social values in relation to the offence are explored; finally in the Ramifications stage, some of the pertinent consequences of the offence are canvassed. In the next section of the chapter we’ll consider two examples of this genre, one concerning a mobile phone which has been stolen and passed on to a young man who is subsequently charged with possession of the stolen goods, the other concerning an affray.7 Elsewhere (Martin et al., 2009), we have used these examples to place the commissioned recount genre in relation to the larger family of story genres (Martin and Rose, 2008) and to show how (in contrast to, say, personal recounts) evaluation tends to get bundled separately from the Record of Events. We will cover some of this ground again here but extend the argument by means of a more detailed appraisal analysis, showing not only where but also more precisely how, and by whom, the offending behaviour is evaluated.

4.4 Two Stories Our first example of the commissioned recount genre is developed below. Given the floor by the convenor, the young person begins as follows: I was walking to a mate’s house And [inaudible] and I was walking with him. This guy just came up to me and he goes ‘Do you want to buy this phone?’ At this point the convenor interrupts him, in order to ask him to speak louder8 (for the benefit of the Police Liason Officer who, she says, has a cold, and perhaps also for the benefit of our recording process). He then resumes, in a slightly louder voice: Yeah, I was, I was walking to a mate’s house. This guy just came up to me and goes ‘Do you want to buy a phone?’ and I go ‘No’ and I go ‘Do you want to swap?’ [inaudible] want to swap with my phone


49

and he looked at my phone and he goes ‘Yeah’ and we swap and I went and stayed at my mate’s house and when it came to night time I was going back home, and we was walking, was walking up the road and the police just came and got us. The convenor at this point nods encouragingly, in case the young person wishes to expand on his statement – an invitation the young person declines: . . . [convenor nodding] That’s it. In terms of genre staging, this is a typical recount (Martin and Rose, 2008), beginning with an Orientation, establishing the Record of Events and closing with a Re-orientation, as follows: Orientation Yeah, I was, I was walking to a mate’s house. Record of Events This guy just came up to me and goes ‘Do you want to buy a phone?’ and I go ‘No’ and I go ‘Do you want to swap?’ [inaudible] want to swap with my phone and he looked at my phone and he goes ‘Yeah’ and we swap and I went and stayed at my mate’s house and when it came to night time I was going back home, and we was walking, was walking up the road and the police just came and got us. Re-Orientation That’s it. The convenor then scaffolds an extension of what happened, covering events at the police station: [And then what happened? They came and got you. They found the phone. What did they say to you?] – They go that this phone was stolen


50

[OK. What did you say?] – I go, you know, I swapped it. Yeah, they just took took me. [Took you where?] – Police station [And who did they ring when they brought you to the police station?] – My dad. Our second example of a commissioned recount has a longer Record of Events, as the young person recounts what happened when he went to back up a mate who had arranged to fight someone one-on-one; the ‘duel’ gets out of hand, someone is stabbed; the young person responds by chasing the rival gang member who did the stabbing, threatening him, throwing bricks across the road at him, causing damage to property and apparently terrifying a number of bystanders. He has pleaded guilty to a charge of affray (though at the conference he initially introduces himself as ‘the victim’ and has to be corrected by the convenor). His account begins as follows: It was up there – It was - [inaudible] on a Tuesday yeah. [inaudible] and I got a call from my friend, Vxxxx, [inaudible] to come down to [name of suburb]. Something going on; but when I went down with them to [name of different suburb] station and jumped on the train [inaudible] and the train we got it straight to [name of suburb], we got off at [name of suburb] [inaudible] Mxxxx and other - his other two friends. And they had a one on one and I jumped in and I turn around. I was having a go with his friends and the [one] next to me got stabbed and he [inaudible] goes ‘Chase him!’ and I went and chased him, started chucking stuff at him, hitting him. I couldn’t stop him. He still had the knife in his hand and after that I walked back to the station to see Vxxxx and I see the policeman coming as I walked away and [inaudible] happened to him and I said to the two officers ‘Assault me, search me.’ They took out all my stuff


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and they found out I was involved and they took me back to the police station. And my [inaudible] and I had an interview and they took my pants, my hat, my jacket and I was released. This recount once again begins with an Orientation and continues with a Record of Events; but there is no formal closing (i.e. Coda): Orientation It was up there – It was- [inaudible] on a Tuesday yeah. [inaudible] Record of Events and I got a call from my friend, Vxxxx, [inaudible] to come down to [name of suburb]. Something going on; but when I went down with them to [name of different suburb] station and they found out I was involved and they took me back to the police station. ... and I had an interview and they took my pants, my hat, my jacket and I was released. The Convenor then scaffolds a long Extension stage, exploring why the young offender went to back up his mate, and establishing that he was charged with possession of a knife: [Convenor And when you- when you decided you would go down and help your friend, what did he actually say to you?] – He was going to see Mxxxx. [And why was he going to see Mxxxx?] – Because Mxxxx offered him out.9 [Offered what?] – Nah [inaudible] two of us have a go like one on one. [To fight?] – Yeah. [And so why did he need you there if he was going to fight him one on one?] – Because I’m closer [inaudible]. He trusts me like in case anything happens because I’ve known him since primary.

52

Appliable Linguistics [And why did he think something would happen?] – [pause] In case. [And when you went to this location you had something on your person. You had something with you. What was that?] – The knife. [So you want to tell us about the knife?] – [inaudible] didn’t know I even had it on me. Forgot I had it on me the whole time and then I couldn’t remember I had it until they [inaudible] and pulled it out and showed them. It doesn’t even work. You can’t even use it. [But it’s not actually a knife.] – No. [A knife is included in it isn’t it?] – Yes. [What else is it?] – A can opener, screwdriver [And so when the police, um, searched you and found the um, what are they, a Leatherman? Is that what they’re called?] [Arresting Officer A Leatherman sort of tool.] [Convenor When they found that what did you say to them?] – Said it’s for work. [Tell everybody what you did for work back then.] – Panel beater. [So, as I explained to you the other day, why do you think the police charged you with having that weapon in your possession?] – [inaudible] They thought I got ready for a fight . . . to use it [And what else did they say to you? Do you remember?] – Nup. [Did they say anything to you about the fact that it, you know, as a panel beater you probably don’t need a knife?] – Yes. [Is that – do you think that’s reasonable?] – Yes. [So you accept the fact that you got charged with the possession of the knife.] – Yes.


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[Alright and then when you chased after Nxxxx what were you going to do when you caught him?] – Wasn’t going to fuck with him. Was going to bring him back. [Bring him back to where?] – The station . . . Well I couldn’t, he had the knife in his hand still. [What did you think when you saw Nxxxx with the knife?] – I didn’t want to get – I didn’t want to get [next to him] in case I got stabbed. If I only had the knife I would have pulled it out on him too but I didn’t have it. I forgot I had it on me. [So what did he say to you when you – when you caught up with him?] – He just goes ‘What did I do? I didn’t do nothing’. [And then what did you do to him?] – I chased him until he went in – inside a shop. [Yeah. And then what did you do?] – I went back to the station and I went back down and that’s when I got stopped. Unlike personal recounts, which have an ongoing prosody of evaluation, these commissioned recounts are ideationally focused. Their ‘point’ is to establish the young person’s account of the sequence of events leading to his arrest (comparable to the police Record of Events). Evaluation of their significance for the youth justice conference is negotiated by the convenor after their dialogic extension. In this respect they contrast markedly with personal recounts deployed to sustain solidarity with partners, friends and family. The following excerpt from a long written recount demonstrates how ongoing evaluation of this kind can be deployed. We’ve chosen a text featuring the kind of language young offenders might well use with their mates, to bond with them and alienate outsiders; it’s from a Year 8 (so about 14 years old) female student, from an indigenous Australian background. Fucken Hell man, who the hell told you I liked doing this kind of shit. On Saturday I saw Brian and Brendon and his Girlfriend at Waterloo, I was waiting to catch the bloody bus, anyway they started talking to me so that killed a lot of time. Anyway I had to go to the Laundromat Yesterday and I saw my ex-boyfriend man he looks fucken ugly god knows what I went out with him, he looks like a fucken dickhead ANY WAYS HE WAS so ugly only a blind woman would go out with him. I ran into this elderly man that lived down one of my old streets and because I had a bag of clothes the


54

stupid cunt said to us are you running away from home which is bull-shit because the sooner that I got home the happier I would have been. Then my ex-boyfriend comes up which makes it even worse and he starts calling this old cunt a cradle snatching little ass-hole. I mean as if its any of his business, and like this is totally humiliating cause I mean everybody and I mean everybody tried to see who the hell was making all the fucken noise and yes there I was trying to hide my face as soon as possible . . . Young offenders studiously avoid anti-language of this kind on youth justice conferences. And the ideational focus of their ‘testimony’ is so strong that they regularly avoid evaluative language altogether in their Record of Events stage.

4.5 Interpreting the Stories The flat ideational focus of young offenders’ testimony in the Record of Events means that convenors and liaison officers often take responsibility for interpreting what has happened. To analyse these evaluations we draw on appraisal theory (Martin and White, 2005). As outlined in Figure 4.1, appraisal comprises three main systems, attitude, graduation and engagement. Attitude is

monogloss ENGAGEMENT

heterogloss

AFFECT APPRAISAL

ATTITUDE

JUDGEMENT... APPRECIATION...

FORCE... GRADUATION FOCUS...

Figure 4.1 Appraisal systems (after Martin and White, 2005)


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concerned with types of feeling, graduation with their strength and boundedness, and engagement with their sourcing. Our main concern here will be with attitude, which embraces affect (our emotional reactions), judgement (how we evaluate people’s character and behaviour) and appreciation (the value we place on things). In the examples below, for example, an Ethnic Liaison Officer queries the young person in the affray conference about his reactions (upset, pissed off – affect), challenges him to re-make his character (how much of a man, wrong – judgement), and comments on how easy it is to break the law (so easy – appreciation). ELO: Hey. You think I’m talking to you now I’m – I’m upset with ya? Do you think I’m pissed off with ya? I don’t know you but do you think I’m upset with ya? [affect highlighted] ELO: You find out how much of a man it takes, hey?, to stay out of trouble. You tell me which one takes more of a man to do. How – does it take more of a man to listen to your friends or to say to your friends, ‘No, what you’re doing is wrong’. [judgement highlighted] ELO: Do you know how easy it is to break the law? It’s so easy. [clicks fingers] It’s so easy. [clicks fingers] It is so easy. [appreciation highlighted] In a similar vein, as part of the guided interpretation of the Record of Events in the mobile phone conference, the Convenor explores the emotional reactions of the young person and his parents, beginning with Dad’s anger: Convenor And who did they ring when they brought you to the police station? Young Person My dad. Convenor OK. And what did your dad say? Was he angry, happy? Young Person [nods] Angry. Convenor Angry. [laughs] Yeah. OK. And then Mum’s: Convenor What did mum say when you got home?


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Young Person She was sleeping. [nodding] Convenor She was sleeping. Was Mum angry? Young Person [nods] Yeah. Convenor Did she get upset? Young Person [half nod/raises eyes] And later that of the young person himself, were he to find himself in a comparable situation as victim: Convenor So if that was your phone, how would you feel if somebody stole your phone and then, you know, I decided I wanted to swap it with mine because mine was older. How would you feel about that? Young Person Pretty angry. Convenor Yeah. As far as judgement is concerned, the Convenor also focuses on the young offender’s misbehaviour, including his lack of concern about the phone belonging to someone else: Convenor [bobs head] You need to tell us why you took the phone. Young Person Because it was new. Convenor Because it was new. Newer than yours. Young Person [nods] Yeah.


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Convenor So you didn’t care that it was somebody else’s phone? Is that right? Young Person Yeah. Convenor OK She checks to make sure the young person can now acknowledge that he did the wrong thing:10 Convenor Did he [dad] say anything to you? [pause] Young Person Don’t go anywhere. Convenor Don’t go anywhere. As in when you get home you’ve got to stay at home? Young Person [raises eyes in a half-nod] Convenor Do you think your father was disappointed in you? Young Person [nods] Yep. Convenor So you know you did the wrong thing. And asks him to reaffirm this acknowledgement later on: Convenor Tell me what happened when mum found out what you did. [tilts head] [pause] Did she cry? Young Person St-() Lecture. Convenor You got a lecture. [nodding]


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Young Person [nods] Convenor Do you think you deserved a lecture? Young Person [looks down] Convenor Why did you deserve the lecture? Young Person Because I did something wrong. Convenor Yep. [nods] She gets the young person to confirm that his parents have acted reasonably in grounding him: Convenor So it’s quite limiting in terms of what you can do. And that’s – Do you understand that that was the consequence of what you did? Young Person [nods] Yeah. Convenor Yeah? Do you think that was reasonable what mum and dad did, grounding you? Young Person [nods] Convenor Yeah? Young Person [nods] She also checks twice that the young person has apologized11 to his victim, who is not in fact present at this conference:


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Convenor Right and what did you – Did you say anything to him when you found out that it was his phone? Young Person [shakes head] Nah. Convenor So you didn’t say sorry to him? [shaking head] Young Person (Nah), I said sorry and he goes ‘you don’t have to say sorry , it wasn’t you that did it.’ Convenor Right. [half nodding] OK. ... Convenor Hey? So you’ve apologized to Jxxx already. Young Person Yeah. Convenor OK. The Convenor also guides the young offender towards expressions of remorse: Convenor Do you think that mum and dad were disappointed in you? Young Person [nods] Convenor [nods] Were you disappointed in yourself? Or Not? Or you don’t care? Young Person [nods] Yeah. Convenor Yeah or you don’t care? [nodding]


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Young Person Disappointed in myself. Convenor [tilts head] You are. Young Person [nods] The Convenor’s exploration of affectual meaning in the Interpretation stage of the mobile phone Commissioned Recount is outlined in Table 4.1. [As footnoted, disappointed, sorry, and apologize have been double coded for affect and judgement and so entered in both Tables 4.1 and 4.2.] Including the two inscriptions of happiness, which are tendered ironically by the Convenor, the family experiences only negative emotions. Judgement is also largely negative, focusing mainly on the young person’s behaviour. Looked at in terms of turn-taking (Martin et al., 2009), what is significant here is that the Convenor initiates virtually all exchanges and introduces virtually all explicit evaluation, to which the young person responds compliantly a word or phrase at a time. The result is an interpretation of the recount Table 4.1 Inscriptions of affect in the Interpretation stage of the mobile phone recount speaker

appraising item

ATTITUDE

POLARITY

convenor angry happy

dis/satisfaction negative un/happiness positive (ironic) angry dis/satisfaction negative YP convenor angry dis/satisfaction negative happy un/happiness positive (ironic) disappointed dis/satisfaction negative sorry un/happiness negative sorry un/happiness negative YP dis/satisfaction negative convenor angry upset un/happiness negative cry un/happiness negative angry dis/satisfaction negative YP

convenor apologized disappointed disappointed YP disappointed

un/happiness dis/satisfaction dis/satisfaction dis/satisfaction

negative negative negative negative

emoter

trigger

father of YP father of YP

YP at police station YP at police station

father of YP father of YP father of YP

YP at police station YP at police station YP at police station

father of YP young person young person mother of YP mother of YP mother of YP young person

YP receiving phone receiving phone YP receiving phone YP receiving phone YP receiving phone hypothetically having own phone stolen young person receiving phone YP’s parents young person young person young person young person young person

shaded = affect; shaded + bold = double coding of affect and judgement


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Table 4.2 Inscriptions of judgement in the Interpretation stage of the mobile phone recount speaker

appraising item attitude

polarity

appraiser

appraised

young person convenor convenor convenor

stolen stolen stolen disappointed

propriety propriety propriety propriety

negative negative negative negative

person stealing phone person stealing phone person stealing phone young person

wrong sorry sorry wrong stole stolen stolen good

propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety

negative negative negative negative negative negative negative positive

police young person young person father of young person convenor young person young person convenor convenor convenor convenor convenor

convenor convenor young person young person convenor convenor young person convenor

reasonable

propriety positive

apologized disappointed

propriety negative propriety negative

disappointed young person disappointed

propriety negative propriety negative

YP receiving phone YP receiving phone YP receiving phone YP receiving phone hypothetical thief hypothetical thief hypothetical thief young person agreeing convenor Mum/Dad grounding YP young person YP receiving phone young person’s young person parents young person young person young person young person

shaded = affect; shaded + bold = double coding of affect and judgement

determined by the Convenor – it’s the Convenor, not the young person, who controls what the recount means. Interpretation of the impact of the Commissioned Recount is of course crucial to the re-alignment of the young person, away from their circle of misguiding mates, and towards their family and wider community. Returning to the example of the affray conference, it is the Ethnic Liaison Officer who intervenes to extend the convenor’s interpretation, apparently out of frustration with its effectiveness to that point in the conference. He makes explicit reference to icons of the Muslim cultural background which he shares with the young person, beginning with the headscarf worn by the young person’s mother: Ethnic Liaison Officer Listen, [looking to the convenor] I want to take, with your permission, I wanna take a different angle. OK? Mate, what’s your mum wearing on her head? Young Person Scarf. Ethnic Liaison Officer Yeah. OK.


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He then focuses attention on the fact that because of what the young person has done, his mother, through no fault of her own, is now sitting in the presence of uniformed police. Ethnic Liaison Officer What a – where is she now? In the presence of who? Young Person = Me. Ethnic Liaison Officer = Who- who’s- No. Who’s sitting here? Who’s sitting here right now? Have a look across. Young Person Men. Ethnic Liaison Officer Have a – but have a look across. What uniform are they wearing? Young Person Police uniform. Ethnic Liaison Officer OK. This sets up the ELO’s concern abut the bad impression the young person is creating for himself, and the Muslim community: Ethnic Liaison Officer [pointing to the university researchers] Where are these guys from? They’re from a certain place. OK. What’s the perception going to be? Young Person Think bad of me. Ethnic Liaison Officer What are they gonna – when they see your mum wearing a scarf, I’m Muslim background myself. What are they going to think? Young Person Bad. Ethnic Liaison Officer OK.


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This was a very sensitive issue at the time since former Prime Minister John Howard’s neo-conservative government had fanned the flames of anti-Muslim ethnic prejudice by playing up the issue of ‘border protection’, incarcerating mostly Iraqi and Afghani asylum seekers and manipulating nationalist sentiment in support of Australian troops joining the American invasion of Iraq. In Sydney, racial tension in fact erupted in violent conflict between ‘white Australian’ and Lebanese youth in what became known as the Cronulla riots. The ELO then questions the idea that there is something tough about the young person’s behaviour: Ethnic Liaison Officer I’m asking you YP. OK. Because I’m listening to you man and I don’t see you as a leader at the moment. I see you following your friends. I see your friends say jump, you say how high. That’s how I see you. OK. Young Person Yeah. Ethnic Liaison Officer You wanta be tough. But you just – you’re not, number one. He makes clear his revulsion at the fact that the young person is embarrassing his mother (and the Muslim community she symbolizes) in this way: Ethnic Liaison Officer Number two, man, when I see someone of my own background bringing their mum in wearing a Hejab, OK, honestly man inside I feel sick. You understand? Young Person Yes. As far as judgement is concerned, the ELO’s Interpretation centres on honesty, mainly in relation to the young person’s sincerity (see Table 4.3). The young person’s capacities are also explored, including his lack of leadership, manhood and ability to control his temper (see Table 4.4). But the majority of the explicit judgements deal with the impropriety of the young person’s behaviour (see Table 4.5). As flagged above, the ELO is especially concerned about the lack of respect being shown by the young person for his family (see Table 4.6). And, paralleling this, the lack of respect being shown to the Muslim community (see Table 4.7): As with the Convenor’s Interpretation of the mobile phone recount, the ELO initiates all of the exchanges; and, once again, the interpretation of the commissioned recount is jointly constructed with the ELO assuming control,


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Table 4.3 Inscriptions of honesty in the ELO’s Interpretation stage of the affray recount speaker

appraising item

ethnic liaison officer ethnic liaison officer ethnic liaison officer young person ethnic liaison officer young person ethnic liaison officer young person ethnic liaison officer

social

esteem

social

sanction

explicit

I honestly don’t think you do I’m being honest with ya honest

veracity

inscribe

veracity

inscribe

veracity

inscribe

honest swear

veracity veracity

inscribe inscribe

swear honest

veracity veracity

inscribe inscribe

Yeah [honest] honest

veracity veracity

inscribe inscribe

implicit

Table 4.4 Inscriptions of capacity in the ELO’s Interpretation stage of the affray recount speaker

appraising item social

ethnic liaison don’t see you as officer a leader tough… you’re not (you think...) hard criminal ethnic liaison I’ve got half a officer brain how much of a man more of a man more of a man ethnic liaison you can control officer yourself young person I can control myself I can’t [control myself] Just can’t [control myself] ethnic liaison temper officer young person Yeah [temper] ethnic liaison (if...) smart officer

esteem

social sanction explicit implicit

capacity

inscribe

capacity

inscribe

capacity

inscribe

capacity

provoke

capacity capacity capacity capacity

inscribe

capacity

inscribe

capacity

inscribe

capacity

inscribe

capacity capacity capacity

inscribe

Table 4.5 Inscriptions of propriety in the ELO’s Interpretation stage of the affray recount appraising item

young person

bad bad put down our community put down our religion put down the Hejab contradicting our religion respect your mum Yes [respect] No you don’t [respect] you don’t respect your mum You have no respect for your mum You have no respect for your mum whatsoever You have no respect for what your mum’s got on her head You have no respect for our community You have no respect trying to impress (the right) to go and hurt other people No right [hurt] he hurt my mate That’s it [hurt] if you get a job you’ll be out of trouble if you don’t get a job you’ll get into trouble responsibility break the law

ethnic liaison officer

young person ethnic liaison officer

young person

ethnic liaison officer

social

esteem

social

sanction

explicit

propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety

inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe

propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety

inscribe inscribe

implicit


speaker

inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe

65

(Continued)

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Table 4.5 Cont’d speaker

appraising item

esteem

social propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety propriety

sanction

explicit inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe inscribe

implicit


break the law breaking the law try staying out of trouble stay out of trouble wrong disrespecting disrespect no respect laugh at your face pretend that they care wrong trouble getting your mum into this crap getting your family into this crap not right no good good person not good trouble hurting hurting don’t care alright alright

social


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Table 4.6 Inscriptions of impropriety in relation to Mum speaker

appraising item

ELO

bad respect your mum

social

esteem

propriety propriety

social

sanction

explicit inscribe inscribe

young Yes [respect] person ELO No you don’t [respect] you don’t respect your mum You have no respect for your mum You have no respect for your mum whatsoever disrespecting

propriety

inscribe

propriety

inscribe

propriety

inscribe

propriety

inscribe

propriety

inscribe

propriety

inscribe

disrespect

propriety

inscribe

no respect

propriety

inscribe

getting your mum into this crap getting your family into this crap hurting

propriety

inscribe

propriety

inscribe

propriety

inscribe

hurting

propriety

inscribe

don’t care

propriety

inscribe

implicit

Table 4.7 Inscriptions of impropriety in relation to the Muslim community speaker ELO

appraising item bad put down our community put down our religion put down the Hejab contradicting our religion You have no respect for what your mum’s got on her head You have no respect for our community You have no respect don’t care

social

esteem

social

sanction explicit

propriety propriety

inscribe inscribe

propriety

inscribe

propriety propriety

inscribe inscribe

propriety

inscribe

propriety

inscribe

propriety propriety

inscribe inscribe

implicit


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proffering virtually all evaluations, and with the young person responding a word or phrase at a time. As far as attitude is concerned, the ELO’s interpretation of the recount has some affect but concentrates mainly on judgement. Interestingly, the ELO does not condemn the young person per se but focuses largely on his behaviour. Ethnic Liaison Officer Why don’t you look at why we’re here today? Are we here because of me? Young Person No. Ethnic Liaison Officer Are we – who are we here for? Young Person Because of me. Ethnic Liaison Officer Not because of you as a person because of something you’re doing that’s not right. You’re probably a good person. What you’re doing is not good. You understand the difference? Young Person Yes. Ethnic Liaison Officer We’re not saying, ‘Mxxx, you’re a this and you’re a that’. What we’re saying is your behaviour is getting you into trouble, man. You’re hurting your family, brother. You’re hurting your [Arabic], brother. You understand? Young Person Yes. Ethnic Liaison Officer If I didn’t care about ya, man, I didn’t care about your mum, I didn’t care about, you know, the Den and everything, I wouldn’t even be here. I mean, I’ve finished my work. But if we – if everyone here today could help you just to sorta think to yourself, ‘What am I doing to my family? What am I doing to myself?’, man, Shalam. That’s what it’s all about. That’s is what today is all about. It’s about you sitting down and having a look – . . . The ELO seems to exemplify here what John Braithwaite, one of the leading theorists of restorative justice, sees as central to the efficacy of conferencing,


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namely a process of ‘reintegrative’ (rather than ‘stigmatizing’) shaming: ‘communicating disapproval of an act with respect, with special efforts to avert outcast identities and to terminate disapproval with rituals of forgiveness or reconciliation’ (Braithwaite in Ahmed et al., 2001, p. 39). In the concluding section of this chapter, we will place our analyses above in relation to some of the issues that other restorative justice theorists have raised in regard to Braithwaite’s conceptualization of shame. At the same time, however, we want to recuperate the other part of his argument, namely that conferencing as a new genre of legal process has taken on some ritual, or at least ritual-like, characteristics.

4.6 Conferencing as Ritualized Redress The notion of re-integrative shaming has not been uncontested in the restorative justice literature. Indeed, Braithwaite and his associates have readily acknowledged the need for ‘repair work to the theory’, including the need to make distinctions between shame as an emotion and shaming as practice, between ‘unresolved shame’ and ‘embarrassment—exposure’, between shame/ shaming and pride/praise etc. (Ahmed et al., 2001, p. 41). Other theorists have downplayed altogether the centrality of shame (Morris, 2002) or else interpreted it more as a collective experience, a ‘visceral reminder’ to participants that they ‘can experience positive emotions in each other’s company’ which thereby prompts a transition towards cooperation and resolution of the conference (Moore and McDonald, 2001, p. 138). Nevertheless, one way or another, the emotional dynamics of conferencing are seen as critical to its restorative/ re-integrative functions, as the following commentary by psychoanalyst Donald Nathanson (1997, p. 141) suggests: Not surprisingly, the initial response of the perpetrator was both indifferent and unconcerned [. . .]. Yet as the conference ran on and both family groups began to speak about their estrangement from the perpetrator, that individual came swiftly to learn that the love of the community was a deeply missed and quite important part of his or her world. With such recognition came an avalanche of shame, after which the individual was likely to cry, accept the forgiveness of all concerned, and sign a document pledging to work in some way to repair or undo the damage produced by the antisocial act. It has not been our intention here to add yet another layer to these interpretations of shame and other affects but rather to highlight the fact that, at least for the conferences we have observed and documented, the evaluative language of affect, appreciation and judgement is rarely used by young people and to show how, where such evaluations do occur, they are very much co-created and guided by other participants. Of course, the analyses reported above are

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dealing mainly with what we have called the Commissioned Recount genre and more research is needed before we can confidently say that these patterns established at the start of conferences are maintained throughout. Notwithstanding this caveat, our early findings offer a strong contrast to the observations of Braithwaite and Mugford in a seminal paper outlining the ‘conditions of successful reintegration ceremonies’ (which is what they take conferencing to exemplify). In line with the principle that ‘Non-authoritative actors (victims, offenders, offenders’ families) must be empowered with process control’, Braithwaite and Mugford interpreted ‘[the] practice of temporally privileging the accounts of the young people as a desirable way of seeking to empower them in the dialogue. For all parties, success is predicated upon a significant degree of agency’ (Braithwaite and Mugford, 1994, pp. 148–50). Against this view, our observations are more in line with critique made by criminologist Hennessey Hayes in a recent re-examination of some major evaluations of conferencing. His most relevant comments can be summarized as follows: Results of these major [research] projects, as well as results from the various evaluations studies, are remarkably consistent and show that offenders and victims view conferencing processes as fair and are generally satisfied with the outcomes. However, there is less evidence that shows conferences are also ‘restorative’ [. . .] there may be marked limits on how far conferences can go in repairing harm, inducing remorse, and helping victims and offenders move on [. . .] conferences sometimes do not induce remorse, young offenders sometimes do not feel sorry and offer an apology, and victims sometimes do not forgive [. . .] in New Zealand, Maxwell & Morris observed [. . .] that [. . .] 25% of victims felt worse for having attended a conference, mainly because ‘the victim did not feel that the young person and his or her family was truly sorry’. (Hayes, 2006, pp. 370, 377–8) In his paper Hayes reviews two sources of difficulty with the restorative apology-forgiveness ideal. One is that there can be a drift from apologetic discourse to mitigating accounts, with the young person offering excuses for his/ her behaviour. The following exchange from our second conference illustrates this point: Ethnic Liaison Officer So if you don’t like anybody dictating to you what to do right, what gives you the right to go and hurt other people? Young Person No right, but he hurt my mate . . . Hayes’ second point has to do with the presence of third parties (e.g. convenor, liaison officers), so that ‘The youth justice conference process . . . transforms


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the private act of apologizing and offering forgiveness into a public drama of restorative justice’ (2006, p. 379). To these misgivings we can now add our observations concerning power relations inherent in the genre, and the regulatory role taken up by convenors, police and liaison officers, which seem to leave little room for the young person to do other than respond compliantly to evaluations introduced by others. What kind of ‘sincere’ sounding apology is possible when the young person is so heavily scaffolded? That said, we do not mean to suggest that scaffolding is necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, given that youth justice conferencing is still an emerging genre and a novel, typically one-off experience for most participants (not to mention the low levels of literacy and fluency in English of some of these participants), some form of scaffolding is clearly essential. Furthermore, while the regulative discourse in conferencing does inscribe hierarchical power relations between participants, this is often paired with close and certainly negotiable relations of solidarity. Indeed, this readily observable tension between the vertical and horizontal dimensions of tenor aligns with what we, like Braithwaite, are beginning to think of as the ritual-like, performative ‘force’ of conferencing. However dismissive we may feel at times about the social value of ceremonies and ritual (or, conversely, however much we might wish to leave their ineffable mysteries intact), in common sense terms we can all appreciate the difference between winning a race and the medal/trophy presentation, between passing exams and the graduation ceremony, between getting together with someone and marriage, between a casual prayer and a religious service, between dying and the funeral or, in the case of youth crime, between getting caught by the police and being sentenced. In social semiotic theory, questions about the power of such genres are only beginning to be explored (cf. Bednarek and Martin, forthcoming) but, as a starting point, we can look to how scholars in anthropology and performance studies have thought about these ‘special events (a category that includes ritual)’ as ‘intensifications of some of the tendencies inherent in ordinary activity, but often latent or subliminally present’ (Lewis, 2008, p. 43). Following Victor Turner (1982), for instance, we can consider the problem of youth crime (and the attendant failure of institutions like the children’s court and juvenile detention centres to deter and/or rehabilitate young offenders) as a form of ‘social drama’, a breach in the social order which has reached a point of crisis and now requires redressive action if a profound schism in the community is to be avoided. Turner identifies legal–judicial processes and ritual performances as the two most important mechanisms of redress though clearly these are not mutually exclusive options. Some elements of ritual have always existed in courtroom proceedings but these elements have arguably become less efficacious in recent decades. At the same time, an emergent genre such as conferencing may be understood as the ritualization of alternative social processes (police cautions, family counselling, parent/teacher interviews, etc.) as adjuncts to conventional legal–judicial remedies. We use the term ‘ritualization’

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here to highlight some ‘logical entailments’ (Rappaport, 1999, p. 26) of the genre: z Conferencing practice frequently involves an appeal to tradition and various

kinds of authority.12 In New Zealand, conferences involving Maori young people typically take place on the marae and begin with a communal prayer; in other jurisdictions, they may begin with a Bible reading. In New South Wales, though it is a legally constituted process, youth justice conferencing certainly allows for, and often seems to encourage, participants to re-frame the matter they are dealing with as an infringement of family, religious or cultural values, not simply a legal violation: for many citizens, these are no doubt greater sources of moral authority than the state. z Commensurate with such a sense of moral purpose, conferencing involves a high degree of repetition and formality. While restorative justice advocates are probably right when they describe the protocols of conferencing as less alienating than those of courtroom practice, the genre nevertheless involves its own kind of ‘restrictive code’ (Bernstein, 1975; Douglas, 1973): hence, the care taken to train convenors in the appropriate use of script/prompts, the attention given to briefing participants before the conference, the highly deliberate turn-taking structures within the conference, and so on. z To participate in a conference is also, in a ritual-like manner, to respond to a demand for performance. Participants will frequently talk of ‘facing up to the challenge’ of meeting the other participants, of ‘getting through’ the conference process in order to be able to ‘draw a line in the sand’ and ‘move on’ with their lives and so on. As Catherine Bell writes, a ‘fundamental dimension of ritualisation’ is ‘the simple imperative to do something in such a way that the doing itself gives the acts a special or privileged status’ (1997, p. 166). Indeed, much of what is commonly thought to be ‘symbolic communication’ in ritual, or ritual-like processes, might be better understood in terms of the cultivation of embodied dispositions: ‘the act of kneeling does not so much communicate a message about subordination as it generates a body identified with subordination’ (Bell, 1992, pp. 99–100). While the physical spaces in which youth justice conferences are held, in our experience, rarely feature such obvious rallying symbols or ‘bond-icons’ (Martin, 2008; Martin and Stenglin, 2007; Stenglin, 2004) as those of a courtroom (the national flag, the coat of arms, etc.), the enactment of the conference itself seems to become a process in relation to which participants bond. The public nature of conferencing, as Hayes has argued, may render the putative core sequence of remorse–apology–forgiveness problematic, yet many participants are still able to say they are satisfied with the process. It is, after all, an orderly convocation of persons who present themselves to one another as citizens (and as family members, members of a religious/cultural group, etc.) with some interest in promoting orderly behaviour (and in promoting the authority of family, religion, culture, etc. in addition to, or perhaps over and


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above, the authority of the state). At the very least, a victim’s words are attended to by an appropriately constituted ‘community of care’. To do the conference at all requires enacting, on the spot, some of the (re)integrative effects it is hoped the conference might be able to foster in the longer term: a young person is made to talk and to listen but is also given, then and there, an opportunity to affiliate with his family, his ethnic group, the wider community (with the possible support of police liaison officers) alongside, or in place of, his hitherto dominating affiliation with mates. Who knows which affiliations will stick? The conference is still likely to have emerged as a suitably formal legal process, though accessible to lay persons, in and through which various preferred affiliations may be ‘re-presented’ or ‘modelled’ (Handelman, 1990). The opportunity for young people, victims, their families, friends and police to affiliate simply in relation to the doing of a conference is already a paradigm shift for criminal justice systems which have for so long manifestly failed to rehabilitate offenders and to meet the needs of victims.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

We are indebted to Chris Cléirigh for his help with the appraisal analyses reported on here. We also gratefully acknowledge the support for this research provided by the Australian Research Council. See Van Ness et al. (2001) and Strang and Braithwaite (2001) for overviews of this movement and descriptions of related genres such as ‘victim-offender mediation’, ‘family group conferencing’ and ‘circle sentencing’. Under the New South Wales Young Offenders Act (1997), some offences (for instance, drug-related crime and offences involving serious assault or sexual violence) are excluded for the conferencing programme. However, similar programmes in other jurisdictions (e.g. South Australia) do include some of these more serious matters. See Moore and McDonald (2001) for an account of how the genre developed in early trials. Our comments here are also based on participant-observation of four training workshops conducted by the NSW Department of Juvenile Justice. We have documented some variation in the sequence of participants’ recounts and rejoinders; and some convenors have already canvassed in some detail the major elements of an outcome plan in pre-conference meetings with the different parties so that the break becomes a time for filling out paperwork (documents to go back to the children’s magistrates court, participant survey forms etc.). Convenors have read the police record of events, and have met with the police, young person and victim/s before the conference, and so are fairly familiar with the offence. ‘A person has committed the offence of affray when they use or threaten violence towards another and whose conduct would cause a person (of reasonable firmness) to fear their personal safety’ (Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935, s83C). In general our male adolescent young offenders speak very softly, making transcription difficult, and causing hearing difficulties even for those present at the conference.

74 9 10

11

12

Appliable Linguistics Colloquial expression referring to the offer of a one-on-one fight (duel). Disappointed is double coded as affect and judgement here, since Dad is construed as feeling sad about something his son has done wrong. Sorry and apologized are also double coded for affect and judgement, since it entails the speaker feeling sad about something he/she has done wrong. Many restorative justice advocates invoke as precedents for these innovations in Western legal systems the example of dispute resolution customs in Melanesian, indigenous Australian or other ‘traditional’ cultures. While, as Cuneen (2002) has pointed out, these comparisons can be very misleading, conferencing, as a ‘fragmented’ form of justice has at least proved ‘flexible and accommodating toward cultural differences’ (Daly, 2001, p. 65) and its early development in New Zealand was certainly seen as part of a wider political response to the overrepresentation of young Maori and Pacific Islander people in the criminal justice system.

References Ahmed, E., Harris, N., Braithwaite J. and Braithwaite, V. (2001). Shame Management through Reintegration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bednarek, M. and Martin, J. R. (eds) forthcoming. New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation. London: Continuum. Bell, C. (1992). Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bell, C. (1997). Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York and London: Oxford University Press. Bernstein, B. (1975). Class, Codes and Control, Volume 3: Towards a Theory of Educational Transmissions. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Braithwaite, J. (1989). Crime, Shame and Reintegration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Braithwaite, J. and Mugford, S. (1994). ‘Conditions of successful reintegration ceremonies: Dealing with juvenile offenders’. British Journal of Criminology 34 (2), 139–71. Douglas, M. (1973). Natural Symbols. New York: Random House. Handelman, D. (1990). Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hayes, H. (2006). ‘Apologies and accounts in youth justice conferencing: Reinterpreting research outcomes’. Contemporary Justice Review 9 (4), 369–85. Hoyle, C., Young, R. and Hill, R. (2002). Proceed with Caution: An Evaluation of the Thames Valley Police Initiative in Restorative Cautioning. York, UK: York Publishing Services. Lewis, J. L. (2008). ‘Toward a unified theory of cultural performance: A reconstructive introduction to Victor Turner’, in G. St John (ed.), Victor Turner and contemporary cultural performance. New York: Berghahn, pp. 41–58. Martin, J. R. (2008). ‘Intermodal reconciliation: Mates in arms’, in L. Unsworth (ed.), New Literacies and the English Curriculum: Multimodal Perspectives. London: Continuum, pp. 112–48.


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Martin, J. R., Zappavigna, M. and Dwyer, P. (2009). ‘Negotiating shame: Exchange and genre structure in youth justice conferencing’, in A. Mahboob and C. Lipovskpy (eds), Studies in Applicable Linguistics and Language Learning. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, pp. 41–84. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2007). Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause (revised edn). London: Continuum. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2008). Genre Relations: Mapping Culture. London: Equinox. Martin, J. R. and Stenglin, M. (2007). ‘Materialising reconciliation: negotiating difference in a post-colonial exhibition’, in T. Royce and W. Bowcher (eds), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 215–38. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London: Palgrave. Maxwell, G. and Morris, A. (2001). ‘Family group conferences and reoffending’, in A. Morris and G. Maxwell (eds), Restorative Justice for Juveniles: Conferencing, Mediation and Circles. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, pp. 243–66. Moore, D. and McDonald, J. (2000). Transforming Conflict in Workplaces and Other Communities. Sydney: Transformative Justice Australia. Moore, D. and McDonald, J. (2001). ‘Community conferencing as a special case of conflict transformation’, in H. Strang and J. Braithwaite (eds), Restorative Justice and Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 130–48. Morris, A. (2002). ‘Critiquing the critics: a brief response to critics of restorative justice’. British Journal of Criminology 42, 596–615. Nathanson, D. L. (1997). ‘From empathy to community’. The Annual of Psychoanalysis 25, 125–43. Palk, G., Hayes, H. and Prenzler, T. (1998). ‘Restorative justice and community conferencing: summary of findings from a pilot study’. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 10 (2), 125–37. Rappaport, R. (1999). Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Retzinger, S. and Scheff, T. (1996). ‘Strategy for community conferences: emotions and social bonds’, in B. Galaway and J. Hudson (eds), Restorative Justice: International Perspectives. Monsey, NJ: Criminal Justice Press, pp. 315–36. Stenglin, M. (2004). ‘Packaging curiosities: towards a grammar of three-dimensional space’. Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney. Strang, H., Barnes, G., Braithwaite, J. and Sherman, L. (1999). Experiments in Restorative Policing: A Progress Report on the Canberra Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE). Canberra: Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. Trimboli, L. (2000). An Evaluation of the NSW Youth Justice Conferencing Scheme. Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Turner, V. W. (1982). From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications. Van Ness, D., Morris, A. and Maxwell, G. (2001). ‘Introducing restorative justice’, in A. Morris and G. Maxwell (eds), Restorative Justice for Juveniles: Conferencing, Mediation and Circles. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, pp. 3–16.

Chapter 5

Modelling Social Affiliation and Genre in the Civic Domain Sally Humphrey

5.1 Introduction Developing models of context which can inform literacy education has been a central concern of systemic functional linguists. Halliday’s (e.g. 1991) model of social activity recognizes two aspects of context. Context of culture refers to the broader background against which the text has to be interpreted (Halliday, 1985, p. 46) and context of situation can be glossed as the immediate environment in which the text is actually functioning (Halliday, 1991, p. 8). These dimensions offer a powerful foundation for exploring the literacy practices of young people within institutions such as schools and universities as well as within more loosely bounded affiliations beyond schooling. This chapter reports on one aspect of a study (Humphrey, 2008), which has built on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) models of context to account for the powerful forms of persuasion enacted by adolescents in what I have termed the ‘civic’ domain of their literacy lives. In so doing, it demonstrates the application of these models for making visible the persuasive goals of texts. Models of context developed within SFL educational research have foregrounded the discursive reading of context of culture in proposing genre as ‘staged, goal oriented purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of a culture’ (Martin, 1984, pp. 24–5). Martin’s model allows both for a categorizing of genres according to global characteristics and for the linguistic patterning of valued curriculum genres to be made visible. Sydney School genre theorists have also used the model to map pathways of language development across a range of secondary school subjects (e.g. Coffin, 2006; Macken-Horarik, 1996; Veel, 1997). Typically, pathways of literacy development see genres as developing from more familiar spoken and everyday genres such as personal and autobiographical recount and observation to institutionalized, written and specialized genres which privilege reasoned argument, such as analytical exposition. In terms of tenor, valued persuasive genres are those which eschew emotion, intuition and

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personal experience and privilege the logical, objective and ‘factual’. Although recent studies using the analytical tools of appraisal have made visible the importance of evaluative stance in persuasive writing (Coffin, 2006; Hood, 2006), valued evaluation tends to be realized covertly – in institutional and impersonal terms. While descriptions of genres and hierarchies have been very effective in enabling teachers to build the necessary metalinguistic knowledge for students to access the valued language of the school curricula, the emphasis on relatively stable academic genres has resulted in models of genre classification which do not fully account for emerging, blended and less stable genres created in other domains of adolescents’ lives. Kress (2003), for example, warns of the tensions between regularity and convention and of the dynamic for constant flux and change, resulting partly from ‘the constantly transformative action of people acting in ever-changing circumstances’ (p. 102). One area where this tension has been particularly obvious is in descriptions of effective persuasion in environments beyond schooling and particularly in sites of public debate (McCormack, 2003). Martin (1995), for example, has found that although the expository texts he examined in these sites did involve recontextualizations from the specialized domain of academic language use, they also drew on linguistic resources which he describes as ‘emotive, alive and oriented to change’. Social and political theorists (e.g. Melucci, 1996; Maddison and Scalmer, 2006) also recognize that specialized knowledge is diverse and may be built through interactions within social and political affiliations as well as through institutionalized learning in schools and workplaces. In recent years genre theorists have responded to challenges such as these by extending their models to account for genres created in response to social changes within and beyond schooling. Significantly, Martin (2002, p. 20) argues that the diversity of social factors at play in such discourse change necessitates richer models of genre including layerings of genre families within macrogeneric configurations he glosses as universes and galaxies of meaning. Consideration of complex configurations of genre has been complemented by research within and beyond SFL which has sought to relate textual practices to the communicative goals and roles within broad cultural spheres (Maddison and Scalmer, 2006; McCormack, 2003; Macken-Horarik, 1996), institutions (e.g. Iedema, 1997) and more delicately within social affiliations (Gee, 2000; 2005) and discipline areas (e.g. Coffin, 2006). This work has enabled the literacy practices of adults and adolescents in educational institutions to be characterized in relation to those of other domains in their literate and multiliterate lives. In the following sections of this chapter I will first explicate the model of cultural context developed from both social and semiotic perspectives to make visible the persuasive goals of texts produced by a group of adolescent activists. Following that, I examine the unfolding of these appropriated texts from the perspective of genre, illustrating how their persuasive purposes can be made

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visible through semiotic analysis which includes an interpersonal as well as experiential dimension.

5.2 Situating the Study The study reported in this chapter examined the literacy practices of adolescents who are engaged critically with issues of concern beyond the school curriculum in order to make visible to educators the semiotic resources realizing persuasion at the level of genre and at the discourse semantic level. Methodologically, the study is situated within the tradition of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), which places emphasis on the interpretation and celebration of texts which ‘make the world a better place’ (Martin, 2004, p. 177). The source of data discussed here was a grassroots social movement called Chilout, which was set up in 2001 to lobby the Australian government to free children and their families from Immigration Detention Centres (IMCs). Central to the success of this campaign were texts produced as speeches, interviews and newspaper commentaries by refugees who had themselves been detained in IMCs. The stories of these ‘insider’ activists have been attributed to changing public attitudes towards detainees by bringing ‘anonymous, faceless men, women and children to light and life’ (Ozdowski, 2004). An example of such a text, produced by an 18-year-old Afghani ‘Chilout Ambassador’ at a speech at a major metropolitan rally is shown below.

Text 1: HSS1 – Speech delivered at World Refugee Day Rally In the name of God the most merciful and compassionate. Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My name is Sayed Reza. I am honored to be given the opportunity to speak here and I am thankful to the organizers. At the start I would like to say that I am a refugee from Afghanistan and I left my country in 2000. I was only 14 years old. Since then I have not had contact with my family and I do not know really what is going on in Afghanistan where are they live in Afghanistan are they alive or dead. I hear this bad news all the time about my homeland. I am worried about my family that I left behind. It was a very bitter moment when I left all my family behind but sometimes there are things that one has to do for his survival. When I was in Afghanistan my life turned dark. I lost my older brother to the war by extremist groups. The extremist groups persecuted everybody; the War-lords changed the country into a blood battle. There was no peace at all and my life was in danger. My father sent me out with the hope to get me to safety, security and a future. It seems like a nightmare for ordinary parents, in normal conditions to hand over their child to a smuggler who had links with the extremist


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people to take me out of the country. But this is the real story most of us have experienced in our lives. How should I explain my separation with my family and how I was put this way and how I took a risky and dangerous trip, this is another long, long and sad story. But what I can say is that the trip was full of danger unsafely and insecurity. I could see moments that I felt I would die. Finally our boat arrived in Australian waters. Where I was hoping to be safe and welcomed. We knocked on Australian door, hoping to find safety and security. I was hoping to be among people who have a very good reputation in generosity and humanity. It is the first time in my life I am coming to understand what peace and security are here in Australia. I have realized the value of a human when I see all these people who looked after me it is the first time that I can study and I can learn. However for three years I held a temporary protection visa that put me in limbo. Luckily I have now been given permanent residence. But I feel for those who are on temporary visas, because their lives are tortured by uncertainty and fear. I beg the government to end the system of temporary visas. I feel a great deal of responsibility to contribute to Australia in the future if I am given a chance. I owe a lot to all of you for your thoughts and sympathy. This is not something I would be able to do in my own country of origin where democratic rights are not upheld. Unfortunately, Afghanistan is still not a country where people can speak freely and openly and without fear of persecution. I, like many, of my fellow country men and women have suffered from many years of war and political unrest for many years Afghanistan was ruled by a fanatical and extremist group. They ruled in the name of Islam but their cruel and bloody ways had nothing to do with the teachings of our holy prophet, Mohammad. During this terrible time many people in Afghanistan lost all hope to have a better life and future for themselves and their children. People lost every thing – their livelihood, their homes, and even their loved ones. Many had to flee and go into hiding. This happened to my family. We lived from day to day not knowing what would become of us. Fortunately for me the door of Australia opened. Australians heard my cry for refuge and with open hands delivered me from the terror of my oppressors. As you are listening to me, I extend my gratitude to you for recognizing my plight, and the plight of my countrymen and women, and for giving us shelter. Unlike the country I left behind Australia is a country which upholds and values human right – the rights to peace, compassion and freedom. During my time in Australia I have enjoyed the opportunity of an education. Because of the war I was never able to go to school. Now I am a student at Holroyd High School. All my teachers have shown much dedication towards me and I thank them. Now that I am a permanent resident I can look forward to the future without fear. I hope others on temporary visas will be shown the same mercy.

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5.3 Preliminary Analysis of Genre In accordance with the principle that differences in purpose will be reflected in the patternings of language across texts, genre theorists argue that the starting point for assigning texts to genre is an analysis of their recurrent global patterns (Martin and Rose, 2008, p. 8) or generic structure (Eggins and Martin, 1997, p. 290). In educational descriptions of genre, the point of departure for such categorization has tended to be field, which relates to the nature of the activity going on. For example, Martin and Rose (2008) distinguish between recount genres used in school history according to criteria such as how time is realized and whether participants are individual or generalized. From the perspective of field, Text 1 can be broadly characterized as narrative because of its temporal organization and focus on specific things, people and places. Like autobiographical recounts, which are typically used in the academic domain to apprentice students into the curriculum area of history (Coffin, 2006), the Ambassadors’ texts are built around a sequence of events in their lives. From this perspective, the typical stages of the texts and the functions of these stages can be represented as follows: Orientation: introducing the narrator and setting (and greeting) Background: describing the lives of narrators and their families prior to beginning their journey to Australia Record of events: retelling and evaluating significant events of the journey to Australia time spent in IMCs Reorientation: describing the present (happy) situation and future aspirations. Some of the young refugees’ texts also include an Appeal stage which functions to directly request action from the audience. However, as will be further discussed below, this stage is not always realized explicitly. The recognition of features associated with autobiographical recount is significant to educators concerned to make links between the genres deployed by adolescents in their academic and civic domain practices. However in order to fully account for the rhetorical function of genres such as Text 1, it is necessary to consider the influence of the multilayered social spaces and affiliations in cultural environments beyond schooling as well as the macrogeneric configurations in which the texts are created and read.

5.4 Modelling the Cultural Environment of Adolescent Literacy Practices While recognizing that the boundaries between contexts of culture and situation are not easily defined (Halliday, 1991, p. 9), the model described here is


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situated within context of culture in order to account for the multiple layers of genre identified in the analysis of texts. This reserves context of situation as the immediate environment of the texts, construing and construed by linguistic features at the level of discourse semantics (see Humphrey, 2008 for a discussion of the realization of context of situation through the resources of appraisal).

5.4.1 Cultural domains Drawing on frameworks proposed by Macken-Horarik (1996) and McCormack (2003), the literacy lives of adolescents can be understood in terms of four loosely bounded domains. Each of these can be viewed from an external (material) and internal (semiotic) perspectives. Figure 5.1 presents these domains and outlines their broad communicative goals. The conceptualization of the civic domain, with its focus on the practices of non-voting citizens, can be seen as complementing the formal political sphere within the broader space of the public sphere posited by Habermas (1979).

5.4.1.1 Communicative goals and predicted genre configurations of the civic domain The communicative goals of adolescents within the civic domain are complex and multifaceted. In addition to the debate of public views and actions, core business of the civic domain includes building consensus around shared values, both to nourish solidarity within social movements and to ignite support from broader audiences. Such goals are achieved through deploying interpersonal

(Specialized)

specialized

Figure 5.1 Cultural domains of adolescents’ lives

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resources which are sensitive to the positioning of the audience and the relationship between the rhetor and the audience. A repertoire for enacting these goals needs to include resources for building specialized and technical knowledge in academic and workplace domains as well as those for building relationships in the personal/social domain. The highly stylized and evocative rhetorical resources deployed by politicians to align audiences around common goals and values in the broader public sphere are also vital in construing persuasion in the civic domain. In light of these communicative purposes, it is predicted that the genres likely to be ‘at stake’ in the civic domain are those which persuade the audience, either to carry out some social action, that some social action (by somebody else) is needed or that the position and evaluative stance of the rhetor on an issue is valid. Significantly, however, genres within the civic domain need to be understood in Bakhtinian terms (Bakhtin, 1935 [1981]), as being uttered in relation to other texts – as arguments within a debate. As is shown on Figure 5.2, the civic domain itself can be seen from a semiotic perspective as a discussion genre complex (supra-genre), consisting of multiple layers of genre configurations.

5.4.2 Social affiliations within the civic domain While framing the literacy practices of adolescent social activists within the civic domain provides a useful way of situating their broad persuasive purposes, more delicate descriptions of the context are needed to account for the influence of social processes associated with particular social movements, groups and spaces within this domain. Gee’s (2000; 2005) concept of social affiliation, which can be seen in terms of Affinity space and Affinity group, is conceived as an intermediate space along a continuum of context. Social affiliations are characterized by a focus on common endeavour, by the prominence of solidarity and shared bonds and by their potential to become ‘morally heated’ (Beck, 1994, p. 105 cited in Gee, 2000). Affinity group foregrounds the shared purpose of the text producers while Affinity space (Gee, 2005) acknowledges the distinct influence of the sites or forums on textual practices. Gee (2005) implies the notion of space as an alternative to that of community or group; however, both dimensions of social affiliation have a complementary role in the analysis of the complex configurations in which adolescent activists participate and in explaining the genres and registers of the texts produced.

5.4.2.1 Communicative goals and genre configurations of the Chilout social affiliation The lobby group Chilout can be conceived as a loosely bounded Affinity group, whose diverse participants were united around a defined goal of persuading


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the federal government to change its immigration policy. Although an analysis of the rhetorical realization of the Chilout campaign is beyond the scope of this chapter, this goal suggests that the campaign itself functioned generically as a hortatory exposition, persuading the audience to carry out some social action. As with the discussion genre which construes the civic domain, this genre needs to be seen as a genre complex (mega-genre), instantiated in turn by complex genre configurations (macro-genres), which construe the different Affinity spaces of the campaign (e.g. rallies, meetings with politicians, web pages). The macro-genre which construes the Affinity space at which Text 1 was produced serves a hortatory function, with the central Appeal stage realized prominently on banners, slogans and posters (e.g. ‘Free the Refugees’, ‘Children out of Detention!’). The speeches of the young refugees as well as those delivered by adult refugees and ‘expert’ witnesses instantiate a range of elemental persuasive genres, which are recontextualized as the Argument stage of the macrogenre (see Figure 5.2).

5.4.3 The role of social identity in determining genre The structure of elemental genres within civic domain social affiliations depends to a large extent on the roles of the rhetors – what Gee (2000) refers to as Social Identity and Halliday (1985, p. 46) recognizes as institutional role. The social identity of the young refugees within the Chilout campaign can be broadly termed ‘activist’ because of their interest in changing the status quo. However, the ‘insider’ ideological status of these young activists as Ambassadors enables them to enact two specific social roles – as witness and advocate. Both roles involve building credibility, rapport and empathy with potentially hostile audiences; however, broader contextual variables such as the type of Affinity space influence which role of their activist identity is foregrounded. While all dimensions of social affiliation impact upon the choice of genre, it is the dimension of social identity and the more delicate roles involved which largely determine the structuring of the individual texts of the Ambassadors as recount. According to Rothery and Stenglin (1997, p. 239), recount is reassuring to an audience and is often used to entertain and create solidarity among groups of people. However, unlike recount in the personal/social and academic domains, the intertextual relationship of the elemental genres of the Chilout Ambassadors within complex expository genre configurations can be seen as positioning the audience to ‘read’ the Ambassadors’ texts as persuasive, even when the Appeal is not foregrounded. In this way, the social identity of the rhetors made available by their social affiliations and cultural domain significantly extends the meaning potential available to them as social identities within other domains of their lives. The positioning of the Ambassadors’ texts within the layered genre configurations and social affiliations is shown in Figure 5.2.

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Figure 5.2 The position of elemental genres within Chilout genre complexes

5.5 Recontextualizing Recount as Political Testimony The perspectives of text and context described above allow for Text 1, in common with other texts produced by the young refugee activists within the Chilout campaign, to be categorized in broad generic terms as testimony – a genre which appropriates structural and linguistic features of autobiographical recount for rhetorical use, but which, unlike autobiographical recount, focuses on communal socio-political conditions and actions. Like legal testimony, the texts of the Ambassadors function to ‘witness justice or truth’ (Martin and Rose, 2008, p. 55) and allow the voice of victims of injustice to be heard in the civic domain. However, the overt persuasive function of the Ambassadors’ texts distinguishes them as political testimony, which, like the ‘testimonio’ of Latin-American activists, calls on the reader to join the struggle to overcome oppression (Jehenson, 1995, p. 141). As political testimony, events are recounted from the perspective of both marginalized victim and witness of injustice and advocate for change. From an ontogenetic perspective (Martin, 2001; Coffin, 2006), it can be argued that the appropriation of recount is determined largely by the repertoire of linguistic resources available to the Ambassadors, most of whom had been learning English for fewer than three years. However, the variation can also be seen as a response to the opportunities offered to the rhetors as ‘insider’ social identities within the Chilout social affiliation. The choice of testimony genre allowed the activists to use their powerful speaking position to break


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down perceptions of asylum seekers as queue jumpers and illegal immigrants who lacked gratitude and to show ‘the human face of refugees’ (Ozdowski, 2004).

5.5.1 Unfolding of persuasion in political testimony As is evident in the discussion so far, the relationship of the young refugees’ texts to other texts within the cultural context allows for their characterization as broadly persuasive, despite their linguistic realization as recount. These persuasive purposes are also reflected clearly in the unfolding structure of the text, particularly if the analyst recognizes the contribution of interpersonal meanings on text structure (Iedema, 1997). From this perspective, political testimony can be seen as moving through an Appeal element with a number of supporting Motivating elements, which can be seen as appropriated stages of recount (see Figure 5.3).

5.5.1.1 Appeal element The Appeal is an interpersonally oriented element, which realizes a request for action (i.e. to free children and their parents from IMCs). In the testimonies of some of the young Ambassadors, the Appeal is realized as a discrete stage, while in others, such as Text 1, it is realized prosodically through ‘petition’ phases, which reinforce the prominent Macro-Appeals on the banners and posters of the rally. For example: I beg the government to end the system of temporary visas. [HSSI] I hope others on temporary visas will be shown the same mercy. (HSS1) The prominence of the Appeal within individual texts can be attributed to whether the rhetor has foregrounded his or her social identity as advocate or witness. Typically, texts produced in more public Affinity spaces where media prominence was high do include direct Appeal elements.

5.5.1.2 Motivating elements In addition to the Appeal, Motivating elements which foreground experiential meanings (e.g. reasons) as well as interpersonal meanings (e.g. evaluations, authority) play an important role in persuading the audience. Recognition of these multiple persuasive roles supports rhetorical theories of political discourse which recognize the importance of appealing to the audience from a number of perspectives – i.e. logos, pathos and ethos (Halmari and Virtanen, 2005). From a logogenetic perspective, it is possible to discern a movement


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across the Motivating elements from those which foreground authority and rapport (Identification), to those which foreground reasoned justification (Legitimation) and emotion (Involvement).

5.5.1.3 Identification From the perspective of genre theory, Motivating elements are conceived as appropriations of constituent stages of recount. The Identification element, which functions experientially to orient the audience to events, can be seen from an interpersonal perspective as establishing the credibility of the rhetor in terms of ‘what matters’ to the largely middle-class Western audience. In this sense it is the appeal to ethos which is foregrounded, primarily through making explicit to the audience the relevant dimensions of status. For the rhetor of Text 1, the social identity of refugee is considered the major source of credibility. For example: At the start I would like to say that I am a refugee from Afghanistan and I left my country in 2000. [HSS1] However, for a number of other ambassadors, the identity of student is also foregrounded. For example: I am an 18-year-old female refugee from Bamiyan, Afghanistan. I am in year 12 at Holroyd High School and I am studying for my HSC. [HNN] This dual identification can be seen as a complex bid for credibility on the basis of the rhetor’s authority as an insider witness to events and as an insider of the educational institutions which matter to the Australian audience, i.e. a successful student. Relating to the broad Australian audience in this way, as well as greeting and acknowledging that audience, is also evidence of the role of the Identification element in building rapport or solidarity with the audience.

5.5.1.4 Legitimation The Legitimation element, which experientially provides Background information about the lives of the young people prior to their journey, can also be seen from an interpersonal perspective as a response to public perceptions of asylum seekers as economic refugees or queue jumpers. Through this element, events and conditions within Afghanistan are recontextualized as evidence to support the decision to leave the country and thus justify the status of refugee. Appeals to logos, in the form of reasons for leaving, are foregrounded. My father sent me out with the hope to get me to safety, security and a future. It seems like a nightmare for ordinary parents, in normal conditions to hand


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over their child to a smuggler who had links with the extremist people to take me out of the country. But this is the real story most of us have experienced in our lives. [HSS1] As is evident in this excerpt, the reasoning provided by the rhetors typically rests on grounds of threats to security. In the texts of the female rhetors, however, threats to educational opportunity and freedom for women are also prominent. The choice of these factors shows an astute awareness of the values held by the Western target audience. This focus is shown in the following excerpt. We left Afghanistan because of civil war, persecution, ethnic cleansing of my people, the Hazara, the dangerous environment and the unfair treatment of girls and women. We children had no educational opportunities at all. [HNN Legitimation element] From a lexico-grammatical perspective, the appeal to logos in the Legitimation is realized through logico-semantic relations of enhancement (e.g. because of . . . ). Although events throughout the text are recounted in the first person, ‘I’ and ‘we’ frequently represent entire social categories (i.e. asylum seekers, children, parents) and not just the individual rhetor and their families. Despite the move towards recontextualizing personal events as generalized reasons, however, the Legitimation element unfolds temporally through phases typical of the narrative and recount genres valued in the personal/social domain. The interaction of ‘problems’ phases, dealing with the untenable conditions in Afghanistan and ‘solutions’, dealing with the decision to leave and come to Australia engages the audience in an emotional journey, arousing and releasing tension (Rose, 2007). Through these unfolding phases, the audience is positioned rhetorically to expect and thus approve of the decision to seek refuge in Australia.

5.5.1.5 Involvement The Involvement element, which is by far the most extended stage of these texts, deals experientially with the significant episodes of the refugees’ journey to Australia and the time spent in IMCs. Interpersonally, this stage is significant in aligning the audience rhetorically through appeals to pathos. Emotional appeals are realized through a number of interacting semiotic resources across the Involvement element. As in the Legitimation element, experientially oriented ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ phases move the action forward by swings of expectancy from phase to phase (Rose, 2007, p. 5). However, also vitally important in positioning the audience emotionally are evaluatively oriented ‘reaction’ phases which suspend the action in order to intrude the feelings or comments of the participants (Macken-Horarik, 2003, p. 300). The interaction of these interpersonally loaded ‘reaction’ phases with the ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ is illustrated in the following excerpt from a female rhetor [HNN].


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Table 5.1 HNN: Interaction of evaluative and referential phases across Involvement element ‘EPISODE 1’ ‘problems’

‘reaction’

‘solutions’ ‘reaction’

A smuggler hid us in the back of a truck for our escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Then we were smuggled to Indonesia where we had to stay in hiding. My mother had to go to hospital to give birth. The rest of us were locked in a terrible flat 24 hours a day, until it was our turn to get on the boat. So we got into a little leaky fishing boat, more than 100 of us. I was one of 30 children and babies on board. It took us 10 days to get to Australia – 10 days of horror, sadness, no food or drink and so many worries about our future. The only music I heard in my childhood in Bamiyan was the screaming with horror and mothers crying for their children’s future and I heard it again on this boat. We were all vomiting. My poor mother with a newborn baby was sick the whole way. Finally, in September 2000, our boat was guided by the royal Australian navy and landed on Australian land safely. I was happy because my miserable life was over, and a new horizon with no more death and killing was welcoming us.

Central to the realization of pathos across both experientially and evaluatively oriented phases are the discourse semantic resources of appraisal (Martin and White, 2005). While a detailed analysis of appraisal resources is beyond the scope of this chapter (however, see Humphrey, 2008), explicit values of positive or negative affect (e.g. horror, sadness, worries, happy, miserable) saturate ‘reaction’ phases and radiate these values across the less explicitly emotional ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ phases.

5.5.1.6 Reassurance The final Motivating element of political testimony, the Reassurance element has a number of complex interpersonal functions, reinforcing the alignments and rhetorical appeals made in earlier elements. One important function is to release tension by bringing both the physical and emotional journey of the rhetor to a happy ending in a ‘solution’ phase. The intensified positive emotions associated with the present and future offer reassurance to the audience that the difficulties and suffering encountered by the refugees are not insurmountable and cements the rapport initiated in the Identification element. For example: Australians heard my cry for refuge and with open hands delivered me from the terror of my oppressors . . . Now that I am a permanent resident I can look forward to the future without fear. [HSS1] Figure 5.3 illustrates the typical structure of political testimony and the relationship of elements to the appropriated stages of autobiographical recount.


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Figure 5.3 Orbital structure of political testimony

From this ‘orbital’ perspective (Iedema, 1997), the centrality of the Appeal, whether textually or intertextually realized, can be modelled, with other elements functioning as supporting satellites to align the reader into shared communities and to therefore motivate compliance.

5.6 Conclusion The multilayered model of cultural context presented in this chapter allows for the persuasive purposes of texts produced by adolescent social activists to be made visible at the level of genre. While it is certainly clear that the Chilout Ambassadors are still developing control of the range of genres needed to engage fully in the civic domain, the analysis of their texts indicates that they have developed a repertoire of resources which enable effective persuasion across Affinity spaces of the Chilout campaign. In particular, by appropriating the resources of recount genres, the activists were able to exploit their powerful speaking position as insider victims to build solidarity with their audiences and to ‘help sway public attitudes and opinions’ (Ozdowski, 2004).

References Bakhtin, M. M. (1935: Reprinted in full 1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (C. Emerson and M. Holquist, trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Coffin, C. (2006). Historical Discourse: The Language of Time, Cause and Evaluation. London: Continuum Discourse Series.

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Eggins, S. and Martin, J. R. (1997). ‘Genres and registers of discourse’, in T. A. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as Structure and Process. London: SAGE publications, pp. 230–56. Gee, J. (2000). ‘Identity as an analytic lens for research in education’. Review of Research in Education 25, 99–125. Gee, J. (2005). ‘Semiotic social spaces and affinity spaces: from the age of mythology to today’s schools’, in D. Barton and K. Tusting (eds), Beyond Communities of Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 214–32. Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the Evolution of Society (T. McCarthy, trans.) London: Heinemann Educational. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). ‘Context of situation’, in M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan. (eds), Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. Halliday M. A. K. (1991). ‘The Notion of “context”’, in T. Le and McCausland M. (eds), Language Education in Language Education: Interaction and Development (Proceedings of the International Conference held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 1991), pp. 1–26. Halmari H. and T. Virtanen (2005). Persuasion across Genres: A Linguistic Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hood, S. (2006). ‘The persuasive power of prosodies: radiating values in academic writing’. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5, 37–49. Humphrey, S. (2008). ‘Adolescent literacies for critical social and community engagement’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of New England. Iedema, R. (1997). ‘The Language of administration: organizing human activity in formal institutions’, in F. Christie and J. Martin (eds), Genre and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. London: Cassell, pp. 73–100. Jehenson, M. Y (1995). Latin-American Writers: Class, Race and Gender. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. Macken-Horarik, M. (1996). ‘Construing the invisible: Specialized literacy practices in junior secondary English’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney. Macken-Horarik, M. (2003). ‘Envoi: intractable issues in appraisal analysis?’ Text 23, 313–19. Maddison, S. and Scalmer, S. (2006). Activist Wisdom: Practical Knowledge and Creative Tension in Social Movements. Sydney: UNSW Press. Martin, J. R. (1984). ‘Language, register and genre’, in F. Christie (ed.), Children Writing: Reader. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press, pp. 21–9. Martin, J. R. (1995). ‘Interpersonal meaning, persuasion and public discourse: packing semiotic punch’. Australian Journal of Linguistics 15 (1), 33–67. Martin, J. R. (2001). ‘A context for genre: modelling social processes in functional linguistics’. in J. de Villiers and R. Stainton (eds), Communication in Linguistics. Toronto: Éditions du GREF, pp. l–41. Martin, J. R. (2002). ‘A universe of meaning – How many practices? Response to Grabe’, in A. Johns (ed.), Genre in the Classroom: Multiple Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 269–78. Martin, J. R. (2004). ‘Positive discourse analysis: solidarity and change’. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 49 (Special issue on discourse analysis at work: Recent perspectives in the study of language and social practice), 179–200.


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Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2008). Genre Relations: Mapping Culture. London: Equinox. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. McCormack, R. (2003). Common Units: Politics and Rhetoric Presentation to Indigenous Minds Forum. Bachelor Institute, 22 July 2003. Melucci, A. (1996). Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ozdowski, S. (2004). ‘Australian human rights – inside and outside the wire’. Address to the National Press Club, Canberra, 25 August 2004. Rose, D. (2007). ‘Reading genre: a new wave of analysis’. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 2 (1), pp. 184–204. Rothery, J. and Stenglin, M. (1997). ‘Entertaining and instructing: exploring experience through story’, in F. Christie and J. R. Martin (eds), Genre and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. London: Cassell, pp. 231–63. Veel, R. (1997). ‘Learning how to mean – scientifically speaking: apprenticeship into scientific discourse in the secondary school’, in F. Christie and J. R. Martin (eds), Genre and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. London: Cassell, pp. 161–95.

Chapter 6

‘News’ and ‘Register’: A Preliminary Investigation1 Annabelle Lukin

A text is . . . the voice of its social process: it is through this voice that a social process is known for the social process that it is. (Hasan, 1999, p. 239) A text is the form of the social relationship made visible, palpable, material. (Bernstein, 1990, p. 17)

6.1 Introduction The purpose of this chapter is rather simple: to bring Halliday’s notion of ‘register’ to bear on an instance of the category ‘news’. For Halliday, ‘register’ goes back nearly half a century, when he used it to refer to language ‘distinguished according to use’ (Halliday et al., 1964, p. 16). The category was considered necessary ‘to account for what people do with language’ (ibid.). In 1985, Halliday described register as ‘a variety of language, corresponding to a variety of situation’, with situation interpreted ‘by means of a conceptual framework using the terms “field”, “tenor” and “mode”’ (Halliday, 1985, pp. 29, 38). This claim located register in realizational terms; the term was, in addition, situated in relation to the systemic functional linguistic (hereafter SFL) dimension of stratification. Halliday located register at the semantic stratum, defining it ‘as a configuration of meanings that are typically associated with a particular configuration of field, mode and tenor’ (Halliday, 1985, p. 38). Within the SFL framework, news discourse has been investigated by scholars of the genre school (e.g. Iedema et al., 1994; Martin and White, 2005, among others). For Martin, genre is a ‘staged, goal oriented social process’ (e.g. Martin, 1992). In this model, register ‘function[s] as the expression form of genre at the same time as language functions as the expression form of register’ (ibid., p. 495). The implications of Martin’s notion of genre and his repositioning of register for Halliday’s conception of language and context are discussed in Hasan, 1995. A study showing the descriptive power of ‘genre’ compared with ‘register’ applied to instances of news discourse would be valuable, although

‘News’ and ‘Register’

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beyond the scope of a short chapter such as this.2 Approaching the study of news discourse from a register perspective involves an explication of the ‘configuration of meanings’ typically associated with ‘a particular configuration of field, mode and tenor’. It is an approach which enables us both ‘to understand language . . . and to understand what people do with it’ (Halliday, 1985 [1989], p. 4), two preoccupations which are fundamental to the appliability of Halliday’s linguistic theory.

6.2 News as Pedagogic Discourse From a sociological point of view, news is important as a ‘fundamental social context through which cultural reproduction-production takes place’ (Bernstein, 1996, p. 17). Although Bernstein did not give much direct attention to the media in his account of code and pedagogic practice, his formulation was intended to be wide enough to apply to any kind of socializing institution (ibid.). His discussion of the ‘division of labour of symbolic control’, glossed as ‘the new professions which regulate mind, body, social relations, their special contexts and temporal projections’ is relevant here (Bernstein, 1990, p. 133). Symbolic control, he argued, is ‘the means whereby consciousness is given a specialized form and distributed through forms of communication which relay a given distribution of power and dominant cultural categories’ (ibid., p. 134). Bernstein makes a distinction between the field of production and the field of symbolic control, the latter defined as ‘a set of agencies and agents that specialize in discursive codes which they dominate’ (ibid.). Bernstein located commercial forms of media in the field of production. Media barons, such as Rupert Murdoch, are thus agents within the field of production, engaged in the control over physical resources. Journalists within agencies in the field of production are agents of symbolic control (ibid., p. 137). Commercial media are agencies which ‘market texts’; power is with the marketeer(s), while the creator of the text – the journalist – is considered to have ‘control over its expected realizations’ (ibid.). These agencies, Bernstein argues, suffer the ‘intrinsic tensions arising out of the meeting of two differently specialized agents – one oriented to the production of physical resources, the other to the production of discursive resources’ (ibid., pp. 137–8). In other words, there is ‘a market principle between knowledge and the knower, between the inner relation to, and the outer form of, knowledge’ (ibid., p. 2). Publicly owned media, by contrast, were considered by Bernstein to be located within the field of symbolic control. Important here is the degree of autonomy such agencies have from government. Processes of symbolic control enacted by agents in the field of symbolic control were considered by Bernstein, borrowing from Foucault, to have an ‘explicit normalising function’ (ibid., p. 138). The implications of considering news as a form of pedagogic discourse in Bernstein’s terms are considerable, and yet to be laid out. If pedagogic discourse is the means by which ‘knowledge systems become part of consciousness’

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(Bernstein, 1996, p. 17), then we need also to ask how media discourses act as the carriers of external power relations, how ‘a dominating distribution of power and principles of control generate, distribute, reproduce and legitimize dominating and dominated principles of communication’ (ibid., p. 18)? Even a perfunctory answer to Bernstein’s question awaits a considerably more expansive forum than this chapter provides. But given Bernstein’s argument that the structure of the discourse provides ‘the means whereby external power relations can be carried’ (ibid., p. 18), register analysis has as its focus the ‘relevant meanings’, through which such power relations can be carried.

6.3 Register Analysis For lack of space, this chapter presents analysis of a single news item, broadcast by the ABC (Australia’s public broadcaster), an agency within the field of symbolic control. The news item was broadcast during the main evening 7 p.m. bulletin, on 25 March 2003, five days after the invasion of Iraq (see Appendix 1 for the news item transcript). The ABC news at this time was overwhelmingly focused on the invasion. This news item, the second of six devoted to Iraq, was filed by the ABC’s embedded correspondent (on embedding, see Knightley, 2003). ABC news and current affairs sent 14 of its journalists to the Middle East and Washington to report on the invasion of Iraq. While a single text is, logically, an instance of a register, it clearly provides an insufficient basis for claims about a type. A further difficulty is that, as Hasan (2009) has noted, much of the SFL work drawing on field, tenor and mode has done so in ‘the absence of “checkable” criteria’ and relying largely on ‘common sense’. Including some of her own work in this critique, she argues ‘faced with a text already there, the SFL linguists have largely been doing what any ordinary speaker of language would do, i.e., construing from the language of the text what the text is all about’ (ibid., p. 180). Hasan (1999) and Butt (2003) are a response to this problem, in that they provide networks at the level of context. Hasan refers to such network as ‘contextualisation systems’, and argues they have the distinction that instead of taxonomising realized meanings, they actually systemize the realization-instigating contextual features and attempt to relate context to wording via meaning which acts as the interface between the two. (Hasan, 2009, pp. 181–2) Referring to her 1999 field network, Hasan suggests it is ‘not any worse than the MOOD system networks drawn in the early 1960’s SFL’ which, through ‘continued use and discussion’ were gradually developed to the stage of today’s networks (ibid., p. 185). My analysis will proceed from the three context variables: mode, field and tenor, each treated as ‘a reservoir of “values”’ (ibid., p. 178). Hasan has used the term ‘contextual configuration’ (CC) to refer to


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the specific values of the three variables, of which a given text – such as the one to be considered in this chapter – is the realization. The statement of the CC provides the context in which one can make statements about text structure. A register description involves statements about which elements are obligatory, and which optional, and the potential order and iteration of elements (Hasan, 1985). Again, a single instance precludes me from establishing a structure statement for the register of which this text is an instance; I will offer no more than an informal description of the apparent structural elements of this particular instance. Nonetheless, the informal discussion of text structure will illustrate one crucial distinction between ‘register’ and ‘genre’. Structure (and texture; see below) from the perspective of register theory is a function of all three contextual variables; for Martin, genre is ‘made responsible for generating text structure’ (Martin, 1992, p. 506). Genre itself is not a function of social context (i.e. of field, tenor and mode), but rather ‘underlies’ it (ibid., p. 505). On this basis Martin can argue that ‘to some extent, genres have a life of their own’ (ibid., p. 507). Since register is a ‘configuration of meaning’, I have drawn on two kinds of semantic analysis as evidence for claims I am making about the text. One is Cloran’s Rhetorical Unit (RU) analysis (Cloran, 1994; see Appendix 1 for RU analysis), a semantic unit which realizes ‘aspects of a text’s register’ (Cloran, 1994, p. 126). Since ‘units of all sizes at the level of semantics are responsive to the contextual configuration as a whole’, then RUs express ‘the three kinds of meaning realizing aspects of field, tenor and mode’ (ibid., p. 128). In addition, I include a Cohesive Harmony analysis (Hasan, 1984) of the text, for its relevance to texture, texture being, like structure, crucial to text unity (Hasan, 1985) (See Appendix 2 for cohesive harmony analysis; NB chain interaction has not been displayed). Hasan has argued that texture, like structure, is a function of the context of situation (e.g. 1984, 1985, 2004), specifically when the principle of ‘delicacy’ is brought into play. That is, ‘situation type, at a high degree of specificity, is relevant to texture’. At the same time, ‘the facts of texture construe the very detailed aspects of the situation in which the text came to life’ (Hasan, 1985, p. 115). I turn now to the discussion of the three parameters of context, beginning with mode.

6.4 Mode Mode is defined as ‘the nature of contact for the conduct of speaking’ (Hasan, 1999, p. 232), and elaborated in Hasan (1985) along the dimensions of role of language, channel and process sharing. On the last of these, the text is a kind ‘received in displacement from the location of [its] production’ (Hasan, 1999, p. 237). It comes to the viewer as an artefact. An implication of the popular term ‘news’ is that the time between production and reception is not inconsequential (‘today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chips wrap’).

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This time has consistently been reduced through technological development. For instance, the embedded journalist who filed the news item analysed in this chapter had the technology to shoot and produce a news item just 30 minutes before it was to be broadcast. However, such technological change does not obviate the fact the text lacks ‘process sharing’ (Hasan, 1985). The implication of the displacement between production and reception is that the addressee is not only ‘absent from the moment of production, but he is also an imaginary being’, what Hasan terms a ‘virtual addressee’ (1999., p. 238). This has implications for tenor (see below). In relation to channel, the text is met by its audience through both aural and visual modes, via TV broadcasting. What is the relation between the two modalities? A detailed response to this question requires an understanding of the ‘functional nature of each code’ and how each code is ‘predispose[d] to the encoding of certain relevancies rather than others’ (Hasan, 1996a, p. 38). For instance, the visual by itself cannot encode the distinctions brought out by a RU analysis (Cloran, 1994; see Appendix 1) between such units as Recount, Report and Generalization. The ‘relevancies’ to which the visual mode is predisposed clearly need consideration for analyses which claim to be multimodal. I am not proposing to offer multimodal analysis here, although a rather obvious feature of the relations between the two modalities is their potential for combination. Hartley (1982) describes the interactions of the modalities as ‘presentation modes’, distinguishing ‘voice over’ (where the journalist appears outside of the material location presented in the visual mode), ‘vox pop’ (in which some speaker is made relevant to the news item through the selection of commentary interwoven with the text) and ‘stake out’ (where the journalist speaks ‘on location’). See Figure 6.2. A further point in relation to channel is that the text displays what Bateman has called ‘cross modal resonances’ (Bateman, 2008, p. 42), not only in the sense that the verbal is some construal of what is being presented concurrently in the visual mode. The verbal text also directly indicates the visual mode, by the use of what one might call ‘cross modal phoric reference’ (for instance, in message 223, But this convoy wasn’t – a quick start foiled by a bad wrong turn, where the ‘this’ is resolved by reference to the visual mode). The environments for cross modal phoric reference, and its realization, is a matter for further research. The text also displays instances of a kind of ‘recontextualized’ exophoric reference. The environment for the use of such exophora is the ‘vox pop’4 presentation mode (Hartley, 1982). In this presentation mode, one finds a speaker making reference to what was, at the time of speaking, a material situational setting shared with his/her interlocuter. The function of such commentary is ‘authenticity’ or ‘grounding’, that is, the appearance of connecting the viewer to some material setting relevant to the news item. Thus, it is not surprising to find exophoric reference in this environment. Given that there is no actual shared material situational setting (Hasan, 1973) between the text interactants, the effect presumably is to recreate an ‘as if’ experience of a shared setting.


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Figure 6.1 Hartley’s presentation modes mapped onto Cloran’s continuum of the role of language in the social process (Cloran, 1994, p. 132)

The RU analysis of the text (see Appendix 1) reveals some tendencies in mode shift on the basis of the distinct interactions between the modalities described by Hartley’s presentation modes. Figure 6.1 displays the RU types modelled along a cline for the role of language in the social process, with the distribution of Hartley’s ‘presentation modes’ indicated along this cline (Hasan, 1999 considers role of language to be a function of field; it will therefore also be considered below in the discussion of field). The dominant RU for the ‘voice over’ is Report, the RU whose function is to ‘expres[s] the current non-habitual states or activities of an absent person or object’ (Cloran, 1994, p. 109). For the ‘vox pop’ it is Commentary, which realizes ‘a materially based role of language involving the monitoring of currently occurring states or activities of persons or objects in the material here-and-now of the speech event’ (ibid., p. 94). When the journalist switches to ‘stake out’ (i.e. he speaks to camera from atop of the convoy in which he is embedded), he provides a sense of the significance of what has been told and shown in the news item, an explanation for why viewers should care about the details of what has been reported. The RU at this point is Generalization.

6.5 Field For a discussion of the field of the text – the nature of the social activity – I draw on Hasan’s 1999 network for field (see Figure 6.3). Taking the system material action first, the selection for this system is [non-present];* i.e. the experience of the text is entirely semiotic. From the point of view of the system of [verbal action], the text is [constitutive]; the ‘text’s language . . . acts as the essential crystalliser’ of the experience of the context (Hasan, 1999, p. 239). The verbal action, in consort with the visual modality, is all there is. In the choice that follows from constitutive, the text is [conceptual] rather than [practical], since the option [practical] is oriented to the achievement of some material outcome (ibid., p. 278). The option [conceptual] is the pathway to three further sets of options: the choice between [relation based] or [reflection based], the choice of [first order] or [second order] and the choice between [informing] or [narrating]. *Square brackets denote a feature selection from a system network.

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Figure 6.2 Hartley’s presentation modes (1982). Reading left to right 1. ‘voice over’; 2. ‘vox pop’; 3. ‘stake out’5

Figure 6.3 Hasan’s 1999 network for field

Taking the first of these three options, the text is an instance of a [reflectionbased] activity. Note that [relation-based] activities tend to be those which act as ‘tone setting sub-texts . . . run[ning] side by side like a prosody of the on-going main activity’ (ibid., p. 289). [Reflection-based] activities produce ‘semiotic constructs such as explanations, generalisations, classifications and


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descriptions of phenomena in the world of experience and imagination’ (ibid., p. 289). They position the speaker ‘as an observer vis a vis the already existing material and social world’ (ibid., p. 290). Hasan further notes a common conception of reflection-based activities is that they are ‘“about” something which already exists and whose identity is independent of [reflection-based] verbal actions as such’ (ibid., p. 290). Public debates about notions of journalistic ‘impartiality’ and ‘objectivity’ exemplify Hasan’s point. I suggest at this point the text be considered an instance of a [reflection-based] activity, although later I indicate evidence which could support an argument that the text is [relation-based], though not in the sense of a ‘tone setting subtext’, but as the main and single activity of the context. Taking the option of [first order] and [second order], the text here would be a [first-order] social activity; a [second-order] activity is one which depends on an already existing text. Finally, there is the choice of [informing] versus [narrating]. These options ‘capture respectively the significant division between already experienced time and time that is in some sense present’ (ibid., p. 291). The tendency in common parlance to describe a text of this kind as a ‘news story’ might suggest that [narrating] would be the choice at this point of the field network. The point of departure of the news item is oriented to past time, and is a Recount in RU terms. But the specific event referred to in the opening (the clash around Nasiriyah) is not picked up at all by the correspondent. It receives no further attention in the text. Of the remaining four instances of the RU Recount, only two function within the journalist’s ‘voice over’. The remaining two are embedded within commentary from Sergeant Gomez. In fact the ‘voice’ of the journalist is largely Report, that is, the discoursing on ‘the current but non-habitual states or activities of an absent person or object’ (Cloran, 1994, p. 134). Interestingly also, the text is rather muted with respect to events or action. Only 20 of the total 55 messages of the text select [material] as process type; and some of these processes analysed as material could also have been called relational [. . . death now lies, The new day brings a new threat]. In addition, note the liberal use in the text of nominal group structures functioning at clause rank (for instance, the correspondent’s point of departure, Final preparations to ensure the security of a precious wartime cargo; see messages 7, 11, 31, 35, 50, 51, 52). Hasan refers to such structures as a ‘depictive’ nominal groups (Hasan, 1964), a structure which can prefigure the narrating of events by scene setting, but which in itself cannot construe an unfolding event, since it lacks Finite and Predicator. In addition, despite the cohesive conjunction construing time (Soon the break in Iraq’s border approaches, in message 29), the text lacks temporal organization. Indeed, what is being related temporally through Soon, in fact, is hard to interpret: it would appear that ‘coalition invaders’ is a reference to the convoy with which the correspondent is embedded, and which includes the character of Sergeant Gomez. What precedes the use of Soon is an episode referring to a distinct convoy, an episode internal to which there is a temporal frame (the references to ‘night’ and ‘day’) but which overall has no temporal location.

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In summary, the text lacks a focal event, or sequence that would one would expect to be the basis for arguing the text construes the feature [narrating]. The cohesive harmony analysis reflects this absence. There are two chains formed by continuity of material process. One, chain C takes in the material processes of the text’s opening (messages 1–2), but then is picked up only sporadically in the remainder of the text with four further central tokens, one of which is a non-finite form, and two of which are the word ‘war’, an abstract noun. Chain G is more extended, running from messages, 5–28, but then dropping out of the text until the last two messages of the text. Chain G is therefore a focal chain with respect to processness for the text. It shows that action for this text is intransitive, since the processes essentially construe movement through space. In addition, the chain develops largely by repetition and synonymy, which I suggest could not support [narrating] as a contextual feature. While there are two chains in the cohesion analysis which are features relating to time, none of the terms in these chains form central tokens. The alternative to [narrating] in Hasan’s network is the option [informing]. The option leads to the further choice between [commenting] and [describing]. The ‘currency of the states of affairs’ (Hasan, 1999, p. 296) is what distinguishes these options. The selection [commentary] refers to the social activity of ‘constru[ing] states of affairs that are as it were located within the spatio-temporal confines of the on-going interaction’ (ibid.). The option [describing] by contrast, construes states of affairs ‘whose currency goes beyond the here and now of speaking’ (ibid.). That the journalist’s discoursing, from an RU point of view, is largely Report (which, as noted above, expresses ‘the current non-habitual states or activities of an absent person or object’ (Cloran, 1994, p. 109)), provides some evidence for arguing that with the combination of the verbal and visual modalities, the text realizes the feature [commenting]. However, unlike live commentary on a sporting match, the commentary in this case is organized around visual material which has undergone selection. Elements in the text are related not by an actual unfolding material event, such as in a football game. Rather they are structured to display a kind of peripatetic development (see below), as if there is some kind of natural link between the elements of the text. Finally, with respect to Hasan’s field network, there is the question of sphere of action, a system which provides the options [quotidian] versus [specialized]. The terms are considered end points of a cline, rather than as a categorical distinction. The production of news, with its highly specialized division of labour (e.g. Nanri, 1993) would indicate [specialized] is the appropriate term from sphere of action.

6.6 Tenor Three systems of tenor have been proposed: social distance, social/dyadic relation and agent role (Hasan, 1985, 1999). Hasan (personal communication) suggests the terms the ‘text producing’ interactant and the ‘text receiving’


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interactant for the interactants in the context of news presentation. As noted above, the ‘text receiving interactant’ is virtual. As such, ‘the addressee is built into the text as a prosody of its meaning and its structure’ (Hasan, 1999, p. 237). Where an addressee is virtual, social distance must be maximal. The social relation is non-hierarchic: viewers choose to watch the news, or not, and which news to watch. The basis on which one comes to choose one news source over another is not, however, accidental or arbitrary, but a function of one’s life experience, in which social position is relevant (Hasan 1999). In regards to agent role, the news item was broadcast in the evening bulletin, so presumably the audience is largely adult. Typically, the ABC has 15 per cent of the ‘prime time market share’ audience, compared with the 80 per cent market share for the commercial stations.6 A niche market, one might say, to whom the ABC ‘brand’ carries some meaning. The ABC audience, therefore, opts for news produced within the field of symbolic control, rather than news produced essentially as a marketing vehicle for commercial networks. The ‘text producing’ interactant(s) are agents within the field of symbolic control. The news anchor (who introduces the news item) and the correspondent speak on behalf of an institution, the ABC. They have behind them the authority of a public broadcaster, with a legislated requirement ‘to ensure that . . . news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognized standards of objective journalism’ (Section 8, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act, 1983). The institution’s independence from government has generated ‘a capital of trust’ and is the basis of ‘the Corporation’s legitimacy’ (ABC Annual Report, 2002–2003, p. 13). In the year this news item was broadcast, 95 per cent of respondents to a News Poll survey believed the ABC 7p.m. TV news to be ‘balanced’ and ‘even handed’ (Newspoll, 2003). While a public broadcaster is not subject to the commercial pressures of private news networks/suppliers, news providers want an audience to stay switched on. The ABC’s annual report for 2002–2003 reports its coverage of the Iraq war as one of the ‘significant events’ for the year, reporting in particular the success of its online reporting (‘Over 18 million pages of content were requested in just one week following the announcement by the US of the commencement of the war on Iraq’, ABC Annual Report, 2002–2003, p. 4). The unit of the news item itself can be seen as a function of tenor; that is, a theory of what the viewer will bear as a focused unit of reported news. Constant change from one topic to another is a response to the function of keeping viewers tuned in to the news bulletin. Each new item is a promise of ‘new’ information. And it must be consumable in its own right. One does not typically find news presenters referring back to events reported from previous bulletins, except in the situation where a correction is required. A specific characteristic of the agent relation in the context of this news item is that the correspondent was part of the US Department of Defense embedding programme. Thus, another institution, the US military, is interpolated into the agent relation. By becoming embedded, the ABC agreed to their correspondent circumscribing aspects of his reporting.7 The architect of

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the embedding arrangement, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Bryan Whiteman, reported that the US military were very satisfied that their objectives in establishing the programme were met.8

6.7 Register: Structure and Texture It remains to be considered how the specific values of the three variables (mode, field and tenor) can be seen to account for the text’s structure and texture. As mentioned, my comments on structure will be informal. The cohesive harmony analysis (see Appendix 2) has been annotated to indicate structural boundaries, and the elements are numbered E1 to E7. The text’s opening unit (E1) is the ‘hook’ for the story, although it does not function in the way the ‘lead’ element is typically considered to function in theories concerned with structure of news. Allen, for instance, defines the unit as ‘a summary or abstract of the account’s essential “peg” or “hook” which projects, in turn, “the story” in a particular direction or angle’ (Allen, 2004, p. 83). E1 sets out from a purportedly widespread issue of attacks on supply convoys, with a particular instance of an ambush given to ground this claim. This element provides a preview only in the most general sense with some continuity in chains A, B, D and E, although not on the basis of co-referentiality; the chain in which the processes ‘attack’ and ‘ambush’ appear is very sparse, and contains no further instances of transitive processes relating to this field. In E2, the presenter sets in location the correspondent and his cameraman (giving the news item what Aristotle called ‘ethos’; note the correspondent is described as ‘travelling with’ rather than ‘embedded with’ US marines). This ‘scene setting’ continues as the correspondent takes up the report (the cohesive harmony analysis showed no break here despite the speaker change from presenter to correspondent). The correspondent’s focus is the convoy whose function is to ‘keep marines fighting in Iraq’. Messages 14 to 53 I have tentatively analysed as four elements (E3 to E6). E3’s function might be described as ‘personalization’, with ‘Sergeant Gomez’ introduced as a token of the experience of young marines in Iraq. Note the dominant process at this point is relational (Chain K). E4 and E5 are weakly defined elements, on the basis of the cohesive harmony analysis. E4 is a brief vignette of another convoy, based on a localistic elaboration. This convoy is brought into the news item through a contrastive link to Gomez’s excited assessment of the progress of the marines (We’re moving pretty fast). The introduction of this new convoy brings into the text an instance of a convoy reportedly under threat of snipers, a faint echo of the content of the news report’s ‘hook’ element. The following message (#29) initiates element E5. It begins with the news report’s one temporal cohesive conjunction Soon, which purports to link what follows (i.e. the break in Iraq’s border approaches) by a relation of time. But the viewer has now been returned to follow the events of the convoy with which the correspondent is embedded, although one has to


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infer this retrospectively on the basis that Gomez re-enters the news report. Exactly what the event of the break in Iraq’s border approaching is ‘soon’ with respect to is not clear. It is noteworthy that this ill-defined element construes the process of the Coalition’s invasion of Iraq, an event already two days old. It is as if the event has been recruited for dramatic/aesthetic purposes. Note that the process of the invasion is construed through a middle voice (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) selection, in which ‘Iraq’s border’ is the central participant. In E6, the feelings of Gomez again take centre stage, in the reporting of his reaction to the bodies the convoy has happened upon. Gomez’s range of reactions is reported, as is his view that the killing must have been justified. The links between E3 and E6 create structure through what seems a kind of peripatetic relation: E3–E4 are connected through demonstrative deixis (this convoy); E4–E5 are connected by time; E5–E6 are connected again through the deixis of here, as if what is being reported is merely the stitching together of found elements. Relations of this kind are potentially evidence for an argument that the text is in fact not [reflection based], but rather [relation based], a point requiring further investigation. The text closes with a statement of the significance of what has been shown of this convoy’s experience (E7, messages 54–55). The correspondent adopts the ‘stake out’ mode (i.e. he directly engages the viewer by speaking to camera). The RU as noted is a Generalization, and concerns the importance of the role of the convoys to sustain the American operation in Iraq. Agencies and agents of the field of symbolic control ‘specialize in discursive codes’ (Bernstein, 1990, p. 134). These discursive codes ‘specialize and distribute forms of consciousness, social relations and dispositions’ (ibid., p. 135). With this in mind, what is the message of the text examined here?: the Coalition is under threat; supply convoys are on a mission; the personal/emotional reactions of individual marines constitutes a form of news; if threatened, American forces will respond; American violence is a response to a threat, not itself a threat; the act of invasion can be reported without specificity of time, place or agency.9 The text appears to fulfil at least two of the functions of the US Department of Defense embedding programme, including to ‘turn attention back to the military’s role in the war, especially the part played by ordinary American service men and women’, at the same time as ‘emphasiz[ing] the dangers posed by the Iraqi regime’ (Knightley, 2003, pp. 530, 529).

6.8 Concluding Remarks The analysis of one instance of one register of news presented in this chapter is a preliminary attempt to understand the ‘social process’ of news. The analysis has necessarily been brief and indicative only, but I hope sufficient to illustrate the power of Halliday’s concept of register for the investigation of the social process of news. The descriptive power of the concept comes from its openness

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to the dynamism of social context, an openness which derives from it being in a dialectic (i.e. realizational) relation to social context. No doubt much remains to be done in elaborating the parameters of field, tenor and mode within the SFL framework. But given the centrality of the notion of ‘functional variation’ to Halliday’s model, it would seem important to explore the full potential for this variation to be captured through the parameters of social context, before seeking explanations in supervening concepts, such as ‘genre’.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8 9

I am very grateful to Ruqaiya Hasan for fulsome feedback on an earlier draft of the chapter. Carmel Cloran revised and corrected my Rhetorical Unit analysis. Wendy Bowcher also gave me helpful feedback. Note Nanri’s (1993) study argues Martin’s and Halliday’s conceptions of context are compatible, and he draws on both for his argument. However, his argument concerning the discourse structure of the news, in my view, is closer to Halliday’s ‘register’ than to Martin’s concept of ‘genre’. Message is ‘a linguistic unit at the semantic stratum. Seen from above, it is the smallest significant semiotic action that an interactant might take in the context of an interaction so as to affect its character’ (Hasan, 1996b, p. 117). As Hasan (personal communication) noted on an earlier version of this chapter, Hartley’s term is not ideal for a text such as this one, in which all such ‘vox pops’ comes from US Marine Corp personnel of the Coalition invasion force – hardly the ‘voice of the people’. The images reproduced here comply with the copyright conditions under which the data was purchased for this research project. See http://www.abc.net.au/ programsales/order.htm. Since 2003 when this item was broadcast, the media landscape has changed considerably, and options for news from a mode point of view have diversified. See www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2003/d20030228pag.pdf for the rules governing the embedding process. See http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2505. Lukin (2008) reports the tendency across a corpus of 2 weeks of ABC TV news reports (from which this instance is selected) to mitigate actual violence perpetrated by the Coalition, while presenting as highly potent the threat of violence by Iraqi forces.

Appendix 1


(Continued)

105

106


‘News’ and ‘Register’ (Continued)

107

108


‘News’ and ‘Register’ 109


110

Appendix 2 E1

E2

B convoys

C attack

D Iraqi

E soldiers

2

column

clash ambush

Nasiriyah Iraqi

forces

3 4 5 6

coalition

soldiers

convoy convoy [convoy]

1

7 8

A supply

keep

E3

fighting

J

K

young

be

L

M

Iraq

cross head marines major

they sustainment

I

one border Basra

come across

border

convoy trucks [trucks] trucks

biggest > 70 stretch disappear marines Gomez we we

14 15 16 17 18

be wait be be

19 19 20 21 E4

H

convoy

9 10 11 12 13

G

Iraq

you troops

progress

we

move

fast

[move] start

tast quick

southern be

22 23 24 25

convoy

26

convoy

Iraqi

southern

fight

27 we convoy

28 E5

move

29

border coalition point

30

invaders

31 32 33 E6

34 35 36 37

marines

young

lies BE BE X

38

I

seen

(I)

seeing

39 40 41 42 43 44 45

you ME ME

46

whoever

do

47

they they

do

48 49 50

war

51 52 53 E7

BB

be [be] [be]

BE BE

war

54

[supply]

55

resupply

American

convoy Iraqi US

Gomez soldiers

become

marines

move

troops

forward

southern


N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

111

V

W

DD

EE

FF

KEY 1. square brackets denote retrieved ellipsis/lexicalisation of reference item 2. Underline denotes instantial relations (Hasan, 1985/89) 3. * denotes exophoric reference mediated by visual modality 4. Capitals denote interpretation of items not present

envy

left

behind

left

behind

excited anxiety good feel good

roads

break breach

feels [feel]

feels

disturbing gruesome

Z messed up

death bodies bodies bodies

civilians civilian civilian

Y

bodies

civilian

s-thing

bodies

civilian

s-thing

they* [they] [they]

civilians [civilians] [civilians]

AA sounds

motivating contradictory

sounds

trouble [trouble] [trouble] felt

mission mission

accomplish continue captives POWs

sombre prisoners

roads

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References Allen, S. (2004). News Culture (2nd edn). Maidenhead: Open University Press. Bateman, J. (2008). Multimodality and Genre: A Foundation for the Systematic Analysis of Multimodal Documents. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bernstein, B. (1990). Class, Codes and Control, Volume IV: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge. Bernstein, B. (1996). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control & Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. London: Taylor & Francis. Butt, D. (2003). ‘Parameters of Context’. Mimeo. Dept of Linguistics, Macquarie University. Cloran, C. (1994). Rhetorical Units and Decontextualisation: An Enquiry Into Some Relations of Context, Meaning and Grammar. Nottingham: Department of English Studies, University of Nottingham. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985: Reprinted in full 1989). ‘Part A’, in M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan (eds), Language, Context and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social Semiotic Perspective. Geelong, VIC Oxford: Deakin University Press/Oxford University Press, pp. 3–48. Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edn). London: Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K., McIntosh, A., and Strevens, P. (1964: Reprinted in full 2007). ‘The users and uses of language’, in J. J. Webster (ed.), Language and Society. Volume 10 in the Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday. London and New York: Continuum, pp. 5–37. Hasan, Ruqaiya. (1973: Reprinted in full 2005). ‘Code, register and social dialect’, in J. J. Webster (ed.), The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Vol 1. London: Equinox, pp. 160–193. Hartley, J. (1982). Understanding News. London and New York: Metheun. Hasan, R. (1964). ‘A Linguistic study of contrasting features in the style of two contemporary English prose writers’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh. Hasan, R. (1984). ‘Coherence and cohesive harmony’, in J. Flood (ed.), Understanding Reading Comprehension. Newark, DE: IRA, pp. 181–221. Hasan, R. (1985: Reprinted in full 1989). Part B. In M. A. K. Halliday & R. Hasan (Eds.), Language, context and text: Aspects of language in a social semiotic perspective. Geelong, VIC./Oxford: Deakin University Press, Oxford University Press, pp. 52–118. Hasan, R. (1995). ‘The conception of context in text’, in P. H. Fries and M. Gregory (eds), Discourse in Society: Systemic Functional Perspectives, Meaning and Choice in Language: Studies for Michael Halliday. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, pp. 183–283. Hasan, R. (1996a). ‘What’s going on: a dynamic view of context in language’, in C. Cloran, D. Butt and G. Williams (eds), Ways of Saying: Ways of Meaning. London: Cassell, pp. 37–50. Hasan, R. (1996b). ‘Semantic networks: a tool for the analysis of meaning’, in C. Cloran, D. Butt and G. Williams (eds), Ways of Saying: Ways of Meaning. London: Cassell, pp. 104–131.


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Hasan, R. (1999). ‘Speaking with reference to context’, in M. Ghadessy (ed.), Text and Context in Functional Linguistics: Systemic Perspectives. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 219–328. Hasan, R. (1999: Reprinted in full 2005). ‘Society, language and the mind: the metadialogism of Basil Bernstein’s theory’, in J. Webster (ed.), Language, Society and Consciousness. Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Volume 1. London and Oakville: Equinox. Hasan, R. (2004). ‘Analysing discursive variation’, in L. Young and C. Harrison (eds), Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis: Studies in Social Change. London and New York: Continuum, pp. 15–52. Hasan, R. (2009). ‘The place of context in a systemic functional model’, in M. A. K. Halliday and J. Webster (eds), Continuum Companion to Systemic Functional Linguistics. London and New York: Continuum, pp. 166–89. Iedema, R., Feez, S., and White, P. R. R. (1994). Media Literacy. Sydney: Disadvantaged Schools Program, NSW Department of School Education. Knightly, P. (2003). The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Iraq. London: Prion. Lukin, A. (2008). ‘The explanatory power of the SFL dimensions in the study of news discourse’, in C. Wu, M. Herke and C. M. I. M Matthiessen (eds),Voices around the World. Proceedings from the 35th International Systemic Functional Linguistics Congress, Volume 1, Macquarie University, pp. 143–171. Martin, J. R. (1992). English Text. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Martin, J. R., and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave. Nanri, K. (1993). ‘An attempt to synthesize two systemic contextual theories through the investigation of the process of the evolution of the discourse semantic structure of the newspaper reporting article’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney. Newspoll. (2003). ABC Appreciation Survey. June 2003.

Chapter 7

Constructing Sports Stars: Appliable Linguistics and the Language of the Media Shoshana Dreyfus and Sandra C. Jones

7.1 Introduction High-profile sports people and their use of drugs and alcohol have featured prominently in the news in the recent past. From AFL star Ben Cousins’ suspension for possession of illegal recreational drugs (March 2007), rugby league player Andrew Johns’ admission to a long history of drug abuse (October 2007), Nick D’Arcy’s charge for assaulting fellow sportsman Simon Cowley (March 2008), and cricketer Andrew Symonds’ admission of excessive drinking (November 2008), the media has had no shortage of events to cover. Studies (such as Biskrup and Pfister, 1999; Anderson and Cavallaro, 2002; White and O’Brien, 1999; Stevens et al., 2003) have shown that sports stars are held up as role models by some young people, particularly males. Other studies (such as Paccagnella and Grove, 1997) have shown that sports stars’ transgressive behaviour affects how young people perceive those sports stars, however, there seem to be no studies to date that examine the way sports stars are portrayed in the media the events of their transgressive behaviour. This chapter seeks to begin to fill a gap in the literature on sports stars and their celebrity status in the public eye, by focusing on the print media coverage of Ben Cousins during the period of time when he was suspended from football due to drug taking and erratic behaviour off the field. This chapter aims to begin to unpack the way sports stars who transgress are packaged for the public, and in particular, for adolescents. As such it uses an Appliable Linguistics Framework to address a real-life problem, illuminating how the language choices that are made construe particular versions of reality.

7.1.1 Background: a short biography of Ben Cousins From 1996 to 2007, Ben Cousins played over 200 games for Perth’s Australian Rules football (AFL) team, the West Coast Eagles, in the national

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football competition. He was appointed team captain in 2001and remained captain until 2005. He was selected seven times for the Australian AFL team and won numerous medals, including the Brownlow medal1, a Leigh Matthews trophy2 and four ‘best and fairest’ awards. His off-field offences date from 2001 to 2007 when he was involved in a number of incidents involving recreational drug use. These included a 2002 incident where Cousins was involved in a brawl with a teammate, resulting in the breakage of Cousins’ arm; apparent association with Perth ‘underworld’ figures in 2005; fleeing on foot after being stopped by police for an alcohol breath test in February 2006 causing his resignation as team captain; arrest and apprehension in jail for four hours after being found in an uncontrolled state at Crown Casino in December 2006; missing a number of training sessions, resulting in his suspension from the team in March 2007; arrest for driving erratically and being found to be in possession of small quantities of a number of drugs in October 2007, however no charges were laid; admission to hospital in Los Angeles after an apparent cocaine binge at the end of 2007. In November 2007 the AFL banned Cousins for 12 months. When the story of Cousins’ drug use broke in late March 2007, there was a flurry of media coverage around Australia, with 148 articles in an 11-day period across a range of newspaper sections including news, sport and features. When Cousins began negotiating his return to the AFL in late June and early July 2007, there were another 48 articles. By any measure of coverage, this is a large number of articles. Lines (2001) attributes this kind of extensive media coverage to the treatment of sports stars as ‘celebrities’ – in news and entertainment, as well as sports media – giving them highly visible and enduring images. Importantly, Lines (2001) also notes that while sports stars are real people, how they are represented is a construction, a particular version of events: Sports stars are real in the sense that they perform live under unpredictable sporting conditions over which apparently the media has little control. Yet, the nature of what the reader gets to see, hear and read about is determined and amplified by camera angles, replays, gossip columns, photographic images, chat shows and other such professional practices which ensure that the sport star image develops through selected constructions of reality. (Lines, 2001, p. 287) In the age of commodification of celebrities, it is not surprising that writers have argued that celebrity status is not necessarily indicative of greater talent than anyone else in the field but ‘that one has been more successfully packaged, promoted, and thrust upon the hungry masses’ (Ferris, 2007, p. 374). Thus a study of the portrayal of a transgressing sports star might shed light on how they (and their identities) are packaged for young people, in order to make a link, as it were, between studies that acknowledge the impact of sports stars on young peoples’ behaviour and those that look at how those sports stars are perceived by young people. Specifically, we were keen to see whether Cousins was constructed as being responsible for his transgressive actions or


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not. In terms of a possible hypothesis, it was thought that if the media deemed Cousins responsible for the actions taking place, it would use language that constructs him as being responsible.

7.2 Analytical Framework The analytical framework used for this study comes from Systemic Functional Linguistic theory (after Halliday, 1994), a comprehensive and powerful Appliable Linguistics theory that can be used to address practical and theoretical problems that engage with language (Halliday, 2006). Within this model there are two systems which allow for an examination of responsibility: Transitivity and Ergativity. The details of these systems and how they can be applied are explained below. A third system, Appraisal (Martin and White, 2005), is also used to briefly examine how Cousins was portrayed.

7.2.1 Transitivity The system of Transitivity (after Halliday, 1994) assigns roles to the participants in texts. In Transitivity, the roles are different depending on whether the participants are active, that is, the doer in any given process, or whether they are the recipient of that process. Whether a person is constructed as being a doer shows whether they have an effect on things. When the process is a material type of action, the doer is labelled Actor, and the done-to is labelled Goal. For example, in the following clause, Cousins is the Actor (doer) and the ball is the Goal (done-to): Cousins

kicked

a goal

Actor

Process: material

Goal

This kind of construction shows Cousins as active in the event of kicking the goal and can be contrasted with the following: The club

has failed

Cousins

Actor

Process: material

Goal

In this clause, Cousins is constructed as the receiver of an action done by others. In being the receiver, he is constructed as not having responsibility or part in the actions, other than receiving them, as the actions are done to him by others. Transitivity therefore affords a view of whether someone is an active participant in the actions in any given event.


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7.2.2 Ergativity The system of Ergativity complements Transitivity as it is about agency, assigning roles to participants that are different from Transitivity roles. The roles are Agent – which is the role that has a causative effect on others, or Medium – the role that does not have an effect on others but is crucial to the process taking place (see Halliday, 1994 for a fuller description). When a clause is constructed with the feature of agency, someone or something is seen to not just do an action, but cause an action to be done, and therefore has responsibility for or power over the action. This can be seen in the following example: Cousins

evaded

the three-strikes drugs policy

Ergativity

Agent

Process

Medium

Transitivity

Actor

Process: material

Goal

In this clause, Cousins has evaded the policy, so he is the Agent. The policy is the Medium as it is the thing being evaded. Therefore, the above clause constructs Cousins as being responsible for the evasion of the ‘three strikes’ policy. This can be contrasted with: The ball

rolled

Medium

Process

Actor

Process: material

In this clause there is no feature of agency as there is only a Medium and no Agent. There is no cause for the process of the ball rolling. It is constructed as simply happening. The above two examples depict two different ways of representing events in two different types of clause: the first, with agency, is called an effective: active clause, because something has an effect on something else. The second ‘the ball rolled’ is called a middle clause, because it has no feature of agency. Constructing events as middle clauses is one way of removing or backgrounding agency from events. However, there is a second way, which is via the effective: passive clause, which backgrounds the Agent by either putting the Medium first and the Agent second or omitting the Agent altogether, as in the clause below: Cousins

was nominated

as a player deserving of specific scrutiny by drug testers

Medium

Process

Circumstance: role


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While a clause constructed in the passive is often constructed that way for purposes of organizing the information in a particular way (Martin, 1993), what is selected as Agent or Medium, and the presence and order of those selections in the clause, sheds light on who is construed as being responsible for the actions.

7.2.3 Appraisal theory Appraisal theory (Martin and White, 2005) was developed from within the Systemic Functional model of language and is a framework for analysing how speakers and writers evaluate phenomena. This framework has three systems: Attitude, Engagement and Graduation, and it is Attitude that this chapter is concerned with. Within Attitude there are three subsystems: Affect (relating to emotions), judgement (relating to evaluation of people and their behaviour) and Appreciation (relating to evaluation of artefacts). Within each of these subsystems, evaluation can be either positive or negative, and it is this positive/negative aspect of Appraisal that was used for the examination of the portrayal of Cousins and his behaviour. As we were concerned with how Cousins and his behaviour were evaluated, the system of judgement is particularly relevant here.

7.3 Methodology Two hundred and thrity-three articles from across Australia between March and July 2007 that related to the Ben Cousins story were collected. This large corpus was narrowed down to the coverage of two broadsheets: Melbourne’s The Age (Melbourne being the ‘home of AFL’) and Perth’s The West Australian (Perth being the ‘home of the Eagles’ – Ben Cousins’ team). The following analysis reports on findings from the first eight articles from the coverage of The Age. As some articles only mentioned Cousins briefly, using him as a springboard to discuss larger issues, while others talked in more detail about Cousins and the events surrounding his suspension, it was decided that instead of conducting a detailed analysis of whole articles that were not about Cousins, every time there was a mention of Cousins, the clause/s in which he was mentioned would be examined for Transitivity and Ergativity structure, and Appraisal. If Cousins was the main focus of the article, and therefore mentioned many times, then these instances were viewed in terms of how the meanings built up cumulatively across the text.

7.4 Findings from Transitivity and Ergativity Analysis The findings from the Transitivity and Ergativity analysis show that Cousins was constructed both as Actor (doer) and as Goal (done-to) in the articles.


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He was also sometimes constructed as Agent, but more frequently as Medium. Examples showing these construals follow (examples are first written, then presented in tables with the Transitivity and Ergativity analysis beneath). Example 1 shows Cousins in the active role – Actor, in 3 out of 5 clauses: Example 1: Fallen West Coast champion Ben Cousins remains in denial over his drug addiction and has refused several attempts by his family and his club to convince him to check into rehabilitation. The 28-year-old, who has been suspended indefinitely by the Eagles, has continued to behave erratically and has also resisted attempts by the club to make a public statement about the severity of his health crisis. (The Age, 27.3.2007) 1.1.1

Fallen West Coast champion Ben Cousins

remains

in denial

over his drug addiction

Trans

Carrier

Process: relational

Attribute: Circumstance

Circumstance: matter

Erg

Medium

Process

Range

Circumstance

1.1.2

1.2.1

1.2.2

1.2.3

and

(he)

has refused

several attempts by his family and his club [[to convince him to check into rehabilitation.]]

Actor

Process: material

Goal

Agent

Process

Medium

The 28-year-old, . . .

has continued to behave

erratically

Behaver

Process: behavioural

Circumstance: manner

Medium

Process

Circumstance

. . . who

has been suspended

indefinitely

by the Eagles . . .

Goal

Process: material

Circumstance: extent

Actor

Medium

Process

Circumstance

Agent

and

(he)

has also resisted

attempts by the club [[to make a public statement about the severity of his health crisis.]]

Actor

Process: material

Goal

Agent

Process

Medium


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In this example, where Cousins is mentioned five times in five clauses, three out of the five (1.1.2, 1.2.1 and 1.2.3) construct Cousins as the active Participant in the clause (although Agent in only two): z refusing several attempts to get him into rehabilitation in 1.1.2; z continuing to behave erratically in 1.2.1; and z resisting attempts to make a public statement in 1.2.3.

In contrast to this, Example 2 is one of the instances where Cousins is not construed as Actor and Agent: Example 2: Nathan Buckley feels for Ben Cousins, with his private life laid bare to public scrutiny, but believes West Coast has done the right thing in suspending him . . . ‘If you want to be a leader in society . . . You’re going to have things come up and bite you on the arse’, the Collingwood captain said yesterday. (The Age, 22.3.2007) 2.1.1

‘Nathan Buckley

feels

for Ben Cousins,

Trans

Senser

Process: mental

Circumstance: cause: behalf

Erg

Medium

Process

Range

2.1.2

with

2.1.3

2.1.4

2.1.5

but

his private life

laid bare

to public scrutiny

Goal

Process: material

Beneficiary

Medium

Process

Range

(he)

believes

Senser

Process: mental

Medium

Process

West Coast

has done

the right thing

Actor

Process: material

Goal

Agent

Process

Medium

in

suspending

Him . . .

Process: material

Goal

Process

Medium

Constructing Sports Stars 2.2.1

2.2.1 (cont)

2.2.2

‘If

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you

want to be

a leader in society . . .

Carrier

Process: relational

Attribute

Medium

Process

Range

You’

re going to have

things [[come up // and bite you on the arse’,]]

Carrier

Process: relational: possessive

Attribute: possessed

Medium

Process

Range

the Collingwood captain

said

yesterday.’

Sayer

Process: verbal

Circumstance: time

Medium

Process

Circumstance

In this example from the very early coverage of the events in The Age, Cousins is not constructed actively, but has things done to him: he has his private life laid bare, he is suspended, and things ‘come up and bite [him] . . . on the arse’. He is neither Actor nor Agent in any of the clauses, as can be seen in the analysis above, where Cousins features: z in the Circumstance in clause 2.1.1, as the person on whose behalf we feel; z as the Goal/Medium in clause 2.1.2, with his private life laid bare; and z as Goal/Medium (being suspended) in clause 2.1.5.

Further, in the embedded clause ‘things come up and bite you on the arse’, which is within clause 2.2.1, Cousins also features as Goal/Medium, a recipient having things done to him, where agency is given to ‘things’: things

come up and bite

you

on the arse

Actor

Process: material

Goal

Circumstance: place

Agent

Process

Medium

Circumstance

Example 3 shows an instance of more explicit discussion of the issue of responsibility, and comes from one of the two articles that completely deprived Cousins of agency, instead, attributing responsibility for the footballer’s situation to the football club: Example 3: After Thursday’s confirmation, Eagles chief executive Trevor Nisbett said the club had failed Cousins by not providing better help . . . AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said the league would learn from this: ‘What we want to


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do is to wrap our arms around Ben Cousins, get him rehabilitated, get him healthy.’ (The Age, 24.3.2007) 3.1.1

After Thursday’s confirmation,

Eagles chief executive Trevor Nisbett

said,

Trans

Circumstance: time

Sayer

Process: verbal

Erg

Circumstance

Medium

Process

3.1.2

the club

had failed

Cousins

Actor

Process: material

Goal

Agent

Process

Medium

3.1.3

3.2.1

3.2.2

3.2.3

by

not providing

better help . . .

Process: material

Goal

Process

Medium

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou

said

Sayer

Process: verbal

Medium

Process

the league

would learn

from this

Senser/Actor

Process: mental/behavioural

Circumstance: location

Medium

Process

Circumstance

[[‘What we want to do]]

is

[[to wrap our arms around Ben Cousins, // get him rehabilitated, // get him healthy.’]]

Value

Process: relational

Token

Range

Process

Medium

In this example, it is the club, specifically in clauses 3.1.2 and 3.1.3, who is Agent for failing Cousins by not providing help. Nowhere is Cousins given agency over the events.


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However, while Cousins is construed as lacking in agency over the events in six out of the eight articles, there are construals of Cousins as becoming more active and somewhat agentive in the events. This can be seen in Example 4, which begins with agency being attributed to the club but shifts to Cousins having some agency: Example 4: Although the Eagles hierarchy has made it clear to Cousins that he will not be allowed back to the club until he fully accepts his addiction to the methamphetamine ‘ice’, and seeks rehabilitation, the 2005 Brownlow medallist as recently as the weekend remained determined he could beat his drug problem without full-time medical and psychiatric help . . . West Coast chairman Dalton Gooding confirmed yesterday that Cousins had resisted a series of attempted interventions but added that some progress was being made. ‘The first step for Ben is accepting the problem,’ said Gooding, ‘and then Ben making a statement and then going off somewhere for rehabilitation.’ (The Age, 27.3.2007)

4.1.1

the Eagles hierarchy

has made

it

clear

to Cousins

Trans

Initiator

Process: causative

Carrier

Attribute

Beneficiary

Erg

Agent

Process

Medium

Range

Range

4.1.2

4.1.3

4.1.4

Although

that

until

and

he

will not be allowed

back to the club

Goal

Process: material


Medium

Process

Circumstance

he

fully accepts

his addiction to the methamphetamine ‘ice’,

Actor

Process: material

Goal

Agent

Process

Medium

(he)

seeks

rehabilitation,

Actor

Process: material

Goal

Agent

Process

Medium


124 4.1.5

4.1.6

4.2.1

4.2.2

4.2.3

the 2005 Brownlow medallist

as recently as the weekend

remained determined

Senser

Circumstance: time/extent Process: mental

Medium

Circumstance

Process

he

could beat

his drug problem

without full-time medical and psychiatric help . . .

Actor

Process: material

Goal

Circumstance: accompaniment

Agent

Process

Medium

Circumstance

West Coast chairman Dalton Gooding

confirmed

yesterday

Sayer

Process: verbal

Circumstance: time

Medium

Process

Circumstance

that

but

Cousins

had resisted

a series of attempted interventions

Actor

Process: material

Range

Medium

Process

Process

added Process: verbal Process

4.2.4

4.3.1

4.3.2

that

some progress

was being made.

Goal

Process: material

Medium

Process

‘The first step for Ben

is

[[accepting the problem,’]]

Value

Process: relational

Token

Range

Process

Medium

and then

Ben

making

a statement

Actor

Process: material

Range

Agent

Process

Range

Constructing Sports Stars 4.3.3

and then

125

(Ben)

going

off somewhere

for rehabilitation.’

Actor

Process: material


Circumstance: purpose

Medium

Process

Circumstance

Circumstance

Example 4 shows the club as Agent first, not allowing Cousins back into the club unless he performs particular actions. Therefore, the kind of doer the club wants of Cousins is someone who first accepts his addiction or problem, then makes a statement about it, and then goes off somewhere for rehabilitation. From this example, it seems clear that the football fraternity do want Cousins to be the Agent and Actor/doer, and take control of his life, however, they only want a particular kind of Agent/Actor/doer, one who accepts his addiction, seeks rehabilitation and makes a statement. Finally, on 30 March, Cousins is depicted as being the kind of doer the League wants: Example 5: Fallen Eagle Ben Cousins will head overseas today in a bid to overcome his drug addiction. (The Age, 30.3.07) 5.1

‘Fallen Eagle Ben Cousins

will head

overseas

today

in a bid to overcome his drug addiction.’

Trans

Actor

Process: material

Circumstance: place

Circumstance: time

Circumstance: cause

Erg

Medium

Process

Circumstance

Circumstance

Circumstance

7.4.1 Findings from Appraisal analysis The findings from the Appraisal analysis show two particularly salient points. First, as mentioned above, it was noticed that there were differences between how Cousins was represented on and off the football field. On the field, the portrayal of Cousins was positive, lauding his skills and prowess as a footballer, whereas off the field the portrayal was often negative, depicting him as an outof-control drug taker. In terms of the finer classification in the Appraisal subsystem of judgement, the positive judgement relates to Cousins’ capacity (as footballer), whereas the negative judgement relates to issues of ethics and propriety. This can be seen in Table 7.1, which plots some of the attributes ascribed to Cousins in The Age accompanied by the Appraisal values. The second salient point that was observed with regard to Appraisal is the use of the lexical metaphor ‘fallen’ to describe Cousins (as in examples 1 and 5 above). Within the Appraisal system one of the functions of lexical metaphors is to provoke an attitudinal response in the reader (Martin and White, 2005).

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Table 7.1 Appraisal values of Cousins’ behaviour On-field

Appraisal value

AFL champion

positive judgement (capacity)

reigning Brownlow medalist


star midfielder


Off-field

Appraisal value

. . . remains in denial over his drug addiction

negative judgement (propriety)

. . . has refused several attempts by his family and his club to convince him to check into rehabilitation


. . . has continued to behave erratically


Considering that this term was used to describe Cousins at least four times, including fallen Eagle, fallen star and fallen West Coast champion, it seems worth exploring. Typically, the ‘fallen’ metaphor is used to mean a fall in status or prestige, and it refers to the ‘original sin’ in the Judeo-Christian bible: the fall from God’s grace by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as a result of eating the forbidden fruit. Just as Eve was led into the temptation of eating the fruit by the serpent, so Cousins was led into the temptation of drug taking (‘things come up and bite you on the arse’ – perhaps referring to the serpent that accosted Eve and coerced her into eating the fruit), the result for both being a loss of innocence and a fall from grace. This is a theological frame of reference, a biblical way of positioning Cousins in relation to his misdemeanour. The use of the metaphor therefore refers to the fact that as a result of his actions, Cousins has fallen from his highly regarded position into the lowly position of disgrace as a result of succumbing to the temptation of drugs. However, whether this provokes pity or blame (or both) in the reader is unclear.

7.5 Discussion The results of the study of eight articles from The Age newspaper show that even when there are instances where Cousins is construed as active and agentive in the events, he is also regularly construed as not active and agentive, in conjunction with not being negatively evaluated. This begs the questions of why – when it is seemed to be fairly clear that Cousins had repeatedly behaved inappropriately by breaking the law, using illegal drugs, as well as not turning


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up to training and behaving erratically – did the representation of Cousins in these newspaper articles frequently construct him as having little active involvement and agency in the events? In other words, why was he frequently constructed as the Goal and Medium, not the Actor and Agent? And why did the club and the football league take responsibility for many of the events (as Actor and Agent) when it was clear that Cousins had transgressed (and should have therefore been depicted as Actor and Agent of his own downfall)? The answer to this can possibly be found in a number of factors: First, if, as Whannel (1992) suggests, sports heroes are a source of national identity and pride, then perhaps, the higher the profile of the sports hero, the more their fall is cushioned. This study suggests that Cousins’ fall was cushioned by the print media’s representation of him through the repeated construction of him as non-active and non-agentive in the events, and clearly, as can be seen from how he is positively appraised as a footballer in the articles, he was seen to be a very highly valued sports star. Second, unlike violent offences committed by other high-profile sports people such as Nick D’Arcy (in early 2008), Cousins’ offences were about his personal drug use and related behaviour. That is to say, other than let his team (his family, his fans and his league) down, Cousins did not do anything that hurt anyone else. The conjecture here is two-fold: the representation of Cousins as not only negative can be partly attributed to the fact that Cousins is of extremely high value as a sports person, and that his offences did not transgress into the realm of violence. While it was not the brief of this project, it would be interesting to compare the media representation of D’Arcy, who assaulted a fellow sportsperson Simon Cowley in a bar, breaking his nose, with Cousins, to see whether the media construction is as varied with D’Arcy as it seems to be with Cousins. This varied representation of Cousins in The Age articles fits into Lines’ (2001) assessment of the complex role that male sports heroes occupy in media narratives, simultaneously constructed as villains, heroes and fools, forming a complex mix which he calls ‘damaged hero’ (2001, p. 285). There is evidence, particularly from the Appraisal analysis, which shows Cousins depicted as damaged hero: sports hero on the field and disgraced role model off the field. There is a tension here, between the construction of Cousins’ positive capacity on the field and his negative value in terms of ethics – referring to what is socially sanctioned as the correct behaviour a high-profile footballer should exhibit or engage in off the field. To return to the original concerns motivating this study, we must ask what the effect of this varied construction of transgressive sports stars like Cousins is on young people, particularly those who hold sports stars in high regard. As Lines (2001) points out, more research is needed to explore this.

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7.6 Conclusion This chapter sought to explore whether the representation of Ben Cousins in the print media around the time he was banned for a variety of drug-related offences used linguistic resources that constructed him as responsible for his actions, with the view to shedding light on how transgressing sports stars are packaged for the public. Using the Appliable Linguistics Framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, specifically the systems of Transitivity and Ergativity, the chapter showed that in the eight articles from The Age, Cousins was constructed in a variety of ways, sometimes as active and sometimes not, and only occasionally as agentive. In other words, he was frequently constructed in ways that deprived him of responsibility and agency in the events that culminated with his suspension from the football league. It was argued that the construction of Cousins as a recipient of actions done by others rendered him less responsible for the situation and therefore less blameworthy. It was conjectured that Cousins’ extremely high value as a sportsman and the fact that his misdemeanours did not include violence towards others afforded a generous treatment of him by some sections of the media. As this chapter sought to begin to unpack how transgressive sports stars are packaged for the public in the events of their transgression, it is interesting to note that the varied depiction of Cousins confirmed Lines’ (2001) analysis of the representation of the contemporary sports star as ‘damaged hero’, and we might, therefore, ask what impact this kind of portrayal might have on young people.

Notes * Acknowledgement: the work for this chapter was made possible by a $3000 faculty grant from the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences at University of Wollongong. 1 The Brownlow medal is the leading individual award in AFL, awarded once a year to the fairest and best player of the football season. 2 The Leigh Matthews trophy is awarded by the AFL players Association to the most valuable player in the football league.

References Anderson, K. J. and Cavallaro, D. (2002). ‘Parents or pop culture? Children’s heroes and role models’. Childhood Education 78 (3), 161–8. Biskrup, C. and Pfister, G. (1999). ‘I would like to be like her/him: are athletes role models for boys and girls?’ European Physical Education Review 5 (3), 199–218. Ferris, K. O. (2007). ‘The sociology of celebrity’. Sociology Compass 1 (1), 371–84.


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Halliday, M. A. K. (2006). ‘Working with meaning: Working towards and appliable linguistics’. Inaugural lecture to mark the Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies at the City University of Hong Kong. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edn). London: Edward Arnold. Lines, G. (2001). ‘Villains, fools or heroes? Sports stars as role models for young people’. Leisure Studies 20, 285–303. Martin, J. R. (1993). ‘Technicality and abstraction: language for the creation of specialized texts’, in M. A. K. Halliday and J. R. Martin (eds), Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power. London: Falmer Press, 203–220. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Paccagnella, M. and Grove, J. R. (1997). ‘Drugs, sex and crime in sport: an Australian perspective’. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 21, 179–88. Stevens, J. A., Lathrop, A. H. and Bradish, C. L. (2003). ‘Who is your hero? Implications for athletic endorsement strategies’. Sport Marketing Quarterly 12, 103–10. Whannel, G. (1992). Fields in Vision: Television Sport and Cultural Transformation. London: Routledge. White, S. H. and O’Brien, J. E. (1999). ‘What is a hero? An exploratory study of students’ conceptions of heroes’. Journal of Moral Education 28 (1), 81–95.

Chapter 8

Naming Culture in Convivial Conversational Humour Naomi K. Knight

8.1 Introduction This chapter attempts to explain how friends create humour in conversation by identifying and bonding around shared and unshared values that may be interpreted in the linguistic text. As conversation is a genre motivated by a prosody of appraisal (Martin, 2000b) (the sharing of attitudes), it is proposed that interactants bond in humour by playing with values that represent their relational identities. While these values are negotiated in the function of solidarity, they also construct ideological distinctions that create tensions in participants’ sociality. Through humour, friends laugh off tensions together in order to bond around what they share in a process of affiliation. This dynamic negotiation will be presented through a systemic functional discourse analysis (Martin and Rose, 2007) of five separate texts of humorous phases of conversation between Canadian friends. Through the framework of an appliable linguistics, this chapter takes the everyday context of casual conversation between friends and focuses on the problem of humour, developing the theoretical model of Systemic Functional linguistics (SFL) to respond to this problem. In particular, the model of affiliation is presented to account for the social relations at stake in this type of humour, particularly in terms of how we negotiate who we are as members of communities of the culture. SFL is especially appliable in this context, since it offers a social semiotic perspective on language (Halliday, 1978), and ‘affiliation’ is developed as a social semiotic model of communities. Furthermore, the SFL resource of naming offers insight into the construal of identities in conversational humour, and will be employed in the analysis of texts in this chapter.

8.2 Conversational Humour Casual conversation is a rich source for engaging with the construal of sociocultural identity, particularly in the humour used by friends to manage their

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social complexity through laughter. Researchers who have studied conversational humour (e.g. Norrick, 1993; 1994; Hay, 2000; 2001; Eggins and Slade 1997; Priego-Valverde, 2003; Tannen, 2005) exhibit its role in construing both solidarity (or rapport) between interlocutors and power (or aggression) functions at the same time. In fact, Priego-Valverde (2003) describes a dialogic relation between the functions of cooperation and competition, so that it may be argued that conversational humour is an important strategy for the management of social relations between interactants. However, particularly when conversational humour is shared by friends, a distinct orientation towards solidarity becomes apparent, and interactants use humour to reinforce existing relations of familiarity and informality (Kotthoff, 1996). According to Norrick (1994, p. 423), solidarity may be perceived as the main function of the ‘meta-message’ of conversational humour between friends, and even those utterances perceived as locally aggressive achieve solidarity globally due to a ‘customary joking relationship’ (Norrick, 1993). Hay (2000, p. 721) also found that negative categories of the use of humour in the function of power, such as control and creating conflict, seldom occurred in her study on humour in friendship groups (see also Holmes and Marra, 2002). Furthermore, friends bond together through humour by identifying with values that they share as members of communities. According to Boxer and Cortés-Conde (1997, p. 282), humour is used by conversational participants in a ‘negotiation of a relational identity with others and through others’, leading to a sense of group membership and an effect of bonding, and especially amongst friends, ‘maximum RID [relational identity display] can be accomplished through joking and teasing that bonds’ (Boxer and Cortés-Conde, 1997, p. 293). Archakis and Tsakona (2005) also argue that humour ‘reveals information regarding the humorists’ shared beliefs and values’ (p. 62) by which they may construct their social identity, as they bring out shared ideals of ‘appropriate’ behaviour. Even when humour is targeted within the in-group, the bonds between group members are confirmed and strengthened by the ‘safety’ their relationship offers. These functions are reiterated in studies of laughter as well, as Glenn (2003) argues that laughter in conversation is used to construe affiliation and to negotiate interpersonal relationships and identity, and it ‘plays an essential role in building and expressing affiliation, alignment, identity and relationships’, according to Partington (2006, p. 229). Thus, affiliation and bonding, as well as the construction of identity and solidarity between conversational participants may be considered as intrinsically related and significant functions of conversational humour between friends, and these aspects will be explored in this chapter. This chapter aims to demonstrate, through the analysis of conversational texts between Canadian friends, how conversational humour between friends is a strategy for the construal of affiliation (Knight, 2008). By negotiating values that are more or less shared between them, speakers not only share a laugh but also reaffirm their roles in society as complex members of communities that are more or less negotiable. In this way, conversational humour between friends is

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a tool for managing the tensions that occur in an ongoing negotiation of communal, relational identities, and for reinforcing the bonds that friends share. The chapter will also demonstrate the role of ideology and culture as a constant feature of this negotiation, as participants constantly display their positioning as members of a culture that is organized by ideology or ‘coding orientations’ (Bernstein, 2000). I will further suggest that humour allows speakers to make relevant and negotiable various levels of affiliative identities by presenting them through couplings (Martin, 2000a) in the text, and this is informed by realizations of the involvement resource of ‘naming’ (cf. Martin and White, 2005). To contextualize the exploration of conversational humour in this chapter, the following section describes the analytical approach to the data, while Section 8.4 describes the social process of affiliation. Section 8.5 then describes the resource of naming and discusses how it informs the interpretation of humour and affiliation. The use of conversational humour and the role of naming are exhibited in the section 8.6 through discussions of the analysis of the humorous texts.

8.3 Approach The data for this study consist of five texts of humorous phases of casual conversation (totalling 12 hours of recorded data) between Canadian friends. These friends ranged from ages 20 to 30 and most participants were undergraduate university students, or were in post-university jobs.1 Casual conversation is specified according to Eggins and Slade’s (1997, p. 19) definition as ‘talk which is NOT motivated by any clear pragmatic purpose’. The talk was recorded in different contexts with different sets of participants, both male and female, and the participants were unaware that humour was of particular interest to the study (since the topic had not yet been decided). From a total of 12 hours of recorded conversation, I chose five phases of humour for this analysis. The humorous phases were identified by the occurrence of laughter. Laughter served as a signal that the participants were negotiating a ‘laughing’ kind of affiliation, and together dealing with a tension in the ongoing conversation. The surrounding meanings were then analysed, while laughter along with the naming of identity categories informed the analysis and the identification of communities that were construed. Most of the recordings included myself as researcher-participant, in both friendship and additional roles with most of the interactants. While Labov (1972) finds that this presents an ‘observer’s paradox’, risking the naturalness of the discourse, Eggins (1990, p. 136) has argued that the risks are offset by the advantage of having an insider take part in the interaction and thereby contribute to the naturalness and comfort of the participants, since the researcher shares a friendly relationship with them. Furthermore, my participation in the instigation of the humour proved critical for interpreting the often unfunny texts.


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The study is undertaken in an SFL perspective (cf. Halliday, 1978; also see surrounding chapters, this volume, for elaboration). In particular, a discourse analysis following Martin and Rose (2007) was completed, focusing on the systems of ‘appraisal’ and ‘ideation’. The discourse semantic system of appraisal2 is located in the interpersonal metafunction, which includes those sets of meanings by which we enact relationships. Appraisal includes choices of attitudes, how we intensify them and their sources. Attitudinal meanings are divided into three subtypes: affect (emotions), judgement (evaluations of people’s character and behaviour) and appreciation (evaluations of things both concrete and abstract). Focusing on attitudes, I coded both inscribed (or explicit) and invoked (or implicit) attitudinal meanings that were expressed in the texts. Then, I focused on the targets of these evaluations through an analysis of the system of ideation. Ideation concerns ‘what kinds of activities are undertaken, and how participants undertaking these activities are described and classified’ (Martin and Rose, 2007, p. 25). The system of ideation focuses on the construal of experience in discourse, including the ‘people and things involved in them, and their associated places and qualities, and on how these elements are built up and related to each other as a text unfolds’ (Martin and Rose 2007, p. 109). The ideation analysis involved classifying the ideational meanings into taxonomies and identifying their role in the clause as well as their relation to surrounding clauses. The relationship between attitude and experience could then be more clearly interpreted, particularly in terms of identifying ‘couplings’, which I will introduce in the next section. Also, in the discourse analysis, the choices that speakers made were considered in relation to the meanings that they construed in the social interaction, informing the affiliation model that I will introduce in this chapter.

8.4 Background to Affiliation While there are many types of humour that have been studied across disciplines for centuries (cf. Attardo, 1994), the linguistic study of conversational humour is still relatively new, and it lacks a consistent and unified definition (Coates, 2007). Therefore, the type of humour under focus in this chapter is given its own definition, informed by the social functions that it achieves. ‘Convivial conversational humour’ (Knight, 2010) is characteristic of conversation between friends in which laughter proliferates, and is oriented towards solidarity and connecting around shared social networks of bonds. This is the type of humour that conversational outsiders would consider ‘unfunny’ and difficult to interpret, but it is a highly informative feature of talk that is closely related to how we construe who we are and how we relate as members of a culture on an ongoing basis. Furthermore, there has not yet been a full study of humour in the SFL framework. Eggins and Slade (1997) offered a promising start to this topic of research

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by connecting conversational humour between friends with the sharing of attitudes in text (captured in the SFL system of ‘appraisal’ (Martin and White, 2005)), and they argue that humour enables interactants to ‘negotiate attitudes and alignments, and . . . degrees of “otherness” and “in-ness’’ ’ (Eggins and Slade, 1997, p. 155). Knight (in progress) attempts to advance these insights in a complete study of conversational humour by developing a model of ‘affiliation’. This model accounts for the sharing of attitudes in text and the participants’ construal of the social functions of bonding and co-identification. When speakers communicate attitudes in convivial conversational humour, they tie them together with particular ideational experiences, variously valuing different persons, things and experiences in their world. These ‘couplings’ of attitude with experience (as introduced by Martin, 2000a; see also Martin, 2008a, 2008b; Zappavigna et al., 2008; Zhao, 2010) bring the participants together, who construe affiliation by variously communing around, rejecting or laughing off these couplings as more or less ‘acceptable’ bonds between them. Couplings are exhibited in the following excerpt: C: == This was an awesome pie party guys N: I love pie parties Example 1: attitude + ideation couplings [Transcription conventions adapted from Eggins and Slade (1997); Appraisal Coding: negative attitude underlined, positive attitude double underlined, target of evaluation in bold.] In Example 1, the two speakers present couplings of attitude with the ideational range ‘pie party/ies’. The inscribed positive appreciation (‘awesome’) and positive affect (‘love’)3 binds together with this ritual that they often participate in as a group of friends, and creates a coupling that they can share to affiliate together as members of a friendship community. By sharing this coupling in the text, these interactants construe a social bond between them as members of a ‘pie party’ community in the culture. ‘Bonds’ in this sense may be compared to the concept of ‘membership categorization devices’ (MCDs) as introduced by Sacks (cf. 1992), and reformulated in Schegloff (2007) and in Housley and Fitzgerald’s (2002) terms. In this model, speakers can be distinguished by a particular social categorization based on relevant aspects of the linguistic text that are ‘consequential to the interactional business’ (Schegloff, 2007, p. 474), such as ‘category-bound’ activities, attributes and predicates, which signal particular social categories and collections of categories (i.e. MCDs). The feature for naming bond categorizations, however, is specified here as couplings in the theory of affiliation, which may involve ideational meanings in any category (i.e. processes, participants, qualities, etc.) that are tied to particular attitudes. The coupling is in this way a linguistic unit construing a bond as a social semiotic unit of a different order in the social dimension of affiliation, and it is by


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negotiating bonds that conversational participants co-construct who they are. Conversational participants construe affiliation through the presentation of couplings in text, sharing them as bonds that connect them as members of communities, or social networks, of more or less ‘like-minded’ persons (cf. Stenglin, 2004). Social networks are perceived in this model of affiliation as clusters of bonds4 negotiated ongoingly through couplings (e.g. ‘awesome + pie party’) in the text, so that when participants present couplings they are construing bonds that connect them into a clustering of a particular community (e.g. ‘Fun Pie Party’). As social persons, however, our affiliations can be highly complex. Those social networks that we affiliate with in different contexts are not always harmonious and can at times come into conflict. Humour is one way to manage this complexity, as it provides a mechanism for ‘laughing off’ the tensions. In convivial conversational humour, a speaker presents a coupling that construes a bond of some unshared (but acceptable) social network, creating a tension with what the participants at talk have been aligning around together. Because this tension is humorous, interactants can laugh it off in order to affiliate together based on what they can share, and at the same time acknowledge the intruding bond to be an acceptable, though unshared, one. This is exhibited in the following text, which occurs after that presented in Example 1. One interactant presents a coupling around which the others cannot align, creating tension with the pie party bond they have just shared: C: F: F,N: C: F: N, F: F:

I can’t wait to have another one “Next year in (LV) Jerusalem” (L) == == What? I mean next year more (LV) pie! (L) … It’s-it’s a Jewish thing y-ye-at the end of every Passover you say next year in Jerusalem in Hebrew. Example 2: Laughable tension created by a coupling presented in humour [Transcription conventions as above.]

F humorously presents a coupling of a positively appreciated phrase about Jerusalem (‘Next year in Jerusalem’) shared by the Jewish community (and uttered at the end of the Passover holiday dinner); this creates a tension with the previous affiliation around pie parties. N laughs off this tension with F, and they continue to align around pie afterwards (‘I mean next year more pie!’). Affiliation is negotiated in this phase through humour by laughing off those social networks that interactants might otherwise affiliate with in different contexts (in this case, the Jewish network in the context of Passover). It is through couplings that conversational participants negotiate affiliation, and laughter

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signals that this social process is going on by showing that tensions that will inevitably affect how we co-construct ‘who we are’ can be laughed off together for the sake of affiliating.

8.5 Humour and Naming It is often difficult to determine where couplings are presented in conversations between friends, as they share a great deal of background knowledge and values that they do not need to make explicit to share (see, for instance, the implicit couplings in Example 2). Also, depending on the degree to which the interactants have been involved in the communities they construe, they may not need to inscribe the appraisal to express that meaning towards an experience that is well-known to community members. The value must instead be extracted from ideational meanings to which they are implicitly bound. However, these may be made evident through realizations of the system of involvement (cf. Martin and White, 2005; Eggins and Slade, 1997), specifically the resource of ‘naming’. Involvement is situated as a system of discourse semantics alongside appraisal and negotiation5 according to Martin and White (2005, pp. 34–5), and involves non-gradable resources that negotiate the interpersonal relations of ‘tenor’ (Halliday, 1985), or the roles and relationships, between interactants. These resources are said to be ‘used to negotiate group identity and so cooperate with appraisal and negotiation in the realization of tenor relations’ (Martin and White, 2005, p. 34), and are particularly oriented towards solidarity. Eggins and Slade (1997) incorporate involvement into their study of the discourse semantics of casual conversation, and find that naming, technicality, swearing and anti-language are used to construct degrees of group membership and solidarity while also controlling and excluding other interactants. Naming has a particular role to play in the construction of humour and affiliation in the conversational texts that will be presented in Section 8.6, as it affords (i.e. implies, see Martin and White, 2005, pp. 61–8) attitudinal meanings in ideation, marking the presentation of couplings in text. Specifically, these resources can afford attitude in couplings in convivial conversational humour by setting up opposing perspectives on the part of named individuals, groups and communities. As social networks are constructed by the clustering of bonds in affiliation, naming these networks in discourse indicates that couplings are being negotiated to construe their bonds. When we look to realizations of naming in convivial conversational humour, the construal of higher-level networks becomes salient, illustrating the negotiated co-construction of identities on the personal, ideological and cultural levels of affiliation (see Figure 8.1). These realizations will be discussed in the following section along with their role in the presentation of couplings in humorous phases of conversation. The analyses will exhibit how conversational participants use humour to construe


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bond (e.g. Fun Pie Party; Sacred Jerusalem)

Figure 8.1 Levels of affiliation with examples of their construal

affiliation as members of culture by variously negotiating their friendships, ideological positionings and cultural subgroupings, made evident and relevant by their naming in text. These ‘levels’ of identification may be aligned with Tracy’s (2002) categorization of ‘master’, ‘interactional’ and ‘relational’ identities. That is, as interactants identify in different ideological networks, including those of gender, age, ethnicity, capacity, class (as outlined by Martin and White, 2005, p. 29), religion and sexual orientation (cf. Livia and Hall, 1997), as well as by national and regional origins (Tracy, 2002, p. 18), they construe ‘master’ identities that constantly intercede the more local, personal social networks they share. Lower-level affiliative identities are those such as friendships and communities of interest that are both ‘interactional’ (situationand relationship-specific roles) and ‘relational’ (highly variable and negotiated moment-to-moment with particular conversational partners). In convivial conversational humour, participants often interactionally negotiate local subgroup identities, while at the same time construing overarching global identities including Canadian and North American cultural categories along with ideological positionings. The different levels of participants’ ‘communal identities’ will be exhibited through their construal in convivial conversational humour in the following section, informed by realizations of naming, and it will be shown that humour enables interactants to make identities negotiable in affiliation.

8.6 Naming Culture in Humour: Results By tracking instances of naming that occurred around laughter in the humorous phases, a number of different categories of both personal and master identities were identified. Bonds were negotiated through humour by the interactants to construe the following affiliations: z National master identities as Canadians, negotiated through regional mem-

berships to ‘Toronto’, ‘Quebec’, and ‘St. Catharines’ (Ontario)

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z Heterosexual, young female master identities, negotiated through ‘SNL’

television show watchers membership (including naming of actors ‘Chris Farley’, ‘Patrick Swayze’ and American association ‘Chippendales’) z Religious master identities as non-denominational (in relation to ‘Catholic’) and as ‘Jewish’, negotiated through local theatre memberships z Male and female master identities, referred to as ‘they’ and ‘girls’, negotiated through membership to a personal group of friends z National master identities as Canadians, negotiated in relation to master identity as Thai (in naming of ‘Thailand’) and to female identities (‘they’) These affiliations were made particularly salient by the naming in the text. For instance, in the third text, religious master identities are made evident when the speakers name the Catholic religion as one that they do not share but that interrupts their theatre rehearsal time (‘we can’t have rehearsal on Easter Sunday because mm-Adriana’s all Catholic’); and further, one speaker names the Jewish religious network to associate another interactant with this membership (‘Why can’t everyone be Jewish’). The identities thus emerged from the text as the interactants made them relevant to the ongoing talk, and negotiated the bonds of their social networks through couplings of attitude with ideation. Coupled meanings surrounding laughter bouts (Owren, 2007) were interpreted and informed by the resource of naming. The analysis of the texts confirmed that friends use conversational humour to negotiate affiliation by identifying around shared and unshared bonds, and laughing off the tensions that occur between them in their communal memberships to social networks. In convivial conversational humour, interactants negotiate their similarities by laughing off their differences, so that any conflicting coupling presented in discourse is laughable due to its relation to an underlying shared bond. Through the convivial conversational humour in the texts, the participants construed affiliation by laughing off the bonds of those identities that were not shared between them (e.g. ‘Catholic’), managing the tensions they caused (e.g. ‘we can’t have rehearsal’), while reinforcing bonds that they did share (e.g. rehearsing in theatre group). Moreover, while often negotiating personal bond networks locally, the interactants also brought in identities on an ideological and cultural level, accessing the macro-social structure through humour (Eggins and Slade, 1997). I will present the analysis of the humorous texts in this section, exhibiting how the speakers present couplings both inscribed and afforded by surrounding named regions, associations and individuals. These names set up opposing perspectives, pointing towards the values around which the interactants position themselves at various levels of affiliative community; both in terms of local networks, and in ideological and cultural networks of gender, age, ethnicity, capacity, class, religion, sexual orientation, national and regional origins.


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8.6.1 Canadian weather humour The first humorous phase is a discussion between two participants about Canadian weather, one from the province of Quebec and one from Ontario, both living and talking in Toronto, Ontario after their holidays spent at home. Together the participants laugh about the harsh winter weather conditions they have experienced in their home regions: N: It’s nice out! P: Yeah! [pause 2 secs] P: So uh gaw… in Quebec it’s so frickin cold (N laughs) like ugh “I hate this!” (N continuous laughter) “I want to go back to Toronto” == yeah N: == (laughing) where == it’s mild. P: == Now everybody’s like “yeah [Toronto’s] so cold” I’m like “[Toronto’s] not == cold” N: == (laughs) [Toronto’s] not cold at all we had a deep freeze though P: == Yeah? N: == We had like a really cold few days I- I was in St. Catharines but really really cold like you went outside and all of a sudden it was like whoa == P: == Oh really? N: ( ) cold yeah so um . . . and . . . we ha- still had this big snowfall and then like rain and stuff, I got stuck twice in my car (laughs) P: Oh == (laughing) no! N: == in the driveway (laughs) So [Ontario] got like really like sort of (laughing) bad conditions (P laughs) for a couple days around Christmas. Example 3: Canadian weather humour [Transcription conventions as above. Implied targets have been rendered in square brackets.] These friends manage the tension presented by bad weather conditions in both provinces through humour, laughing it off to align together as Canadians. The first laugh signals this tension after P’s utterance ‘in Quebec it’s so frickin cold’, which presents a laughable coupling of intensified negative appreciation for Quebec’s weather. P construes herself both as a member of the Quebec provincial community, and as one who had to endure intensely cold weather because of this association, also toning down her offence with a euphemism rather than its dysphemistic synonym (Allan and Burridge, 2005). The naming in this text informs us of the construal of couplings, as P first set up the regions of Quebec and Toronto as opposing each other, coupling negative appreciations with Quebec weather and positive appreciations with that of Toronto. N turns this around, however, by describing the ‘deep freeze’ that occurred in Ontario,

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once again signalling the presentation of couplings around regions by specifying her circumstance of location as ‘in St. Catharines’ and so expanding the region beyond Toronto to Ontario (or at least Southern Ontario). By doing so, she construes herself as an Ontarian and at the same time presents a negative coupling for its weather and the consequences of it on her daily life (specifically in driving). The opposition is made between the currently mild weather of Toronto and previous weather conditions in both Quebec and Ontario, so that the participants must laugh off both of these construals in order to align together as Canadians who must endure this tension in the winter. This social process of affiliation involves co-identification at the levels of municipal, provincial and national communities, and these interactants affiliate together around enduring the weather to reinforce a Canadian master identity as members of this culture, while laughing off their differing regional memberships within it. The realizations of naming in the text make the opposition between these laughable couplings apparent, and also lay bare the overarching national identity that is underlying the humour. Weather is discursively construed as something forced upon the speakers as inhabitants, and so by making this consequential to the unfolding interaction, they cope in their current situation as enduring Canadians. They are thus able to laugh off the tension and also identify their local regional memberships as unshared but acceptable differences.

8.6.2 Attractiveness ideals humour In the following phase, four female interactants discuss male attractiveness ideals following from a conversation about ‘male stripping’, and laugh around what constitutes acceptable standards of body size and age for male strippers: M:

The funniest thing I’ve ever seen is- do you ge- it was like a really really old SNL skit and Patrick Swayze was on and they were doing this um C: Chippendales? M: The Chippendales == C: == With Chris Farley? == Yeah M: == with Chris Farley! G: == Oh::: yeah::: ew::: L: == Oh my (laughing) god! … M: == Chris Farley’s like rollin off his shirt == too and like he’s got G: == Ew::: I think I’ve rented that one C: [Chris Farley]’s all like this [non-verbal action] M, G, L: (laugh) C: And you realize like in that moment that Patrick Swayze’s kinda hot and then you’re like “Oh!* Patrick Swayze!” (L,G laugh) and you’re like == “Wait wait” . . .

Naming Culture in Convivial Conversational Humour M: L:

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== And then you look at the hair and you’re like “Oh wait [Patrick Swayze’s] kinda old” == (laughs) Example 4: Attractiveness ideals humour [Transcription conventions as above.]

M opens up the humour by prefacing the phase with ‘the funniest thing I’ve ever seen is’, and follows by describing a comedy skit on the American television programme, Saturday Night Live (or SNL). The interactants then coconstruct the premise of this funny skit as one in which the actor, Chris Farley, portrays the role of a male stripper in the American association ‘Chippendales’. The laughter and expressions of disgust (e.g. ‘ew:::’) signal that this creates a tension to be laughed off by these interactants, and while the attitude is not explicitly inscribed, couplings are afforded by realizations of naming throughout the phase. First, ‘SNL’ as a specialized term for the television show sets up a community of SNL-watchers by which these interactants may share in a communal identity, and this is followed by the naming of the individual actor ‘Patrick Swayze’; the community of American male strippers, the ‘Chippendales’ (a group of men with ‘ideal’ body types); and the individual actor ‘Chris Farley’ (an actor with an overweight body type). In this naming, M and C together set up an opposition6 between Chippendales and Chris Farley, affording a positive aesthetic appreciation (cf. White, 2001) for the male strippers and a negative aesthetic appreciation for the actor. By interpreting this opposition, the interactants coidentify both as SNL-watchers, construing themselves as familiar with American programmes and associations, and as heterosexual females with an interest in ‘attractive’ body ideals for men. At the same time, they laugh off the tension created by Chris Farley in playing the role of an attractive male stripper through such activities as ‘rollin off his shirt’, which would otherwise be desirable by positively appreciated members of the Chippendales. The underlying bonds that they share as they affiliate together are further explored when C presents a coupling of positive aesthetic appreciation for the actor Patrick Swayze as a Chippendale, which is met with laughter and an admission of their shared negative appreciation for him as too old. These couplings are inscribed in ‘kinda hot’ and ‘kinda old’, but the naming again makes clear the opposition of perspectives and exhibits the interactants as familiar with popular American culture and the named actor ‘Patrick Swayze’. In the ongoing humorous discourse around attractiveness ideals, they laugh off ‘oldness’ as an unshared bond in their heterosexual female identities. Thus, through the local community of watchers of the American television show SNL, these conversational participants negotiate their ideological positioning in the gender network and in terms of sexuality through different bonds around male attractiveness ideals.


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8.6.3 Religion humour Religious affiliations are brought into the humorous negotiation through local theatre networks shared by the interactants in the following phase. Two nonreligious friends, C and G, joke about Catholicism with a Jewish friend, F, as it intrudes into their theatre rehearsals during the Easter holidays. G also indicates her close association with the Jewish religion as one who is familiar with its values: C: G: F: C: G: C: G: C: F: C: G: C: G:

Do they have school on Easter Monday? Yeah. == But I’m surprised. == Some. Yeah but, what’s the deal I don’t know but I just == == Oh right realized today that we can’t have rehearsal on Easter Sunday because mm- Adriana’s all Catholic Yeah nobody wants to rehearse on mine Friday either Hey I have no problem with [rehearsing at Easter] (laughs) (laughs) You and me Farley == == Why can’t everyone be Jewish (laughs) … There’s a good reason for that Example 5: Religious humour [Transcription conventions as above.]

C and G mark F’s utterance as creating a tension (in the same way as Example 2) by reacting with laughter and continuing the humour (Hay, 2001). While at first the naming of the ‘Catholic’ network sets up an opposition between the bonds of this network, named as the Easter holidays, and those of the speakers’ theatre play networks (implied in their ‘rehearsing’), this is then countered by F by asserting his own affiliation with the Jewish community. When G names this social network following her laughter (‘Why can’t everyone be Jewish’), she exposes this underlying social network and creates further humour around it by imagining all people as fitting into the Jewish category, noting that this is not necessarily an affiliative possibility. Specifically, her naming makes clear the underlying bond on which F’s coupling is made laughable, as he proposes a positive appreciation coupling with rehearsing that is in fact due to his Jewish membership (and not to his dedication as a play member). The couplings inscribed around the play members’, and in particular Adriana’s, disinterest in attending rehearsals are first associated with the quality of being ‘Catholic’, affording negative attitudes towards the bonds that cluster together in this network such as the Easter holidays. F’s assertion of a positive appreciation coupled


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with rehearsing (‘I have no problem with that’) is funny because he is in fact asserting a Jewish identity that is not here shared, but one that excludes any potential bond around Easter, thus making his positive appreciation of rehearsing less ‘genuine’ than he makes it out to be. These conversational participants negotiate the tension caused by master identities in this phase, as membership to a religious network such as Catholicism cancels the possibility for them to affiliate with their play members in rehearsals during the Easter holidays. In humour they co-construct their own ideological positionings as non-religious and as Jewish, and bond together as theatre play members who, in any case, will not allow Easter to cancel their rehearsing. By presenting a coupling to construe his Jewish identity, F seems to licence the humour around religion7, and the naming makes the opposition, and the humour, more apparent.

8.6.4 Gender humour Ideological networks of gender are made relevant to the interaction through their naming, and through the use of the exclusive pronoun ‘they’ (cf. Fairclough, 1989; Fairclough and Wodak, 1997) by the speaker in the following phase. This begins with a discussion of the group of friends of one interactant, C, which is then specified to the males within her group who she associates with feminine, rather than masculine, values: C: == They don’t like him M: Why? C: Cause they’re ga- they’re such girls! They’re the girliest boys I’ve ever met in my life == N: == Really? M: == Why don’t they like him C: They all talk shit about each other like == woo::: they’re really girly N: == Oh ma:::an … M: == Oh my god C: Dale was always like “Do you know what Irene said about Alan” and == I’m like “I don’t care [about gossip]” L: == (laughs) Example 6: Gender humour [Transcription conventions as above.] C first dissociates herself from her group of friends by referring to them as ‘they’, then specifies the males in her group and refers to them as ‘the girliest boys I’ve ever met in my life’. In these utterances, C names the female gender category (‘girls’) as a quality now associated with the alternate gender category (in a ‘standardized relational pair’ according to Membership Categorization,

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cf. Sacks, 1992) of ‘boys’, signalling opposing social networks and the presentation of couplings as bonds of these networks in the text. Gossip is then construed as a bond typically associated with a female social network but one that is shared by the males in her group, and one which C herself dissociates with (‘I don’t care’). Gender is brought into this conversation to negotiate the bonds that typically cluster within these networks, and through humour these interactants laugh off the tension created when males take on a ‘female’ bond. At the same time, these interactants negotiate themselves as ones who do not share this bond, so that physical associations with this ideological network do not prevent these women from co-constructing their own ‘non-girly’ identities. So, as members of the female gender they can affiliate together by establishing known valued attributes and activities that are part of this category, while construing one bond within it as too ‘girly’ for them, and laughing it off when presented as a positively appreciated coupling by ‘boys’. The use of exclusive pronoun ‘they’ first sets up that gossip is presented as a coupling but that this is one that the speaker dissociates herself from, and the opposition between ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ is made clear through their explicit naming. Tracy (2002) argues that master identities, such as this ideological network of gender, are frequently conceived of as ‘contrastive sets’ (p. 18), so that ‘gossip’ is defined by being a non-male bond. However, not only do these speakers acknowledge the tension created when males take on this non-male bond, but they make it negotiable as something shared by ‘girly’ females, and not necessarily other females such as them. This negotiation is presented through the personal network of C’s group of friends, and allows the interactants to co-identify by sharing a ‘non-girly’ subgroup within the female identity.

8.6.5 National humour Participants also identify values that vary across cultures at the national level, acknowledging the tension they may cause by laughing off the assertion of these values by others. In the following phase, the female gender network is negotiated across the Canadian and Thai cultural communities as one Canadian male speaker projects the speech of a Thai woman as funny: CO: I just hope one day it does find its way to be like we [men and women]’re equal; but we’re totally different sexes and it’s like y’know both [men and women] are celebrated for their own thing and whatnot. … CO: I don’t know this one girl sh- (laughs) I think we bo- Jess’ girlfriend this one girl . . . with my friend, he had a bunch of clothing that was ripped he’s like “Ah I have to take this to get this sewed up I don’t know how to do that” and his girlfriend’s like was like uh “Oh I could do it” and


K: N: CO: K: CO: K, N: CO: T: CO: K:

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he’s like “Oh you know how to sew?” And her answer to that was- to the question “d’you know how to sew,” she was like “You know I am a woman of course!” == (laughing) Oh my gah == (laughing) (A woman?) == He was just like . . . yeah. == (laughs) . . . Where was that? In Thailand (laugh) She’s like “I’m a woman of course I can sew!” (K,N laugh) “I can clean too you know” (K,N laughing) You know it’s like (laughing) You know and they [women] can cook! Yeah they [women] can cook! (N laughing) == It’s like you know == (laughing) Oh my god (laughs) Example 7: National humour [Transcription conventions and appraisal coding as above.]

While the projected speaker, ‘Jess’ girlfriend’, asserts her positive appreciation for sewing as a bond that is necessarily shared between women, these interactants interpret it as creating a tension and laugh it off in favour of the values they had previously shared in the discourse as Canadians (around ‘equality’ of the sexes). In her realization ‘of course’, Jess’ girlfriend presents the sewing value as universally shared and excludes Jess’ potential alternative viewpoint as ‘at odds with what is purportedly generally agreed upon or known’ (Martin and White, 2005, p. 124). This relegates sewing to being a woman’s duty, creating tension with the shared bond of ‘equality’. The humour is then furthered by T and CO who use the exclusive pronoun ‘they’ to both widen the network to include all women, and to exclude themselves as male in the duties of cleaning and cooking. The interactants show that they are negotiating social networks at the national level by the naming of ‘Thailand’ as the circumstance of location in which this coupling was presented by Jess’ girlfriend, and this seems to licence the female interactants’ laughter as they construe themselves as different from that network, instead aligning with the males in the conversation around ideals of equality. The tension is drawn out by the projected speaker’s naming of the female network in ‘I am a woman of course’, but this is laughed off as distinctly Thai and as culturally different from the female network as constructed in the Canadian culture. These interactants affiliate together on a cultural level by naming the national network (‘in Thailand’), setting up an opposition with their own implicit Canadian network, and laughing off the tension created by Jess’ girlfriend in her coupling around sewing as a bond of the female network. This is instead construed as something unshared by the females in the current conversation, and ungeneralized by the males as well.

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8.7 Conclusions The phases of convivial conversational humour that have been presented in this chapter exhibit the way that friends use humour to manage the tensions that occur in their ongoing negotiation of a communal, relational identity. In the dynamic unfolding of the text, interactants present values both explicitly and implicitly in order to laugh off the tensions created between them as bonds, which tie social persons together as members of communities. These bonds are realized in the linguistic text by couplings of attitude with ideational meaning, and are often highly implicit so that it is difficult to interpret why the interactants might find something funny in convivial conversational humour. However, it was demonstrated in this article that realizations of the involvement resource of naming (and the use of the exclusive pronoun ‘they’) serve as tools pointing towards the presentation of couplings in text, as they set up opposing perspectives of communities constructed by clusters of bonds. By naming the social networks under negotiation in their discourse, these interactants indicate the comparison of bonds between them and present a tension to be laughed off in humour. A focus on naming in convivial conversational humour also exposes the construction of higher level networks of ideological and cultural positioning by the interactants, as these are named alongside the negotiation of their lower level personal groupings. However, by bringing these positionings into the humorous text, participants make these intruding hierarchically based roles negotiable, rather than ‘slipping out of the non-hierarchic relations of the casual context and into the hierarchic patterns of formal, public contexts’ to construe power relations as proposed by Eggins and Slade (1997, p. 167). That is, these identities are always discursively available, and when taken up in convivial conversational humour, power relations can be laughed off rather than acted out as in more formal contexts. This type of humour then offers a space for momentary release from the tension created by these roles through laughter. This chapter has demonstrated that through a process of affiliation in convivial conversational humour, culture is variously negotiated in the conversational text. By applying an SFL perspective to the context of everyday conversation, this negotiation becomes clear and a model of communities through ‘bonds’ has been developed to account for it. Conversational participants present tensions to laugh off in order to align with their interlocutors and reinforce their common identities. Both local and global concerns are made relevant in discourse, and relations of solidarity are reinforced and shaped by what the interactants co-construe as ‘us’ and laugh off as the acceptable other. In interpreting why these participants may find their shared talk funny, it is useful to engage with the implicit meanings that inform us about the complexity of negotiation hidden beneath a surface of laughter. Naming is one resource for the interpretation of implicit attitude in couplings, and has presented an interesting area for research into how ideology in particular is made relevant, negotiable, and even laughable, in even the most common ‘casual’ conversation.


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Notes 1

2

3 4

5

6 7

These categories will necessarily affect the data, but the shorter range of variation arguably minimizes the effect of categories of age and education (see Hay, 1995, pp. 35–8 discussion of control of variables). That is, the system of appraisal that is situated in the stratum of discourse, above lexicogrammar and below the social context, in the SFL architecture of language (cf. Martin and White, 2005, pp. 9–12). See Martin and White (2005) for further description of these systems of Attitude. This is a view of affiliation from a systems perspective. Zhao and Knight (2009), however, present a complementary process perspective on affiliation. The system of ‘negotiation’ is introduced here in a technical sense as a discourse semantic system, but throughout this chapter when I refer to the negotiation of affiliation, it is meant in a non-technical sense. This is something to be expected due to its being part of a comedy skit. The utterance ‘Adriana’s all Catholic’ was not explicitly laughed off before but expressed with a contrastive sarcastic intonation (cf. Attardo et al., 2003), indicating humour.

References Allan, K. and Burridge, K. (2005). Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archakis, A. and Tsakona, V. (2005). ‘Analyzing conversational data in GTVH terms: a new approach to the issue of identity construction via humor’. Humor 18 (1), 41–68. Attardo, S. (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Attardo, S., Eisterhold, J., Hay, J., and Poggi, I. (2003). ‘Multimodal markers of irony and sarcasm’. Humor 16, 243–60. Boxer, D. and Cortés-Conde, F. (1997). ‘From bonding to biting: conversational joking and identity display’. Journal of Pragmatics 27, 275–94. Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research Critique. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Coates, J. (2007). ‘Talk in a play frame: more on laughter and intimacy’. Journal of Pragmatics 39, 29–49. Eggins, S. (1990). Keeping the conversation going: a systemic-functional analysis of conversational structure in sustained casual talk. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney. Eggins, S. and Slade, D. (1997). Analysing Casual Conversation. London: Cassell. Fairclough, N. (1989). Knowledge and Power. London: Longman. Fairclough, N. and Wodak, R. (1997). ‘Critical discourse analysis’, in T. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as Social Interaction. London: Sage, pp. 258–84. Glenn, P. (2003). Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). ‘Context of situation’, in M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan (eds), Language, Context and Text. Victoria: Deakin University Press, pp. 3–14.

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Hay, J. (1995). ‘Gender and humor: beyond a joke’. Unpublished MA thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, NZ. Hay, J. (2000). ‘Functions of humor in the conversations of men and women’. Journal of Pragmatics 32, 709–42. Hay, J. (2001). ‘The pragmatics of humor support’. Humor 14, 55–82. Holmes, J. and Marra, M. (2002). ‘Over the edge? Subversive humor between colleagues and friends’. Humor 15, 65–87. Housley, W. and Fitzgerald, R. (2002). ‘The reconsidered model of membership categorization analysis’. Qualitative Research 2 (1), 59–83. Knight, N. K. (2008). ‘“Still cool . . . and american too!”: an SFL analysis of deferred bonds in internet messaging humour’, in N. Norgaard (ed.), Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use. Odense: Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication, vol. 29, pp. 481–502. Knight, N. K. (2010). ‘Wrinkling complexity: concepts of identity and affiliation in humour’, in M. Bednarek and J. R. Martin (eds), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation. London: Continuum, pp. 35–58. Knight, N. K. (in progress). ‘Laughing our bonds off: Conversational humour in relation to Affiliation’. PhD thesis in progress, University of Sydney, Australia. Kotthoff, H. (1996). ‘Impoliteness and conversational joking: on relational politics’. Folia Linguistica 3–4, 299–325. Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Livia, A. and Hall, K. (1997). Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press. Martin, J. R. (2000a). ‘Beyond exchange: appraisal systems in English’, in S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 142–75. Martin, J. R. (2000b). ‘Factoring out exchange: types of structure’, in M. Coulthard, J. Cotterill and F. Rock (eds), Working with Dialogue. Tubingen: Niemeyer, pp. 19–40. Martin, J. R. (2008a). ‘Innocence: realization, instantiation and individuation in a Botswanan Town’, in A. Mahboob and N. K. Knight (eds), Questioning Linguistics. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 32–76. Martin, J. R. (2008b). ‘Tenderness: realization and instantiation in a botswanan town’, in N. Norgaard (ed.), Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use. Odense: Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication, vol. 29, pp. 31–62. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2007). Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause (2nd edn). London and New York: Continuum. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Norrick, N. (1994). ‘Involvement and joking in conversation’. Journal of Pragmatics 22, 409–30. Norrick, N. (1993). Conversational Joking: Humor in Everyday Talk. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Owren, M. J. (2007). Understanding Acoustics and Function in Spontaneous Human Laughter. Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Phonetics of Laughter, Saarbrucken, Germany, 4-5 August.


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Partington, A. (2006). The Linguistics of Laughter: A Corpus-Assisted Study of LaughterTalk. London and New York: Routledge. Priego-Valverde, B. (2003). L’humour dans la conversation familière: Description et analyse linguistiques. Paris: L’Harmattan. Sacks, H. (1992). In G. Jefferson (ed.), Lectures on Conversation, Vols. 1 and 2. Oxford: Blackwell. Schegloff, E. A. (2007). ‘A tutorial on membership categorization’. Journal of Pragmatics 39, 462–82. Stenglin, M. (2004). ‘Packaging curiosities: towards a grammar of three-dimensional space’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney. Tannen, D. (2005). Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk among Friends. New York: Oxford University Press. Tracy, K. (2002). Everyday Talk: Building and Reflecting Identities. New York: Guilford Press. White, P. R. R. (2001). ‘Attitude/Appreciation’. Manuscript (word processor version). www.grammatics.com/appraisal (accessed 9 October 2008). Zappavigna, M., Dwyer, P. and Martin, J. R. (2008). ‘Syndromes of meaning: exploring patterned coupling in a NSW youth justice conference’, in A. Mahboob and N. K. Knight (eds), Questioning Linguistics. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 164–85. Zhao, S. (2010). ‘Intersemiotic relations as logogenetic patterns: towards the restoration of the time dimension in hypertext description’, in M. Bednarek and J. R. Martin (eds), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation. London: Continuum, pp. 195–218. Zhao, S. and Knight, N. K. (2009). Coupling and genesis: what is the ‘process’ in affiliation? Paper presented at the SFL Seminar Series, 24 April, University of Sydney, Australia.

Chapter 9

Visualizing Appraisal Prosody Michele Zappavigna, Chris Cléirigh, Paul Dwyer and J. R. Martin1

9.1 Introduction: Appraisal Prosody Appraisal prosody refers to the patterning of evaluation in a text. Evaluative patterns are prosodic in the sense that they are not reducible to constituent parts but instead resonate across the text as it unfolds in time (Halliday, 1981; Martin and White, 2005). This means that their boundaries are fuzzy rather than distinct (Macken-Horarik, 2003a). Appraisal patterns construe meanings that are interpersonal, that is, they are about negotiating the nature of the relationship of interactants. Cléirigh (in preparation) suggests that interpersonal meaning is always on standby for performing this function: The interpersonal dynamics of the clause can then be understood as intruding on demand as an onrush, a surge, a billowing of the chemical ‘sea within’. Interpersonal potential is, in a sense, vigilant in the background, waiting for opportunities to burst out through the surface of form into the foreground of meaning-making. Along with the wave metaphor deployed above, metaphors that have been used to characterize interpersonal patterning include crescendo and diminuendo of a musical prosody (Martin and Rose, 2003), chord progressions (MackenHorarik, 2003b), movement of motifs (Halliday and Mattheissen, 2004), propagation (Lemke, 1998) and radiation (Hood, 2006). Appraisal prosody is both local and global in nature, being visible in a single clause and in extended portions of discourse. Poynton (1984) suggests two types of prosodic structure: diffuse and compact prosodies. For example, consider the following: Christ they bloody well beat the living daylights out of those LOUSY ROTTEN STINKING bastards! Poynton (1984, p. 23) argues that the items marked in italics above are part of a diffuse prosody of negative attitude, while the items in capitals are ‘a subset of

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this attitudinal lexis which seems more constituent-like insofar as it is localized’. Diffuse prosodies are involved in long-range text patterns. For example, MackenHorarik (2003, p. 307), in work very relevant to the prosodic structure explored in this chapter, has suggested the role of ‘opposing appraisal choices’ in creating contrasts in phases of narrative discourse. However, if we are to talk convincingly about long-range evaluative patterning then we face the problem that our evidence is somewhat intractable: the patterns we are interested in extend beyond a single page or screen, in essence they extend beyond what we can hold in consciousness in a given moment. Thus, when working with our Youth Justice Conference (YJC) data we found that we required visualization strategies to supplement the work of close discourse analysis. These visualizations were intended to make sense of the appraisal patterns annotated in the Affray YJC transcript following the system networks proposed by Martin and White (2005). In contrast to most descriptive statistics, this visualization technique preserves logogenesis, the sequencing of the text, while achieving a synoptic perspective on the prosodic structure. This chapter aims to explore the long-range appraisal prosody involved in the discourse of an Ethnic Liaison Officer (ELO) talking in a NSW YJC. We begin by introducing the context of situation (Halliday and Mattheissen, 2004), a conference convened to sentence a young person (YP) who has committed an affray. We explain the system of attitude2, a component of appraisal theory (Martin and White, 2005) that was used to annotate the transcribed video of the YJC. The ELO’s intervention in the stage of the conference where the YP is prompted to describe and evaluate his offending behaviour is the focus of the data analysis. While we begin by exploring the ELO’s verbiage, we also draw upon gestural and phonological evidence to support our claims about the prosodic structure of his evaluative language. The second part of the chapter explains a visualization strategy using Stacked Area Graphs to interpret the unfolding of this evaluative language. We conclude by making some preliminary suggestions about the role of the prosodic structure in an overall ‘pushpull’ affiliation strategy that is part of the integrative function of the ELO’s discourse.

9.2 NSW Youth Justice Conferencing We take as a case study of a prosody talk between an ELO and a YP in a NSW YJC convened to sentence the YP for an affray offence. YJCs are meetings held to sentence a YP who has been convicted of an offence as an alternative to attending the Children’s Court. They are typically held in a circle configuration (See Figure 9.1) in which participants are afforded the opportunity to talk about their experiences and feelings surrounding the offence. These participants may include the victim of the crime, support persons for both the victim and the YP, police officers such as Youth Liaison Officers and ELOs. For brevity the conference will be referred to as the Affray YJC.

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Figure 9.1 anonymity)


Seating configuration of the ‘Affray YJC’ (blurred to maintain

The texts in our dataset include both observed and video-recorded conferences. We thus adopt a multimodal text analysis strategy that considers both talk and gesture. In this chapter we focus on evaluative meaning in a single YJC, the Affray YJC, and use textual, phonological and gestural evidence to support our claims about the structure of the ELO’s appraisal prosody. The study is an example of ‘appliable linguistics’ concerned with understanding linguistic patterns in real-world contexts. The Affray YJC was one hour and a half in duration. The discourse was transcribed using Transcriber (Boudahmane, Manta, Antoine, Galliano and Barras, 2001) and annotated using ELAN (Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics, 2008). In undertaking our analysis of the video-recorded YJC we were particularly motivated by Bateman’s (2008) focus on finding ways to manage dynamic, ‘multichannel’ data so that our multimodal analysis would remain empirical: When we move to multimodal documents, we also need to be able to find concretely identifiable empirical evidence to motivate particular structures and interpretations rather than others. Only then do we have a foundation sufficiently firm for further theory building. (Bateman, 2008, p. 187) Thus, ELAN was chosen as an annotation tool as it allowed us to track multiple data series while concurrently tracking the time series of the video text. These data series took the form of different ‘annotation tiers’ (see for example the tier labelled ‘tone group’ near the bottom of Figure 9.2. Participants have been blurred for anonymity).


Figure 9.2 An example of tone group analysis performed in ELAN 153

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Figure 9.3 Configuration for recording a YJC

The Affray conference was video recorded and the researchers also sat in the conference circle as silent observers. To minimize the visual presence of recording equipment in the hope of reducing their impact upon conference participants, video-recordings were made using a camera mounted on a microphone stand recording to DVD. The cameras were positioned in the corners of the room to further reduce their visual presence (See Figure 9.3). The manual used in NSW as part of convenors’ training includes a scripted outline (Youth Justice Conferencing Directorate, 2005) detailing the structure of a typical conference. This notional script indicates that the convenor should invite the YP to ‘tell their story’. The YP, however, in the conferences that we have observed, will rarely produce a packaged recount of events. Both the details of the offence and related emotion talk are usually jointly constructed through prompting by the convenor. For this reason we refer to the story that the YP tells as a Commissioned recount. It typically occurs in the generic structure of the conference after the gathering and legal framing, and before the responses by third parties to the YP’s ‘story’ (For an account of the Commissioned recount stage see Martin, Zappavigna and Dwyer, this volume). The Commissioned recount tends to have the following structure: Orientation ^ Record of events ^ (Re-orientation) ^ (Extension) ^ Interpretation ^ Ramifications The talk by the ELO analysed in this chapter is part of the Interpretation phase of the Commissioned recount stage. We will refer to his contribution to the Interpretation stage informally as the ‘ELO’s intervention’.


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9.3 The System of Attitude Within appraisal theory (Martin and White, 2005) attitude is defined as ‘the region of meaning construing our attitudes to people and the way they behave – their character (how they measure up)’ (Martin and White, 2005, p. 52). System networks are used within SFL to model the semiotic choice involved in creating meanings of this kind. The ELO’s talk was annotated using the system network in Figure 9.4 (this network is abridged with the judgement system shown at a greater level of delicacy). Square brackets represent a choice between different options, while braces indicate choices that may be selected simultaneously. Diagonal arrows are used to show example realizations of each path in the network and were taken from the corpus of the ELO’s discourse. As this figure indicates, in addition to attitude there are two other semantic regions that may be occupied by evaluative language, engagement and graduation. The ELO’s use of the judgement system is of particular interest due to the claims that have been made in restorative justice that a conference should critique the YP’s behaviour rather than their identity in an effort to avoid labelling the YP as a deviant (Braithwaite, 1989). The ELO explicitly references this kind of objective: We’re not saying, ‘YP, you’re a this and you’re a that’. What we’re saying is your behaviour is getting you into trouble, man. You’re hurting your family, brother.

9.4 The ELO’s Intervention The ELO’s intervention in the Commissioned recount comes after the Convenor has attempted to elicit, extend and finally begin to jointly evaluate the YP’s recount of the events of the affray. In the Interpretation phase proceeding the intervention it appears that the Convenor has not been able to leverage shared networks of value that we see the ELO deploy in his wielding of the judgement system. Instead she relies on questions relating to emotions about family members in the hope of eliciting an evaluative response. The Convenor often packs her evaluation into questions for the YP to confirm (or deny), instead of statements (C = Convenor, YP = Young Person): C: But do you think it’s reasonable if you’re doing the wrong thing that she’s telling you off? YP: Yes. C: Why is that? YP: I’m in the wrong. She has the right to.

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Figure 9.4 Situating judgement within the appraisal system (based on Martin and White, 2005)


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C: YP: C: YP: C: YP: C: YP: C:

Because she is your . . .? My mum. Yep. And she got upset? Yes. Was she crying? I can’t remember. Screaming and yelling? I don’t know. What about the rest of your family? What did they think about it? What did your sister think? Your older sister? YP: She didn’t tell me what she thinks. I don’t knowC: Didn’t she? What about your uncle? YP: I haven’t spoken to him. Deciding that the proceeding phases have been ineffectual in deploying the appropriate ‘evaluative levers’, the ELO declares that he will deploy a different strategy: ELO: Listen, I want to take, with you permission, I wanna take a different angle. OK? Alright. Mate, what’s your mum wearing on her head? YP: Scarf. Here the ELO begins by invoking a bonding icon, or ‘bondicon’ (Stenglin, 2004) of the Islamic culture: the Hejab. This bondicon is infused with positive evaluation and representative of two important values in the culture: respect for Islam and respect for the mother. These values become to motifs to which the ELO returns repetitively in his intervention. After opening, somewhat dramatically, with this bondicon that distinguishes the ELO and the YP from the other conference participants, the ELO then begins what will be a sustained contrastive rhetoric by dividing the participants into members and non-members of the Islamic culture: ELO: Yeah. OK. What a- where is she now? In the presence of who? YP: Me. ELO: No, who’s sitting here? Who’s sitting here right now? Have a look across. YP: Men. ELO: Have a- m- have a look across what uniform are they wearing? YP: Police uniform. ELO: OK. Where are these guys from? They’re from a certain place. OK. What’s the perception going to be? YP: Think bad of me.


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The division made at the level of discourse semantics is also in the ELO’s gesture as he tilts his head towards the different participants in the circle. We now turn to exploring the prosodic structure of the kind of evaluative contrasts that commenced in this phase.

9.5 The Prosodic Structure of the ELO’s Intervention The evaluative language deployed by the ELO gives his discourse, from a layperson’s perspective, the feel of a ‘good cop – bad cop’ routine, while the Convenor sounds like a stern but caring mother. The ELO’s talk is constituted by a relatively high frequency of negative judgement. A sample of this appraisal is provided in concordance layout in Table 9.1. The judgement is usually about social sanction and the target of this evaluation is typically the YP’s behaviour. From a corpus-based perspective the discourse involves an overall ‘halo’ (Bednarek, 2006) of negative judgement (negative judgement underlined): You have no respect for your mum whatsoever, brother. You have no respect for what your mum’s got on her head. You have no respect for our community. You have no respect. You tell me, brother, how it’s a part of our culture or our religion or our tradition to do things like that. You tell me when. However if we re-factor in time, we see an oscillation of evaluation rather than a constant level of negative judgement. The ELO alternates between negatively judging YP’s behaviour and positively judging the cultural identity, of which the YP is an instance. So, considering invoked3 positive judgement, ‘our community’, ‘our culture’ and ‘our tradition’ are deployed as positive evaluated tokens of the Lebanese Islamic culture, in which the ELO locates himself (‘I’m Muslim background myself’). It is this community into which the ELO is calling the YP to integrate. Logogenetically, the patterning of judgement is typically construed as the following proposal (positive judgement marked in capitals; negative judgement underlined): Table 9.1 Examples of negative judgement in the Affray YJC Think your saying to me and everybody here we can You have You’ve gotten off on the

BAD DISRESPECT

of me. your mother.

NO RESPECT WRONG FOOT

for your mum whatsoever, brother. by pretty much abusing the rest of us here by being late


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It’s what you’re doing that’s no good. You’re probably a GOOD PERSON. What you’re doing is not good. You understand the difference? It is also construed as the following rhetorical questions: what you’re doing does that HELP OUR COMMUNITY at the moment or does it make our community look worse? This type of contrastive prosody is constituted by two evaluative prosodies of opposing polarity running in parallel: one positively evaluating tokens of the Islamic culture and the other negatively evaluating the YP’s behaviour. So in effect, what we see is a prosody of prosodies (for a related account of patterns of patterns see Lemke (1998)) (Figure 9.5). The ELO uses the contrast between these two evaluative prosodies for rhetorical impact. The effect is particularly visible when we consider both inscribed and invoked judgement, that is, evaluation that is explicitly encoded and evaluation that is implied (positive judgement marked in capitals; negative judgement underlined): Do you know how easy it is to break the law? It’s so easy. [clicks fingers] It’s so easy. [clicks fingers] It is so easy. Get in your car, do a u-turn on double yellow lines, you’re breaking the law. You TRY STAYING OUT OF TROUBLE. You find out HOW MUCH OF A MAN it takes, hey?, TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE. You tell me which one takes MORE OF A MAN to do. How does it take MORE OF A MAN to listen to your friends or TO SAY TO YOUR FRIENDS, ‘No, what you’re doing is wrong’. You tell me. In the above, there is contrastive play of negatively judged, unlawful conduct and positively judged ‘masculine’ behaviour (which is unpacked as ethical conduct).

Figure 9.5 Distribution of evaluation across the gesture space

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9.6 Gestural and Phonological Evidence The ELO’s paralanguage accords with the kind of contrastive prosodic structure explained in the previous section. Both his gestures and phonological patterns emphasize the rhetoric of opposites. For example, the ELO tends to divide his gesture space into halves, with gestures relating to negative judgement on his right, and positive judgement on his left (the following screen captures are cropped and blurred for anonymity). The gestures of ‘left-good’ are made towards the YP, and the ‘right-bad’ align away from the YP. The ELO is associating the YP with good, so valuing him as a person; he is also urging him to put aside the bad, and rendering those behaviours as spatially distinct from the YP as a person. The to-and-froing seems to have a pedagogic function, contrastively evaluating types of behaviour. The evaluative meanings being contrasted correspond with tonic prominence, making them the informational focus; for example, consider the ELO’s refocusing of the target of evaluation away from the YP’s identity to the YP’s behaviour. The excerpt is annotated using Halliday’s (1970) notation scheme, where each foot begins with the beat, either salient syllable or silent beat and / = foot boundary, // = tone group boundary: // 1 Not be/cause of / you as a / person // 1 be/cause of / something you’re / doing that’s not / right. // 13 We’re / not / targetting you / personally / brother. // 1 It’s / what you’re / doing that’s no / good. // 1 You’re / probably a / good / person. // 1 What you’re / doing is not / good. // The instances of tone 1 in this excerpt are tone 1+ (wide drop in pitch on the tonic) which, according to Davies (1992), typically has a contrastive textual function. The ELO’s talk has a ‘pulsed’ character involving a fairly low number of syllables per foot, generally between one and three. He tends to stress words which in other contexts might remain unstressed. The feet have fewer than usual syllables. This means that more words than usual are salient as the ELO attempts to emphasize the importance of the contrasts that he is making. For example, the following tone group analysis shows the rhythm of the ELO’s discourse as he critiques the YP’s behaviour. In this analysis the beat falls on the next syllable to the right of the single slash. // You have / no re/spect for your / mum / whatso/ever / brother. // You have / no re/spect for / what your / mum’s got on her / head. // You have / no re/spect for our com/munity. // You have / no re/spect. // You / tell / me / brother // when was it / part of /our / culture or // our re/ligion or // our tra/dition to // do / things / like / that. // You / tell me / when. // You / show me / where in the ko/ran it / says we can / do things / like / that. // You / show me / where. // Tell me / where. // Does it? //


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9.7 Using Visualization to Understand the Global Patterning of Prosodies When dealing with extended texts or with corpora linguists face the problem of making their analysis tractable so that they can view long-range prosodic patterns in order to comment about their structure. Visual aids for appreciating such patterning need to provide to features: an ability to track the unfolding of the text as a time series and the capacity to represent multiple annotation series. This is because the linguist is interested in how patterns unfold logogenetically and how multiple features work together to make meaning. A potential source of assistance is the field of Text Visualization, an area related to Information Visualization and Scientific Visualization that attempts to leverage the characteristics of human visual perception to present data in ways that make salient particular kinds of information or patterns. A metaphor used within Text Visualization for representing time series data is the ‘stream’. This metaphor has been applied in visualization methods such as ThemeRiver and StreamGraph (Havre et al., 2002; Byron, 2008; Byron and Wattenberg, 2008; Clark, 2008). The StreamGraph and ThemeRiver systems have been used for representing the unfolding of sets of lexical features that can be automatically extracted from large corpora using natural language processing techniques. For example, ThemeRiver has been used to visualize lexis in Associated Press news wires with some prominent features in the context marked above the graph (Figure 9.6). Stacked Area Graphs, a primitive of the StreamGraph technique, is a technique more appliable to small datasets such as a transcribed text of a YJC.

Figure 9.6 Themeriver visualization of Associated Press news wire stories (Havre et al., 2002, p. 12)

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This is because it is more amenable to working with smaller, annotated corpora where we are interested in discourse semantic features that cannot, as yet, be identified automatically in a text by a machine and must be hand-annotated. Stacked Area Graphs are a form of area graph, a graphing technique where the space between the data curve and the horizontal axis is shaded (See Figure 9.7). The vertical axis represents the frequency of the feature and the horizontal axis the time series. The shaded region represents the number of instances within a time period. While an area graph usually shows a single data series, Stacked Area Graphs represent multiple data series by stacking one on top of the other (See Figure 9.8). The height of the curve at a given point represents the total frequency of all features at that point and thus each data series should be read as starting at zero rather than as their accumulative height. This makes the graphing technique most useful to a linguist interested in the general trend of a data series, or in other words, the qualitative ebb and flow of the annotated appraisal over the time series. It is also a useful technique for appreciating the relationships between the data series as they unfold by the overall impression of the relative amount of colour. The ordering principle applied to the horizontal axis will depend on the kind of data series that are going to be represented in the graph. In the case of video data we may use the time series in the video encoding to represent temporal sequencing. In other cases it may be more appropriate to use ‘text time’.

Figure 9.7 An example of a simple area graph

Figure 9.8 A simple example of a stacked area graph


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Figure 9.9 Positive and negative judgement (invoked and inscribed) in the ELO’s intervention stage

For example, if we are interested in showing the unfolding of negotiation in a text, we may use exchanges as the unit along the x-axis, with the y-axis showing the frequency of particular exchange types. Figure 9.9 is a stacked area graph showing the unfolding of judgement in the ELO’s intervention. Negative judgement is shown on the lower data series in black and positive judgement on the upper series in grey. The graph depicts only ELO–YP talk and the blank areas in the graph (e.g. 0:04:00–0:05:30) are phases in the text when these participants were not talking, typically because another participant such as the Convenor or Arresting Officer was speaking. The ELO’s intervention begins with an accumulation of negative judgement (Figure 9.9, 0:00:00–0:01:50) such as the following: You wanta be tough. [inaudible] You’re not. Number one. Number two, man. When I see someone of my own background bringing their mum in wearing a Hejab, OK, honestly man inside I feel sick. You understand? After this initial burst of negative judgement, the patterning in Figure 9.9 shows a ‘to-and-fro’ structure, with negative judgement generally being followed by positive judgement, shown in the graph as grey and black regions co-occurring. This provides us with a synoptic perspective on the following kind of structure (invoked negative judgement underlined; invoked positive judgement in capitals): Mate, if you – if there’s a fire do you walk straight into it or do you WALK AROUND IT? However the opposite configuration was also possible: . . . what it sounds like is if you get a job, you’ll be out of trouble but if you DON’T GET A JOB, you’ll GET INTO TROUBLE.


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The stacked area graph provides us with a view of the evaluative tendencies of the ELO without losing information about how the appraisal unfolds in terms of its sequencing.

9.8 Conclusion: Appraisal Prosody and Affiliation The patterning of evaluative language in a text construes ‘the kind of community that is being set up around shared values’ (Martin and Rose, 2003, p. 54). The final section of this chapter takes up Martin and White (2005) and Knight’s (2008) ideas about the role of evaluative language in affiliation to make some preliminary assertions about the integrative function of the ELO’s talk. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to deal thoroughly with different theories of affiliation, we wish to briefly comment on the relationship of the back-and-forth movement in the evaluative language to the ELO’s attempts to create solidarity with the YP. The appraisal prosody that we have identified appears to be involved in the broader contrastive rhetoric employed by the ELO. The instances where negatively and positively evaluated behaviours are set in opposition to one another seem to have a pedagogic function, laying out the values that the YP should hold as part of the Lebanese Islamic community. For example, this community is contrasted with the YP’s mates network: ELO: Where’s your mates now? YP: They’re at home ELO: At home. Why aren’t they with you, supporting you, brother? Knight (2008) has suggested that couplings of ideational and evaluative meanings are involved in the process of affiliation. The following is a coupling of the YP’s behaviour, which has previously been elaborated as breaking the law and disrespecting his mother, with negative judgement (Figure 9.10): The accumulation of coupling such as ‘respect + mother’, ‘respect + Hejab’, ‘respect + community’ has an instructional function. The ELO is attempting to make transparent the evaluative bonds (Knight, 2008) that the YP should hold if he is to be part of the local Lebanese Islamic community. The alternation

Figure 9.10

An example of coupling


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between presenting appropriate and inappropriate bonds is part of the rhetoric aimed at integrating the YP into this community. In tandem with this alternating is a to-and-fro in involvement, that is, in the negotiation of power and solidarity. The ELO employs vocatives of solidarity of three main kinds: generation (I’m thirty six, man. I’ve never been spoken to once by the coppers), ethnicity (‫( ﺍﻩﻝﻙ ﺓﻕﻁﻥﻡﻝﺍ‬Kelaha almnteaha bet’heen um), brother [You are insulting all the area, brother]) and gender4 (Mate, ya- your mate didn’t have to go down there did he?). ‘Mate’ generally occurred at the beginning of the clause as a Tone 3 (low rising) (Halliday, 1970) functioning as a warning. ‘Brother’ often occurred as a Tone 13 (fall + low rise) functioning as a call to pay attention: Mate (Tone 3), what’s your mum wearing on her head? You tell me brother (Tone 13) when was it part of our culture or our religion or our tradition to do things like that. The overall effect of this kind of patterning seems a kind of push–pull affiliation where the ELO aligns himself with the YP while concurrently using the reduction in interpersonal distance as an opportunity to judge the YP’s behaviour. It is in this sense that the vocatives act as levers to open up the discourse and let the evaluative prosody in. In this chapter we have reported on an appraisal prosody that was concurrent with contrastive gestures, phonological contrast and with a rhetoric of oppositions. We have used multimodal evidence and visualization of extended text patterns to make these claims about a prevalent back-and-forth structuring visible across strata. The ELO’s discourse is an example of persuasive language wielded for the common good. His attempt to integrate the YP into the local community is an effort at civic rehabilitation and restorative justice.

Notes 1

2

3

4

We wish to acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council in funding this research project. Technical terms relating to appraisal are presented in small caps to distinguish them from common terms. Following Martin and Rose (2003), we make a distinction between inscribed appraisal that is explicitly construed, such as ‘bad person’, and invoked appraisal which is indirectly construed such as ‘didn’t get a job’. Mate, however, is becoming more frequently used by female speakers of Australian English.

References Bateman, J. (2008). Multimodality and Genre: A Foundation for the Systematic Analysis of Multimodal Documents. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Bednarek, M. (2006). Evaluation in Media Discourse. London: Continuum. Boudahmane, K., Manta, M., Antoine, F., Galliano, S. and Barras, C. (2001). Transcriber version 1.5.1. Retrieved 5 November 2008, from http://trans. sourceforge.net. Braithwaite, J. (1989). Crime, Shame and Reintegration. Cambridge and Sydney: Cambridge University Press. Byron, L. (2008). Last.FM listening history – What have I been listening to? Retrieved 31 July 2008, from Lee Byron : http://www.leebyron.com/what/lastfm/. Byron, L., and Wattenberg, M. (2008). Stacked graphs – Geometry & aesthetics. Retrieved 8 July 2008, from Lee Byron: http://www.leebyron.com/else/streamgraph/. Clark, J. (2008). ‘Twitter topic stream’. Retrieved 31 July 2008, from Neoformix: Discovering and illustrating patterns in data: http://www.neoformix.com/2008/ TwitterTopicStream.html. Cléirigh, C. (in preparation). The life of meaning. Davies, M. (1992). ‘Prosodic cohesion in a systemic perspective’, in P. Tench (ed.), Studies in Systemic Phonology. London: Pinter, pp. 221–6. Halliday, M. A. K. (1970). A Course in Spoken English: Intonation. London: Oxford University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1981). ‘Text semantics and clause grammar: some patterns of realization’, in J. Copeland, and P. W. Davis (eds), The Seventh LACUS Forum. Columbia: Hornbeam Press, pp. 31–59. Halliday, M. A. K. and Mattheissen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edn). London: Arnold. Havre, S., Hetzler, E., Whitney, P. and Nowell, L. (2002). ‘ThemeRiver: Visualizing thematic changes in large document collections’. IEEE Transactions on Visualisation and Computer Graphics 8 (1), 9–20. Hood, S. (2006). ‘The persuasive power of prosodies: radiating values in academic writing’. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5, 37–49. Knight, N. K. (2008). ‘“Still cool . . . and american too!”: An SFL analysis of deferred bonds in internet messaging humour’, in N. Norgaard (ed.) Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use. Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication, vol.29, pp. 481–502. Lemke, J. (1998). ‘Resources for attitudinal meaning: Evaluative orientations in text semantics’. Functions of Language 5 (1), 33–56. Macken-Horarik, M. (2003a). ‘APPRAISAL and the special instructiveness of narrative’, Text 23 (2), 285–312. Macken-Horarik, M. (2003b). ‘Envoi: intractable issues in appraisal analysis’, Text 22 (2), 313–19. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2003). Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause. London and New York: Continuum. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics (2008). ELAN Version 3.6.0. http://www. lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan. Poynton, K. (1984). ‘Names as vocatives: forms and functions’. Nottingham Linguistics Circular 13 (Special Issue on Systemic Linguistics) (1), 1–34.


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Stenglin, M. (2004). ‘Packaging curiosities: towards a grammar of three-dimensional space’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney. Youth Justice Conferencing Directorate. (2005). ‘Conference convenor training package’. Unpublished materials distributed at workshops for new convenors conducted by staff from the NSW Department of Juvenile Justice. NSW.

Chapter 10

Evaluative Stance in Humanities: Expectations and Performances Erika Matruglio

10.1 Introduction This chapter reports on research into literacy in the senior secondary school which aims to explore the nature of the literacy requirements for success in the final years of schooling in New South Wales, Australia. In so doing, it also explores how an ‘Appliable Linguistics’ can contribute to the understanding of disciplinary difference as reflected in end of school examinations in this context and points towards future directions in applying linguistics to the study of school discourse.

10.1.1 Rationale and background The nature of literacy teaching and its place in schools continues to be a source of contention and debate in both academic and public spheres with periodic arguments about falling literacy standards and debates about appropriate approaches to literacy development (Green et al., 1997). There are also questions about whose responsibility it should be to address literacy needs of students, especially in the secondary school context. If literacy development in this context is to be the responsibility of the subject teacher, as advocated in the literacy across the curriculum movement (Cumming and Wyatt-Smith, 2001), then there is an urgent need for further research into the language demands of different subjects at different levels in the curriculum. To date, some very significant contributions towards this end include studies in the language of history (Coffin, 1996), English (Rothery, 1994b), science (Veel, 1993), the creative arts (Rothery, 1994a), maths (Veel, 1999) and geography (Humphrey, 1996). In many cases these contributions have resulted from strong collaborations between Systemic Functional Linguists and teachers. While supporting greater understanding of the language of schooling, they have also functioned to continue to build Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Theory, for example

Evaluative Stance in Humanities

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in the areas of genre and appraisal theory (Christie, 1986; Martin, 1986). To date, however, much of this work has been carried out in the primary or junior secondary sectors or in the tertiary context. Less work has been targeted specifically in the senior secondary school context (Cambourne, 2001; Joy Cumming and Claire Wyatt-Smith, 2001) although a recent study by Christie and Derewianka (2008) does make some reference to literacy across the curriculum in the senior years. There remains, therefore, a significant unresolved area around literacy in the senior secondary context which merits investigation. Arising from my work as a literacy educator in a senior high school, I began to find it increasingly important to investigate literacy in the context of the final two years of schooling, especially considering the high-stakes nature of the final Higher School Certificate (HSC) examinations in NSW, which serve as a gatekeeper for students’ entry into the tertiary sector. In their final year of secondary schooling students across the whole range of senior subjects have different literacy development needs than junior students, as they are learning more complex written genres and are learning to incorporate and evaluate multiple voices and opinions within their written texts. Furthermore, anecdotal accounts from teachers in the humanities in particular seemed to indicate that the way students were required to write their ‘essays’ and the language they were expected to use differed substantially across humanities subjects. It would therefore benefit both students and teachers to understand more clearly how students are expected to write if they are to succeed in their final examinations.

10.1.2 Literature review One important issue that emerges in the literature in relation to literacy in schooling concerns the question of how writing is modelled, taught and used in the classroom. Research into student writing conducted by Eggins, Martin and Wignell in Sydney in 1986 (Wignell, 1987) found that although writing was used to assess students’ knowledge in their school subjects, students rarely engaged in writing in the classroom. Instead, class time consisted mainly of oral interaction and extended pieces of writing were produced almost exclusively for assessment purposes. Furthermore, the language and structural features of the writing tasks themselves were often not explicitly explained to students when they were given their tasks. Student writing in the classroom, if it occurred, was mainly limited to short answers to comprehension-type questions or to copying notes from the textbook with longer, sustained pieces of writing relegated to homework or examination-style purposes (Wignell, 1987). These findings were mirrored in Applebee’s national study of writing in the secondary school in the United States (1984). He found that only 3 per cent of students’ school time (including homework) was spent on writing texts of paragraph length or longer, and when students were asked to write at length the writing ‘served merely as a vehicle to test knowledge of specific content’

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(Applebee, 1984, p. 2). This is reflected in his analysis of textbooks from across the curriculum which shows that roughly 90 per cent of the tasks in textbooks assumed the audience to be the ‘teacher as examiner’ (Applebee, 1984). It seems, therefore, that students’ writing is valued only as an assessment tool insofar as it provides an opportunity to communicate ‘subject knowledge’ and that the form of the writing is unimportant as very little time is dedicated to teaching students how to write. Although these studies are now over 20 years old, there does not seem to be an overall change in the treatment of writing within schools. This is hard to determine definitively, as there have not been any more recent studies comparable to Applebee’s (Hillocks, 2008). Hillocks (2008) comments briefly on his own 2002 study into the impacts of state writing tests on the teaching of writing in the United States, however his study did not include teachers across disciplines, but only teachers of English, who could be expected to focus more on teaching writing than teachers of other subjects. With reference to this study, Hillocks concludes that there is an underlying similarity in the way writing is taught during the two periods. In both periods, teachers and curriculum makers assume that the knowledge necessary for effective writing is general knowledge of a few principles that are applicable to all or most writing: knowing the form that the piece of writing is to take; brainstorming for ideas before writing; knowing that effective writing requires more than one draft, and so forth. (Hillocks, 2008, p. 316) Anecdotal evidence and personal experience of teaching in a senior high school would also support this conclusion, as the curriculum is so crowded that many teachers struggle to ‘get through the content’ to prepare their students for the final end of school examinations and do not feel they have time for the teaching of literacy, which is often perceived as the domain of the English subject teacher (or the English as a Second Language (ESL) specialist). In addition to the problems of very little class time being devoted to teaching writing, and the use of writing almost exclusively as a tool for assessing the learning of ‘content’, feedback on students writing also does not appear to give students much help with regards to improving their writing. When students do receive feedback on their writing, teacher comments are mostly limited to comments on the accuracy or adequacy of the content of the writing (Langer, 1984) and when teacher comments do refer to form it is mostly at sentence or word level without any explanation for how to make the writing more appropriate (Marshall, 1984). The notion of appropriateness is in itself difficult, as the syllabus documents for the subjects included in this study make several references to the use of appropriate language, but fail to indicate what ‘appropriate’ is in the context of each particular subject (Matruglio, 2007). While syllabus outcomes requiring students to ‘communicate a knowledge and understanding of


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historical features and issues, using appropriate and well-structured oral and written forms’ (NSW Board of Studies, 2004b, p. 11) seem to acknowledge some form of link between disciplinary learning and the literacy skills necessary to display it, they do little to elucidate this link for the students or the teachers. Thus, many of the subject-specific requirements for student writing in different subjects still remain part of the ‘hidden curriculum’ (Christie, 1985) in schools. Such issues have prompted a strong assertion from researchers in educational linguistics that the teaching of language and the teaching of content cannot be separated (Columbi and Schleppegrell, 2002; Gee, 2002; Kress, 2001; Merino and Hammond, 2002). Further, there is an ever-increasing agreement that this language teaching must be explicit if students are to achieve the types of ‘advanced literacy’ that is demanded in secondary and post-secondary schooling today (Columbi and Schleppegrell, 2002; Scarcella, 2002). Kress states that literacy ‘is not one thing evenly spread across curriculum areas. It varies with the kinds of disciplinary practices and forms of knowledge that are at issue in a school subject’ (Kress, 2001, p. 22). Another significant issue impacting on the teaching of literacy in schooling concerns the relationship between popular or common-sense knowledge and erudite knowledge. According to Muller (2000) this distinction between ordinary and formal knowledge is the basis of modern schooling. The growth of capitalism and the split between mental and manual activity has led to the commodification and professionalization of knowledge, which in turn has led to knowledge specialization, removing knowledge further and further from everyday meanings and resulting in discourses which are elaborated and highly technical and which exclude those who have not yet learnt them (Muller, 2000). It could be argued that schooling is the beginning of the process of initiation into these specialized groupings, and that through their study of various school subjects students begin to be apprenticed into the different ways that these subjects relate to and discuss knowledge. Students need to be aware that each school subject represents a different perspective on knowledge and that these differences have become codified to such an extent that they affect the way one reads and writes during the study of such subjects. Without such ‘insider’ awareness, students will struggle to write in a way that is deemed ‘acceptable’ and may transfer ways of writing which are highly valued in one subject to another where they are not as highly valued. To enable teachers to adequately guide and support students towards success, there is a crucial need for greater explicitness in descriptions of what sort of knowledge is valued in different subjects and the ways in which such knowledge is expected to be expressed. Students need to understand what ‘appropriate’ means in the context of each of their subjects, and whether this notion varies substantially from subject to subject if they are going to succeed in their HSC and progress to further study at the tertiary level. Here too, we need to consider not just what knowledge is to be represented and how but also what kind of interpersonal stance is considered ‘appropriate’

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towards that knowledge. In her work on student written responses to narratives in the School Certificate examination (at the end of year 10), Macken-Horarik (2003) found that students who achieved A-range responses were able to identify, understand and discuss both implicit and explicit evaluation in the narrative texts. As students progress towards year 12 it would be increasingly expected that such resources would be used by students in their own writing, especially in the context of expository essays; whereas Schleppegrell (2004, p. 102) argues, its effective use ‘indicates that the writer is interpreting and arguing for a position’. Recent studies of school genres (Christie and Derewianka, 2008; Martin and Rose, 2008) have illustrated some of the differences in the literacy demands of school subjects and this study aims to further contribute to the understanding of school genres by asking how the literacy demands of subjects vary at the level of discourse semantics. Previous studies (Matruglio, 2007; 2004) found that syllabus requirements to ‘analyse’, ‘evaluate’, ‘synthesise information from a range of sources’ and ‘assess the significance’ (NSW Board of Studies, 2004a) of ideas, theories or events require sophisticated control of resources for managing interpersonal stance and that the dual requirements of constructing an ‘objective text’ which also evaluates different sources in terms of reliability and accuracy can be problematic for senior-school students, as can be the requirement to construct an argument integrating multiple viewpoints negotiating the same knowledge space. This study aims to investigate how attitudes are expressed in high-stakes examination writing across four humanities subjects in the final year of secondary schooling and to see whether different subjects have different ‘appraisal profiles’ in an attempt to make the evaluative work that students need to do for each subject more explicit. As Elkins (2001, p. 145) suggests, ‘[o]ne cannot help but be impressed (and worried) by the differences in reading and writing across post-compulsory subjects. It must be difficult for students to adapt to the different roles for literacy in different classes.’ It is this requirement of students to navigate and master differential literacy practices across subjects that constitutes the major motivation for the study reported here.

10.2 Methodology The data for the study include the syllabus documents for the subjects Modern History (hereafter MH), Ancient History (AH), Society and Culture (SAC) and Community and Family Studies (CAFS) as well as student texts produced under examination conditions for the Trial Higher School Certificate Examination in each of the four subjects. Although four successful and two to three less successful texts have been collected for each subject, I will focus here on the analysis of just one text in each subject, which has been graded by the subject


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teacher in each case and is considered to be a highly successful text by the teacher/examiner. The syllabus documents for each subject were first read to identify specific reference to language and to ascertain whether a particular orientation to interpersonal language was salient in any part of the syllabus. The syllabus rationales, a section of the syllabus which occurs close to the beginning of the syllabus documents and which argues for the relevance and importance of each subject, were then analysed using appraisal theory in order to determine which interpersonal meanings were prominent in what is essentially each subject’s introduction to its syllabus. Student texts were then analysed using appraisal theory to investigate whether the patterns in the use of interpersonal resources in the syllabus documents were reflected in the student texts. This study takes as its theoretical basis a social orientation to language and literacy pedagogy, beginning from an SFL definition of language as a ‘social semiotic’. The appraisal system within SFL focuses on the expression of interpersonal meaning and offers a theoretically sound way to explore the expression of evaluation in a text at the level of discourse semantics. In particular I have used the sub-systems of Attitude and Graduation in my analysis of both syllabus documents and student texts to explore expectations for encoding writer values and stance. A brief explanation of the categories within the systems of Attitude and Graduation follows. Examples provided below are taken from the student texts unless otherwise noted.

10.2.1 Appraisal The Appraisal system (Martin and White, 2005) is the system within SFL used to express feelings, attitudes and judgements about people or things (Attitude), to grade the intensity of these evaluations (Graduation) and to indicate the source of these evaluations (Engagement). Attitude can be either expressed as emotion, referred to as Affect: CAFS 1: Parents in early stages can feel isolated from everyone as they aren’t able to get out of the house as they are looking after the baby – feel sad, depressed, lonely or as an evaluation about human behaviour, referred to as Judgement: SAC 1: They regard all Aborigines as alcoholic and not trustworthy tenants to have in a house. or as an evaluation of things, referred to as Appreciation: AH 1: the last large & beautiful pyramid is that of Pepi II.

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The system of Graduation may then be used to grade these feelings, either by amount or intensity (Martin and White, 2005) referred to as Force: AH 2: The lack of discriminating evidence has led to various interpretations, many scholars suggesting that a build-up of events led to the once mighty and centralized government’s collapse or by strengthening or blurring the boundaries between categories, referred to as Focus: MH 1: However, many non-governmental responses contributed to the collapse or at least the modification of Apartheid in some ways.

10.3 Analysis The discussion below begins with an examination of the syllabus documents to investigate the kinds of interpersonal meanings privileged in the syllabus of each subject. These results are then compared to an analysis of a highly rated student text in each subject to determine similarities and differences in the pattern of interpersonal meanings between subjects and between student text and syllabus documents.

10.3.1 Syllabus documents An initial examination of the syllabus documents for MH, AH, SAC and CAFS showed that syllabus documents oriented more strongly to one of the three metafunctions of language at different stages. The key competencies section of the syllabuses seemed to focus on the textual metafunction of language, that is the organization and structure of language, reflected in key competencies such as ‘collecting, analysing and organising information’ (NSW Board of Studies, 2004a, p. 13, emphasis mine). The syllabus outcomes seemed to focus on both the textual and the ideational (that is the subject content) functions of language, reflected in outcomes such as ‘communicate a knowledge and understanding of historical features and issues, using appropriate and well-structured oral and written forms’ (NSW Board of Studies, 2004b, p. 11). A reflection of the interpersonal metafunction of language, however, seemed to be woven more implicitly through the syllabus documents as a whole with terms such as debate, justify, evaluate and critically analyse being commonly used in the syllabuses and with the word appropriate cropping up repeatedly in phrases such as ‘. . . using appropriate written, oral and graphic forms’ (NSW Board of Studies, 1999, p. 13). Furthermore, outcome H3.3 from both the Modern and Ancient History Syllabuses, requires students to be able to ‘analyse and evaluate sources


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for their usefulness and reliability’ (NSW Board of Studies, 2004a, p. 11; 2004b). This outcome requires students to comment on the reliability of certain historians’ work and thus explicitly judge these historians while simultaneously maintaining an academic or ‘objective’ voice in their writing style. Another interpersonal element intrinsic to the above syllabus documents is apparent in outcome H3.4 in both Modern and Ancient History requiring students to ‘explain and evaluate differing perspectives and interpretations of the past’ (NSW Board of Studies, 2004a; 2004b, p. 11). This outcome reveals the important part that negotiating multiple viewpoints has in the history syllabuses. Students are called upon not only to integrate multiple voices into their texts, but also to evaluate these differing voices and come to conclusions about them. A partial Appraisal analysis using the systems of Attitude and Graduation was then carried out on the syllabus rationales of the four subjects in order to determine how each individual subject presents itself and makes its claims about its own relevance. As the rationale section argues for the importance and relevance of the subject and the benefit that studying it will have for the student, it would be expected that the values expressed there would be the same values to be learnt by the students. Analysis of the syllabus rationales can thus provide an insight into what values students need to reflect in their own writing and what would be deemed ‘appropriate’ writing by an HSC marker. The results are presented in Table 10.1. The analysis revealed that all four subjects appeared to have similar patterns of Attitude and Graduation with Attitude split evenly between Judgement and Appreciation and graded exclusively through the use of Force, with two notable exceptions. The first of these exceptions is the use of resources of Affect in the CAFS syllabus. While the amount of Affect is small, the result is still significant as it is the only example of Affect in any of the syllabus documents. The second exception is that the SAC syllabus rationale contains significantly more resources of Judgement than any other rationale.

10.3.2 Student texts The same analysis was then carried out on one student text in each of the four subjects included in the study. As indicated above, these texts were all produced Table 10.1 Comparison of Appraisal between syllabus rationales CAFS

SAC

MH

AH

Affect Judgement Appreciation

2 51 47

0 67 33

0 50 50

0 49 51

Force Focus

100 0

100 0

100 0

100 0


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under examination conditions for the Trial Higher School Certificate and were marked and rated by the teachers as highly successful texts. These texts were first analysed to discover the patterns of Attitude and Graduation irrespective of whether these were inscribed or invoked, in order to determine whether the student texts corresponded with the distribution of interpersonal meanings expressed in the syllabus rationale documents. A second analysis was then carried out to investigate how much of the Attitude was explicitly stated and whether this varied between subjects. The question of variation between types of attitude and the impact of possible variations on the ‘formality’, ‘objectivity’ or ‘appropriateness’ of the writing was also of interest.

10.3.2.1 Overview of attitude and GRADUATION When looking at the expression of Attitude and Graduation as a whole, distinct differences began to emerge between the four subjects. One of the most striking findings was the large amount of Affect found in the CAFS text, which accounted for 40 per cent of the total Attitude in the text. As mentioned above, CAFS was the only subject rationale containing any Affect at all, and of the students’ texts, CAFS contained the most Affect by quite a large margin. The SAC student text also mirrored the use of Attitude found in the syllabus rationale as 72 per cent of the Attitude in the text was Judgement. However, there were also significant differences between the student texts and the syllabus rationales as is evident from the figures in Table 10.2. In the syllabus rationales, there was almost even distribution of Attitude between Judgement and Appreciation in all of the subjects except for SAC, however this is not the case in the student texts. In the MH text, the majority of the Attitude was Judgement, and in AH there is more Appreciation than Judgement or Affect. These findings mirror earlier findings from analysis of values statements in MH and AH syllabus documents, pointing towards an apparent focus on capacity and knowledge building for students in the AH syllabus and a focus on ethics building in the MH syllabus (Matruglio, 2007). Another difference between the student texts and the syllabus documents is the use of resources of Focus in the student texts, most notably in MH. For example: Table 10.2 Comparison of attitude and graduation in student texts: percentages CAFS

SAC

MH

AH

Affect Judgement Appreciation

40 51 9

2 72 26

6 71 23

11 39 50

Force Focus

95 5

97 3

69 31

85 15


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MH 2: The campaign to Free Mandela, started by the British World Campaign in 1978, effectively became an international solidarity movement against Apartheid. So while it may be argued that . . . It appears from this increased use of Focus, which is mostly used in the student text to blur boundaries rather than strengthen them, that MH is less categorical than the other subjects.

10.3.2.2 Inscribed ATTITUDE In order to determine how overt the evaluation in the student texts was, the Attitude in the texts was then coded according to whether it was explicitly stated or inscribed, or whether the Attitude was implied, or invoked. Of particular interest was whether some subjects had greater amounts of inscribed Attitude than others, as this could suggest that overtly evaluative language is more acceptable in some subjects than others. For reasons of comparison between subjects, inscribed Attitude is presented in Table 10.3 as a percentage of the total words for each particular text. As can be seen from Table 10.3, the differences in the amount of inscribed Attitude in the four subjects are small. There does not seem to be a significant difference between the two histories, however there is a fair difference between the amount of inscribed Attitude in Modern History (3.5 per cent) compared to SAC (5.1 per cent) and CAFS (5.9 per cent). In addition to the percentage of the texts devoted to explicit Attitude, the percentage of the total Attitude which was inscribed was calculated. These results are shown in the fourth column in Table 10.4.

Table 10.3 Inscribed Attitude in student texts as percentage of whole text Subject

Inscribed Attitude as percentage of total words

Modern History Ancient History Society and Culture Community and Family Studies

3.5 4 5.1 5.9

Table 10.4 Inscribed Attitude in student texts Subject

Inscribed Attitude as Total Attitude as Percentage of Attitude percentage of total words percentage of total words inscribed

MH AH SAC CAFS

3.5 4 5.1 5.9

8.25 9 10.66 9.8

42 44 48 60


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These figures reveal a significant difference between the amount of the Attitude that is inscribed in MH, AH, SAC, and CAFS. Almost 60 per cent of the Attitude contained in the CAFS text is explicitly stated, while only 42–44 per centof the Attitude is inscribed in the history texts and a slightly larger amount (48 per cent) is inscribed in SAC. When considered in conjunction with the types of attitude most commonly expressed in these texts, CAFS stands out even more strongly from the other subjects as a subject in which more congruent and ‘common-sense’ evaluative language is acceptable. This is exemplified by the text below, which contains a large amount of inscribed Affect. CAFS 2: Gay + Lesbian couples with children can cause uncertainty in the child and they may resent their ‘parents’ or ‘carers’ as they are not like everyone else – cause tension within family can prevent them from wanting to enter into social situations as feel embarrassed or scared of being teased – negative impact on social wellbeing as well as emotional.

10.3.2.3 The interplay between inscribed and invoked ATTITUDE It was also important to ascertain whether different types of Attitude were more likely to be inscribed than others and whether this varied significantly between subjects, as this would give further indications to the type of evaluation deemed acceptable in each of the four subjects. There is less at stake when appreciating things than there is when judging people’s behaviour, and academic texts therefore tend to invoke Judgement more often than inscribing it. High levels of Affect such as those found in the CAFS text are even rarer in academic texts in most disciplines, and a congruent or inscribed realization of this Affect would therefore be highly significant. Tables 10.5–10.7 show the number of instances where resources of Attitude were used in the texts, and these figures enable an investigation of how much Affect, Judgement and Appreciation is either inscribed or invoked in the case of each subject. Table 10.5 shows the total instances of Attitude in the student texts, Table 10.6 shows instances of inscribed Attitude only and Table 10.7 shows the instances of invoked Attitude in student texts.

Table 10.5 Total Attitude (inscribed and invoked) in student texts Subject

Affect

Judgement

Appreciation

MH AH SAC CAFS

5 9 3 35

64 31 76 46

21 40 28 8


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A number of interesting points emerge from these data. The first is that when Appreciation occurs in a text, it is more likely than other categories of Attitude to be inscribed. Out of the 21 instances of Appreciation in MH for example, 17 of these were inscribed, with only 4 instances of invoked Appreciation, and in SAC a similar pattern holds with 22 inscriptions out of the 28 instances of Appreciation. In opposition to this, Judgement in a text is more likely to be invoked. In fact, 62 per cent of the Judgement is invoked in SAC (47 instances out of a total of 76), 67 per cent is invoked in MH (43 instances out of a total of 64) and 74 per cent in AH (23 instances out of a total of 31). Another interesting point is that much of the Affect in CAFS is actually inscribed, with only about 17 per cent (6 instances out of a total of 35) of the Affect being invoked. These differences further accentuate the differences between CAFS and the other three subjects, with CAFS relying on much more explicit expression of Attitude than any of the other subjects. In order to be able to obtain a clearer picture of what was happening across the different subjects, the results were also calculated as percentage figures of both total Attitude and inscribed Attitude only. The figures in Tables 10.8– 10.9 below show the distribution of the Attitude in the text according to the categories of Affect, Judgement and Appreciation. Table 10.6 Number of instances of inscribed Attitude in student texts Subject

Affect

Judgement

Appreciation

MH AH SAC CAFS

0 2 0 29

21 8 29 21

17 25 22 4

Table 10.7 Number of instances of invoked Attitude in student texts Subject

Affect

Judgement

Appreciation

MH AH SAC CAFS

5 7 3 6

43 23 47 25

4 15 6 4

Table 10.8 Percentages of inscribed Attitude in student texts Subject

Affect

Judgement

Appreciation

MH AH SAC CAFS

0 6 0 54

55 23 57 39

45 71 43 7


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Table 10.9 Percentages of total Attitude in student texts Subject

Affect

Judgement

Appreciation

MH AH SAC CAFS

6 11 2 40

71 39 72 52

23 50 26 9

Both the MH and the SAC texts are relatively balanced in their use of explicit resources of Attitude, with approximately half of the inscribed Attitude expressing Appreciation and half expressing Judgement, while the AH text contains more evaluative language explicitly indicating Appreciation (Table 10.8). Table 10.9, however, shows what percentages of the total Attitude (inscribed and invoked) in each text is expressed as Affect, Judgement or Appreciation, and this makes it clear that the patterns in the distribution of Attitude vary significantly when invoked Attitude is considered together with the inscribed Attitude. The most common type of Attitude expressed in MH, SAC and CAFS then becomes Judgement, and the tendency of AH to orient strongly towards Appreciation is moderated somewhat. Significantly, most of the invoked Attitude is afforded (Martin and White, 2005) and therefore arises out of the particular orientation of the subjects themselves. The following examples of invoked Judgement from MH demonstrate this: MH 3: As early as the 1950s , the domestic resistance movement had highlighted the Apartheid regime in SA . . . MH 4: . . . resulted in another 86 deaths by police shooting . . . MH 5: The International Defence and Aid Fund helped to fund lawyers for the ANC and tried to counter the propaganda coming out of SA. MH 6: The international response also reached businesses, with the Sullivan Principles, a set of equal opportunity/right codes for Blacks in SA workplaces ... MH 7: Ultimately, the fact that de Klerk did not use the military power that Botha used to suppress Apartheid . . . and from Society and Culture: SAC 2: Australia likes to think of itself as an egalitarian [inscribed] society . . . SAC 3: In a society riddled with social class and prejudice [inscribed] . . .


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SAC 4: After the Europeans arrived in Australia, they took their land, and introduced alcohol. SAC 5: The majority of Aborigines are in semi-skilled and unskilled labour which is quite insufficient when they have a family to support. These instances from the student texts give some insight into what the appropriate language and concepts (NSW Board of Studies, 2004b, p. 11) for each subject may be. Both these subjects are focused around concepts such as Apartheid, prejudice and propaganda that are still charged with evaluative meaning in middle-class white Australian society and so are not completely technicalized as subject-specific lexis. The texts naturalize a reading position that is highly critical of such policies and ways of thinking and therefore indicate that the values considered important in each subject are those in opposition to such policies. While SAC and MH appear to be oriented more towards the expression of values and judgements about the behaviour of society and individuals, AH is more concerned with Appreciation of artefacts, written evidence and historical empires. For example: AH 3: The lack of discriminating evidence has led to various interpretations, many scholars suggesting that a build-up of events led to the once mighty and centralized government’s collapse. The interplay of inscribed and invoked Attitude also works differently with AH. Whereas in both SAC and MH it is the invoked attitude which orients the text more strongly towards one particular category of Attitude (in their case, Judgement), in the AH text, it is the inscriptions which orient the text strongly in one particular direction. Table 10.8 shows that 71 per cent of the inscribed Attitude for AH is Appreciation, however, when looking at the total Attitude (Table 10.9), only 50 per cent is Appreciation. While Appreciation is still the most frequently used type of Attitude, the invoked Attitude in AH serves to create more of a balance in the overall type of Attitude expressed, whereas in MH and SAC the invoked Attitude serves to orient the text more strongly towards one particular type of Attitude. To summarize the above findings, CAFS seems to operate completely differently from the other subjects. CAFS shows the most consistent distributions of Attitude across the categories when looking at inscribed Attitude only and inscribed and invoked Attitude together. While the other subjects use affordances to give them their particular ‘flavour’, in CAFS it is more a case of ‘what you see is what you get’. CAFS not only contains much more Affect than any of the other subjects, but 83 per cent of this Affect is inscribed. When considering inscriptions only, CAFS is oriented towards Affect, with 54 per cent of the inscribed Attitude in the text expressing Affect, however when considering both inscribed and invoked Attitude, the text is more oriented towards

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Judgement, with 52 per cent of the total Affect expressing Judgement and 40 per cent expressing Affect. Despite these slight changes in orientation, the distribution of Affect across the three categories varies much less sharply in CAFS than in the other texts. Furthermore, the CAFS text contains hardly any Appreciation at all, which is also a significant difference from the other texts.

10.4 Conclusion Once the expectations and orientations of different subjects are made clear, teachers and students can work more effectively towards developing ‘appropriate’ literacy for each subject. Although these results are preliminary, arising from the analysis of only one highly rated text in each subject, interesting differences between the subjects of MH, AH, SAC and CAFS are beginning to emerge. Although an Appraisal analysis of the syllabus rationale section did not seem to indicate differences between the subjects, the analysis of student texts has resulted in the emergence of different ‘appraisal profiles’ for the four subjects included in this study with each displaying a distinctive pattern of Attitude and Graduation usage. While MH and SAC are alike in their orientation towards the use of resources of Judgement, MH makes greater use of Focus to grade these resources. On the other hand, AH appears to be oriented towards Appreciation, while CAFS has almost equal amounts of Affect and Judgement and is much more explicit in its expression of Attitude than the other subjects. CAFS therefore appears to be more grounded in the ‘everyday’ and ‘commonsense’, a conclusion which would be echoed by many teachers of other humanities subjects in schools, who often view CAFS as a ‘soft option’ and as ‘less academic’ or ‘less rigorous’ than other humanities subjects. As this research is ongoing, it is hoped that analysis of more student texts in each subject will strengthen these results. It is, however, beginning to become clear that there are significant differences in the way that students of these subjects construct stance through their uses of interpersonal language resources. Making these differences explicit should help elucidate what ‘appropriate and well-structured oral and written forms’ (NSW Board of Studies, 2004b, p. 11) may be for these subjects.

References Applebee, A. N. (1984). Contexts for Learning to Write: Studies of Secondary School Instruction. Norwood: Ablex. Cambourne, B. (2001). ‘Literacy and learning in senior schooling: the legal studies classroom as an instructive case’, in J. Cumming and C. Wyatt-Smith (eds), Literacy and the Curriculum: Success in Senior Secondary Schooling. Melbourne: ACER, pp. 72–83.


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Christie, F. (1985). ‘Language and schooling’, in S. Tchudi (ed.), Language, Schooling, and Society. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook, pp. 21–40. Christie, F. (1986). ‘Writing in the infants grades’, in J. R. Martin and C. Painter (eds), Writing to Mean: Teaching Genres across the Curriculum. Sydney: ALAA, pp. 118–35. Christie, F. and Derewianka, B. (2008). School Discourse: Learning to Write across the Years of Schooling. London and New York: Continuum. Coffin, C. (1996). Exploring Literacy in School History (Write it Right Resources for Literacy and Learning). Sydney: Metropolitan East Disadvantaged Schools Program. Columbi, M. C. and Schleppegrell, M. (2002). ‘Theory and practice in the development of advanced literacy’, in M. Schleppegrell and M. C. Columbi (eds), Developing Advanced Literacy in First and Second Languages: Meaning with Power. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 1–19. Cumming, J. and Wyatt-Smith, C. (2001). Literacy and the Curriculum: Success in Senior Secondary Schooling. Camberwell, Victoria: ACER Press. Cumming, J. and Wyatt-Smith, C. (2001). ‘A multi-theoretical and multi-disciplinary approach to literacy education and curriculum research’, in J. Cumming and C. Wyatt-Smith (eds), Literacy and the Curriculum: Success in Senior Secondary Schooling. Melbourne: ACER, pp. 2–10. Elkins, J. (2001). ‘Some comments on what is read and written’, in J. Cumming and C. Wyatt-Smith (eds), Literacy and the Curriculum: Success in Senior Secondary Schooling. Melbourne: ACER, pp. 132–45. Gee, J. P. (2002). ‘Literacies, identities and discourses’, in M. Schleppegrell and M. C. Columbi (eds), Developing Advanced Literacy in First and Second Languages: Meaning with Power. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 159–75. Green, B., Hodgens, J. and Luke, A. (1997). ‘Debating literacy in Australia: History lessons and popular f(r) ictions. – Responses to claims that literacy standards are falling are provided through an examination of Australia’s sociocultural history’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 20 (1), 6–24. Hillocks, G. (2008). ‘Writing in secondary schools’, in C. Bazerman (ed.), Handbook of Research on Writing. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 311–30. Humphrey, S. (1996). Exploring Literacy in School Geography. Sydney: Metropolitan East DSP. Kress, G. (2001). ‘“You’ve just got to learn how to see”: Curriculum subjects, young people and schooled engagement with the world’, in J. Cumming and C. Wyatt-Smith (eds), Literacy and the Curriculum: Success in Senior Secondary Schooling. Melbourne: ACER, pp. 21–31. Langer, J. A. (1984). ‘Where problems start: the effects of available information on responses to school writing tasks’, in A. N. Applebee (ed.), Contexts for Learning to Write: Studies of Secondary School Instruction. Norwood: Ablex, pp. 135–48. Macken-Horarik, M. (2003). ‘Appraisal and the special instructiveness of narrative.’ Text, 23 (2), 285–312. Marshall, J. D. (1984). ‘Schooling and the composing process’, in A. N. Applebee (ed.), Contexts for Learning to Write: Studies of Secondary School Instruction. Norwood: Ablex, pp. 103–19. Martin, J. R. (1986). ‘Intervening in the process of writing development’, in J. R. Martin and C. Painter (eds), Writing to Mean: Teaching Genres across the Curriculum. Sydney: ALAA, pp. 11–43.

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Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2008). Genre Relations: Mapping Culture. London: Equinox. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Matruglio, E. (2007). ‘Values and attitudes in ancient and modern history’. Paper presented at the Australian Functional Linguistics Congress, Wollongong, NSW. Matruglio, E. (2004). ‘Genre and literacy development in senior ancient history’. Unpublished Research Project Report for MA in Applied Linguistics, University of Technology, Sydney. Merino, B. J., and Hammond, L. (2002). ‘Writing to learn: science in the upperelementary bilingual classroom’, in M. Schleppegrell and M. C. Columbi (eds), Developing Advanced Literacy in First and Second Languages: Meaning with Power. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 227–43. Muller, J. (2000). Reclaiming Knowledge: Social Theory, Curriculum and Education Policy. London: Routledge Falmer. NSW Board of Studies (1999). Society and Culture Stage 6 Syllabus. NSW Board of Studies. (2004a). Ancient History Stage 6 Syllabus. NSW Board of Studies. (2004b). Modern History Stage 6 Syllabus. Rothery, J. (1994a). Exploring Literacy in School Creative Arts. Sydney: Metropolitan East DSP. Rothery, J. (1994b). Exploring Literacy in School English. Sydney: Metropolitan East DSP. Scarcella, R. (2002). ‘Some key factors affecting english learners’ development of advanced literacy’, in M. Schleppegrell and M.C. Columbi (eds), Developing Advanced Literacy in First and Second Languages: Meaning with Power. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 209–26. Schleppegrell, M. J. (2004). The Language of Schooling : A Functional Linguistics Perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Veel, R. (1993). ‘Exploring literacy in school science’. Unpublished Research Report. Metropolitan East DSP. Veel, R. (1999). ‘Language, knowledge and authority in school mathematics’, in F. Christie (ed.), Pedagogy and the Shaping of Consiousness: Linguistic and Social Processes. London: Cassell, pp. 185–216. Wignell, P. (1987). ‘In your own words’, in S. Eggins, J. R. Martin and P. Wignell (eds) Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 5. Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney.

Chapter 11

The 3×3: Setting Up a Linguistic Toolkit for Teaching Academic Writing1 Sally Humphrey, J. R. Martin, Shooshi Dreyfus and Ahmar Mahboob

11.1 Introduction Over the past 20 years, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), especially its genre theory, has informed the development of an influential suite of literacy pedagogies within and beyond Australia. In higher education, linguists and educators have drawn on these perspectives to scaffold students’ academic reading (Rose, 2005); to describe the verbal and visual demands of a range of disciplines (Chen and Foley, 2004; Hood, 2006; 2008; Jones, 2007; Lee, 2009; Ravelli, 2004; Wignell, 2007); and to support students in gaining control of the genres valued in these disciplines (Bonanno and Jones, 2007; Ellis, 2004; Coffin and Hewings, 2004; Mahboob, Dreyfus, Humphrey and Martin, this volume; Taylor and Drury, 2007; Woodward-Kron, 2005). The development of SFL-informed academic literacy pedagogies is hardly surprising, given the extended coverage of SFL systems and the long history of this ‘appliable’ linguistics in successfully addressing tasks and problems related to literacy learning and teaching (Halliday and Hasan, 2006; Halliday, 2007). One consequence of the expanding applications of SFL across disciplines within the tertiary sector is richer descriptions of text/context relationships and a growing reservoir of resources available to teachers and students for learning to control the genres and registers of the academic domain. In addition to ongoing research describing the genres of specific tertiary discipline areas, educational linguists have given a great deal of attention in recent years to describing linguistic realizations of the complex status relationships between students and markers (e.g. Lee, 2009), the relatively implicit persuasiveness of academic texts (Coffin and Hewings, 2004; Hood, 2006; 2008) and the increasingly multimodal nature of texts used for building knowledge (Jones, 2007; Stenglin and Iedema, 2001). However, while the expanded semiotic toolbox made available to educators from this research has enabled valued textual practices in the academic domain to be made far more explicit and accessible to students, there is a need to consider the implications of these elaborations

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in training the growing numbers of teachers needed in academic literacy programmes. Increasingly, SFL specialists are working collaboratively with subject teachers and literacy tutors who, while expert users of academic language themselves, have not had specialist training in SFL and have not developed a metalanguage for making understandings explicit to students. For those working in defined disciplines, an effective knowledge base can be relatively quickly built by identifying the genres which students most urgently need to access learning and produce texts in their particular courses. Collaborative projects undertaken by the Learning Centre and the Biological Sciences department at the University of Sydney (e.g. Taylor and Drury, 2007), for example, have built a repertoire of linguistic resources for teachers and students through modelling the stages of genres such as laboratory reports and focusing on linguistic features which realize meanings in each stage. However, while genre has proved to be a very effective starting point for building knowledge of language in contexts where communicative goals are shared, it is not always a viable ‘way in’ to apprenticing English as a second language (ESL) teachers and academic literacy advisors who are working with students across a number of discipline areas. This is because the range of genres used across disciplines makes it difficult to develop a deep knowledge of how choices from linguistic systems at each level or stratum and from each metafunction realize meaning within each genre. As a number of educational linguists working in school-based literacy contexts have found (e.g. Polias and Dare, 2006; Derewianka, 2001), without such knowledge, a focus on genre can be limited to superficial understandings of the global organization of particular text types. In this chapter we propose a framework for apprenticing literacy tutors that begins with the more generalized concept of academic domain (MackenHorarik, 1996; Humphrey, in press) to characterize the clusterings of social purposes, social activities, social relationships and semiotic functions privileged in tertiary learning. Such a perspective allows for the contribution of meanings from each of SFL’s metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal and textual) to be adequately accounted for while also encouraging the tutors’ gaze on text to encompass multiple strata and ranks. Significantly, the framework allows for a principled selection of resources from the elaborate SFL systems which can be immediately used by teachers in building shared understandings of academic literacy practices. It is hoped that this framework can also be used to inform the development of genre-specific frameworks for analysing, modelling and assessing texts in particular disciplines.

11.2 The 3×3 Framework The 3×3 is a framework for describing key linguistic resources needed to construct texts across academic disciplines. The instrument was initially developed

The 3×3: Setting Up a Linguistic Toolkit

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in response to the needs of literacy tutors in the SLATE literacy project (see Mahboob, Dreyfus, Humphrey and Martin, this volume) to engage analytically with students’ draft texts and to make explicit the expectations of academic writing across a range of undergraduate courses at City University Hong Kong. These tutors, though skilled in producing and recognizing valued academic language, had varying levels of expertise in diagnosing language use from a functional perspective and in providing support to students in developing control of the genres and registers relevant to their disciplines. The 3×3 discussed here (see Figure 11.1) was thus devised as a principled overview of resources identified by educational linguists within SFL in their analysis of academic writing. The framework is called 3×3 because it forms a 9 square matrix from intersecting features of language from each of the three metafunctions of language (ideational, interpersonal and textual) and features from three strata of language (social activity, discourse semantics and grammar & expression2). As is shown in Figure 11.1, the matrix can also be understood in terms of rank, that is, a kind of constituency hierarchy moving from the level of whole text, to its phases (e.g. paragraphs) and on to clauses and smaller units of grammar.

11.3 Theoretical Underpinnings of the 3×3 Three important perspectives on language use underpin the 3×3 framework. These are: that language resources can be characterized according to the type of learning privileged in particular sites or domains of people’s lives; that meanings of texts are realized through resources at different levels or strata of language and that any stretch of language functions simultaneously to enact relationships, represent experience and organize text (interpersonal, ideational and textual meanings respectively). Each of these perspectives will be further explicated below.

11.3.1 Domains of literacy and learning: genres and registers The semiotic space of learning domain was developed initially by MackenHorarik (1996) to articulate ‘the nature of commonalities’ shared by all ‘secondary school subjects’ (p. 235), and the relationship of literacy and learning at school to other ‘places’ or sites of learning. The model of domains underpinning the 3×3 draws on this theoretical work to explore literacy practices within and beyond formal educational contexts (e.g. Humphrey, in press). It proposes four loosely bounded domains of learning within the wider culture, each of which privileges its own set of genres and registers. These domains and their communicative purposes are outlined in Figure 11.2. The academic domain, the site of formal education at the primary, secondary and particularly tertiary level, is characterized across disciplines by language

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Figure 11.1 The 3×3: a framework for describing linguistic resources of student writing in the academic domain


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generalized

Figure 11.2 Four domains of learning (adapted from Macken-Horarik, 1996)

which is increasingly technical and grammatically metaphorical and which reconfigures (i.e. generalizes and systematizes) everyday experience (Halliday, 1991, pp. 22–3). Importantly, roles in the academic domain are traditionally hierarchical, with teachers as socially distant experts, instructing and assessing students, who are expected to construct themselves in objective terms (MackenHorarik, 1996, p. 238). Genres which are privileged in the academic domain are those which are written (in either electronic or print form) and which allow students to both access and demonstrate their learning of the reconfigured experience of particular disciplines. Persuasive genres which demonstrate a critical orientation to learning, such as analytical exposition, discussion and challenge are privileged in part because the evidence included in these genres displays knowledge built from authoritative sources. The focus on displays of learning distinguishes persuasive genres in the academic domain from those produced in the civic domain (e.g. hortatory exposition) which are more directly oriented towards producing social change (Humphrey, in press). For students moving into the academic domain, it is particularly important to extend their repertoire of language resources beyond those needed in the everyday, ‘here and now of you and me’, domain (Macken-Horarik, 1996, p. 247). While recognizing fuzzy boundaries between domains, as well as variations in register across disciplines, the 3×3 focuses on linguistic resources which

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have been identified as privileged across tertiary disciplines (e.g. Bonanno and Jones, 2007; Hood, 2008). Where required, more specialized 3×3 matrices can be developed, to focus on particular disciplines or sub-disciplines, including those parts of disciplines which are recontextualized in technical or civic domains.

11.3.2 Realization of meanings at different strata As is evident from the horizontal axis in Figure 11.1, language resources included in the 3×3 framework are represented in terms of three levels or strata. Sydney school models of stratification (e.g. Martin and Rose, 2007), which are widely used in educational contexts, include three levels of language which are particularly relevant for higher education (i.e. social activity, discourse and lexicogrammar). Stratification can be conceptualized in terms of the way we focus on text. Beginning with a global perspective, social activity refers to the context in which texts are produced (i.e. the manifestation of cultural purposes as staged goaloriented genres and the manifestation of the particular situation as register – field, tenor and mode). Subject lecturers often assess student texts at the level of social activity, with global comments concerning how well the text relates to the task or question set (e.g. ‘your essay is not critical enough’; ‘you haven’t answered the question’, ‘you need a conclusion’). Students and lecturers without a shared understanding of how language works to make these global meanings may be frustrated by the abstract nature of comments at this level. At the level of discourse semantics, the descriptors included in the 3×3 describe resources which students need to control in order to fulfil their lecturers’ expectations of genre and register. Linguistic patterns at the discourse semantic level are typically those which construe meaning within temporal or rhetorical sequences called phases and can be loosely mapped onto structures such as paragraphs. Lexicogrammatical resources include functional and structural elements within clauses and those which link clauses within sentences. While mapping strata onto constituent parts such as clauses and phases suggests a relationship of composition between levels (i.e. whole texts made up of parts of text3), it is the relationship of realization which is most pertinent to the development of academic discourse. This relationship is one where choices in staging whole texts to achieve their social goals are realized or ‘brought to light’ through choices at discourse semantic level, which are further realized through lexicogrammatical resources.

11.3.3 A metafunctional perspective The third fundamental understanding about language informing the 3×3 framework is a metafunctional or trinocular perspective (Halliday and Matthiessen,


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2004), represented in Figure 11.1 by the vertical dimension of the matrix. A metafunctional perspective recognizes that any stretch of language functions simultaneously to make three meanings: ideational, interpersonal and textual. Ideational meanings are expressed by clusterings of resources which represent experience and connect events; these meanings realize the dimension of register called field. Interpersonal meanings negotiate relationships and attitudes, realizing the register variable of tenor. And textual meanings weave ideational and interpersonal meanings into a coherent whole – thus realizing mode. A metafunctional perspective can also be used to explain the different ways that language is structured at different strata (Martin, 2000). Ideational meanings at the level of genre are organized as bounded parts or stages. Interpersonal meanings, however, are structured as prosodies, which map across and typically accumulate meaning across parts of the text. Textual meanings are organized periodically as waves of Theme and New. An understanding of these structures is important for recognizing the full role of what are often referred to as introductory, body and conclusion stages in essay writing. A metafunctional perspective encourages discipline teachers to expand their concept of meaning in texts beyond the ‘content’ or ‘field knowledge’ which is typically seen as their domain. It also encourages literacy teachers to more fully account for the contribution of field and tenor relationships in unfolding text and to track the development of resources as students expand their repertoire of genres. Something that is often underestimated by both discipline and literacy teachers is the important contribution of interpersonal meanings to texts across disciplines. While resources for negotiating the objective and impersonal relationships between expert teacher/markers and apprentice students have often been limited to word- and clause-level realizations such as declarative mood structures and an absence of emotional words and personal pronouns, emerging descriptions of systems at the level of genre and discourse semantics have allowed for meanings which have ‘such enormous power to shape style’ (Bakhtin, 1935/1981, p. 279) to be made far more explicit. At the level of social activity, recognition of the power of interpersonal meanings has enabled distinctions of genres according to whether they function as macro-proposals (e.g. requesting or commanding) or macro-propositions (giving information) (Martin, 1992). For example, in the academic domain, persuasive genres functioning interpersonally as macro-propositions (i.e. persuading somebody that a position is valid) are privileged over those which function as macro-proposals (i.e. persuading somebody to take action). At the level of discourse semantics, descriptions of interactional and evaluative systems allow teachers to make explicit resources for negotiating unequal relationships such as those between expert teacher/marker and apprentice student and for evaluating field knowledge and research activity in ways appropriate to the discipline. Such resources enable students to negotiate the tension between demonstrating their mastery of knowledge to experts and developing a critical stance to that knowledge, and enable teachers to track the emergence of that critical stance.

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An understanding of academic discourse that includes metafunctionally oriented descriptors at all strata is vital for teachers of literacy. The understandings provided in the 3×3 framework represent a reservoir or bank of resources from which resources can be selected and combined according to the demands of particular discipline tasks. From this reservoir, selections need to be made according to the demands of particular discipline tasks and students can be supported to build an individual repertoire of resources according to their learning pathway. It is here that the concept of genre, as an organizer of meanings becomes essential for analysing texts and making their meanings explicit. In the next section we will demonstrate how the descriptors included in the 3×3 can be used to analyse the resources which combine to form one genre, a biology report summary. While space prevents each descriptor to be fully explicated here, the theoretical principles underpinning the framework will be demonstrated by tracing a pathway of realization through strata from the perspective of each metafunction (i.e. along the horizontal axis of the 3×3 matrix). Teachers within the SLATE project are encouraged to begin with a ‘top–down’ approach to the analysis of student texts because problems addressed at higher strata may obviate the need to address lower level problems. However, a gaze which takes into account all meanings at each stratum is also useful in some contexts (i.e. working down the vertical axis of the 3×3 matrix).

11.4 Resources of the 3×3 The text used to illustrate the trinocular and tri-stratal perspective of the 3×3 is typical of final drafts awarded an Excellent grade in a 1st-year biology summary writing assignment at City University Hong Kong (see Mahboob, Dreyfus, Humphrey and Martin, this volume). The biology summary shares with the source text (a published scientific report) the social purpose of describing features of scientific phenomena and can thus be classified as a descriptive report (Veel, 1997). However, the shift towards recontextualizing and evaluating knowledge through summarizing brings the text into relationship with the agnate genre of review, which is oriented towards interpretation. As is typical in such texts, ideational and textual meanings are foregrounded at each stratum; however, as will be illustrated below, interpersonal meanings are also vital in allowing students to shift towards producing multi-voiced or heteroglossic texts such as essays and literature reviews (Hood, 2008, p. 1). The annotated text below includes both labelled stages and the more delicate phases, which group the sequences of meanings within the central stage. The key topics and subtopics within each phase are bolded and topic sentences (Hyper-themes) are underlined.


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Text 11.1 Report summary from Biology Overview

Description ‘habitat diversity’ ‘deep sea habitats’

‘shallow water habitats’

‘Host diversity’

The habitat and host diversities of symbionts in marine animals The article, Symbiotic diversity in marine animals: the art of harnessing chemosynthesis, by Dubilier, Bergin and Lott (2008), describes the findings of recent research into diverse chemosynthetic habitats and hosts in marine environments. Habitats of chemosynthetic symbioses in marine animals can be classified into deep sea and shallow water locations. In deep seas, chemosynthetic primary production dominates the biomass at vents and cold seeps. Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are the most productive habitat. Both vents and seeps have high concentrations of sulphide and oxygen. Deep-sea vent and seeps are also dependent of photosynthesis because animals in chemosynthetic habitats need oxygen to survive. Autotrophic communities have been found to dominate at deep-sea sites but heterotrophic communities dominate in shallow waters. In shallow waters, chemosynthetic symbioses occur only occasionally in hydrothermal vents, cold seeps and whale and sunken wood falls, as phototrophy supplies enough energy for animal communities. Some shallow-water sediments are rich in sulphide concentration while some are extremely low. In terms of host diversity, the number of chemosynthetic host species identified is increasing with the help of colonization experiments. Epibionts, endobionts and siboglinid worms are examples of morphological diversity. They attach in extracellular or intracellular ways to animals and the attached location is always consistent. Siboglinid worms are in the trophosome and whale-bones. The size and the origin of the trophosomal tissue might differ between tube worm groups. Vent tube worms and bivalves in behavioural and physiological strategies obtain reductants and oxidants by different methods. Vent tube worms obtain sulphide and oxygen by gill-like branchial plumes, anterior end, posterior end, extended roots and bridge between the upper oxidized and lower reduced sediment layers.

11.4.1 Ideational meanings Ideational meanings valued in the academic domain are construed at the level of context through genres which are staged to build specialized field knowledge relevant to discipline goals. A pathway of realization of ideational meanings through the strata of Text 11.1 is shown in Figure 11.3. From the perspective of genre, Text 11.1 realizes the social purpose of classifying and describing in its entity-focused Description stage. Significantly, however, the recontextualized nature of the summary text is made explicit with an introductory Overview stage. In terms of register, the specialized field of Text 11.1 is realized at the level of whole text through discipline-specific, uncommonsense topics and subtopics (e.g. symbionts, hosts and habitats).

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generalized

-

Figure 11.3 Pathway of realization of ideational meanings in Text 11.1

Figure 11.4 Classifying taxonomy within phase of Text 11.1

At the level of discourse semantics, the specialized field knowledge of Text 11.1 is built up through strings of elements across two phases within the Description stage which ensure that the text stays ‘on topic’. In the ‘habitat diversity’ phase, for example, ‘habitat’ is classified according to ‘types’ and these types are further broken into sub-types as shown in Figure 11.4. A large number of resources are implicated in realizing the classifying function and the technical field at the level of grammar and expression. Of particular importance are Classifier^Thing relationships in expanded noun groups. In these examples from Text 11.1, the head noun (Thing) is in bold and Classifiers are underlined. 1. deep-sea hydrothermal vents 2. chemosynthetic host species As illustrated in these examples, nouns refer to classes of things in scientific reports such as Text 11.1, allowing for the development of the extended taxonomies described above (Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999, p. 615). At the word level, this is achieved through plural forms of nouns without articles in Thing position, and singular forms of nouns as Classifier. Further classification of features according to habitat is achieved through circumstances of location in space in this report. The use of discipline-specific, formal vocabulary ensures that the delicate classifications construed in academic discourse are not confused and


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also contributes to building high-status tenor relationships as discussed in the following section.

11.4.2 Interpersonal meanings Control of interpersonal resources is essential for convincing the expert reader that the information selected from the source document is valid and significant. Tenor relationships in the academic domain are often marked by absence of interpersonal resources, such as personal pronouns; however, the 3×3 allows for more delicate descriptions of the complex of resources which interact prosodically across stages of the text and help to give a subjective slant to otherwise objective meanings (Hood, 2006, p. 40). A pathway of realization of interpersonal meanings through the strata of Text 11.1 is shown in Figure 11.5. Taking an interpersonal perspective on genre (Martin, 1992; Iedema, 2004), Text 11.1 convinces the reader through its construal as a macro-proposition, giving rather than requesting or demanding information. This genre choice and the focus on generalized classes of phenomena also help to construe an authoritative, objective and impersonal tenor relationship. At the discourse semantic level, authority is realized in the Description stage through single voiced or monoglossic statements which assume that the information is not contested (Martin and White, 2005, p. 100). The accumulation of data, including lists of examples also contributes to the objectivity and authority of the text. Significantly, however, in citing the original source document in the Overview stage, the student writer has shifted overall responsibility for the validity of the information to acknowledged experts in the field. By establishing this authority at the beginning of the text (in a higher level Theme – see below), a prosody is established which spreads the authority across both stages of the text. The ability to create such prosodies and to control the voices of external sources not only adds authority but also lays a foundation for an evaluative stance to be developed. At the level of grammar, both the monoglossic and attributed statements are realized through indicative mood choices of Subject ^ Finite (Subject verb

-

Figure 11.5 Pathway of realization of interpersonal meanings in Text 11.1

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agreement in traditional parlance; e.g. Siboglinid worms are . . .) which agree in number. Control of agreement, like control of discipline-specific referencing conventions, spelling and punctuation, also contributes to the authority of the textual voice and thus to convincing the reader.

11.4.3 Textual meanings Textual resources are used in the academic domain to organize ideational and interpersonal meanings into coherent written text. One important resource involved in realizing these meanings at all strata is that of theme, which refers to the information in first position of a clause. Layers of Theme, which in the 3×3 are glossed as ‘topic sentences’, ‘topic phrases’ and ‘Text previews’, occur in waves across different levels of text to signal or foreground particular experiential and interpersonal meanings. A pathway of realization of the textual resource of Theme through the strata of Text 11.1 is shown in Figure 11.6. From a textual perspective, the first stage of Text 11.1, the Overview stage, works as a Macro-theme to preview the information across the entire text. In short report genres such as this, conclusions are not obligatory; however, in longer texts, concluding stages serve an important textual function in summarizing or reviewing main points. Theme also functions on the discourse semantic level as topic sentences or Hyper-themes, which function to predict information within phases of text. In Text 11.1, there are two layers of Hyper-theme. The higher layer previews phases of ‘habitat diversity’ and ‘host diversity’ while the more specific layer previews micro-phases of ‘deep sea’ and ‘shallow water’ habitats. While the term topic sentence is a useful way to gloss Hyper-theme, it is important to note that more specific phases may be demarcated by a circumstance, functioning as Marked Theme. For example: In deep seas, chemosynthetic primary production dominates the biomass at vents and cold seeps. Likewise, while the expression-level resource of paragraph is helpful for predicting the organization of the text in terms of phases of meaning and their

Figure 11.6 Pathway of realization of textual meanings in Text 11.1


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predicting Hyper-themes, a paragraph may consist of more than one microphase and thus contain more than one layer of discourse level Theme. At sentence and clause level, Theme choices in reports typically sustain the topic focus of a phase. Subsequent sentence Themes of the ‘deep sea habitat’ phase of Text 11.1, for example, consistently refer to the habitats within this location (e.g. Deep sea hydrothermal vents . . .; both vents and seeps . . ..; Deep-sea vents and seeps . . .). The choice of passive voice in academic texts is typically motivated by this textual concern. Drawing on resources from the three metafunctions across strata allows literacy teachers to value the multifaceted meanings made by the student writer of Text 11.1 and to address simultaneously, concerns of content, grammar, structure, organization and evaluation. As the example above illustrates, genre selects from and pulls together meanings from all strata and all metafunctions in the interests of particular disciplinary tasks and thus can inform the selection of linguistic resources for teaching and assessment.

11.5 Conclusion The above illustration of the 3×3 demonstrates the concern of the SLATE project to present a theoretically principled and coherent framework for literacy teachers in supporting students to develop a powerful repertoire of linguistic resources needed to access literacy and learning at tertiary level. The principles of taking a metafunctional and multi-stratal perspective to language use in the academic domain form the basis of ongoing work developing genre-specific frameworks for teaching, assessment and feedback purposes. Further work is also needed to explore the complex role of interpersonal resources and their interactions with other meanings to produce convincing texts and to develop the SFL metalanguage at the level of grammar and expression. With such resources, teachers in the TESOL field will be well placed to support students in the development of the literacies they need to access learning across curriculum areas.

Notes 1

2

3

Funding for this project comes from the City University of Hong Kong and the University of Sydney. While grammar and expression are modelled as two separate strata in SFL, features of expression relevant to academic writing (e.g. paragraphing) have been included in a combined grammar & expression column. Strictly speaking, in SFL, each stratum affords the possibility of a constituency hierarchy (i.e. rank); the 3×3 matrix is thus a pragmatically simplified model, in a sense conflating the theoretically distinct dimensions of stratification and constituency.

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References Bakhtin, M. M. (1935: Reprint in full 1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (C. Emerson and M. Holquist, trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bonanno, H. and Jones, J. (2007). The MASUS Procedure: Measuring the Skills of University Students, a Diagnostic Assessment (3rd edn). Sydney: University of Sydney, Learning Centre. Chen, Y. and Foley, J. (2004). ‘Problems with the metaphorical reconstrual of meaning in Chinese EFL learners’ expositions’, in L. Ravelli and R. Lewis (eds), Analysing Academic Writing: Contextualized Frameworks. Continuum: London, UK, pp. 190–209. Coffin, C. and Hewings, A. (2004). ‘IELTS as preparation for tertiary writing: distinctive interpersonal and textual strategies’, in L. Ravelli and R. Lewis (eds), Analysing Academic Writing: Contextualized Frameworks. Continuum: London, UK, pp. 153–71. Derewianka, B. (2001). ‘Pedagogical grammars: their role in English language teaching’, in A. Burns and C. Coffin (eds), Analysing English in a Global Context. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 240–69. Ellis, R. (2004). ‘Supporting genre-based literacy pedagogy with technology – The implications for the framing and classification of the pedagogy’, in L. Ravelli and R. Lewis (eds), Analysing Academic Writing: Contextualized Frameworks. Continuum: London, UK, pp. 210–32. Halliday, M. A. K. (1991). ‘The notion of context in language education’, in T. Le and M. McCausland (eds), Language Education: Interaction and Development. Proceedings of the International conference held in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, 30 March– 1 April. University of Tasmania, Launceston. Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, R. (2006). ‘Retrospective on SFL and literacy’, in R. Whittiker, M. O’Donnell, and A. McCabe (eds), Language and Literacy: Functional Approaches. London: Continuum, pp. 15–44. Halliday, M. A. K. (2007). Language and Education, J. J. Webster(ed.) (Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday, vol. 9). London: Continuum. Halliday, M. A. K. and Mathiessen M. I. M. (1999). Construing Experience through Meaning: A Language-Based Approach to Cognition. London and New York: Cassell. Halliday, M. A. K. and Mathiessen M. I. M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3ed edn). London: Arnold. Hood, S. (2006). ‘The persuasive power of prosodies: radiating values in academic writing’. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5, 37–49. Hood, S. (2008). ‘Summary writing in academic contexts: implicating meaning in processes of change’. Linguistics and Education 19 (4), 251–365. Humphrey, S. (in press). ‘Modelling social affiliation and genre in the civic domain’, in A. Mahboob and N. Knight (eds), Directions in Appliable Linguistics. London: Continuum. Iedema, R. (2004). Discourses of Command. Manuscripts, University of New South Wales. Jones, J. (2007). ‘Multiliteracies for academic purposes: multimodality in textbook and computer-based learning materials in science at university’, in A. McCabe, M. O’Donnell and R. Whittaker (eds), Advances in Language and Education. London: Continuum, pp. 103–21.


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Lee, S. (2009). ‘Attitude in undergraduate persuasive essays’. Prospect 23 (3), 43–58. Macken-Horarik, M. (1996). ‘Literacy and learning across the curriculum: towards a model of register from secondary school teachers’, in R. Hasan and G. Williams (eds), Literacy in Society. London: Longman, pp. 232–78. Mahboob, A., Dreyfus, S., Humphrey, S. and Martin, J. R. (this volume). ‘Appliable linguistics and English language teaching: the Scaffolding Literacy in Adult and Tertiary Environments (SLATE) project’, in A. Mahboob and N. Knight (eds), Directions in Appliable Linguistics. London: Continuum. Martin, J. R. (1992). ‘Macro-proposals: meaning by degree’, in W. C. Mann and S. A. Thompson (eds), Discourse Descriptions: Diverse Linguistic Analyses of a Fundraising Text. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 359–95. Martin, J. R. (2000). ‘Factoring out exchange: types of structure’, in M. Coulthard, J. Cotterill and F. Rock (eds),Working with Dialogue. Tubingen: Niemeyer, pp. 19–40. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2008). Genre Relations: Mapping Culture. London: Equinox. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Polias, J. and Dare, B. (2006). ‘Towards a pedagogical grammar’, in R. Whittiker, M. O’Donnell, and A. McCabe (eds), Language and Literacy: Functional Approaches. London: Continuum, pp. 123–43. Rose, D. (2005). Learning to Read; Reading to Learn Teacher Resource Book. Sydney. Ravelli, L. (2004). ‘Signalling the organization of written texts: Hyper-Themes in management and history essays’, in L. Ravelli and R. Lewis (eds), Analysing Academic Writing: Contextualized Frameworks. Continuum: London, UK, pp. 105–30. Stenglin, M. and Iedema, R. (2001). ‘How to analyse visual images: a guide for TESOL teachers’, in A. Burns and C. Coffin (eds), Analysing English in a Global Context. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 194–208. Taylor, C. and Drury, H. (2007). ‘An integrated approach to teaching writing in the sciences’, in A. Brew and J. Sachs (eds), Transforming a University: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Practice. Sydney: Sydney University Press, pp. 117–25. Veel, R. (1997). ‘Learning how to mean – scientifically speaking: apprenticeship into scientific discourse in the secondary school’, in F. Christie and J. R. Martin (eds), Genre and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. London: Cassell, pp. 161–95. Wignell, P. (2007). On the Discourse of Social Science. Darwin, NT. Charles Darwin University Press. Woodward-Kron, R. (2005). ‘The role of genre and embedded genres in tertiary students’ writing’. Prospect 20 (3), 24–41.

Chapter 12

Why Are Logical Connectives Sometimes Detrimental to Coherence? Alan Jones

12.1 Introduction Applied linguists have long recognized that logical connectives are frequently both overused and misused by second language learners of English (e.g. Crewe, 1990; Field and Yip, 1992; Tang and Ng, 1995; Flowerdew, 1998). Predictably, there is considerable variation according to learners’ L1. Granger and Tyson, in a study of ESL writers with French as their L1 found ‘no overall overuse’ but ‘strong evidence of overuse and underuse of individual connectors, as well as semantic, stylistic and syntactic misuse’ (1996, p. 17). Misuse, however it is defined, is often put down to the way logical connectives are taught in the classroom and the way they are presented in textbooks: typically with oversimplified definitions, minimal co-text and context, and often accompanied by examples from made-up or simplified texts (Crewe, 1990, pp. 317–18; Milton and Tsang, 1993, pp. 231–2; Granger and Tyson, 1996, p. 25). However, this does not explain the infelicities produced by educated English speakers in their academic writing. In short, it seems that the effective and skilful use of logical connectives is something that must be acquired. In this chapter I summarize research findings and juxtapose analyses from linguistics, pragmatics and psychology with the aim of making these appliable to classroom teaching. Insights gained from these sources can, it is thought, help teachers help novice writers acquire more expertise in their uses of logical connectives and, indirectly, more skills in the construction of causal and inferential coherence in texts. Research in experimental psychology has shown that artificially enhanced cohesion makes texts easier to comprehend and recall – but only for less skilled readers and those with relatively little domain knowledge. For more skilled readers with some domain knowledge, simplification or enhancement of texts may be detrimental to learning. This led McNamara and his colleagues (1996) to ask, ‘Are good texts always better?’ The implication is that an absence of explicit connectives may benefit more practised and more knowledgeable readers.

Why Are Logical Connectives Detrimental?

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Other research also suggests that a more sparing use of logical connectives has other benefits for readers, e.g. ease of processing (Haberlandt, 1982; Taboada, 2006) and ease of memorization (Vivanco, 2005). Allison (2002) has emphasized the interpretive role of the reader, maintaining that ‘[s]ometimes, clear sequencing of ideas and material is best left to speak for itself, as an underlying relationship between successive points can be inferred’ (p. 80). Hoey (2001) has more systematically elaborated the crucial role of reader expectations in explaining the interactive nature of all text. This dialogical aspect of writing is discussed again below. I will first survey the sorts of abstract categories that have been set up to account for logico-semantic relations. I indicate a preference for macro-categories over micro-categories, while arguing that all the categories proposed are polysemous and hence potentially problematic. Next I briefly review ‘subjective’ uses of logical connectives. Then I examine some ineffective uses of logical connectives by language learners, following which I discuss their relative underuse in much English writing. I will suggest that implicit conjunction (that is, underuse) plays an important role in acknowledging the reader’s role in the construction of textual coherence. Next I introduce grammatical metaphor as used in much specialized writing, showing how it can render logical connectives unnecessary and superfluous. Then, focusing on causal relations, I show that in English such relations tend to be realized by means of verbs, verbal constructions, nominalizations, abstract nouns, noun-modifiers and prepositions rather than logical connectives. I also suggest that the most highly valued styles of writing in English today, under the influence of new insights from science, emphasize correlation, constraint, interdependence and emergence rather than cause-and-effect relations. I discuss the complex mixture of verb types to be found in such writing: intransitive verbs with formative or inchoative meanings, and transitive verbs with causal, quasi-causal and peri-causal meanings. Finally, the causal connective therefore is used to illustrate some uses made of logical connectives by expert writers.

12.2 Some Definitions Logical connectives are also referred to as conjunctive adjuncts or discourse adjuncts (Halliday and Hasan, 1976), logical connectors (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999), discourse markers (Fraser, 1999) and linking adverbials (Liu, 2008). They have long constituted a knotty problem for grammatical description, the psychology of reading, text linguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis. We distinguish here between: a. Coordinating conjunctions (and, or, but); b. Subordinating conjunctions (before, because, although); and c. Conjunctive adjuncts (meanwhile, moreover, therefore, however).

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Coordinating and subordinating conjunctions are sentence-level structural items marking logico-semantic relations between clauses. Conjunctive adjuncts, on the other hand, have a discourse-level, text-building function. In Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) they represent a subset of discourse markers, and are said to mark Discourse Relations (see Taboada, 2006). Other kinds of discourse markers are words like well, now, okay (Schiffrin, 1987) and evaluative terms like frankly, unfortunately, etc. In this chapter I continue the older tradition (see Crewe, 1990; Hyland, 2004; etc.) by referring to conjunctive adjuncts as logical connectives. In systemic-functional grammar, interclausal relations made explicit by conjunctive adjuncts are described as the logico-semantic relations (Halliday, 1994, pp. 193, 196, etc.). Relations between clauses are interpreted in terms of the ‘logical’ component of the linguistic system (Halliday, 1994, p. 193). However, Halliday and Hasan (1976) had much earlier emphasized that the connections between sentences (and clauses) ‘depend in the last resort on the meanings that sentences express’ (p. 238), suggesting that these connections are to a considerable extent semantic.

12.3 Under-specification, Polysemy and Ambiguity Coordinating conjunctions regularly under-specify logico-semantic relations: they are polysemous, and hence potentially ambiguous. For example, there are three distinct meanings of but: (i) adversative, as in they’re pretty, but I can’t grow them (‘on the other hand’); (ii) replacive, as in don’t drown them, but give them just enough (‘instead’); (iii) concessive, as in I don’t look after them, but they still grow (‘nevertheless’). Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 422) point out that ‘[o]nly the last embodies a logical opposition between the two terms . . .’; thus (iii) can be paraphrased using the logical connective although (e.g. although I don’t look after them, they still grow). Meanwhile, Schleppegrell (1996) has detailed the polysemy and ambiguities of the subordinating conjunction because. It should not surprise us, then, if conjunctive adjuncts – that is, logical connectives – also under-specify meaning. The term thus for example is often ambiguous as between a manner and a cause–consequence interpretation. This may well be the reason it is frequently preferred by experienced writers over the less ambiguous therefore. There have been numerous attempts to develop a metalanguage capable of capturing all the semantic and pragmatic nuances of logical connectives in a systematic and precise way. Four macro-level categories were advanced in Halliday and Hasan (1976, pp. 238–67): additive, adversative, causal and temporal. Subsequently, Halliday developed his powerful theory of grammatical expansion (Halliday, 1994), with its three sub-types:


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(a) elaboration, (b) extension and (c) enhancement.1 However, a crucial cross-cutting distinction is the one made between external (objective) and internal (subjective or epistemic) conjunction (Halliday and Hasan, 1976; Martin, 1992; Halliday, 1994; Martin and Rose, 2007). This is illustrated by so in the examples below: a. The neighbours left for Melbourne last Friday. So they are not at home. (external) b. The lights are out in the neighbours’ apartment: So they must be away. (internal) Sweetser (1990) introduced a three-way distinction, contrasting the content domain, exemplified in a) below, with the epistemic domain, illustrated in b), and the speech-act domain, illustrated in c). Examples are from Degand and Maat (2003): a. John came back because he loves her. b. John loves her, because he came back. c. What are you doing tonight, because there’s a good movie on? Macro-categories like these provide a useful over-arching framework, but in applying them the need has been felt for finer distinctions or micro-categories. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) list 36 terminal nodes for the system of conjunction, accounting for 87 lexical items. Their system can result in rather unwieldy labels, such as: z dismissive-adversative (‘anyway’) z verifactive clarification (‘actually’)

In this way linguists have often advanced from ‘parsimonious’ to ‘profligate’ theories of coherence relations (Hovy and Maier, 1995). The most comprehensive (and increasingly profligate) theory to date is undoubtedly RST. An early version of the category set (from Mann and Thompson, 1988) is reproduced below. RST employs a plethora of labels for an ever-increasing number of functions. Here is Taboada on a recent corpus-based study (2006, pp. 578–9): The analyses followed the traditional RST system, with some modifications: a larger number of relations, 78 in total, was used, in part because some of the relations were further subclassified. For instance, Elaboration has the following subclasses: elaboration-additional, elaboration- general-specific, elaboration-object-attribute, elaboration-part-whole, elaboration-process-step, and elaboration-set-member.


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subject matter

presentational

elaboration circumstance solutionhood cause cluster condition otherwise interpretation evaluation restatement summary sequence contrast

volitional cause volitional result non-volitional cause non-volitional result purpose

motivation antithesis background enablement evidence justify concession

Figure 12.1 Mann and Thompson’s Discourse Relations (1988)

Knott et al. (2001) argue that Elaboration ‘is so diverse and difficult to define that it should not be considered a proper relation at all’ (noted by Taboada, 2006, p. 579).2 Behrens (2004) refers to ‘the vague and difficult notion of Elaboration’ and suggests that it is related to the ‘equally vague notion of Consequence’ (p. 3). It seems generally clear that, because of the inherent polysemy/ambiguity of categories proposed to account for logico-semantic relations, these will always to some extent under-specify and to some extent betray the exact nature of these relations, which always crucially rely upon the content of the propositions involved (Halliday and Hasan, 1976; Hovy and Maier, 1995).

12.4 Subjective Uses of Conjunctions and Logical Connectives A distinction between subjectively defined and objectively defined coherence relations was perhaps first made by Halliday and Hasan (1976) in terms of ‘conjunction’. External conjunction links objective events in terms of temporal succession, causation, addition or adversativity. Internal conjunction links described events in terms of their logico-semantic function in inferencing and argumentation. This distinction is developed in Martin (1992), Halliday (1994), Martin and Rose (2007) and more especially Thompson (2005). A similar distinction appeared in Van Dijk (1977), who wrote of semantic vs pragmatic relations. Sanders et al. (1992; 1993) and Sanders (1997) also use these terms. Redeker (1990) contrasted ideational and pragmatic, while Knott (2001)


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opposes propositional with intentional. A similar dichotomy was proposed in RST, where Mann and Thompson (1988) distinguished between the subject matter (i.e. ‘external’) and presentational (i.e. ‘internal’) relations. Sweetser (1990, see above) distinguished between the epistemic and content domains, however adding the speech act domain. Jayez and Rossari (2001) discuss the effect of illocutionary goals. While Pander Maat and Sanders (1997) distinguished volitional from non-volitional content. Accounts of the subjective functions of logical connectives in writing have been influenced by research into spoken discourse. In spoken usage conjunctions and connectives frequently indicate logico-semantic relations, but they may also function as discourse markers, indexing a speaker’s attitude towards what is being said (Schiffrin, 1987; Redeker, 1990; Fraser, 1999). Schiffrin (1987) examined so and because in some detail; and Schleppegrell (1996) focused on because, while Sanders (2005) notes that so often signals the switch from a digressive move back to the main topic of conversation. Sweetser (1990) suggested that some causal connectives become specialized for one domain; thus English since and French puisque are used overwhelmingly to express epistemic meanings, and German denn is only used in this domain. Regarding causal connectives, Braunwald (1997) argued that their competent use involves integrating language, thought and social understanding. And Painter (1999, p. 146) ties the development of causal talk in child language development to the interpersonal negotiation of action. In fact it seems possible that some ‘subjective’ uses of connectives deemed inappropriate in academic writing may originate in spoken usage (Schleppegrell, 1996; Hinkel, 2003). It is clear that an understanding of the various types of subjective function mentioned above is crucial for full comprehension and (ultimately) active control of logical connectives. The challenge inherent in this for language learners and their teachers is obviously daunting.

12.5 Inappropriate Uses of Logical Connectives Crewe’s examination of texts produced by second language learners suggested that early-stage learners at least were using logical connectives as ‘surface-level fillers’ (Crewe 1990, p. 321); it seemed they were trying to ‘impose surface logicality on a piece of writing where no deep logicality exists’ (Crewe, 1990, p. 320). The following example (from Chen’s 2006 study of advanced Taiwanese learners) shows that Crewe’s explanation is at first glance plausible. In order to achieve the ultimate control of English, language learners are encouraged to learn English as early as one can. Thus, there is a tendency that Taiwan will turn to an ESL context in the near future. However, there must be a severe impact on learner identity, and learners can never have ultimate control of English (Belz, 2002). The above researches in different language

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contexts all prove that learner’s identity is changing with language contexts; moreover, learner would suffer from afar more dramatic struggle in a more mainstream context. Therefore, if ESL context are hastily enacted in Taiwan, where the mainstream language is still not English, then, it is for certain that learners will never have ultimate achievement of English; rather, they will suffer from not only a dramatic struggle, but also a severe self-identity problem. Consequently, further researches are needed on this issue to suggest a better language context for learners. However application of finer-grained categories from RST shows that each apparent ‘misuse’ represents a motivated selection, albeit inappropriate, from a systematic set of meanings. Thus mislabels as Consequence a relation that could be more precisely characterized as Elaboration (general > specific). Other connectives are potentially suitable, but are not supported by other cohesive devices which either point us away from the suggested discourse relation or contradict it. However, in the third sentence, introduces two recognized and potentially negative effects of second language learning, that is, its impact on identity and the difficulty of attaining a useful level of proficiency in it; however, the cues provided in the first two sentences do not make it clear that these changes are to be seen as unambiguously beneficial, and those in the third sentence fail to present the other possible side-effects as unambiguously negative. Finally, poor word choices exacerbate the problem. By tendency, in sentence 2, the writer clearly means possibility. The ‘misuse’ of logical connectives is thus intimately linked to numerous other lexical and grammatical choices made by the writer. There is a strong tendency among some language learners to place logical connectives at the beginning of the sentence, typically using them to introduce New information. But as Green et al. point out (2000), when fronted in this way such items often usurp the position of a more expected element of information structure. To illustrate, the following came from by a tertiaryeducated native speaker: Mentoring has several advantages as a professional training tool. For example, mentoring can be effectively used to address issues of identity. Notice how the connective phrase For example uses up the ‘thematic potential’ of the clause it precedes (Halliday, 1994), while adding no information that cannot be deduced from the content of the clause. This incidentally would account for the writer’s full repetition of the theme from the preceding sentence (mentoring) instead of beginning his second sentence with the unmarked theme: It . . . Repetition of this kind is a common concomitant of fronted connectives, presenting Given information as though it were New, and thus detracting from the reader’s focus on any New information contained in the rheme.


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12.6 Underuse of Logical Connectives in Native-speaker Writing Corpus studies of American and British English reveal that the frequency with which logical connectives are used varies between registers, genres and individual authors (e.g. Biber et al., 1999; Liu, 2008). Heaviest use is made in conversation and academic writing, as compared with news reportage and fiction (it seems so and then are particularly frequent in spoken English). According to Taboada (2006), frequency of use was low in both task-oriented dialogues and a large newspaper corpus: between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of relations went unsignalled. Focusing on causality, Behrens (2004) shows that translations into English from German or Norwegian exhibit far fewer causal-type connectives than translations from English into German or Norwegian. In English other devices (grammatical, semantic and pragmatic) are responsible for structuring the events and the text. Tense, for instance, helps to realize temporal relations, often suggesting causal ones. Prepositions like with, through and by are also powerful signals of causation (Flowerdew, 1998). But above all it is the verb that carries much of the burden of semantic coherence and that has frequently also causal meaning. Causal verbs like lead to, produce and prevent play a key role, but often the lexical verbs themselves realize causative meanings: . . . two nicked double stranded DNA molecules were tethered between two beads and were braided by twisting one of the beads by rotating the micropipette to which it was attached . . . For a text to be coherent . . . it must deploy the resources of cohesion in ways that are motivated by the register of which it is an instance. Hyland (2004) links the relative absence of explicit markers like conjunctions and logical connectives to the nature of a writer’s audience, noting that ‘[w]here texts are intended for a specialist audience, . . . we find fewer textual devices . . .’ (p. 116). Basing his claims on corpus studies, he states that . . . writers often rely on their readers’ understanding of lexical relations to see the implicit cohesion of the text, encoding connections in an underlying semantic structure which draws on a web of social and cognitive expectations about what the text is doing (Myers, 1991). Naïve readers lack this domain knowledge, however, which means that textbook authors are unable to invoke understandings of craft skills, interpretive practices and rhetorical structuring. Because novices lack experience of the forms which give coherence and life to those understandings, the author must attempt to construct this experience, seeking to make the shared meanings of the discipline explicit, indicating clear lines of thought through surface logicality.

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Thus corpus evidence reinforces the view that logical connectives are for some readers, in some sense, superfluous and detrimental to coherence (cf. McNamara et al., 1996). That the reader interacts purposefully with a text and, in some sense, with its author, is widely accepted in current theories of reading. While mentally processing a text, there is a ‘dialogue’ between the reader and the writer mediated by the text and its content (see Nystrand, 1989; Hoey, 2001; Hyland, 2004; Martin and White, 2005). Readers use shared knowledge (content schemata) and shared expectations about textual structure (formal schemata, genre knowledge) to reconstruct a writer’s intended meanings (Bamberg, 1983). Interactive reading of this kind creates a powerful sense of intimacy between reader and writer, and implicitness can function to increase this impression (cf. Halliday and Hasan, 1976, p. 298 on unresolved cohesion).

12.7 When Domain Experts Write Writers who are expert in a given domain generally work hard to find the right language to communicate complex meanings clearly and (more to the point) faithfully and precisely (Slotta et al., 1995). They rely to a large extent on the lexical-cohesive potential of hierarchically organized taxonomies of interdependent ‘technical’ meanings (Martin, 1993) and the reader’s presumed knowledge of the domain (Jones, 2005). Lexical and grammatical resources are supplemented by a range of other linguistic devices (Achugar and Schleppegrell, 2005): control of Given-New organization and thematic development, parallel structure, genre knowledge and familiarity with recurrent text types (such as the problem-solution pattern). Additionally, domain experts become very skilled in the use of sophisticated rhetorical strategies since, as Hyland (2004, p.20) puts it, the ‘cachet of acceptance’ is bestowed as the result of complicated social interactions, involving careful persuasion and the negotiation of knowledge claims with editors, reviewers and readers. The writing of domain experts is generally marked by extensive use of experiential and logical metaphor. One reason for this is that it allows writers to package complex information into fewer words and to argue effectively about complex topics. Experiential metaphor is the representation of processes, ordinarily realized by verbs, as things and qualities of things, realized by nouns and adjectives. For instance, The temperature increased . . . becomes An increase in temperature . . . Logical metaphor represents logico-semantic relations as processes, by means of causal verbs (make, cause, produce, lead to, result in, ensure, etc.); as things, by means of causal nouns (cause, reason, result, etc.); or as properties of things, realized by adjectives (resulting, etc.); instead of as logical relations, using conjunctions (like because) or logical connectives (like hence, therefore, consequently). Also, many abstract transitive verbs combine causation with another meaning; increase when used transitively means cause to become larger


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or more numerous; transitive shatter means cause to be split up into small pieces; and so on. Using such resources, theories of causation are often embedded deep within the clause. The sentence below from a current textbook (Seeley et al., 2000) illustrates this; underneath the original sentence, grammatical metaphors are unpacked: An increase in temperature

[. . .] decreases

the tendency for oxygen to remain bound to hemoglobin.

Experiential metaphor

Logical metaphor

Experiential metaphor

‘The temperature increases’

‘causes to decrease’

‘oxygen tends to remain bound to hemoglobin’

The catenative probability verb tend to is here nominalized as tendency, heading the second nominal group and modalising it, another hallmark of scientific, academic and much professional writing. Domain experts often strain the resources of the language to capture the kinds of processual and relational meanings that are central to specialized understandings of the world. They tend to choose more abstract verbs and more complex verbal groups to represent processes and relations, as well as more abstract nominals to encode participants, than do novices (Slotta et al., 1995). Along with grammatical metaphor, they use lexical metaphor, as in key drivers, bridging the gap, etc. Novices tend to represent physical phenomena as concrete material processes, using simple verbs of material process (The electrons move . . .; electricity flows . . .); experts use more abstract terms and more complex constructions to capture the non commonsensical nature of quantum reality, representing processes with carefully selected verbs (The electrons propagate through the metal ), complex verbal groups (light energy is absorbed and transformed, exert external forces to alter the fate of these reactions, and to reveal the rules that govern the interconversion of mechanical and chemical energy in these reactions), abstract and often very complex nominal groups (the interconversion of mechanical and chemical energy; the formation of some type of strained, largely unstable, highenergy transition state), complex postmodifiers (whose accessibility along the reaction coordinate controls the rate of the reaction) and frequent deverbal action nouns (interconversion, manifestation, decay, accessibility, compressibility, formation). [Examples are from Slotta et al., 1995, and Bustamante, 2004.]

12.8 New Understandings, New Ways of Meaning Over the past six hundred years or so, that is, since Chaucer’s day, the dominant mode of expression for causal relations in English has changed markedly, evolving from one in which separate clauses representing separate processes were linked by a causal conjunction, to one in which two nominalized processes are

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linked by a causal-relational verb in a single clause (Halliday, 1993). Meanwhile, over the last century or so, science and scholarship have been transformed. There is increasing recognition, among sophisticated writers, not just scientists, of what Bohm (1957) referred to as ‘the infinite richness of the relationships that link natural phenomena’ (p. 32). There is a widespread expectation that explanatory discourse will foreground the inherent complexity of natural, social and mental phenomena which tend to be framed in terms of correlation, dynamic interaction, indirect influence and conditioned processes rather than cause-and-effect (Chi et al., 1994; Chi, 2001; 2005). While causation remains a central concern in so far as science stills aims to produce explanations that are operationalizable, that is, that can be tested and put to practical use, the kind of necessity that was traditionally sought in isolated causes is now viewed as emerging from complex but coherent patterns of emergence and co-occurrence. This assumption often stretches the linguistic resources of domain experts when they have to put their thinking into words. In general, domain experts rely heavily on four main types of verbs. Causal verbs fall into two main groups. 1) The first represents enforced causation, in which the causee is the passive recipient of an effect; we can identify are five semantic sub-groups, the first two of which are essentially auxiliary verbs that grammaticalize the causal operation: i) Verbs like make, cause, ensure; ii) Verbs realizing more indirect types of causality like lead to, bring about, give rise to; iii) Intrinsically causative verbs, realizing more concrete types of causation add to these resources; examples are: place, attach, store, drive, sharpen, shatter, heat, etc.; iv) Verbs and verbal constructions that realize more tenuous types of causal process, such as play a role in, interfere with, influence, etc.; these can be described as quasi-causal; v) verbs of creation in which the core meaning is ‘cause to come into existence’ – examples are create, produce, generate. 2) The second main group of causal verbs admits of some autonomy, or agentivity, on the part of a causee. These verbs represent constraint-based causation, also known as top-down causation, in which conditions are put in place that encourage an effect rather than determining it. This group includes verbs like allow, permit, encourage, foster, afford, etc. Such verbs might be referred to as peri-causal. Two other important verb groups interact with accounts of causal verb types. 3) The emergent nature of constraint-based processes is often realized by formative or inchoative verbs, such as form, accumulate, separate, dissolve, develop, arise, appear, etc. 4) But perhaps the most characteristic feature of writing today, in all in the most highly valued registers of scientific, commercial, political and bureaucratic discourse (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, pp. 234–5), is represented by the prevalence of verbs encoding relations of signification (Martin, 1992, p. 279). This group includes verbs like signify, realize, mean, symbolize, reflect, suggest, etc. They encode a kind of semiotic relation that is becoming increasingly important across unrelated disciplines. An increasing call for the (re-)construal of information and ‘meaning’ reflects a concern with


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the negotiation of meaning while adding a layer of semiotic complexity to much (post-)modern prose. One effect, however, is to enrich textual coherence and thus help make logical connectives less necessary than ever. There is also a strong tendency in key registers to represent causal relations as abstract nouns (cause, reason, and even problem, solution, explanation, design) or as nominalized processes (attachment, filtration). Halliday (1993, p. 66) saw this tendency as characteristic of much twentieth-century writing. It puts new demands on writers who now need to control a wide range of verbs that realize relational identifying processes, e.g. be and become; equal, add up to, come out as; render, reformulate, translate; signify, encode, express, expound; indicate, show, demonstrate suggest; mean, denote, define; represent, refer to, imply; act as, function as, personify; and many more (see Martin, 1992, pp. 281–3, for system networks). Many of these verbs have transitive counterparts which are widely used in the same registers: e.g. define, suggest and demonstrate, as well as identify (as), characterize as and classify. Such verbs often hover in practice between cognitive and discoursal meanings, taking on either signification according to context and purpose. This ambivalence is enhanced by an ability in many cases to take propositional objects: The study shows an association between the increased apoptosis and reduced ureteric bud branching . . . and a 40% decrease in nephron number at birth. The study shows that the increased apoptosis and reduced ureteric bud branching . . . is associated with 40% decrease in nephron number at birth. In the hard sciences we find not so much a discourse of causation as one of conditioned, interdependent and emergent processes (Chi et al., 1994; Slotta et al., 1995; Chi, 2005). The examples below will serve as brief illustrations (they are from a paper on the physical stresses and strains generated during chemical and biochemical reactions at the molecular level; Bustamante, 2004, pp. 3061–2). Processes are in italics, participants are underlined; nouns that metaphorically represent inchoative processes are in bold, and those that represent causal processes in bold italics: a. . . . reactions between molecular species follow pathways that involve the formation of some type of strained, largely unstable, high-energy transition state whose accessibility along the reaction coordinate controls the rate of the reaction . . . b. . . . stresses and strains develop in molecules as they move along a reaction coordinate . . . c. A site-specific nick in the duplex DNA is engineered adjacent to the rotor attachment point; this design allows covalent bonds in the intact strand to serve as free swivels, preventing torque from accumulating in the ‘lower’ DNA segment.

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Thus, torque stored in the ‘upper’ segment can drive the rotation of a submicron object on a low-friction molecular bearing. Note the complex and abstract nature of participants in a) and b) – reactions, pathways, transition states, reaction coordinates, etc. – as well as the relative absence of semantically transitive verbs. Many participants have encoded processes, via nominalization, but these are most often inchoative, interactive or emergent processes. Coherence here is semantic rather than logical, and the represented processes and relations entail or lead into rather than ‘cause’ one another. In c), human intervention is described in a similarly circumspect manner (a nick is engineered), shading into the peri-causal allows, which governs an ‘interaction’. The nominalization of causal relations is linked to the nominalization of causing and caused events: A dramatic rise in mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures in the US was the trigger for the subprime mortgage crisis. Here the causal relation is realized by the lexical (non-grammatical) metaphor, the trigger, which heads a nominal group representing the caused event. In much scientific writing, however, the causing and caused participants are not events but either states (often defective, and often inchoative) or agentless, contextually constrained processes. And these may be loosely rather than causally linked (i.e. correlation rather than determination). Moreover, instead of ‘causes’ we tend to find mention of ‘risks’ (or ‘risk factors’), that is, predisposing but nondetermining elements: Low nephron number, inherited or acquired, has been linked to increased risk of development of hypertension and renal failure. To complicate this picture, causal relations (however realized) are routinely attributed to some subjective source, specific or non-specific – while also otherwise modalising the represented relations: It is hypothesized that a decrease in the number of nephrons results in a reduced filtration surface area, which in turn increases glomerular and systemic blood pressure, possibly through limiting sodium excretion and causing volume expansion. This highlights the fact that internal causal relations operate on propositions representing or implying external causal relations. Inferential relations are thus overlaid on representations of relations between objects, etc., in the external world, much like modality.


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Finally, verbs realizing the semiotic relation mentioned above form an important feature of much specialized writing today, realizing the interpretive functions that are characteristic of highly valued registers in the twenty-first century. They evaluate, interpret and construe a state, process, activity or event, in the process pre-empting any competing interpretations or construals that might be offered by a listener/reader: The invasion of Grenada in 1983 can be seen as a result of the rivalry that existed between the U.S. and Cuba during the Reagan years. Physical migration control policies amount to an attempt to equilibrate the labour market by reducing the excess supply. The different verb types mentioned above often appear in the same passages, and frequently in combination with causal verbs or connectives. This is symptomatic of a contemporary type of meta-discourse ‘where the meanings that are being construed are inherently symbolic ones’ (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p. 234); that is, where competing accounts for events in the world are interrelated, evaluated and competitively interpreted. On causality, Bunge (2009) notes that modern science recognizes at least eight other types of explanation for natural and human phenomena. In the social sciences, too, a focus on process and contingency is widespread: structure has become structuration, that is, a process rather than a state. Researchers on the whole show a preference for more complex models of natural (dis-) order, and human psychology and sociality, over simpler ones. Multi-factorial analyses and accounts of contextual constraints are the norm. Naturally, these ways of understanding influence the way domain experts write, and hence how educated people write in socially valued registers.

12.9 Therefore in the Hands of Expert Writers Therefore is a deceptively simply connective that can potentially index a wide variety of logico-semantic relations: result, reason and purpose, for example (Halliday, 1994). These are vague labels, and we may expect that (as with Elaboration in RST) they be subject to finer distinctions when examining their actual usage. Therefore can refer either to internal or external causation, though it is most often used to express internal causation (or inference). Of course, as Halliday and Hasan (1976) have noted, this distinction ‘tends to be a little less clearcut in the context of causal relations than it is in other contexts, probably because the notion of cause already involves some degree of interpretation by the speaker’ (p. 257). The fact that low proficiency university students in Japan have more trouble with causal relations, and specifically, the use of therefore, than they do with adversative or illustrative ones (marked by however and for example) may be due to this ambivalence (Ozono and Ito, 2003).

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Both the meaning and rhetorical effect of therefore are sensitive to its position in the sentence. In sentence-initial position it can have an incongruous triumphant or remonstrative resonance (try reading some examples aloud). Yet this is precisely where many language learners (and novice writers more generally) tend to place it (Flowerdew, 1998; Green et al., 2000). Therefore (like the other connectives) thematizes textual structure and indeed the reasoning process itself. One effect of this is to implicate the writer as the one ‘performing’ the reasoning, and to present the reasoning itself as epideictic display rather than available for interpretation. Expert writers most often use thematized therefore to introduce a conclusion, decision or suggestion (Flowerdew, 1998). The strong presupposition is that the preceding text justifies the conclusion, decision or strong suggestion. Three examples, with commentaries in brackets, follow. According to the authors, many Swedish learners are not aware of the fact that these less formal conjuncts are not always appropriate in academic writing. Therefore, a teaching suggestion is that teachers should work more on raising students’ sensitivity to register distinctions in the target language. [Therefore prefaces a suggestion supposedly warranted by a preceding statement of fact.] . . ., their framework still forms the base of many recent investigations on cohesive ties (e.g. Chang, 1997). Therefore, a modified version of Halliday and Hasan’s framework is used in this study. [Therefore prefaces an action-decision supposedly warranted by a preceding generalization.] These five areas of responsibility are seen as inseparable. Therefore, it is the duty of management continuously to assess the priorities and discharge its responsibilities as best it can on the basis of that assessment. [Therefore prefaces a value-based action-decision supposedly warranted by a reported generalization.] Writers often avoid the potentially strident effect of a thematized adjunct by (a) positioning it just after the grammatical subject or (b) embedding it even deeper in the clause, after a copula or modal auxiliary verb. Each of these positions has distinct strategic (i.e. rhetorical) effects, giving special emphasis either to the preceding subject (a) or the immediately following segments of text (b). The latter effect is typically achieved when the subject is semantically or rhetorically too slight to carry special emphasis. I illustrate the two possibilities in examples 1–3 and 4–8 below, respectively; italics indicate themes that have become marked due to the marked position of therefore; underlining indicates New information embedded in the theme (normally Given). 1. Candidates’ talk, therefore, must be persuasive so that they come across as credible, trustworthy and adaptable.


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2. The challenge, therefore, is to find a way of working together in a dialogic mode . . . 3. Failure, therefore, can be interpreted as a clear judgement of unsuitability, . . . 4. A particular incentive to accept the invitation to respond to Halliday’s article, therefore, was that it would involve a systematic exploration of the extent of the similarity that I believed to exist. Sometimes a logical connective appears after a copula or modal auxiliary,3 often in a projecting clause whose main function is to predicate a theme. The predicated theme, when followed by a logical connective, is ‘doubly marked’. What is typically foregrounded in this way is some attitude or assessment of the writer, which is thereby represented factively. I illustrate this below, underlining the text that becomes (as it were coincidentally) thematized. 5. It is therefore with regret that I note that ALAA was not formally notified of this review or the Discussion Paper, . . . 6. It is, therefore, important that ethnic categorisations and equal opportunities practices should reflect the changes in immigration patterns of ethnic groups, rather than their visibility in terms of colour. 7. It is therefore problematic for the researcher to impose categories such as ‘Afro-Caribbean’ on their informants. 8. Determination of the elastic properties of DNA is, therefore, essential to understanding DNA: . . . When therefore is positioned after the grammatical subject (the topical theme, as in 1–4 above), the reader has to process the subject nominal group before the role of that sentence in the writer’s line of reasoning has been made explicit. The subject nominal group in scientific and academic writing is often complex, frequently containing new information (though the bulk is given); this means the reader has to work even harder at interpreting the discourse relation. Many of the above uses of therefore are strategic, that is, rhetorical, and frequently serve to introduce not the effect of some cause or an evidence-based inference, but to support a subjective decision based on unspecified grounds, or support a particular interpretation or evaluation of a situation (as illustrated further above; see comments in square brackets). Therefore, when used to link external events, is deeply ambiguous, mixing cause with reason and even purpose. Therefore is most often used by expert writers to encode internal causal relations, or inferences. It often prefaces and ‘warrants’ a suggestion, strong recommendation or decision. However, all its uses are coloured by subjective interpretation and contingent meanings in which the nature of the process and the participants in question needs to be taken into account.

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12.10 Discussion This chapter suggests that perceptions of overuse and misuse of logical connectives on the part of language learners can be attributed to a combination of factors: a) the complexity and ambivalence of the logical relations that connectives realize in much native-speaker writing, often seamlessly melding internal and external meanings; b) the tendency of language learners and novice writers generally to position logical connectives sentence-initially, disrupting more effective patterns of thematic development and information structure; c) a preference by English-speaking readers for implicit conjunction; d) a preference by English speakers generally for embedded causation, as realized by transitive verbs, abstract nouns, nominalized transitive verbs and causal-relational verbs, noun-modifiers and prepositions; e) the complex nature of textual coherence, realized in highly valued registers by the delicate interweaving of inchoative, causal, quasi-causal and peri-causal meanings; and f) the growing complexity of the meanings and understandings that skilled writers typically try to encode in contemporary texts under the indirect influence of new insights from science. The preference for implicit conjunction (or at least a more sparing use of logical connectives) in much English writing plays an important role in constructing a relationship with the reader that recognizes his or her role in the construction of textual coherence. Readers of specialized texts with some grounding in the discourse of the field expect writers to hedge knowledge claims and inferences in ways that acknowledge an audience of informed and critical readers. Writers who are expert in specific domains often rely more heavily on readers’ presumed familiarity with domain knowledge than they do on overtly performed reasoning processes. Lexicosemantic associations based on the interdependence of technical meanings, taxonomically organized, assist such readers to construct coherent textual representations corresponding, approximately, with the mental representations of the writers. The task that confronts second language learners who wish to acquire expertise in writing and reading specialized texts in English is clearly enormous. But the nature of the task needs to be explicated clearly before any real progress can be made. Second language pedagogy, especially in the area of academic writing, needs to adopt a more holistic approach to the representation of causal relations in texts. Most fundamentally, internal causation needs to be distinguished from external causation. Degrees and types of external causation expressed by abstract verbs need to be thoroughly explored, and peri-causal relations distinguished from more deterministic ones. Students need to become aware of the ways in which inchoative verbs, in particular, interact with causative ones to construct an overall web of logical and semantic coherence that carries meaning forward without the need for explicit connectives. In short we need to take analytic insights from the pages of the research literatures, and from a variety of theoretical paradigms, and apply them to classroom teaching.


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Notes 1 2

3

To these he later added projection. Kaldor et al. (1998) identified 38 pedagogically rhetorical functions in a student corpus and found that these constituted a useful tool for teaching purposes. I will not discuss clause final position here, as this is more characteristic of spontaneous spoken discourse.

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Chapter 13

Contestable Reality: A Multi-level View on Modality in Multimodal Pedagogic Context Yumin Chen

13.1 Introduction The school of linguistic thought underpinning the present study is Systemic Functional Linguistics (henceforth SFL), which in recent years has been referred to as an ‘appliable’, problem-solving theory that ‘can be put to use in different operational contexts’ (Halliday, 2006, p. 19). This chapter illustrates the appliability of SFL in the research areas of multimodal discourse analysis and textbook research. The link between linguistics, social semiotics and pedagogy forms the nexus of the present study, with the linguistic concept ‘modality’ as the focal point. Van Leeuwen (2005, p. 165) suggests that research on modality began with the ‘absolute, context-independent truth of assertions’ in the philosophy of language before it moved to linguistics. This perspective on modality was adopted and further developed by linguists, logicians and social semioticians. In what follows a brief retrospective on how modality has been traditionally treated in linguistics and how it is recognized as part of interpersonal meaning will be provided. The central concern of this chapter is to explore ‘coding orientation’1 (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006), a concept strongly associated with modality in social semiotics, in multimodal texts for different groups of learners. The data drawn upon are selected texts for teaching English as a Foreign Language (henceforth EFL) to primary and secondary students in China.

13.2 Social Semiotic Approach to Modality There is a long tradition of scholarship in linguistic studies on modality. Modality concerning the question of ‘what counts as real’ has warranted scholarly attention among social semioticians. Due to the focus of the current research, relevant linguistic approaches to this concept will be sketched, followed by detailed explanations of modality in visual communication.

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13.2.1 Linguistic modality Traditionally, the term ‘modality’ is defined as ‘the manner in which the meaning of a clause is qualified so as to reflect the speakers’ judgement of the likelihood of the proposition it expresses being true’ (Quirk et al., 1985, p. 219). Much of the research on modality seems to focus on modal auxiliary verbs such as can, could, must, may, might, will, and would, etc. In traditional grammar, the meanings of modality are divided into two categories, i.e. intrinsic modality covering permission, obligation and volition, and extrinsic modality that involves possibility, ability, necessity and prediction (Quirk et al., 1985, pp. 219–21). The distinction between epistemic modality and deontic modality in pragmatics (Coates, 1983; Palmer, 1990) again reflects the two different uses of the modals. It is believed that most of the modals are used in both senses, and modal verbs can be considered in term of kinds (e.g. epistemic, deontic and dynamic) and degrees of modality (e.g. possibility and necessity) (Palmer, 1990, pp. 8, 36). The theoretical rationale underpinning this research owes most to the linguistic theory developed by M. A. K. Halliday and his colleagues. According to Halliday (1994, pp. 88–9, 356–7), modality refers to the intermediate degrees of meaning between positive polarity and negative polarity. In English the choices of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are expressed in the Finite element of the mood structure or Mood Adjuncts like no, while various kinds of interminacy in between are conveyed through modality. It is further categorized into modalization (e.g. probability, usuality) and modulation (e.g. obligation, inclination) based on whether it is concerned with a proposition or proposal. Halliday (1994, pp. 355–63) also identifies three variables in describing modality: type, orientation and value. Types of modality include probability, usuality, obligation and inclination, which represent different ways of construing the semantic space between positive and negative poles. The second variable ‘orientation’ is used to discuss how each type of modality is realized. The distinction between subjective modality and objective modality, combined with explicit and implicit variants, gives rise to four ways (i.e. explicitly subjective, implicitly subjective, explicitly objective and implicitly objective) through which each of the aforementioned types can be realized. The third variable is concerned with the value attached to modality. Take probability for instance. It can be of high (e.g. certainly), median (e.g. probably) or low (e.g. possibly) value. As Hodge and Kress (1988, p. 124) articulate, one of Halliday’s fundamental contributions to the study of modality lies in his extension of the use of modality beyond auxiliary verbs to cover all the elements with the same function, including nouns (e.g. It is a matter of fact that . . .), verbs (e.g. I doubt that . . .), adjectives (e.g. It is foolish to deny that . . .), and other expressions such as kind of, hardly and the like. Furthermore, Halliday suggests that modality is part of the interpersonal component of his functional grammar, rather than placing it in the ideational component as most logicians contend. To quote Hodge and Kress,

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Halliday’s theory recognizes that modality is a matter of the relation of the participants in a verbal interaction, hence squarely in the domain of the social, and that modal forms are the traces of the activity of speakers acting in a social context. (Hodge and Kress, 1988, p. 124) Instead of assuming modality as expressing the actual objective truth that exists between propositions and the real world, social semioticians examine it in relation to the semiotic resources employed to express ‘how true or . . . how real a given representation should be taken’ (Van Leeuwen, 2005, p. 281; emphasis in the original). The social semiotic approach to modality in visual communication will be explicated below, before a multi-level view on modality in texts for different educational contexts is developed.

13.2.2 Modality in visual communication Social semioticians (e.g. Hodge and Kress, 1988; Hodge and Tripp, 1986; Kress and Hodge, 1979; Van Leeuwen, 1999; 2005) adapt the term ‘modality’ from linguistics to the studies of other semiotic phenomena, including visual images (Hodge and Kress, 1988; Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006), sound and music (Van Leeuwen, 1999), and three-dimensional objects (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, pp. 252–5). In the eyes of social semioticians, modality is used to describe ‘the stance of participants in the semiotic process towards the state and the status of the system of classification of the mimetic plane’ (Hodge and Kress, 1988, p. 122). Therefore, when exploring modality we need to examine the semiotic resources available to a message producer in negotiating with the message receiver about how true a given representation should be taken. Adopting a social semiotic approach to modality, the current research proposes that ‘truth’ is the shared truth produced by members of a group or community with the same values, and it is closely related to both the ‘affirmation of solidarity’ and the ‘assertion of power’ (Hodge and Kress, 1988). As Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) point out, . . . visual modality rests on culturally and historically determined standards of what is real and what is not, and not on the objective correspondence of the visual image to a reality defined in some ways independently of it. (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 163) Modality always involves at least two parties, and the degree of affinity involved posits the social relationship on a continuum from affirmation (i.e. high affinity/ modality) to negation (i.e. weak or zero affinity/ modality) (Hodge and Kress, 1988, pp. 122–3, 164). To take linguistic phenomena for example, some genres (e.g. encyclopaedia) are regarded as more factual than others (e.g. fiction). Nevertheless, what is regarded as credible for a certain social group may not be

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reliable in the eyes of another social group (Hodge and Kress, 1988, p. 121; Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 171). Whoever controls modality controls which version of reality is treated as the valid version, and the accepted representation of reality may serve as ‘the basis of judgement and action’ (Hodge and Kress, 1988, p. 147). In a nutshell, truth can be constantly challenged and tested in every social or semiotic exchange, and thus modality can be interpreted as a social interpersonal concept along these lines. Modality in visual communication, which is the focus of the current research, has been theorized in the development of social semiotics. According to Hodge and Kress (1988, p. 142), the modality value of a visual display is not fixed, but depends on receiver position and orientation, because receivers can be positioned in different ways in relation to mimetic content as well as to texts and producers. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006, pp. 160–3) further provide a detailed framework for analysing visual modality, which involves eight modality markers: colour saturation, colour differentiation, colour modulation, contextualization, representation, depth, illumination and brightness. Each of the eight aspects is treated as a continuum running from the maximum potential to the lowest degree of articulation, with various degrees in between. It should be noted that modality does not always increase with the amplification of articulation. Along each of the continuums there is one point representing the highest modality value. In terms of photographic naturalism, the point of highest value does not rest upon either extreme of the continuum, but lies in a certain point in between. For example, in the case of colour there are three dimensions of colouration to be considered: colour saturation, differentiation and modulation. The cline of colour saturation ranges from the use of maximally saturated colour to the absence of saturation (i.e. black and white). The naturalistic modality scale for colour saturation is represented in Figure 13.1. The second dimension, colour differentiation, refers to the scale running from a maximally diversified range of colours to monochrome, while the scale of colour modulation ranges from the representation of all subtle nuances and full modulation of a given colour (e.g. the uses of different shades of green) to the use of plain, unmodulated colour. When it comes to the articulation of details in an image, both background and foreground need to be taken into consideration. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006, p. 161) use ‘contextualization’ to

Figure 13.1 Modality scale for colour saturation (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 160)

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describe the continuum running from the most fully articulated and detailed background to the absence of background. As for the depiction of detail in the foreground, the term ‘representation’ is used to account for the pictorial details of represented participants (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 161). The scale of representation also runs from maximum depiction of detail to maximum abstraction. The modality marker ‘depth’ is concerned with perspective, whose scale ranges from maximally deep perspective to the absence of depth. According to the naturalistic standard, the highest modality rests on the point along the scale that represents a central perspective, whereby objects far from the lens tend to reduce in size and the real-life parallel lines converge at a vanishing point within or outside the picture frame. Another modality marker that can be scaled is ‘illumination’, which refers to the play of light and shade. The various degrees on this continuum range from the fullest representation of light and shade to its absence. Lastly, the modality marker ‘brightness’ is a scale that runs from a maximum number of degrees of brightness, to only the dark and light versions of a given colour. Photographic naturalism, as mentioned above, is the most commonly found, everyday standard as to what we see with the naked eye. It is generally determined by the resolution of the standard 35mm photographic technology and thus termed as ‘naturalistic coding orientation’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 165) in social semiotic theory. However, naturalism is by no means the only coding orientation. There are various contexts in which different kinds of truth are favoured. For instance, scientific visuals often adopt an ‘abstract coding orientation’, which aims to represent the essence or generality of things. In this context, images with low articulation in colour, perspective, light and shadow (e.g. diagrams, figures) are regarded as visual displays with high modality value. In contrast, in advertising and commercial context a ‘sensory coding orientation’ is frequently employed. Images in this context are designed to arouse sensations, and thus they are generally entertaining, ‘more than real’ in many aspects so as to produce the illusion of the benefits that the advertised products claim to bring. Still another coding orientation is the ‘technological’ one, for which the reality principle lies in the ‘effectiveness’ or ‘usefulness’ of a given image as a ‘blue print’ (e.g. maps, architectural layouts).

13.3 A Comparative Study of Coding Orientation in Texts for Different Pedagogic Contexts So far we have explained relevant concepts for exploring modality in visual communication, with special reference to eight modality markers, whose configurations express the modality of a given visual event, and four types of coding orientation, which provide criteria for modality judgement in different communicative contexts. We are now in a position to conduct a comparative study

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on selected texts taken from primary, junior and senior secondary EFL textbooks, published by People’s Education Press (henceforth PEP) between 2002 and 2006. The purpose of the study is to account for the similarities and differences between these texts in terms of the choice of coding orientation, and shed light on the underlying reasons for different choices in various pedagogic contexts. The data under examination are three teaching units concerning animals, which are comparable in the sense that they share the same field, that is, the same ‘topic or focus of the activity’ in which communicative parties are engaged, or more broadly speaking, the same ‘institutional focus or social activity type’ (Eggins, 2004, pp. 9, 103; see also Martin, 1984, p. 23; 1992, p. 536).

13.3.1 Sensory coding orientation in We Love Animals The unit concerning animals in primary textbooks is Unit 4 We Love Animals in PEP Primary English Students’ Book I for Year 3 (2003, pp. 38–47). Cartoon is the dominant image style in primary EFL textbooks. Among 857 visual images in the whole series, 839 of them are cartoons, accounting for 97.9 per cent. We take the teaching section Culture (see Figure 13.2) as an example to examine the coding orientation in primary textbooks. Four images are involved in the text, each of which depicts one animal considered typical in a given country (i.e. panda for China, beaver for Canada, eagle for USA, and kangaroo for Australia), with the contour of the country as the background. The visual realization in each modality marker varies in the degree of articulation. In terms of colouration, a high degree of colour saturation as

Figure 13.2 Sensory coding orientation (Excerpted from PEP Primary English Students’ Book I for Year 3, 2003, p. 47). Reproduced with permission

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well as a medium degree of colour differentiation and modulation are employed. The foregrounded animals are portrayed as emotive, ‘more than real’, in that their emotions and temperament are added into the personified visual displays via facial expressions and gestures. In real life normally we cannot tell how an animal feels without certain expertise, but the personification adopted here overtly reveals to us something of the animals’ emotions. To be specific, the panda is represented as outgoing with waving gestures and a wide smile; the beaver seems happy but somewhat cocky with arms akimbo; the red-eyed eagle appears a bit fierce with wings spread; and the kangaroo looks funny but caring, with a superman’s cloak on its shoulder and a baby kangaroo in its pouch. In addition, the animals are represented as disproportionately big as compared with the country contours in the monochrome background, which further enhances the entertaining effect of the represented participants in the foreground. As the pictorial techniques used in these images follow the pleasure principle whose purpose is mainly for fun, the criterion of truth adopted in the text can be recognized as sensory coding orientation. Textbook editors are by no means school-aged children, and normally they hold a naturalistic coding orientation rather than the ‘exaggerated’ and ‘sensational’ style as a criterion of truth. Obviously the image producers of the primary textbook have chosen to adjust their own truth criterion to a sensory criterion in designing visual displays for primary students. As Hodge and Kress (1988, pp. 151–3) point out, when there is instability between the ‘world of the producer (WP)’ and ‘world of the reader (WR)’, effort must be made to resolve the difference between WP and WR or that difference will be the basis for antagonism. These efforts may come from the message producer or receiver or both. In the case of the primary textbook under discussion, the effort to resolve the difference is made in the WP. The sensory visual style is presumed to attract the attention and excite the imagination of the primary English learners. In a nutshell, sensory coding orientation in the primary textbook creates a virtual world in which the truth criterion is the pleasure principle. This visual arrangement is assumed to be of high modality value to primary school students. In doing so, textbook editors arguably establish a strong solidarity with the schoolaged textbook readers.

13.3.2 Abstract-sensory coding orientation in Why Do You Like Koalas There is a strikingly similar instance in the junior secondary textbook exercise under attention, an exercise entitled ‘Match the animals with the countries’ in Unit 3 Why Do You Like Koalas in Go for it Students’ Book II for Year 7 (2005, p. 15; see Figure 13.3). Both the primary school text and the junior secondary school text include images depicting animals and the corresponding countries. In the junior secondary textbook, however, the images of animals and countries are divided into two sets. The lower set represents three animals (lion, panda

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Figure 13.3 Abstract-sensory coding orientation (Excerpted from Go for it Students’ Book II for Year 7, 2005, p. 15). Reproduced with permission

and koala), while the upper set depicts three countries with names as captions (China, Australia and South Africa). Here junior secondary students are no longer provided with the correct match between animals and countries, but required to do the matching by themselves. The repeated use of similar teaching materials complies with the requirement of a ‘high reappearance rate for language teaching materials’, as stipulated in the Curriculum Standards for English. Furthermore, the transition from simple to complex instructional designs reflects the principle of ‘proceeding in an orderly way and advancing step by step’ (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2001, p. 48). In terms of visual treatments, reduced articulation is employed in representation, contextualization, illumination and depth. Simple line drawing is adopted to capture the essence of the animals, i.e. what makes them identifiable as lion, panda and koala. For example, the long heavy mane around the top and sides of the neck, which is the symbol of a male lion, allows the viewer to easily recognize this animal. The shapes of the three animals and the textures of their fur are brought down to the essential quality. In addition, these animals are pictured in their actual living environment. For instance, the koala is depicted as clinging to a eucalyptus tree. Nonetheless, the background has a low level of articulation and merely represents the general scenario of the environment, leaving out all the details such as the texture of tree bark which would otherwise be indicated in naturalistic photographs. The abstract style is also reflected in the low articulation of illumination and depth. There is no play of light and shade or perspectival foreshortening in the images. The maps of the three countries, in which most of the modality markers are greatly reduced in articulation, further enhance the sense of abstractness. Although colour differentiation

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can be found, the purpose of using various colours in the maps is to distinguish the countries under attention from the adjacent countries and oceans. Underlying the abstract modality is the truth criterion which holds that the more an image arrests the essential quality or the general truth, the higher the modality value will be. There is still some tension between the abstract modality and the emotive orientation in the images. Unlike the typical abstract images such as scientific diagrams, the three animal images draw on the pleasure principle (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006) to some degree. A high degree of colour saturation is applied, and subtle nuances of a given colour are identified. Take the green colour for instance. The variations of greenness include the bright green for twigs and new leaves, the brownish green for meadow and dark green for leaves on the eucalyptus tree. The use of colour here is not merely for distinguishing different components, nor does it aim at faithfully reproducing the real colours in natural environment. The colouration here is ‘a source of pleasure and affective meanings’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 165), whose purpose is to make the images pleasant to the eyes and to produce an affective effect that helps attract attention and maintain interest. In short, the coding orientation in the junior secondary textbook is both abstract and sensory. The adoption of the abstract-sensory coding orientation in junior secondary educational context has to do with the role of abstract modality in education and the pleasure principle that continues into adolescent education. Abstract modality goes beyond the surface to capture the underlying essence (cf. realism in art and literature as discussed by Van Leeuwen, 2005, p. 168). It is used among sociocultural elites (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 165), and an understanding of producing and reading images with an abstract coding orientation is part of the education of ‘cultivated’ people. An abstract coding orientation is more evident in textbooks on natural science where diagrams and figures are widely applied. As we can see, the tendency towards a ‘conceptual’, ‘abstract’ coding orientation gains momentum in the junior secondary context, while a sensory style is retained. The tension between the educational purpose and pleasure principle accounts for the coding orientation in the junior secondary textbook, which is ‘abstract’ and ‘conceptual’ with respect to representation and contextualization, but pleasure-eliciting in terms of colouration.

13.3.3 Naturalistic coding orientation in Wildlife Protection The teaching unit concerning animals in senior secondary textbooks deals with a more serious topic, ‘Wildlife Protection’, which is the fourth unit in New Senior English for China Student’s Book 2 (2004, pp. 25–32) for Year 10 students (see Figure 13.4). We concentrate our discussion on the ‘Warming Up’ section, which describes three animals (i.e. panda, milu deer and South China tiger) that

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Figure 13.4 Naturalistic coding orientation (Excerpted from New Senior English for China Student’s Book 2, 2004, p. 25). Reproduced with permission.

were once endangered in China due to lack of food supply or over-hunding. The corresponding verbal texts also introduce some measures taken to protect these species from extinction and the resulting achievements. Images of the three animals are presented along with the information on the causes of the near extinction, the animals’ habitats, as well as the contrast between the previous worsening condition and the current improved situation. These images are photographs with naturalistic coding orientation, representing the real-life situation of the wild animals in natural environment, for example, two pandas eating in a bamboo grove, a number of milu deer drinking by a river and a South China tiger running on meadow. The relevant truth criterion here is the naturalistic standard. As noted above, the naturalistic coding orientation is the shared, dominant truth criterion for the general public. Images with naturalistic coding orientation represent what is photographed the way we see it with the naked eye. When it comes to public concerns such as pressing environmental problems, the adoption of cartoons might downplay the seriousness of the issue, while the application of schematic drawings that represent animals as symbols or specimens may result in distancing the viewer from the endangered species urgently in need of help. Naturalistic photographs, on the other hand, represent the endangered wildlife animals in the way that is in accordance with the cultural norm. They faithfully reproduce the living conditions of these endangered animals, hence creating the sense of being personally on the scene. In other words, these photographs follow the coding orientation that all members of a given culture share, regardless of their educational levels or special training

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(Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, pp. 165–6). The naturalistic coding orientation here positions the viewer as involved in the environmental protection campaign in which all members in the shared culture are supposed to participate. It may be inferred from the above multi-level, comparative analysis that the pictorial techniques employed in the primary textbook follow the pleasure principle and hence sensory coding orientation is adopted. The sense of abstractness mounts upwardly as students move through the school years from primary to junior secondary education. On the one hand, the vibrant, exciting colouration still acts as a source of pleasure; on the other hand, the abstract representation and contextualization capture the underlying essence of what is represented. The senior secondary textbook adopts a naturalistic coding orientation, which positions the viewers as sharing the dominant cultural norms and involved in the ongoing environmental protection campaign.

13.4 Conclusion In this chapter we have considered the ‘interdependence’ (Hodge and Kress, 1988, p. 161) between modality and social relations from a multi-level perspective, through a comparative study of coding orientation in multimodal texts on a similar topic for different pedagogic contexts. It was found that what counts as real is socially defined and specific to a given communicative context. The way in which multimodal resources are deployed to convey modality in pedagogic setting is conditioned by as well as constitutive of the solidarity between textbook editors and different groups of learners. Up to this point, we have been concerned with an in-depth analysis of a relatively small number of texts. If we look at the panorama of the whole textbook, it would be necessary to consider whether the choice of a certain coding orientation is appropriate, and what implications it has for the given pedagogic context. Table 13.1 demonstrates the numbers and proportion of various visual styles (cartoon, portrait and photograph) in the primary, junior and senior secondary EFL textbooks under examination. It can be inferred that sensory coding orientation has a pervasive influence on the textbooks for children and teens (cartoons accounting for 97.9 per cent and 89.6 per cent in primary and junior secondary textbooks). The image producers seem to surrender their normal naturalistic criterion for truth to cater for what is assumed to be real to children. Whether this practice is justifiable or excessive demands scholarly attention in ensuing research. Among possible candidates, a sociological stance towards pedagogic discourse and nature of knowledge (e.g. Bernstein, 1990; 2000; Christie and Martin, 2007) may provide a remedy for the conceivable risk of ‘childist ideology’ (Martin, 1985). Another dimension that may be worth exploring in further studies is the way that members of a social group that normally share the same coding orientation do not have access to just one style of visual display. For instance, it is found in our data that there can be various choices of coding orientation in different

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Table 13.1 The distribution of visual styles in EFL textbooks for different levels of education

primary textbooks junior secondary textbooks senior secondary textbooks

cartoon

portrait

photograph

839 (97.9%) 403 (89.6%) 27 (29.7%)

16 (1.9%) 5 (1.1%) 15 (16.5%)

2 (0.2%) 42 (9.3%) 49 (53.8%)

constituent genres within the same teaching unit (technically a macrogenre, see Martin, 1994; Martin and Rose, 2008). To account for this complex phenomenon, we may need to consider the influence of the contextual variable field (Eggins, 2004; Halliday, 1994; Martin, 1984; 1992) in order to investigate how certain modality markers may be adjusted to some extent due to the variations in the topic or focus of the social activity. The social definition of truth, as we have been arguing in this chapter, is constructed through the affinity and antagonism between social groups, and it reflects the shared value and alignment among members of a given community. Social relations are ‘constructed and mediated through semiotic activity’ (Hodge and Kress, 1988, p. 161). By making clear the affordances (including possibilities and limitations) of multiple semiotic systems from a social semiotic perspective, we may hopefully take a step towards a comprehensive and critical understanding of the multimodal features in the present-day pedagogic context.

Note 1

As Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) explain, the term ‘coding orientation’ comes from Bernstein’s (1981) concept and refers to sets of principles which inform the way in which texts are coded by specific social groups or within specific institutional contexts.

References Bernstein, B. (1981). ‘Codes, modalities and the process of cultural reproduction: a model’. Language and Society 10, 327–63. Bernstein, B. (1990). Class, Codes and Control, Volume 4: The Structuring of Pedagogical Discourse. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique (revised edn). Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Christie, F. and Martin, J. R. (eds) (2007). Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional Linguistic and Sociological Perspectives. London: Continuum.

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Coates, J. (1983). The Semantics of the Modal Auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm. Eggins, S. (2004). An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics (2nd edn). London: Continuum. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edn). London: Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (2006). ‘Some theoretical considerations underlying the teaching of English in China’. The Journal of English Studies (Sichuan International Studies University) 4, 7–20. Hodge, R. and Kress, G. (1988). Social Semiotics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hodge, R. and Tripp, D. (1986). Children and Television. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kress, G. and Hodge, R. (1979). Language as Ideology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Martin, J. R. (1984). ‘Language, register and genre’, in Christie, F. (ed.), Language Studies: Children Writing Course Reader. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press, pp. 21–9. Martin, J. R. (1985). Factual Writing: Exploring and Challenging Social Reality. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. Martin, J. R. (1992). English Text: System and Structure. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Martin, J. R. (1994). ‘Modelling big texts: a systemic functional approach to multigenericity’. Network 21, 29–52. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2008). Genre Relations: Mapping Culture. London: Equinox. Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (2001), Curriculum Standards for English. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press. Palmer, F. R. (1990). Modality and the English Modals (2nd edn). London: Longman. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech,G. and Svartvik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Van Leeuwen, T. (1999). Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan. Van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge.

Textbooks cited: Go for it Students’ Book II for Year 7 (2005). Beijing: People’s Education Press. New Senior English for China Student’s Book 2 (2004). Beijing: People’s Education Press. PEP Primary English Students’ Book I for Year 3 (2003). Beijing: People’s Education Press.

Chapter 14

Making Many Meanings in Popular Rap Music David Caldwell

14.1 Introduction In 1995, musicologist Robert Walser put forward the following challenge to scholars attempting to describe the rhetorical properties of rap music: If we are to understand why rap is so important to millions of people and why it stands at the center of debates over culture and affects struggles over resources, analysing lyrics is not enough – any more than is formalist musical analysis, or sociolinguistic analysis . . . We need to begin to hear not only what these rappers are saying, but also what these musicians are composing – how they are using rhythm, rhyme, and rhetoric to enact survival and celebration, clamour and community. (Walser, 1995, p. 212) Since then, a substantial body of research has investigated rap music and the hip-hop culture from which it derives (e.g. Krims, 2000; Keyes, 2002; Maxwell, 2003; Richardson, 2006; Pennycook, 2007). With the exception of some fine ethnomusicological studies (e.g. Keyes, 2002; Maxwell, 2003), and Krims’ (2000) musical poetics, most research has focused on the language practices of rap music and its connections with African-American ideologies, hip-hop culture, popular music, literacy education and global language practices. As such, this research is exclusively interested in the musical practices of rap musicians; what they are composing, and what their compositions ‘mean’. In recent times, the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)(e.g. Halliday, 1978) model of language has been successfully applied to modes of meaning other than language, including architecture (e.g. O’Toole, 1994), visual images (e.g. Kress and Van Leeuwen, 1996), movement (e.g. Martinec, 2000) and music (e.g. Van Leeuwen, 1999; Caldwell, 2010). SFL is now widely considered a theory of social semiotics, as well as linguistics. A key feature of SFL and social semiotics is the description of language and other modes of meaning in the form of system networks:

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Systemic theory gets its name from the fact that the grammar of a language is represented in the form of system networks, not as an inventory of structures. Of course, structure is an essential part of the description; but it is interpreted as the outward form taken by systemic choices, not as the defining characteristic of language. A language is a resource for making meaning, and meaning resides in systemic patterns of choice. (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p. 23) Following this tradition, Van Leeuwen (1999) has described the meaning potential of sound in both language and music as a set of detailed system networks for perspective, time, melody and timbre. These system networks are especially ‘appliable’ to the rap music context analysed here. Traditional music analysis has tended to focus on the structural organization of musical sounds (e.g. Lerdahl and Jackendoff, 1983), whereas Van Leeuwen is interested in paradigmatic organization, or ‘choice’. This is important because the process of composing rap music relies heavily on ‘sampling’ from a set of pre-determined musical sounds (see Rose, 1994). And as such, much of the focus is on paradigmatic organization; selecting a particular musical sound from a larger system of contrasting, meaningful choices. This chapter will apply Van Leeuwen’s (1999) system networks to a selection of vocalists sampled by ‘popular’ rapper and producer Kanye West. In short, the chapter will examine the meaning potentials that can be assigned to West’s vocalists according to the particular choices that characterize those voices. The chapter then draws on that analysis to construct a preliminary semiotic profile or ‘repertoire’ of West. Essentially, the chapter aims to answer the following kinds of questions: what choices does West make in terms of his selection of vocalists when constructing his rap songs? Does West sample widely, or is there a consistent meaning potential associated with the ‘voices’ he samples? And ultimately, what is his overall meaning potential; the character of Kanye West’s semiotic repertoire? In the tradition of social semiotics, the chapter will conclude by speculating on Kanye West’s immense popularity. Drawing on Bernstein’s sociology (e.g. 1996) and his adaption of Durkheim’s distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity, the chapter will put forward a hypothesis as to why West is so widely consumed; why it is that he appeals to an audience outside the typical hip-hop community.

14.2 Data The data comprise a corpus of 30 rap songs from contemporary, ‘popular’, African-American rap artist Kanye West (The College Dropout, 2004; Late Registration, 2005 and Graduation, 2007). The term ‘popular’ music is a particularly loaded term and has been the subject of much debate within musicology and


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related disciplines (Hesmondhalgh and Negus, 2002, pp. 1–11). Many musicologists would argue for example that all rap music is ‘popular’ and that any analysis of rap music constitutes ‘popular’ music studies. For this chapter however, the meaning of ‘popular’ is simply defined as the extent to which a rap song is ‘widely experienced and/or enjoyed’ (Hesmondhalgh and Negus, 2002, p. 2). While this is a difficult variable to measure, ‘accreditation’ is a means by which one can at least get a sense of whether an artist’s songs are widely consumed or not. In terms of Kanye West, Table 14.1 shows that since his inaugural album in 2004, West has won over 50 awards and been nominated for more than 100. Importantly, these statistics are comparable to other successful North American rap artists such as Eminem, Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg. Table 14.1 not only

Table 14.1 List of Kanye West’s awards (from Aceshowbiz: Kanye West’s Awards, n.d.) Award

Wins

Nominations1

American Music Awards BET Awards BET Hip-Hop Awards Billboard Billboard R &B/Hip-Hop Awards BMI Urban Awards BRIT Awards ECHO Awards, Germany Grammy Awards International Dance Music Awards Metero Ireland Music Awards MOBO Awards MTV Asia Awards MTV Australia Video Music Awards MTV Europe Music Awards MTV Philipinas Video Music Awards MTV Video Music Awards MTV Video Music Awards Japan MuchMusic Video Awards NAACP Image Awards People’s Choice Awards, USA ShockWaves NME Awards Soul Train Music Awards Source Awards Teen Choice Awards TRL Awards Vibe Awards World Music Awards Total

0 6 2 4 2 2 2 0 10 1 1 5 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 8 0 1 1 3 0 1 1 1 53

7 3 14 4 8 0 2 2 14 0 0 4 2 3 6 1 12 4 5 1 1 0 2 5 3 1 3 1 108


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highlights West’s popularity, but it also suggests that West’s consumers are from a range of communities. West has received several nominations and awards from associations that are specifically affiliated with the African-American community, for example, the Music of Black Origin Awards (MOBO), the Black Entertainment Television Awards (BET) and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People Image Awards (NAACP). However, West has also received many nominations and awards from mainstream American music associations such as the Grammy Awards and Billboard Awards, as well as a range of international awards such as the British Record Industry Trust Awards (BRIT), MTV Asia, Australia and Europe Awards, as well as the World Music Awards. Now these associations do not exclude the hip-hop community. In fact, many have award categories specific to that music culture. However, at the very least, they are associations that represent communities that are not exclusively affiliated with hip-hop culture. West’s popularity, and particularly his appeal to those outside of the typical hip-hop community, is not a coincidence. As an artist, West has made a conscious and very deliberate attempt to engage with a socially diverse consumer base. The following extract from Time magazine (Tyrangiel, 2005), shows that West is not concerned with aligning his music with one particular community. Rather, West quite explicitly seeks to affiliate with as many consumers as possible: One night while making the record, Brion says, he and West got in a state of giddy exhaustion unique to people who spends hours a day for months on end in a windowless recording studio. ‘We had just been talking about something, and there was one of those weird, intense lulls,’ says Brion. ‘Kanye looks at me, and he goes, “You know that saying: you can’t be all things to all people? Well seriously, why not? I want to be all things to all people.”’ Brion waited for a moment, then burst into laughter. ‘I knew he wasn’t kidding, and he’s smart enough to know that wanting to be loved by everybody is probably really bad for your mental health, but at the same time his point was, you know, why not try?’ You never know. He just might succeed. (Tyrangiel, 2005, pp. 7–8)

14.3 Method of Analysis Van Leeuwen’s (1999) book-length publication Speech Music Sound describes the communicative resources of sound as they are used in music, speech and other multi-modal contexts such as film and advertising. For Van Leeuwen (1999), the meaning ‘potential’ of sound is realized in two main ways: the experiential2 and provenance. While provenance is clearly important in the rap-music genre, especially given the practice of ‘sampling’, this chapter will focus exclusively on the experiential meaning potential: ‘the idea that our experience of what we physically have to do to produce a particular sound creates a meaning potential for that sound’ (Van Leeuwen, 1999, p. 205).

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The analysis will specifically apply Van Leeuwen’s (1999) systems of timing or rhythm (Figure 14.1) and voice quality (Figure 14.2).

Figure 14.1 System network for timing (after Van Leeuwen, 1999, p. 61)

Figure 14.2 System network for sound quality (Van Leeuwen, 1999, p. 151)


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The application of the entire systems of rhythm and voice quality is beyond the scope of this chapter. As such, only the sub-systems of tempo: slow and fast, pitch register: high and low, as well as roughness: rough and smooth sounds, will be analysed (circled in Figures 14.1 and 14.2). It must be noted that these ‘choices’ are not discrete either/or choices. Rather, they represent two poles along a cline in which choice is a matter of degree. So for example, while a tempo might be fast or slow, it can also be moderate, moderate to fast, moderate to slow or anywhere along a cline from fast to slow. The system of tempo is generally characterized according to the speed of that tempo; is it fast or slow? More technically, tempo is realized as the ‘space’ or duration of time between a pulse or ‘beat’. When there is a long amount of time between pulses, the tempo is slow. When the space between a pulse is short, the tempo is fast, or at least comparatively faster than the tempo which has a longer space of time between pulses. For this chapter however, tempo will be considered in a slightly different way. Essentially, the analysis will measure the speed of the rappers ‘flow’; how quickly they articulate their syllables. In other words, what is the space between each of the rappers’ syllables? To do this, the analysis will take a short extract of rapping (around 10 seconds), count the number of syllables expressed and then produce an average figure of syllables expressed per minute (spm). From Van Leeuwen’s (1999) experiential perspective, the meanings associated with a fast and slow tempo are determined by what one does physically to produce those tempos. So, for example, a fast tempo can be associated with high energy levels, and perhaps even emotional attributes such as energetic, excited, intense and nervous. A slow tempo on the other hand can be associated with low energy levels and attributes such as relaxed, calm, deliberate, measured, and so on. High and low pitch register is the scale from very low sounds to very high sounds, usually associated with gender. This analysis is not interested in the movement of a pitch, but rather the basic level or pitch ‘register’ of a voice. For Van Leeuwen (1999), the high to low pitch register scale has the potential to mean many things including emotional states, size and gender. Much like a fast tempo, a high pitch register generally indicates an increased level of energy, and as such can be associated with attributes such as excited, energetic, tense and nervous. Van Leeuwen also associates a high pitch register with size and gender, in the case of high pitch register, meaning ‘small’ and feminine. In those examples, the experiential meaning potential extends beyond what one does to produce a particular sound to consider the inherent physiology of things that create those sounds. While there can be exceptions, high pitch sounds tend to be expressed by things, both human and non-human, that are small in size. And as such, a high pitch register has come to be associated with meaning ‘small’. In addition, women tend to have a higher pitch level than men, so a high pitch register has also come to be associated with the ‘feminine’. In contrast, a low pitch register

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has similar meaning potentials to a slow tempo; it implies a reduction in energy or physical intensity. In terms of emotional states then, a low pitch register can be associated with meanings such as relaxed, calm, deliberate and measured. For size and gender, a low pitch register is generally associated with meaning ‘big’ and ‘masculine’. The cline from rough to smooth sounds has to do with the perception of friction in a sound, or whether there is no friction and the sound is perceived as clean and smooth. With respect to rough and smooth sounds, Van Leeuwen (1999) suggests that their meaning derives from precisely what they are: rough sounds mean ‘roughness’, and smooth sounds mean ‘smoothness’. Again, following Van Leeuwen’s experiential rationale, one might add that rough sounds have the potential to mean other similar attributes such as tough, hard and strong. In contrast, a smooth sound may be associated with near-synonyms such as soft, silky and pleasant. While the tempo of the rhythm can be easily measured as syllables per minute (spm), the pitch register and roughness of the vocal quality is more difficult to quantify. As such, the analysis of the voice quality is based on aural perception and not any kind of computerized acoustic analysis. Because this chapter is interested in the meaningful choices a voice can construe, as well as the choices West has made in sampling those voices, the analysis involved searching the West corpus, finding those songs that included other vocalists, and then analysing those voices according to the three systems. Where possible, three voices were chosen for each of the systems, representing both poles on the cline, as well as a median value. In this way, the analysis is similar to a ‘minimal pair’ test in phonology; identifying perceivable, meaningful contrasts in the data.

14.4 Findings The findings will be presented along a cline (Figures 14.3–14.8). Each sampled vocalist that represents a distinct, meaningful choice is then plotted along that cline in relation to the sampled voices they contrast with. Each vocalist is named and referenced according to the song name, year of album publication, track number (t) and time segment in the song (s). The analysis includes two distinct data sets: the rapping voice and the singing voice. Both voice types will be analysed according to rhythm, pitch register and roughness. However, the fact that West samples both the rapping and singing voice is itself a significant finding. While this chapter will not describe the character of these voice types, it is clear that each vocal performance is unique, and affords different experiential meaning potentials. For this chapter, both voice types are included so as to highlight the extent of West’s sampling. It is also worth reiterating that the meaningful choices illustrated below are not necessarily the only instances of that choice sampled by West. For each


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cline, the most extreme realization of a particular choice is selected. This is not to say that the West corpus comprises only one rapper with a rough voice quality, or one singer with a high pitch register. The aim of these illustrations is to review the meaningful ‘choices’ available, and then highlight the extent to which West samples from those systems. Also, as mentioned, these systems of choice are gradable. So although the median or ‘in-between’ choice for each variable is not discussed, they were identified. And this is noteworthy. First, not only does it help reinforce one’s perception of the distinction between particular variables, but it also highlights the extent of West’s sampling.

14.5 Rhythm The Figures below illustrate the slow to fast tempos sampled by West for the rapping voice (Figure 14.3) and the singing voice (Figure 14.4). As mentioned, the analysis of tempo can be quite easily quantified (as spm) and then plotted along a cline from slow to fast rapping or singing. For the

Figure 14.3 Slow to fast rapping (as syllables per minute [spm]) in the Kanye West Corpus

Figure 14.4 Slow to fast singing (as syllables per minute [spm]) in the Kanye West Corpus

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rapping voice (Figure 14.3), there is an immense difference between the ‘slow’ rapping of Mos Def (168 spm) and the fast rapping of Twista (516 spm). In fact, one could argue that both rappers are very close to the threshold of slow and fast rapping; the point at which vocal performance can no longer be defined as rapping. Mos Def for example could express fewer syllables per minute. However, that would mean only one syllable per pulse, in which case, the vocal performance sounds more like chanting than rapping. Similarly, Twista’s performance is at the very, very fast end of the rapping scale. In fact, most of his lyrics are difficult, if not impossible to comprehend. The contrast between slow and fast tempos in the singing voice (Figure 14.4) is not as marked as it is in the rapping voice. Nevertheless, the contrasts are still clearly meaningful when we compare for example the slow, melodic vocals of Albert Brumley, with the fast, up-tempo vocals of Connie Mitchell. What is most important here however is not so much the contrast between the singing voices, but rather, how these findings relate to West’s overall corpus. As mentioned, the rapping voice, by its very nature, must express a minimal number of syllables per minute, otherwise the performer is no longer rapping. The singing voice however enables (or restricts) a vocalist to far fewer syllables per minute. Brumley’s vocals equate to only one syllable per second. The point is this: by sampling the singing voice, West is able to introduce a much slower tempo of vocal performance than could ever be achieved by exclusively collaborating with rappers.

14.6 Pitch Register The Figures below illustrate the low to high pitch registers sampled by West for the rapping voice (Figure 14.5) and the singing voice (Figure14. 6). The pitch register analysis, like the roughness analysis, has not been quantified or formally measured. However, an acoustic analysis is not necessary to reveal the fundamental contrasts between these voices. There is a clear, perceivable distinction between the low pitch registers of rapper GLC and singer Bill

Figure 14.5 Low to high rapping pitch registers in the Kanye West Corpus


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Figure 14.6 Low to high singing pitch registers in the Kanye West Corpus

Withers when compared with the high pitch registers of Strings and Laura Nyro. Of course this is in part attributable to the differences in gender. One might argue that it is unfair to analyse for pitch register when gender is not a controlled variable. However, the fundamental concern of this chapter is ‘choice’. And that means these contrasts are important. West has chosen female vocalists, both rappers and singers. Accordingly, West has sampled both low pitch registers, as well as high pitch registers. Even more importantly, the difference between these low and high pitch registers is extreme. Rapper GLC is renowned for his low pitch register. It is arguably the most salient feature of his voice quality. In contrast, Laura Nyro’s pitch register is not simply ‘high’; it is extremely high. It may have even been electronically manipulated as it sounds similar to those high-pitched, ‘chipmunk’ voices.

14.7 Roughness The Figures below illustrate the smooth to rough voices sampled by West for the rapping voice (Figure 14.7) and the singing voice (Figure 14.8). The perception of smoothness and roughness in the vocalists’ voice quality is found in both the rapping voice and the singing voice. Much like the rhythm and pitch register analysis, the smoothness and roughness illustrated in the Figures 14.7 and 14.8 are easily perceivable examples of those choices. The smooth rapping voice of Lupe Fiasco is in stark contrast to the rough, gritty, obstructed voice quality of Lil’ Wayne. In a similar way to rapper GLC and his low pitch register, these artists are renowned for their smoothness and roughness respectively. Lil’ Wayne in particular has a very creaky, rough sounding voice quality. The contrast between smoothness and roughness is also easily perceivable in the singing voice. In a similar way to the high pitch register of Laura Nyro, West and his producers have manipulated the voice quality of Daft Punk to make it especially rough. It could be argued that the resulting sound is more vibrato than it is rough. Regardless, there is clearly a distinction between the smooth,

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Figure 14.7 Smooth to rough rapping in the Kanye West Corpus

Figure 14.8 Smooth to rough singing in the Kanye West Corpus

tender singing voice of Labi Siffri, and the synthesized, vibrating and ultimately ‘obstructed’ vocals of Daft Punk.

14.8 The West Repertoire The findings reveal that Kanye West samples widely. In terms of the tempo, pitch register and roughness of his vocalists, West engages with the full range of meaning potentials available for each of these systems. Put simply, West’s eclectic sampling enables him to increase his meaning potential, and as such, he has an immense repertoire; he makes many meanings. Following Van Leeuwen’s (1999) experiential semiotics, the West repertoire can be further characterized in terms of specific attributes, mostly to do with some kind of emotional or physical disposition, as well as attributes to do with gender and size. Figure 14.9 is a crude representation of the West repertoire according to some of the main contrasting attributes identified in the analysis. The West repertoire can also be represented from a genre-oriented, topological perspective (Martin and Rose, 2008). Following the reference text The All


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Figure 14.9 Some attributes (or meaning potentials) in the Kanye West Repertoire

Figure 14.10

The Kanye West repertoire from a topological perspective

Music Guide to Hip-Hop (2003) and its list of rap styles, Figure 14.10 compares the meaning potential of West’s vocalists to the vocals of other rap styles. In short, Party Rap has tended to be characterized according to high pitch registers and smooth voice quality, Political Rap according to fast tempos, Hardcore Rap according to low pitch registers and rough voice quality and Old School Rap according to slow tempos. Figure 14.10 shows that West, through his vast sampling of vocalists, is not limited to one particular style, and is therefore able to expand his semiotic repertoire. While the discussion and illustrations thus far are useful in terms of generally characterizing West’s semiotic repertoire, it does raise two important questions: to what extent can one relate the experiential meaning potentials of the vocals to the actual artist who produces those vocals, and to what extent can one

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characterize the meaning potential of Kanye West according to the vocalists he samples from. As illustrated in Figure 14.9, it seems reasonable to assign the musical attributes or meanings associated with an artist’s performance to that artist and his or her semiotic repertoire. For example, it is common for a music critic or fan to refer to an artist as ‘brash’ or ‘strong’ or ‘nasty’ with respect to the sounds they produce. But can a ‘rough’ sounding voice simply be equated with a ‘rough’ artist? In its new formation, the attribute takes on a slightly different meaning. From an Appraisal perspective (Martin and White, 2005), the term ‘rough’ is no longer an Appreciation of a thing, but rather a Judgement of someone; perhaps as a negative Judgement of propriety, or a positive Judgement of tenacity. According to Cléirigh (personal communication, 17 October 2008), one way of resolving this issue may be to reconsider voice quality in Halliday’s (1985, pp. 30–1) terms; as indexical of an individual’s character. The other vexed issue is the extent to which West’s vocalists can be considered part of his semiotic repertoire. In Figure 14.10, for example, West’s own voice quality does not ‘cover’ the same amount of semiotic territory as it does when his collaborators are included. In fact, West’s vocals would at best only ‘cover’ Party Rap, and maybe Old School Rap. He does not have the fast tempo or the low, rough pitch register of the Political rappers and Hardcore rappers. So is it then fair to characterize West’s repertoire as huge and immense if it includes other vocalists? The point here is that West is not just a rapper, he is also a producer. And the role of producer in the rap music context is highly valued. West has to select vocalists as well as other musical sounds that are then integrated into an entire musical composition. So, in the role of producer, Kanye West’s repertoire is immense.

14.9 Some Thoughts In September 2007, rap artists Kanye West and 50 Cent engaged in a wellpublicized ‘feud’ to see which rapper would sell the most copies of their upcoming albums Graduation (2007) and Curtis (2007). Within a week of the albums’ release, Kanye West was declared the victor. The Billboard charts (Mayfield, 2007) showed that in its first six days of release, West’s Graduation had accumulated a total album sale figure of 957,000, which ranks it fifteenth for ‘all-time’ sales weeks. In contrast, 50 Cent’s Curtis sold a total number of 691,000 albums; a solid result, but significantly less than West’s Graduation. A primary concern for social semiotics is to not only describe semiotic systems, but to investigate how these systems are actually used in real-life social contexts. In a performance context such as this, where there is an agenda to sell records and make money, the extent to which an artist affiliates with their consumers is particularly important. If we simply define ‘affiliation’ as the extent to which we can ‘share’ in another’s feelings (Martin, 2004), then a semiotic profile which


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describes the kinds of feelings construed by an artist should provide some important insights. In this particular case, is there something different about the meanings Kanye West construes compared with 50 Cent? And if so, why do these enable him to affiliate with more consumers than 50 Cent? A complete semiotic profile of both West and 50 Cent is an immense, if not impossible task. Not only does one have to consider an artist’s musical sounds, but there is also the meaning potential of their rap lyrics, video clips, clothing, merchandise and the like. For heuristic purposes though, music websites such as Allmusic (Birchmeier, n.d.) provide a useful overview of an artists’ semiotic repertoire. Table 14.2 illustrates the kinds of ‘moods’ that people generally associate with the music of Kanye West and 50 Cent. The West profile outlined above helps support the semiotic analysis described in this chapter: that West has an immense semiotic repertoire. More importantly though, these profiles allow analysts to generally compare and contrast the repertoires of specific artists. In this case, the profiles show a clear contrast between the repertoire of Kanye West and 50 Cent. Not only does West’s list have a greater number of ‘moods’, there is also a more varied range of meanings or ‘moods’ associated with West. 50 Cent’s list tends to be similar kinds of terms, basically to do with aggression and toughness. West on the other hand ranges Table 14.2 The ‘moods’ of Kanye West and 50 Cent (from Birchmeier, n.d.) Kanye West

50 Cent

Humorous Brash Energetic Confident Swaggering Reflective Street-Smart Snide Party/Celebratory Confrontational Boisterous Fun Gleeful Summery Giddy Relaxed Hungry Intense Passionate Laid-back/Mellow Amiable/Good Natured

Street-Smart Thuggish Menacing Confident Brash Provocative Aggressive Confrontational Rebellious Volatile Angry Fiery Hostile Harsh Visceral Witty

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from extremely positive moods such as ‘giddy’ and ‘excited’ to more aggressive moods such as ‘brash’ and ‘confrontational’. So how do these profiles inform this discussion? Can one simply argue that West is able to affiliate with many consumers, and in this case, more consumers than 50 Cent, because he offers his audience a smorgasbord of meanings from which they can ‘pick and choose’ according to the meanings they share in and identify with? In this way, the process of affiliation is simple: the greater the meaning potential, the greater the number of consumers. And this may in part explain why West is more ‘popular’ than 50 Cent. However, the sociology of Bernstein (1996) offers an even more convincing explanation. In particular, Durkheim’s distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity seems particularly relevant here. The following extract provides a basic definition of both mechanical and organic solidarity: Mechanical solidarity is said to characterize a society where there is a high degree of uniformity and consensus. Values and sentiments are shared and adhered to . . . Organic solidarity is the outcome of diversity . . . there is progressively greater scope for the development of individual differentiation among persons and institutions. Individuation entails a corresponding decrease in consensual value systems and sentiments. (Atkinson, 1985, p. 24) 50 Cent’s repertoire is limited in its meaning potential. The kinds of meanings, ‘moods’ or values that 50 Cent expresses are not diverse. They are limited to attributes such as ‘aggression’ and ‘toughness’. In this way, 50 Cent represents mechanical social integration; his consumers value uniformity and do not seek to share in diversity. Kanye West, in contrast, is especially representative of organic social integration. His immense repertoire of meanings facilitates a solidarity built on diversity, not uniformity. His consumers value individual differentiation. They do not only ‘pick and choose’ from his repertoire, they engage with the entire smorgasbord of meanings. There is much more to be said here in terms of social class and how that might relate to West’s ‘individuation’ and his capacity to affiliate with a large, socially diverse consumer base. Does 50 Cent align with working-class consumers, and Kanye with middle-class consumers? Probably an oversimplification, but certainly worthy of further investigation. If nothing else, West seems to have ‘tapped into’ the values of Generation X and Y, who, like West, want to be ‘all things to all people’.

Notes 1 2

The number of nominations does not include Wins. The term ‘experiential’ is not to be confused with the experiential component of the ideational metafunction (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004).


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References 50 Cent. (2007). Curtis [CD]. Santa Monica, CA: Aftermath, Interscope, Shady. Aceshowbiz: Kanye West’s Awards (n.d.). Retrieved 12 November 2008 from http:// www.aceshowbiz.com/celebrity/kanye_west/awards.html. Atkinson, P. (1985). Language, Structure and Reproduction: An Introduction to the Sociology of Basil Bernstein. London: Methuen. Bernstein, B. (1996). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research and Critique. London: Taylor & Francis. Birchmeier, J. (n.d). ‘50 Cent Biography’. Retrieved 12 November 2008 from http:// www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll. Birchmeier, J. (n.d). ‘Kanye West Biography’. Retrieved 12 November 2008 from http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dl. Caldwell, D. (2010). ‘Making metre mean: rhythm and identity in the music of Kanye West’, in M. Bednarek and J. R. Martin (eds), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity and Affiliation. London: Continuum, pp. 59–80. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). Spoken and Written Language. Victoria: Deakin University. Halliday, M. A. K., and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edn). London: Edward Arnold. Hesmondhalgh, D. and Negus, K. (2002). ‘Introduction’, in D. Hesmondalgh and K. Negus (eds), Popular Music Studies. London: Arnold, pp. 1–11. Keyes, C. (2002). Rap Music and Street Consciousness. Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Krims, A. (2000). Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lerdahl, F. and Jackendoff, R. (1983). A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Martin, J. R. (2004). ‘Mourning: how we get aligned’. Discourse and Society 15(2–3), 321–44. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2008). Genre Relations: Mapping Culture. London: Equinox. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Martinec, R. (2000). ‘Types of process in action’. Semiotica 130 (3/4), 243–68. Maxwell, I. (2003). Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip-hop Down under Comin’ Upper. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Mayfield, G. (2007). Kanye Crushes 50 Cent in Huge Album Sales Week. Billboard. Retrieved 12 November 2008 from http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/ article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003642725. O’Toole, M. (1994). The Language of Displayed Art. London: Leicester University Press. Pennycook, A. (2007). Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. London: Routledge. Richardson, E. (2006). Hip-hop Literacies. London: Routledge.

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Rose, T. (1994). Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. London: Wesleyan University Press. Tyrangiel, J. (2005). Why you can’t ignore Kanye. Time. Retrieved 15 May 2007 from http://www.time.com/time/prinout/0,8816,1096429,00.html. Van Leeuwen, T. (1999). Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan. Walser, R. (1995). ‘Rhythm, rhyme, and rhetoric in the music of public enemy’. Ethnomusicology 39 (2), 193–218. West, K. (2004). The College Dropout. New York, NY: Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam. West, K. (2005). Late Registration. New York, NY: Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam. West, K. (2007). Graduation. New York, NY: Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam.

Chapter 15

Rank in Visual Grammar: Some Implications for Multimodal Discourse Analysis1 Sumin Zhao

15.1 Introduction Since the groundbreaking publication of Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006 [1996]) and The Language of Displayed Art (O’Toole, 1994), multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) has established itself as one of the key research areas within the discourse analysis community. One of the key pursuits of MDA has always been the understanding of human semiotic practices in various social contexts. As a result, recent years have witnessed the increasing impact of MDA studies among semiotic practitioners (e.g. Bateman, 2008; Martinec and Van Leeuwen, 2009) and language educators (e.g. Unsworth, 2007; 2008). MDA research, in this sense, showcases the new approach – appliable linguistics – to linguistic and semiotic research advocated in this volume (see Mahboob and Knight, this volume). Like the two MDA classics, many contemporary MDA studies have close theoretical connection to the general theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). These studies, on the one hand, draw heavily on the SFL description of language and its model of text–context relations. On the other hand, the explorations of modalities other than language (MOLs) (e.g. colour: Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2002; Painter, 2008; gesture: Martinec, 2001; 2004; Zappavigna, 2010; laughter: Knight, forthcoming; mathematical symbolism: O’Halloran, 2005; music: Van Leeuwen, 1999; Caldwell, in press; space: Stenglin, 2004; Ravelli, 2006; topography: Van Leeuwen 2006), and more recently the investigations of intersemiotic relations (e.g. Martinec and Salway, 2005; Matthiessen, 2007a; Norris, 2004; O’Halloran, 2008; Royce, 2007; Zhao, 2010) have encouraged the researchers to reflect back on some much debated issues in SFL: rank, genre, instantiation and dynamic modelling, to name just a few. In this chapter, I will focus on one of these issues: rank. Rank is essentially a theory of compositional hierarchy. Lying at the centre of the theory is the

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Figure 15.1 Rank scale in English

notion of constituency. In the SFL model of English (see Figure 15.1), for instance, there are four scales of constituency at the lexicogrammar level, known as ranks (from the highest to the lowest): clause, phrase/group, word and morpheme. Each rank consists of one or more units of the rank immediately below. Through grammatical recourses such as logico-semantic relations (e.g. elaborating, extending, projection, etc), units at every rank can form complexes, for example, clause complexes, group complexes, etc. A unit at higher rank may also down-rank to function in the structure of a unit of its own rank or of a lower rank (cf. Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004). The purpose of this chapter is NOT to argue for or against the use of rank in multimodal descriptions. Instead I am interested in the ways in which the reconceptualization of rank has shaped the systemic functional descriptions of MOLs and multimodal texts in general. Simply put, the chapter focuses on examining the practice of theorization in MDA rather than any theory per se. I will begin my discussion with a short review of O’Toole’s (1994) rank-based and Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) rank-free grammars of images. I will then trace the origins of the concept of rank in SFL and illustrate the ways in which the theoretical borrowing of the concept may promote or impede our understandings of multimodality. Finally, I will use the rank ‘debate’ as a springboard for addressing some of the urgent issues in the development of MDA theories and practices.

15.2 To Rank or Not to Rank? Within the MDA community, there has been a long-established disagreement over the adaptation of rank (cf. Martinec, 2005) in the theoretical description of MOLs and multimodal texts in general. The division has its origins in the different treatments of visual structures in the two MDA classics: the rank-free visual grammar of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) and the framework for multirank analysis of images proposed by O’Toole (1994). If, therefore, we are to

Rank in Visual Grammar

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Figure 15.2 A Queensland hero

account for the ideational structure2 (i.e. the representation of events, the objects and participants involved and the circumstances in which they occur) of the photographic image in Figure 15.2, we are left with two options. Applying Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar, we could analyse the visual structure as a Reactional Process, since the image construes the process of ‘looking’. The girls are the Reactors (the observers), and are connected through eyeline vectors (see Figure 15.2) to the Phenomenon (the observed) – the man in the middle. Further, the signing action of the man can be treated as an embedded Transactional Action Process, the man being the Actor (the doer) and the notebook being the Goal (the participant impacted by the doing). Alternatively, applying O’Toole’s rank grammar, we could describe the image as having three ranks (from the highest to the lowest): Episode – Figure – Member. At the rank of Episode, a man is signing an autograph for a group of girls in front of a house. Moving a rank down to the behaviour of individual Figures, the man is signing on a notebook, while the girls are watching his action attentively. At the rank of Member, the man is dark-skinned and his facial expression is rather serious. Both analyses seem plausible. As discourse analysts, we are now facing a dilemma: which analysis shall we choose? To provide a solution for the problem, I suggest that we could draw a parallel between the current dispute and the debate between Halliday (2002 [1966]) and Matthews (1966, cited in Halliday 2002[1966]) over the merit of a rank constituency grammar of language in the 1960s. In essence, Halliday’s and Matthew’s stances reflected two different hypotheses on the nature of language. Both approaches were difficult to falsify theoretically – Halliday’s rank grammar, nevertheless, has been favoured among

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the SFL linguists and many others for its descriptive power. Similarly, if we need to argue for/against a rank grammar of image and other MOLs, we need to raise at least two questions: whether the theory can be falsified3; and whether it provides more descriptive power. In the development of MDA theories, however, these questions are not always explicitly addressed. The common assumption holds that the choice of including or excluding rank in the theoretical description is determined by factors such as the complexity and the nature of the semiotic phenomenon under examination, the purpose of the analysis, etc. (cf. Martinec, 2005). This affordance of relative freedom in including/excluding rank in MDA description has encouraged exploration of a diverse range of MOLs and multimodal texts. As a result, a fruitful body of works has been produced in the last decade (cf. Baldry and Thibault, 2006; Bateman, 2008; Jewitt, 2009; Bednarek and Martin, 2010; Norris, 2004; O’Halloran, 2004; Royce and Bowcher, 2007; Unsworth, 2008; Ventola et al., 2004). The flexibility in theoretical conceptualization, on the other hand, has led to confusion and low consistency in analytical practices. If we are to extend our analysis to Figure 15.2, we will immediately encounter such problems. Employing Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar, for instance, we would find it difficult to determine the main process (realized by a vector) in the image. There are at least five vectors in the image (see Figure 15.3): 1) an action vector extending from the batsman towards the top-right of the frame; 2) another action vector linking the participant on the bottom-left (the fielder) to the ground; 3) a third action vector leading the running figure on the bottom-right (the fielder) to the cricket ball on the ground; 4) the eyeline vector linking the participant on the left (the wicketkeeper) to either the falling fielder or the cricket ball; 5) the eyeline vectors directed from two participants on the top of the frame (the fielders) to the batsman. We have all together five processes: two Non-Transactional Actions (the batsman and the falling fielder), one Transactional Action (the running fielder) and two Transactional Reactions (the gazes). One possible solution here would be to choose the Non-Transactional Action of the batsman as the main process since the textual salience is given to her. The other processes then could be treated as ‘embedded’ minor processes (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 107). This analysis does seem to address the issue of multiple processes in a complex image. However, simply grouping processes as major or minor ones fails to capture the nuances of the semantic relations between the processes such as ‘causality’ (the falling of the fielder is possibly triggered by the previous actions of the batsman) or ‘simultaneity’ (the fielder at bottom-left runs at the same time as the batsman). More importantly, it leaves one central question of SF-MDA research unaddressed: how do (static) images construe/represent a series of actions differently from language? To capture the complexity, it would seem reasonable to introduce the concept of rank. If we apply O’Toole’s (1994) four-scale visual grammar to the same image in Figure 15.2, we would be able to recognize the following units: 1)


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Figure 15.3 Women cricketers fielding

Work (the whole fielding scene); 2) Episodes (the three gazing fielders, the batsman, the falling fielder, the running fielder); 3) Figures (each individual participants) and 4) Members. Next, we could analyse each unit as well as the relations between the units at a given rank (e.g. the relations between the batsman Episode and the falling fielder Episode). While addressing the complexity of the image, the assigning of the rank scale nevertheless gives rise to a different set of problems. For instance, the four Episodes of the fielding scene do not in fact make up Work – the rank above. Instead they are linked by certain semantic relations and hence form a complex – the Episode complex. This leads to two further questions: 1) is complexing allowed at all ranks? For example, if member complexes can be generated by the same semantic resource; and 2) should the image be analysed as involving two rank-shifts? If this is the case, should these rank-shifts be treated as up-ranking movement (a Figure upgrading to function as an Episode) or down-ranking one (a Figure embedding an Episode)? For the analyst, one foreseeable difficulty would be to decide on the direction of the analysis: from Member (the lowest rank) to Work (the highest rank) or vice versa? If we proceed from the higher rank to the lower ones, as most rank-based analytical practices do, it would be relatively problematic to decide on the depth of the analysis. Furthermore, in Figure 15.3, the facial expression/make-up/gesture of each participant can hardly be recognized. In this case, should the analysis stop at the rank of Figure (i.e. the act of individual participant)? If in a similar photo such details are present, should the description then include the rank of Member (i.e. the expression/gesture of the individual)? Another problem in rank-based MDA model is that it has unintentionally created a discrepancy between the theoretical conceptualization of rank and its application in the MDA practices. In Halliday’s functional grammar, rank serves as the starting point for generalizing systems and structures of the language.

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In most MDA studies, in contrast, rank is usually the ending point of the theoretical description. A rank-based research typically involves assigning rank scale and proposing potential meaning-making systems (e.g. gaze, expression). The paradigmatic choices and their syntagmatic realizations within each system, however, are seldom specified. As a result, it is difficult to ensure consistency across analyses since there is no generalized principle guiding the application of the systems in analysis. So far, I have compared Kress and Van Leeuwen’s and O’Toole’s treatments of rank in the description of image, showing both their advantages and disadvantages. What needs to be emphasized here is that the purpose of my analytical exercise is not to criticize either theory. The inability of Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar to account for large-scale images seems to be the consequence of a deliberate theoretical choice (see Van Leeuwen in Martinec, 2005). Many aspects of O’Toole’s model require further theorization for few system networks have being offered so far. We have not yet been able to test the accountability of constituents at any rank4. What we need now is to further test the descriptive advantages of including or excluding rank in the descriptions of MOLs and multimodal texts. However, in my opinion, the prevailing trend in current MDA research does not seem to encourage such theoretical development. In the following section, I will present the reasons why we are unable to provide solutions to the current rank debate in MDA by re-interpreting Halliday’s original conception of rank in SFL theory.

15.3 Rank: Re-reading Halliday In this section, I will provide a re-interpretation of Halliday’s rank theory. The purpose of the re-reading is to reveal the missing elements in the current debate on rank in MDA. For me, there are at least three interrelated aspects in Halliday’s rank theory need to be emphasized here: 1. Rank is not an isolated SFL parameter. Theoretically, it is closely linked with other SFL parameters, such as system/structure, metafunctions, etc. 2. Rank theory is essentially a hypothesis about the nature of language. 3. Rank grammar is ultimately a constituency grammar.

15.3.1 Rank is not an isolated parameter in the theoretical descriptions of SFL First, the MDA borrowing of SFL theory tends to treat linguistic parameters as isolated categories. In SFL, however, the theoretical description of one


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parameter is closely associated with the descriptions of the others. Rank, for instance, ‘defines a point of origin for structures and systems’. In Halliday’s words: . . . to show that a system operates on a given rank is the first step in stating its relationship to other systems; likewise assigning an item to a given rank is the first step in stating the systemic and structural relations into which it may enter and those which it may embody within itself. On the structure axis, rank is a form of generalization about bracketing, and makes it easier to avoid the imposition of unnecessary structures . . . (Halliday, 2002 [1966], p. 120) Systemic functional linguistic theory centres essentially around the mapping of paradigmatic systems – transitivity, mood and theme, and their syntagmatic realizations at the rank of clause. To argue for a rank-based grammar of any semiotic recourse, therefore, we need first provide some consistent descriptions of the systemic (paradigmatic) relations at a given rank and then prove the accountability of constituents at other ranks. However, as previously mentioned, although most rank-based studies have been able to assign rank scales and propose potential meaning-making systems at each rank, they fail to map out the paradigmatic choices. In most rank-free models where systems are offered, on the other hand, the main challenge is to substantiate structural (syntagmatic) realization for each systemic (paradigmatic) choice.

15.3.2 Rank grammar is a constituency theory of language The second point I want to put forward is that rank grammar is essentially a constituency grammar of language. The concept of constituency is best explained in Pike’s theory of tagememics (cf. Pike, 1982). Taking the following clause for example – Eddie Gilbert is signing autographs, we would observe that the clause is made up of parts or particles (Eddie – Gilbert – is – signing – autographs), and each of these parts is in turn made up of smaller particles (auto-graph – s). A particle is called a constituent. Constituency theory, largely influenced by the studies of written language, has played a dominant role in the development of modern linguistic theories. However, if we read the clause aloud in a natural manner, we will notice that the boundaries between the particles become fuzzy. We might not, for instance, be able to separate Gilbert from is. To capture this phenomenon, Pike proposed a new structure: the wave structure. Wave structure is not an alternative interpretation of the nature of language but a complementary one. To put it in another way, language is both particulate-like and wave-like. Influenced by Pike’s theory of tagememics, the SFL theorists (Halliday, 2002 [1979]; Martin, 1996; 2000a) recognize the three types of meanings, known

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Figure 15.4 Types of structures and types of meanings

as metafunctions, as complementary in their structural manifestations (see Figure 15.4): Ideational Meaning (construing human experience): particulate Interpersonal Meaning (enacting interpersonal relations): prosodic Textual Meaning (organizing information): periodic The concept of complementary structures, in my opinion, remains essentially a conceptual one. In SFL, the clause is considered the central meaningprocessing unit (cf. Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) both in theory and in practice. The fact that the prosodic and periodic structures map onto the particulate structure in a clause seem to have obscured the need for disentangling these different abstractions of meaning at the clause level. Once we move beyond the clause, the particulate-based model of meaning starts to reveal its limitation. Both Cléirigh’s (1998) work on phonology and Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory (discourse-semantics), for example, have advocated the importance of prosodic structure as a complementary perspective. Now, if we are to apply these principles to the description of images, we need to ask at least two basic questions: is visual structure particulate-like; and is an image comparable to a clause? To answer the first question, we need to re-examine the images in Figures 15.2 and 15.3. In both cases, there seem to be some strong arguments for constituency since the participants (i.e. the human figures) are easily recognizable as units. However, if we zoom into each individual participant, it becomes increasingly difficult to recognize the boundaries between particulates. Taking facial expression as an example, it is questionable to describe the expression of ‘happiness’ as made up of eyes, teeth and blushes on the cheeks. Part–whole (constituency) relations may also be problematic if we are to further include visual genres where the boundaries between units are indistinguishable, such as landscapes or abstract paintings. The point here is that language construes experience in terms of part–whole relations, which are in turn manifested in linguistic structures. The semantic


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Figure 15.5 The construal of membership in language and image

elements of processes and participants, for instance, are realized respectively by the grammatical units of verbal group and nominal group. Images, in contrast, do not seem to organize experience in the same fashion. Visual processes, for instance, are sometimes embedded in/embodied in the participants, especially the ones categorized by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) as Non-Transactional Reaction and Symbolic structures (see Figure 15.5). If we are not able to recognize constituency in the first place, the introduction of rank in visual analysis will always be open to discussion. Turning to the second question – whether an image is comparable to a clause, the popular consensus in MDA seems to be that it is, whether the analyst includes or excludes rank in the description. Such belief is in fact a reflection of our understanding of text, as I will illustrate in the following section.

15.3.3 Rank grammar is a theory of the clause Although in theory, the constituency model should be able to apply to semantic units as well as grammatical ones, in practice, it is far from clear that a single rank scale can be generalized across various types of text. Existing literature suggests that texts of different registers operate with different compositional scales (see Cloran, 1994; Sinclair and Coutlhard, 1975 cited in Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004; see also Eggins and Slade, 2005; Van Leeuwen, 1993). Images in terms of rank scale seem to resemble a text rather than a clause. That is, different types of images tend to operate with different rank scales. A portrait for instance does not usually involve hierarchical structure, while a Chinese horizontal scroll painting will typically consist of more than four compositional scales. If we are to propose a rank grammar of image, a lot more research needs to be carried out on images of various genres. However, it is unclear at this stage that constituency-based research would be more productive for MDA. A unified, generalized rank scale such as the one for lexicogrammar offers great theoretical advantage, for it ensures the stability of the systemic descriptions. In other words, it allows us to map out the potential of a whole language in a relatively manageable number of systems. However, if rank scale itself is subjective to registerial variations as in the case of semantics

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(discourse-semantics) or images, it will be even more difficult to predict the potential systemic variants. The underlining issue here is whether the constituency model is the preferable option for MDA and discourse analysis in general. Although in theory, SFL acknowledges both the product and process nature of text, in the analytical practices adopted, a text is largely treated as being made up of smaller parts, just like a clause. Treating text as a collection of clauses undoubtedly has its theoretical advantage for it allows us to generate language patterns across unprecedented amounts of texts (e.g. Butt et al., 2004) and assists in testing and modifying the system networks that were originally built on manual analysis. However, the nature of the method necessitates the sacrifice of the discursive features that are key to the meaning-making process, such as sequencing (Zappavigna, 2010) and non-linear coupling (i.e. the ‘snowballing’ of meaning) (Zhao, 2010). In short, it prompts unintentionally a synoptic/product view of text at the cost of a dynamic/process one. The limitation of the synoptic perspective is further accentuated in the analysis of multimodal texts. To illustrate this point, I will again use the image in Figure 15.2 as an example; only this time I will put the image back in its original text environment. In the original layout, there are three different sets of verbal text accompanying the image, the master title, the caption and the main text. The textual elements (e.g. the placement of the visual element: top-down, left-right, visual salience: font, size, etc.) naturalize a possible unfolding path of the text as the following (see Figure 15.6): A Queensland hero – ‘the image’ – Eddie Gilbert signing autographs – Though in the end, the cricket officials succeeded in destroying Gilbert’s career because of his skin. Australian fans loved him. He was very popular and Australians took national pride in his career. What we immediately notice is the subtle shift in our description of the visual structure as well as the text–image relations during the unfolding of the multimodal text. The verbal texts establish respectively three different sets of relations with the image: 1) the master title ‘classifies’ the central participant in the image as ‘a hero’; 2) the caption ‘names’ the visually represented participant, while the image provides the circumstantial details for the verbal

Figure 15.6 The unfolding path of the multimodal text


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text; for example, where the signing took place; 3) the main text provides extra ideational information that is not represented in the image such as the destroying of Gilbert’s career. At same time, it attributes interpersonal meanings to the event in the image, that is, positive affect (love, pride) and judgement (popular) (cf. Martin and White, 2005). The girls’ act of watching, for example, can be seen as the token for ‘love’ and ‘pride’. In other words, the ideational meanings of the image are now coupled (Martin, 2000b; Zhao, 2010) with the interpersonal meanings construed in the text. The example here shows the limitation of a constituency model, for a multimodal text is not simply made up of smaller units of texts and images, nor is its meaning an accumulation of separate parts. Rather, it is a meaning-making process, in which choice from one semiotic system is constantly coupling with or decoupling from the choice made in another system (Zhao, 2010).

15.4 The Implications of Rank Debate for MDA and SFL So far, I have reviewed the advantages and disadvantages of using rank in MDA and traced the origin of the rank theory in SFL. Through the discussion, I have shown the reasons why the argument for or against a rank-based MDA approach does not necessarily hold the key to an understanding of the complexity of MOLs and multimodal texts. In this section, I will summarize these arguments and map out the implications of the rank debate for MDA and SFL research. The first issue emerging from the rank debate concerns the validity of theoretical borrowings, that is, how and to what extent the linguistic categories can be used in the description of MOLs and multimodal texts. In its development, MDA theory has utilized a wide selection of SFL parameters, such as metafunctions, stratification, systemic (paradigmatic) relations and rank; and occasionally structure (e.g. Martin and Stenglin, 2007; O’Halloran, 2008). The borrowing of systemic categories, however, has seldom been systematic. The presence or absence of a parameter tends to be justified purely with its applicability to the description of one particular type of MOL or multimodal text. The theoretical consequences of the choice on the overall coherence of the theory are seldom acknowledged. Linguistic categories, as Halliday (2002 [1992], p. 202) pointed out, are ‘not defined individually but in relation to one another’. In this sense, arguing for rank requires the total accountability of systems across metafunctions at all ranks, or at least at the rank central to the meaning processing. Arguing against rank, on the other hand, requires addressing the potential of complex structures such as those involving embedding. The purpose-oriented theoretical borrowing of SFL has so far been proven to be constructive for the development of MDA theory, for it has enabled us to engage with a wide variety of MOLs and multimodal texts. However, the merit owes itself to the extravagance of SFL theory rather than the applications of the linguistic categories. It seems to me that the flexibility in the theoretical adaptation might have hampered the development of a coherent MDA approach that ensures objectivity

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and high consistency both within the same analysis or across analyses. The question that needs to be addressed is ultimately a methodological one – how valid it is to borrow a set of theoretical categories without introducing the underlining principles? The rank debate also forces us to re-examine the dynamic relations between theory and data. In the history of MDA, its relationship with SFL theory remains monolateral instead of dialogic. That is to say, to capture the complex nature of multimodality, our approach is to exhaust the rich analytical tools SFL theory offers. While the attempt fails, however, there is little feedback on the theory itself. As biologists Goldenfeld and Woese (2007, p. 369) have eloquently expressed, ‘the most fundamental patterns of scientific discovery is the revolution in thought that accompanies a new body of data’. In this sense, what our explorations in MDA ultimately offer us is a chance to re-examine and renew our understanding of human semiotic processes. As I have demonstrated earlier, the issues raised in multimodal research are hardly new. Our attempts to introduce the concept of rank into MDA reflect deeply our perception of text structure as one based on constituency. To move beyond constituency, one solution would be to resume the unfinished SFL dialogue on dynamic modelling initiated in the mid-1980s (e.g. Bateman, 1989; Berry, 1981; Martin, 1985; Matthiessen, 1993; O’Donnell, 1990; Ravelli, 1995; Ventola, 1987, Zeng, 1996). The final issue the rank debate brings up is in fact an even older one: the issue of using language as metalanguage for describing language itself. The dilemma of ‘language turned back on itself’ is accepted as inevitable in linguistics. Dealing with MOLs, however, has highlighted the tension. There are at least two issues that need to be urgently addressed: if the meaning of modalities other than language can be translated into language, if non-constituency based/dynamic nature of MOLs and multimodal texts can be captured by a metalanguage which is essentially synoptic and constituency-based? If we accept that language is a model for construing experience, which is manifested through its structures; we should anticipate the possibilities that MOLs construe experience differently from language. In other words, the differences between language, image and other MOLs lie both in their structures and meaning patterns. In this sense, using language as a metalanguage puts more issues at risk than we could have anticipated. We would, on the one hand, over-emphasize one type of structure (meaning) – particulate – over the others. On the other hand, we cannot avoid a verbal-centric interpretation of meaning patterns in MOLs and multimodal texts. It seems to me that the biggest challenge lies in the search for a new metalanguage, one that can capture the non-linear and dynamic nature of multimodal discourse and human semiosis in general.

15.5 Data The first golden age of cricket Curriculum Cooperation, 2005. The Le@rning Federation leaning object L684.


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Notes 1

2

3

4

I would like to express my appreciation to Dr Emilia Djonov and Dr Michele Zappavigna for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of the paper. I am also grateful to David Caldwell for proofreading the final draft and sharing his extensive knowledge of cricket. Ideational structure is referred to as representational structure in Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006[1996]) and O’Toole (1994). It is also referred to as experiential structure in O’Halloran (2004). For the purpose of this chapter, I label it as ideational structure/metafunction; following Halliday and Matthiessen (1999; 2004), since it concerns the construal of experiences. In Halliday’s original paper, he proposed that one criterion for examining the validity of a linguistic theory is to see ‘whether the theory can be falsified’, another being if ‘it is worth making in the first place’ (Halliday, 2002[1966], p. 119). It is not clear from this paper or his subsequent publications that if Halliday uses the term ‘falsify’ in a strict Popperian sense (see Popper, 1934 [2002]). Here, I have chosen to follow the original arguments of Halliday, since the concept of ‘falsifiability’ is beyond the scope of this chapter and will not be relevant to my central arguments. Whether Popper’s model is adequate for the type of linguistic research discussed in this chapter is nevertheless open to debate. There is the possibility that O’Toole has a different conceptualization of rank, though it is not explicitly defined. However, the use of rank with other SFL parameters (metafunction) leads to the natural conclusion that it is comparable to Halliday’s concept of rank.

References Baldry, A. P. and Thibault, P. J. (2006). Multimodal Transcription and Text. London: Equinox. Bateman, J. A. (1989). ‘Dynamic systemic-functional grammar: a new frontier’. Word 40 (1–2), 263–87. Bateman, J. A. (2008). Multimodality and Genre: A Foundation for the Systematic Analysis of Multimodal Documents. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Bednarek, M. and Martin, J. R. (eds) (2010). New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation. London: Continuum. Berry, M. (1981). ‘Systemic linguistics and discourse analysis: a multi-layered approach to exchange structure’, in M. Coulthard and M. Montgomery (eds), Studies in Discourse Analysis. London: Routhledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 120–46. Butt, D., Lukin, A. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). ‘Grammar – the first covert operation of war’. Discourse and Society 5 (2–3), 267–90. Caldwell, D. (in press). ‘Making metre mean: identity and affiliation in the rap music of Kanye West’, in M. Bednarek and J. R. Martin (eds), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation. London: Continuum. Cléirigh, C. (1998). ‘A selectionist model of the genesis of phonic texture: systemic phonology & universal Darwinism’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney.

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Cloran, C. (1994). Rhetorical Units and Decontextualisation: An Enquiry into Some Relations of Context, Meaning and Grammar. Nottingham: Department of English Studies, University of Nottingham. Eggins, S. and Slade, D. (2005). Analyzing Casual Conversation (2nd edn). London; New York: Cassel. Goldenfeld, N. and Woese, C. (2007). ‘Biology’s next revolution’. Nature 445, 369. Halliday, M. A. K. (2002: Reprinted in full 1966). ‘The concept of rank: a reply’, in J. Webster (ed.), The Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday, Vol 1: On Grammar. London: Continuum, pp. 118–26. Halliday, M. A. K. (2002: Reprinted in full 1979). ‘Modes of meaning and modes of expression: types of grammatical structure and their determination by different semantic functions’, in J. J. Webster (ed.), The Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday: Vol 1: On Grammar. London: Continuum, pp. 196–218. Halliday, M. A. K. (2002: Reprinted in full 1992). ‘Systemic grammar and the concept of a “science of language”’, in J. J. Webster (ed.), The collected works of M.A.K. Halliday, Vol 2: Language and Linguistics, Volume 2. London: Continuum, pp. 199–212. Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (1999). Construing Experience Through Meaning: A Language-based Approach to Cognition. London: Cassell. Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3ed edn). London: Arnold. Jewitt, J. (ed.) (2009). Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. London: Routledge. Knight, N.K. (forthcoming). ‘The interpersonal semiotics of having a laugh’, in S. Dreyfus, S. Hood & M. Stenglin (eds), Semiotic Margins. London: Continuum. Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2002). ‘Colour as a semiotic mode: notes for a grammar of colour’. Visual Communication 1 (3), 343–68. Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd edn). London: Routledge. Martin, J. R. (1985). ‘Process and text: two aspects of human semiosis’, in J. D. Benson and W. S. Greaves (eds), Systemic Perspectives on Discourse: Selected Theoretical Papers from the 9th International Systemic Workshop. Norwood, NJ: Ablex (Advances in Discourse processes 15), pp. 248–74. Martin, J. R. (1996). ‘Types of structure: deconstructing notions of constituency in clause and text’, in. E. H. Hovy and D. R. Scott (eds), Computational and Conversational Discourse: Burning Issues – An Interdisciplinary Account. Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 39–66. Martin, J. R. (2000a). ‘Factoring out exchange: types of structure’, in M. Coulthard, J. Cotterill and F. Rock (eds), Working with Dialogue. Tubingen: Niemeyer, pp. 19–40. Martin, J. R. (2000b). ‘Beyond exchange: appraisal systems in English’, in S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 142–75. Martin, J. R. and Stenglin, M. (2007). ‘Materialising reconciliation: negotiating difference in a post-colonial exhibition’, in T. Royce and W. Bowcher (eds), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 215–38. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Martinec, R. (2001). ‘Interpersonal resources in action’. Semiotica 135 (1/4), 117–45.


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Martinec, R. (2004). ‘Gestures which co-occur with speech as a systematic resource: the realisation of experiential meaning in indexes’. Social Semiotics 14 (2), 193–213. Martinec, R. (2005). ‘Topics in multimodality’, in R. Hasan, C. M. I. M. Matthiessen and J. Webster (eds), Continuing Discourse on Language: A Functional Perspective. London: Equinox, pp. 157–81. Martinec, R. and Salway, A. (2005). ‘A system for image-text relations in new (and old) media’. Visual Communication 4 (3), 337–71. Martinec, R. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2009). The Language of New Media Design: Theory and Practice. London and New York: Routledge. Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (1993). ‘Instantial systems and logogenesis’. Paper presented at the Third Chinese Systemic-Functional symposium, Hangzhou, June 17–20 1993. Unpublished ms, draft 15/ix/93. Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2007a). ‘The multimodal page: a systemic functional exploration’, in T. Royce and W. Bowcher (eds), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 1–62. Norris, S. (2004). Analyzing Multimodal Interaction: A Methodological Framework. London: Routledge. O’ Donnell, M. (1990). ‘A dynamic model of exchange’. Word 41 (3), 293–327. O’Halloran, K. (ed.) (2004). Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Systemic Functional Perspectives. London: Continuum (Open Linguistics Series). O’ Halloran, K. (2005). Mathematical Discourse: Language, Symbolism and Visual Images. London and New York: Continuum. O’Halloran, K. (2008). ‘Systemic functional-multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA): constructing ideational meaning using language and visual imagery’. Visual Communication 7 (4), 443–75. O’Toole, M. (1994). The Language of Displayed Art. London: Leicester University Press. Painter, C. (2008). ‘The role of colour in children’s picture books: choices in ambience’, in L. Unsworth (ed.), Multimodal Semiotics and Multiliteracies Education: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Research and Professional Practice. London: Continuum, pp. 89–98. Pike, K. L. (1982). Linguistics Concepts: An Introduction to Tagmemics. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Popper, K. (1934: Reprinted in full 2002). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London and New York: Routledge. Ravelli, L. (1995). ‘A dynamic perspective: implications for metafunction interaction and an understanding of theme’, in R. Hasan and P. Fries (eds), On Subject and Theme: A Discourse Functional Perspective. Benjamins: Amsterdam, pp. 187–234. Ravelli, L. (2006). Museum Texts: Communication Frameworks. London and New York: Routledge. Royce, T. (2007). ‘Intersemiotic complementarity: a framework for multimodal discourse analysis’, in T. Royce and W. Bowcher (eds), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 63–109. Royce, T. and Bowcher, W. (eds) (2007). New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Stenglin, M. K. (2004). ‘Packaging curiosities: towards a grammar of threedimensional space’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney.

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Unsworth, L. (2007). ‘Multiliteracies and multimodal text analysis in classroom work with children’s literature’, in T. Royce and W. Bowcher (eds), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 331–59. Unsworth, L. (ed.) (2008). Multimodal Semiotics and Multiliteracies Education: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Research and Professional Practice. London: Continuum. Van Leeuwen, T. (1993). ‘Language and Representation: The Recontextualisation of Participants, Activities and Reactions’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney. Van Leeuwen, T. (1999). Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan. Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). ‘Typographic meaning’. Visual Communication 4 (2), 137–43. Ventola, E. (1987). The Structure of Social Interaction: A Systemic Approach to the Semiotics of Service Encounters. London: Frances Pinter. Ventola, E., Charles, C., and Kaltenbacher, M. (eds) (2004). Perspectives on Multimodality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Zappavigna, M. (2008). ‘Visualising instantiation: text visualisation techniques for preserving logogenesis’, in S. Dreyfus, S. Hood and M. Stenglin (eds), Proceedings of the Semiotic Margins Conference, University of Sydney, 2007. Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association. Zappavigna, M. (2010). ‘The coupling of gesture and phonology’, in M. Bednarek and J. R. Martin (eds), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation. London: Continuum. Zeng, L. (1996). ‘Planning text in an integrated multilingual meaning space: Theory and implementation’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney. Zhao, S. M. (2010). ‘Intersemiotic relations as logogenetic patterns: the time factor in hypertext description’, in M. Bednarek and J. R. Martin (eds), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation. London: Continuum.

Chapter 16

The Meaning of ‘Not’ Is Not in ‘Not’ Ruqaiya Hasan

16.1 Introduction For human beings, the world certainly turns on the exchange of meaning. Even a casual observation of daily life reveals the active participation of language in a wide range of human social practices – which means that much of our practical life is beholden to acts of meaning. As the discourse here1 develops (Section 16.2.2), it will become obvious that this foregrounding of meaning is not designed to underplay the importance of ‘syntax’ or ‘expression’,2 but in a very real sense the raison d’être for syntax and expression is their role in bringing about the ‘sens-ible’3 manifestation of meaning. We might argue quite rightly that without them meaning could not be accessed, but by the same token, without meaning the being of these phenomena – if they had any – would have no bearing on human life – and certainly not on language: meaning, literally, is the essence of language, on which more later. Meaning in the popular sense of the word – that is, not necessarily linguistic but by any means – has been central to all major aspects of human life. This was true in the early stages of the evolution of the human species, and it is true today when thanks to woefully limited ideas about progress we might be approaching the end of that long drawn drama. Since the claim about the centrality of meaning to human life may sound exaggerated, I will briefly introduce some evolutionary and developmental perspectives based on research in such branches of the human sciences as archaeological anthropology, neuroscience, psychology, sociology and last and most pertinent, one particular approach to the study of language, which treats linguistic meaning as the essence of humanity, viz., systemic functional linguistics.

16.1.1 Meaning in social life: archaeological anthropology The traditional view in narrating ‘The Human Ancestor’s Tale’ (with apologies to Dawkins, 2005) had presented tool making as one of the most basic steps in the evolution of the human species. However, today research in archaeological

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anthropology (e.g. Noble and Davidson, 1996; Davidson, 2007) places social interaction at the centre of this process, arguing that the production of tools logically presupposes the existence of some form of communication for Homo sapiens. With hindsight, the image of a group of early ‘ancestors’ crafting their tools, each in his own ‘bubble’ of silence does strike one as somewhat absurd, especially when evidence suggests that the tools were used collectively and became, in fact, a commodity for exchange fairly early in our history. What was being exchanged in the interactions was significant in two senses: it was significant for the community’s survival through a direct management of the material environment, and it was significant as a step in facilitating the development of acts of meaning as an evolving mode of human existence. Whatever its modality, social exchange consists in message-ing, and the point of a message is its meaning. The importance of meaning thus predates those anatomical changes which, by facilitating auditory modes of meaning became a milestone in human cultural evolution (Marwick, 2005) and which, as the precursor to the ‘meaningsound’ conjunction, have been long celebrated in linguistics as a crucial property of human language. In the next few subsections, however, the concern will be with the popular sense of meaning in communication irrespective of the means by which it is effected: in the game of evolution language arrived later than many other means.

16.1.2 Meaning making mind: neuroscience Archaeological anthropology also provides cogent ground for discarding the Cartesian mental myths as relics of the past; it suggests, instead, that the human brain has evolved to its present state in response to a complex set of evolutionary pressures (Noble and Davidson, 1996; Davidson, 2003; 2005), in the midst of which there had continued the typically human motif of action and interaction, so that material action and communication moved in parallel; which implies in turn that both the physical and the mental resources were simultaneously involved in the process of evolution. The emergence of symbolic behaviour and verbal language are milestones not only in the evolution of language, but also in that of the human brain. This phylogenetic perspective on the making of mind foregrounds the dialectic that holds social practices, acts of meaning, and the physical and functional evolution of the brain in a mutually evolving relation – a dialectic whereby the history of any one is part of the history of the other two. Recent research in neuroscience appears to support this evolutionary view. The findings it offers concerning the trajectory of the brain’s structural and functional development apply to the entire human species. As Homo sapiens, we are inordinately proud of the faculties of our brain, treating them as independent of its ‘physique’: the clear distinction made between the two has thus given rise to the widespread duality of brain and mind, as two distinct phenomena. Modern neuroscience explodes this myth: it describes mind, though

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cautiously, as a ‘personalized brain’ (Greenfield, 1997; 2008). Attempting to explain why human brains are not ‘robotic’ – why we do not act as clones of each other – the researchers suggest that each individual brain is shaped by the experiences it encounters in the living of life. For a variety of reasons, the latter are not – indeed, cannot be – identical for every member, and the ways in which different individuals encounter and ‘deal with’ the different experiences in different ways creates what Jean Lave (1997) has called ‘habits of the mind’. Thus each individual brain develops specific ways of being, doing and saying – a mental disposition towards recognizing aspects of experience as relevant information: it is these processes that we call ‘mind’. And a large part of the experience of living is the experience of ‘language-ing’: meaning thus spans the social universe extending from a community’s lifestyle to its members’ ability to act as social agents, a significant part of their identity.

16.1.3 Meaning, mind and culture: semiotic mediation To ask how mind is shaped by experience is to ask with Bernstein (1990) how the ‘outside’ becomes the ‘inside’. Gregory Bateson once humorously remarked (1972) that inside the brain there are no monkeys or coconuts: experience, per se, does not get transplanted in the brain/mind. On the basis of modern research on the brain, and of our first-person experience of experiencing, we may claim with some confidence that to be internalized all experience must be both sens-ible and ‘intellig-ible’ (Russell, 1940); it must be sensuous, impinging on (some of) the five senses, and, at the same time, the brain must somehow ‘make sense’ of it, must ‘absorb’ its essence, that which gives it a ‘point’ in the life of the experiencing being. This is where we turn to Vygotsky’s concept of ‘semiotic mediation’. This is best seen as a ‘hinge concept’ capable of connecting nature to nurture, phylogeny to ontogeny, community to individual and the material to the semiotic. To present a highly simplified account: archaeological anthropology is an enquiry into the communal history of Homo sapiens, and neuroscience is an exploration of the structure and functioning of the brain in the members of this species; in both cases the orientation is phylogenetic; neither research is concerned with the developmental trajectory of single members of the community, which must always display some variation. But the riddle of the transformation of some outside experience into the habits of particular ‘personalized brains’ can be resolved only by a close look into the relationship of single human organisms to the community to which they belong: in other words the perspective has to be ontogenetic. Vygotsky (1978; Wertch, 1985a; 1985b) solved this riddle with his concept of semiotic mediation. He postulated a continuity between the biogenetic foundation of the neonate’s activities and the socio-genetic foundation of its activities as it moves through life becoming an individual. Initially culture has little hand in creating or shaping these biogenetic activities. However, many of these activities are assigned some significance

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by the caregiver who is always already acculturated: this is where sociogenesis sets in. It is this assigning of significance by an already socialized individual that forms the basis of continuity between the bio- and the sociogenetic, for indeed the baby grows with the growing habit of meaning (Halliday, 1975; Hasan, 2001): little wonder none of us can remember when meaning first became meaningful to us. In this way, Vygotsky in fact re-wrote the prefix ‘onto-’ as ‘socio-’ in the context of human development; there is very little that is ontogenetic in human behaviour, that did not begin as a communally recognized social activity, whether material or semiotic. For each mind, the internalized significance of these experiences is individuated because each history of experience is in some ways unique: what is being experienced is unique; the experiencing, internalizing brain is unique, thus each new internalization of sociogenetic experience by an individual is at once irrevocably social, and indisputably individual. A distinctive feature of Vygotsky’s notion of mediation was its open-ness to various classes of experience. For Vygotsky, developmental psychology was not about how nature designed the brain to function once for all, but rather about how the naturally designed brain of a human being has the potential for extending itself in absorbing the relevant aspects of the universe presented socially. Thus, for example, the infant absorbs the significance of the caregiver’s uptake of a gesture, which links a material event to meaning; with the introduction of a material tool, the worker’s earlier relationship to his work changes in grasping the significance of the tool in the performance of that task; it is however with the arrival of linguistic meanings that the character of semiotic mediation changes qualitatively: talk between participants of some activity does more than act as an instrument – it encourages analysis; the newcomer to the school learns concepts, their interrelations, forms of reasoning and other strategies, all mostly through the abstract tool of language. This acts as the basis for the formation of higher mental functions. Though there is much more to semiotic mediation,4 the above narrative indicates clearly the central place of meanings in creating minds – and human minds5 are the true force behind the social agents whose actions create, maintain and change human societies.

16.1.4 Bernstein and social variation: from interaction to ideology There is a great deal of convergence between Vygotsky, Bernstein and Halliday (Hasan, 2005a). Both Vygotsky and Bernstein take the social environment as critical in shaping human development, assigning a central importance to social interaction, and within that, centrally to language. However, in Vygotsky’s work, society appears somewhat monochromatic, as if all types of social interaction were equally within reach of all social agents (Hasan, 2005a). With a keen awareness of the systematic relationship between social structure, agents’ social positioning and forms of interaction, Bernstein’s research (1990; 2000) attempted to show that experience of interaction for social agents was varied


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from one social group to another; and that it was not simply a source of information, it also defined the participant’s orders of relevance: different forms of interaction produced different forms of consciousness. This was not a statement about mental ‘development’ per se: it pointed to the social genesis of that mental disposition which acts as the principle for selecting some particular sets of values and beliefs and the principles of their legitimation in their immediate community, which obviously vary across the various groups in a society. Thus for Bernstein, orientations to meaning are ideological orientations which act for and against cultural continuity/change, maintaining and fighting the persistence of social hierarchy: this I take to be the essence of Bernstein’s ‘coding orientation’.

16.1.5 Beyond the ‘things in heaven and earth’: from protolanguage to linguistic meaning Although in the work of both Vygotsky and Bernstein, linguistic meaning is assigned an important role, it is Halliday who in his research (1975) focused on a sociogenetic theory of not only the ontogenesis of language in individuals but also what linguistic meaning does for the growing child6. Simplifying a good deal, I present here the gist of his enquiry under two headings: (i) continuities from material action to linguistic interaction (2004, p. 9) and (ii) the significance of becoming a language user (1975; 1980). That the exchange of meanings in the wider sense of the word predates linguistic meaning has been implied throughout this discussion. Figure 16.1 represents Halliday’s view of the significant steps in this journey from the material to the semiotic where very early ‘bodily actions (including . . . movements of the limbs and . . . movements of the vocal organs) . . . get co-opted . . . as symbolic expressions’ (Halliday, 2004, p. 9). The view presented by Halliday categorizes communication by reference to their modes of meaning: (i) pre-semiotic move expressed as some bodily act, for example, a yell – if the yell is seen as significant it is thanks to the receiver; (ii) isolated symbol manifested as bodily action, but unmistakably7 vested with significance; (iii) a primary semiotic system – Halliday (1973a; 1975) refers to this as protolanguage8 – manifested as vocal symbols, each with a specific import;

Figure 16.1 Moving and meaning (source: Halliday, 2004, p. 9)

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contextual evidence about the baby’s communicative intent is palpable, though the expression, albeit vocal, is still ‘alien’ to the acculturated adult; there is no syntax in the early stages, though the function of the message in context is obvious to caregivers; and, finally, (iv) the onset of the higher order semiotic, that is, language, where expression and meanings in the utterance come increasingly to bear systematic relationship to the caregiver’s language. This classification of the different kinds of acts of ‘meaning exchange’ foregrounds on the one hand the enormously varied nature of that to which we refer as ‘meaning’ in popular usage, and on the other, the compatibility between the evolutionary and the developmental trajectories. It is not easy to describe quickly the significance of a child becoming a language user: Halliday captures the enormity of this enterprise in ‘Three aspects of children’s language learning: learning language, learning through language, learning about language’ (1980). The appreciation of the multiple domains of human experience captured within these three descriptive nominal groups depends on how one conceptualizes language. With Halliday’s functional approach the logical implication is that what language is and what language can do for its speakers are not unrelated phenomena. So far as the potential of language for meaning is concerned, there is no exaggeration in the claim that it is limitless: it can go beyond what Hamlet referred to as the ‘things in heaven and earth’, covering past, present and future, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary: the limit of meaning in language is the limit of its speakers’ imagination. Not surprisingly, its contribution is central in shaping individuals from their infancy – the nature of the universe they internalize, their ideological orientations, their ways of being, doing and saying, the habits of their minds, the points of departure for their imagination. Halliday’s functional approach has enabled researchers to shed some light on how linguistic interaction is transformed into ideological orientation through habitual exchanges of meaning (Cloran, 1994; Williams, 1995; Hasan, 2009a). Vygotsky and Bernstein give us a sociogenetic theory of the development of mind and mental disposition; Halliday’s linguistics has the means of revealing the potential that, at least in theory, is available to every language user. As the model of language as meaning potential, it has the power to deconstruct the essence of any ideological orientation whatever – both as content and as process. We need to ask: What gives this powerful potential to linguistic meanings for shaping human minds, and thus human lives?

16.2 Meaning: Here, There and Everywhere The word ‘meaning’ in its popular sense (especially as used in Sections 16.1.1– 16.1.3) may be paraphrased as ‘making sense’ or ‘deriving significance’ – in short, ‘interpreting’: obviously, in this perspective, any phenomenon ‘has’ meaning so long as it is open to interpretation. This open-ended view of meaning may


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appear chaotic to those who like their data neat and tidy; nonetheless, in light of first-person experience, it has to be granted that human beings do make sense of an immense range of phenomena – for example, the house one lives in, the garden that adds to its status – or not, as the case may be – the clothes one wears, the fabric, the design; one’s comportment, aloof, reserved or outgoing; and a myriad of such phenomena – all ‘say something’ to those who encounter them. Making sense seems to be an imperative of the brain: it is impossible to state with certainty what, if anything, can not be interpreted; what seems certain is that the brain is a naturally designed interpreter: so long as it is not dozing, not drunk, not deranged, not dead, it must make a ‘reading’. I am tempted to suggest that the habit in human beings to (un-/sub-)consciously interpret the elements of their environment is biogenetic – perhaps a naturally evolved disposition: the survival value of such a capacity to the species can hardly be disputed.9

16.2.1 Semiology, multimodality and meaning That meaning in the above sense is so ubiquitous is primarily an outcome of how we define sign/symbol: if the sign/symbol ‘is’ simply ‘anything that, by custom or convention, stands for something else’ (Noble and Davidson, 1996, p. 5)10, then inevitably the entire world turns into a set of symbols, for the fact is that things, persons, processes and what not, can all ‘stand for something else’, and typically do. Meaning in this all embracing sense is a meaningful concept, as argued above. But from the point of view of devising an integrated framework for its description, it poses some interesting problems. To put it mildly, it is a challenge to Saussure’s ‘science of semiology’,11 and by the same token to the burgeoning trade of multimodality: with this conception of sign, semiology as a ‘science’ (cf. Saussure, 1966, p. 16) would need to study all those elements of the universe that have the potentiality of ‘standing for something else’. To the best of my knowledge, the principles governing the identification of such signs and the goal(s) of their study have so far remained rather unclear. This line of argument opens a huge debate; and in the interest of ‘science’ it must be conducted sometime. A careful pursuit of this kind would be a significant contribution to the study of communication in culture. However, I propose to side-step these issues by restricting myself to linguistic meaning, in order to throw some light on the source of its power. As a preface to what follows, note that underlying the description and identification of linguistic meaning is the weight of an entire theory of language, but the various linguistic theories are not in agreement on what it means to say ‘linguistic meaning’. This is true of even varieties of what is seen as ‘the same’ theoretical framework, viz., Systemic Functional Linguistics. The approach presented here is grounded in my interpretation of Halliday’s SFL (henceforth, SFL).12

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16.2.2 Concepts for meaning in language: (a) stratification and realization This is not the place for presenting details about the theory as a whole. However, we do need to introduce a few fundamental theoretical concepts, particularly relevant to the explication of ‘meaning in language’. The first of these concerns stratification, which logically leads us to realization. Figure 16.2 shows how the two are related. The inner ellipse in Figure 16.2, which is divided by a prominent horizontal line into two halves, represents a language-internal view of stratification. Following Hjelmslev (1961), the top half of the ellipse is called content, the lower half, expression: this is primary stratification with ‘minimal coding’; it presents a picture of language as a symbolic system, as the term is used above (Section 16.2.1). Halliday (1961) and before him Firth (1957) see language as a multiple coding system; as Figure 16.2 shows the primary strata are divided13 further into two strata each14: content is reconceptualized as semantics and lexicogrammar –that is, (linguistic) meaning and wording, respectively – while the expression level is re-stratified as phonology and phonetics. It is important to note here the abstractness of content, and the materiality of expression: both meaning and wording per se are ‘invisible’ in the sense that they cannot be ‘accessed’ by any of the senses and are therefore not available for any mental process without the intervention of phonology and phonetics which (like orthography) are ‘visible’ in the sense that they impinge on the human senses. The outer surround of the ellipse represents the communal environment of

Figure 16.2 Strata in a functional theory of language


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language, namely context, which, despite being language-external, bears an inherent relationship to language. For this reason it must form an integral part of any adequate theory of language. In SFL it is taken to represent the fifth theoretical stratum. Figure 16.2 is iconic of the fact that context of culture bears a stronger relationship to the two strata of meaning and wording, and a considerably weaker one to phonology and phonetics. Stratification separates out each aspect of the overall organization of the linguistic theory, individuating each by virtue of the kind of abstractions each is capable of describing: to give very simple examples, the application of true/ false or appropriate/inappropriate are relations valid only at the level of context – there are no false or inappropriate meanings or wordings, much less phonological or phonetic units; synonymy/antonymy are semantic relations; the other strata have little to say about them; declarative/interrogative or hypotaxis/parataxis are categories at the level of lexicogrammar – the units at the other strata do not contract such relations, despite the fact that we might talk of someone as having a ‘declarative style’ – an idiomatic usage, not to be confused with technical terminology; homophony is applicable to phonological objects, not to wording; bi-labial/dental describe qualities of phonetic units. Stratification, thus, represents a principle for the division of labour in the realm of linguistic description. This is not to claim that there are no categories based on inter-stratal relations, but simply to insist that each stratum is concerned with a distinct order of abstraction. Obviously, the separation of strata is an artefact of analysis. In actuality, language always occurs in some social context, presenting itself as a seamless flow of meaning-wording-sound, which typically functions in harmony with the social occasion of talk. Realization (Halliday, 1992; Hasan, 1995; 1996; 2009b; 2009c; Matthiessen, 2007; Butt, 2001; 2008) is that theoretical concept which specifies the inherent connections among the linguistic strata whereby the perception of their seamless unity is maintained: it is the most fundamental concept for examining inter-stratal relations. I have sometimes remarked (e.g. Hasan, 1996; 2009b) that realization is a hard worked concept: it has been made to do many different kinds of thing, two of which are particularly relevant to the present discussion. First, consider realization as it works in primary stratification: in Figure 16.2, the bold horizontal line, dividing the ellipse into two halves, represents the Saussurean line of arbitrariness. Hjelmslev’s content and expression, in fact, closely correspond to Saussure’s signified and signifier, respectively. Saussure’s sign, a two-part entity, is a conjunction of the two – a conjunction without any logical basis: the signified, an abstract phenomenon, accessible to mental activity alone; the signifier, an acoustic shape with materiality, impinging on the senses, makes the meaning it signals accessible to mental processing. Saussure described the basis of their conjunction as arbitrary, rooted in convention. This is the relation that holds between the primary strata of content and expression: units of expression ‘stand for’ units of content, or ‘signal’ them; to

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sum up, the realization relationship of phonetics-phonology as two strata of expression to semantics-lexicogrammar as two strata of content is characteristically arbitrary. However, so far as the three strata above the stratum of phonology are concerned, their mutual relationship is different. Halliday (1988) has referred to the realization relation between lexicogrammar and semantics as natural. What this means is not that nature has granted us a biological facility for the perception of specific pairings of semantic and lexicogrammatical units, but rather that linguistic meaning is un-knowable without lexicogrammar; and one might add: the process of meaning is impossible without context. This points to a qualitatively different kind of work done by the realization relation across context, meaning and wording – it is not arbitrary but dialectical, so that the relationship logically locks the three together in such a way that the absence of one from this triad would leave the other two impotent: the recognition of all three working together is necessary for doing adequate linguistics. Based entirely on communal convention, the arbitrary realization relation of phonology to ‘worded-meaning-in-context’ is quite unlike the dialectical realization relation which is based in necessity – a necessity that arises from the internal logic of language not by communal convention. If language is to function as system and process ‘in the living of life’ (Firth, 1957), this internal logic must hold. Note the double headed arrows linking the three upper strata of context, semantics and lexicogrammar: they point to the bi-directionality of this dialectical realization, which is motivated by the need to recognize two reciprocal perspectives essential to the maintenance and evolution of language. The ‘downward’ move from context to semantics to lexicogrammar is the encoding view, the ‘upward’ move ‘is’ the decoding view: the two indicate respectively the speaker and addressee position vis-á-vis the ‘speech event’ (Firth, 1957). To put it more simply, in producing an utterance, the issue is the speaker’s sense of the relevant context which identifies the relevant semantic domains. This enables the selection of meanings to be meant in this instance, and that leads to wording choices15. No matter how problematic it may seem to subscribe to this view, it would be far more problematic to reject it out of hand. It does not seem subject to doubt that, in the universe of semiotic activity, meaning comes ‘before’ wording in some sense of the word; let me, however, add immediately that in this locution, ‘before’ cannot refer to some temporal phenomenon; witness, however, the awareness of ‘slips of the tongue’, searching for ‘that word’ (‘which word?’ ‘Well, the one whose meaning the speaker needs to encode here and now!’); saying: ‘I don’t know what to say’, does not mean: ‘I happen to have forgotten the formal structures of this language’, but simply that the situation defies the possibility of choosing some appropriate meaning: the occasion is ‘breath-taking’. For the receiver, however, meaning cannot come first16, no matter how instantaneous its grasp is in everyday use of language: what allows the addressee to get to the speaker’s meanings is the speaker’s wording17.


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Realization works somewhat differently in the two directions. In the encoding view, it is an activation of some possible choice at the next lower level: thus in the production of an utterance, context activates meaning, meaning activates wording. By contrast, in the reception of the utterance, realization is construal of the relevant choice at the higher level: thus in decoding an utterance, the choice in wording construes meaning, the choice in meaning construes context. It is relevant to note here that in SFL, the definition criteria for a category are said to be located at the level above it (Halliday, 1988): for example, it is the context of the utterance ‘Join the navy and see the world’ that alerts us to the fact that despite ‘being’ worded as coordinated imperative clauses, the utterance is not a set of orders; it is an advertisement in the form of exhortative invitation supplemented by a condition. By contrast, the lower level category furnishes recognition criteria for the category at the above stratum: thus the clause ‘Do it now!’ is an imperative clause which overwhelmingly functions as recognition criterion for – that is, construes – the semantic category demand; goods/services, unless there is good reason for doing otherwise, as in the above advertisement. Meta-redundancy (Lemke, 1984) often invoked in the discussion of meaning and metaphor is a technical label that refers to precisely the relations just paraphrased. The fact that realization between strata does not display a 1:1 relationship is a critical feature ensuring the semogenic power of language (further discussion in Section 16.3.1). Further, if the relationship between the categories on two strata were universally biunique, there would be no ground for the recognition of two distinct strata (Halliday, 1988). By the same token, in an important respect, it would reduce the semiotic system of language to the same level of semological complexity as that found in the systems of traffic lights. Hjelmslev (1961) suggested wisely that a necessary condition for recognizing separate strata is their non-conformality. Although the difference between the arbitrary and dialectical realization relation has not been made explicit in SFL, Firth’s (1957, p. 33) distinction between major and minor ‘functions’ of meaning interestingly does suggest a division between the strata which seems to bear a close resemblance to the suggestion I have made here: Firth treats phonetics as the minor function18 of meaning, and ‘lexical, morphological, and syntactical (. . .), and the function of a complete locution in the context of situation . . .’ as the major functions of meaning.19 Firth does not offer an explicit justification for his division between the major and minor functions of meaning. My discussion of the special kind of solidary relation between context, meaning and wording, clearly assigns the triad an important role in the process of meaning, while the arbitrary relation between the triad and the strata at the expression level is a good reason for thinking of the latter as not having the same importance for making meaning: their function is, rather, the relay of worded meaning. By focusing on the triad as central to the meaning process, I do not mean to imply that expression is altogether irrelevant to the process of meaning; in fact,

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both in production (activation) and in reception (construal), the expression strata of phonology and phonetics act as the point where the sign’s materiality works as the initial gateway for entry to the levels of wording and meaning which would otherwise remain inaccessible. In this sense they do have a function in the encoding and decoding of meaning, but that function is, as pointed out by Firth, a minor one. For, if we leave prosodic phonology (Halliday and Greaves, 2008) out of this discussion, it is obvious that segmental phonology and phonetics play little or no part in the construal of wording (hence of meaning) in the sense in which the term ‘construal’ is being used here. The expression strata simply signal the presence of a sign unit but even this signalling is not always unambiguous.20 Their function is thus not content-forming; it is simply contentexpressing. This is the price paid for arbitrary realization. However, the uncertainty thus created is constrained by the second property of sign identified by Saussure, that is, linearity. By supporting the syntagm, linearity gives us the invaluable co-text or Firth’s serial context; not many complete speech events consist of one morpheme, leave aside one phoneme. In normal use of language phonemes occur in each other’s company, so do syllables, morphemes, words, clauses, questions and responses; they thus create the ‘linguistic context’ or become the co-text for each other. In doing real linguistics, isolated linguistic categories21 – along with the man from Mars – should be banished as irrelevant to linguistic explanation.

16.2.3 Concepts for meaning in language: (b) system and instance The langue v. parole dichotomy is as old in linguistics as the modern discipline itself. The two have been viewed as irreconcilable; thus ‘langue’ – a code or system – was taken as ‘a fixed set of rules’ – sometimes essentially innate, and ‘parole’, its instance, as an unpredictable flow of signs, mercurial, and governed only by the individual’s will; the former synoptic, the latter dynamic. However, the problem with language as system is that it needs to be both stable/synoptic and changing/dynamic: it must remain in use to stay alive,22 and that is possible only if it changes along with the changing conditions for its use (Butt, 2004; Hasan, 2009b). The SFL concept of instantiation resolved this seeming paradox: Halliday (1987; 1999) argued that a system and its instance are ‘the same thing’ seen from different perspectives; their behaviour displays deep complementarity (Halliday, 2008). While the possibility of speakers moving beyond the system, whether by variation or innovation, is empirically evident, it is equally obvious that instances allow speakers some view of the system. Nor is there any doubt that the system is the resource by which parole as instance is interpreted (Hasan, 1984; 2009b; 2009c). It is in and by the production of the instance that both conformity and innovation play their significant roles in maintaining and renewing the system. If synchronic variation and diachronic change in language are related phenomena (Labov, 1972; Fasold and Schiffrin, 1989; McMahon, 1994), then we may have to concede that the view of system as synoptic and of


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Figure 16.3 Two systems and their relationships: realization and instantiation

process as dynamic needs careful re-consideration. This debate is also relevant to semantic change, which does not always go hand in hand with lexicogrammatical change, as evident from the history of items such as host, silly, condescension and others where the primary categorization of the items does not change but the meaning does. Neither is it clear whether such semantic changes in meaning are responsive to some contextual changes; if so what they are, and what is the nature of the process of such responsive changes. Figure 16.3 captures Halliday’s (1999, p. 8) view of the complex relationships between systems and instances. The different stages of the development of this relationship are discussed in Halliday (1987; 1999; 2002; 2008), Hasan (1984; 1995; 2009a), O’Donnell (1994), Matthiessen and Nesbitt (1996), and Matthiessen (2007). In terms of current sociology, reflection on Figure 16.3 leads to a theory of the social reproduction of language (Hasan, 2009a): the social permeates both text as instance, which realizes its context of situation, and language as system which realizes (aspects of) its context of culture, thus supporting the hypothesis of linguistic functionality as an inherent aspect of the organization of content –that is, the strata of meaning and wording (Halliday, 1973b; Hasan, 1995; 2005b; 2009b). The SFL view of complementarity between system and instance bears relevance to a good many important issues; however, I will single out only the following two for discussion here: (i) the description of the semantic stratum and (ii) validation of linguistic description.

16.2.4 Concepts for meaning in language: (c) representing the potential Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics is an evolving discourse: having described the sign as a two-part entity – the signified and the signifier – he is at pains in Part Two to describe the complex nature of each part, insisting that the

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identity and value of each unit of signified and signifier is forged by its relations to other units. Characteristically, Saussure produces a binary system of relations: one based on combination or syntagm ‘supported by linearity’ (ibid, p. 123) later also referred to as the syntagmatic bond, the other based on opposition or association, later referred to as the associative bond. Halliday’s chain and choice (1963) resonate well with this Saussurean pair, though it is Hjelmslev’s syntagm and paradigm (1961) that are the prevalent terms for referring to the relations essential for defining the identity and value of a sign. Since units must be identified at every stratum of language, it follows that the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes apply to all language internal strata. Linearity is a feature of discourse: instances are linear, thus relations postulated between the units of parole are in praesentia. By contrast, paradigmatic relations are supported by associative bonds (relations of differentiation): these relations, not evident in units within a discourse, are in absentia. Pertaining to a whole paradigm, the associative bonds are closer to the system aspect of language. Since it is system that acts as the potential, the idea of choice is clearly critical to its description. In SFL, the potential for each linguistic stratum is represented in the form of system networks,23 which are in effect an account of the oppositional/ associative relations that are significant to the value and identity of the categories of that stratal unit which acts as the point of origin for that particular system network. Thus the system network of MOOD specifies categories of the unit clause at the lexicogrammatical stratum, and so on. Each traversal of the system that is valid in terms of the logic of that system network constitutes a selection expression (SE) of the set of choices made from it: the SEs instantiate the system network, and are themselves realized as structures of some kind. Again much has been written in SFL about system networks24, so no further details will be presented here. I begin with the assumption that given the status of semantics as a stratum of language, its units too can be described paradigmatically to represent their potential, as demonstrated by Halliday (1973b), and later by Hasan (1983), Cloran (1994) and Williams (1995). However much one might disagree with the basic premises of componential semantics (Katz and Fodor, 1963; Bierwisch, 1970; Leech, 1974), there is, in that literature too, suggestive evidence of paradigmatic organization at the semantic level. When, in some of his writing, Firth (1957) dissolves semantic description into a series of contextualizations of some specific instance, the implication is that there is nothing left to describe; there is, in other words, no stratum of meaning so that from Firth’s context we move directly into ‘lexical, morphological and syntactic’ categories: in my view the suggestion lacks validity. First, in accepting this suggestion, we would have to reject the postulate of a stratum of linguistic meaning; for indeed a stratum without any units is an anomaly; and the recognition of units entails some existing or feasible description of their paradigmatic relations calling for some system networks. However, if there are no defined categories of meaning,


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talking about Firth’s ‘semantic’ phenomena is fraught with problems; it would be impossible, for example, to say which meanings are at risk where, because we have already abolished by fiat the need for a language of description (Bernstein, 2000) for semantic categories. One might suggest that semantics is interpretative: thus it will make use of semantically sensitive lexicogrammatical categories whose value is established by their place in some system networks. Against this too, there are some objections: as soon as every semantic unit – but what is that? – can be unequivocally paired with some delicate lexicogrammatical category, the justification for postulating both the level of semantics and of lexicogrammar will disappear. And even assuming that we can produce a semantically sensitive grammar which (a) is not in a 1:1 relation with the semantic categories, and (b) is also sensitive to the semantic contribution of the syntagmatic environment (cf. discussion of ‘Join the navy and see the world’), we are still left with problems: how to refer to that category of meaning which we are attempting to match? If the semantic category is itself ‘notional’, that is, has no basis in any principled description, then is our semantically sensitive grammar open to being treated as a ‘notional grammar’? In any event, grammar must come to an end somewhere! It is difficult to imagine a lexicogrammar whose units are capable of describing larger semantic units such as text and rhetorical unit (Cloran, 1994): neither texts nor rhetorical units can be described in terms of the largest lexicogrammatical unit, viz., the clause complex. Even if these problems can be surmounted, one basic issue remains unresolved: How desirable is that modelling of language which would allow the interpretation of utterances without enabling their production? For the fact remains that for the speaker the perception of meanings relevant to the context of discourse is the starting point for an utterance. I conclude that an adequate linguistic theory must allow the possibility of both activation and construal – of production and of interpretation – of meaning. But is there a unit scale at the semantic stratum? Hasan (1996) suggested a scale of four units: proceeding from the largest to the smallest, they are text, rhetorical unit (RU), message and message component (MC)25. Like all postulated unit scales on the different linguistic strata, the units here too are in a constituency relation: thus a text consists of one or more than one RUs, an RU consists of one or more than one message, a message consists of one or more than one MC. The best paradigmatically described semantic units are message (Hasan, 1983; Williams, 1995) and RU (Cloran, 1994): both have been represented as a set of system networks at the level of semantics (Hasan et al., 2007). Figure 16.4 presents a fragment of message semantics which describes semantic options in demanding goods/services: the realization statements for the entire network require too much space (for some indicative statements, Hasan, 2009a; Chapter 7: Table 1: A–C; p. 284). The options in the network activate some choice(s) from the MOOD system network at the lexicogrammatical stratum. Further discussion of options from Figure 16.4 will be presented in following sections.

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Figure 16.4 Simplified system network of options in demanding goods/services


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16.2.5 Concepts for meaning in language: (d) validating description To sum up the Saussurean position: the identity and value of any unit at any linguistic stratum is the function of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations the unit enters into. This is what it means to say, as Saussure did, that there are no pre-existing categories: it is the point of view from which the facts of language are described which creates the categories we recognize. This makes the activity of description appear rather subjective; but if the description itself is governed by some explicit principles and while following those principles yields a picture of language that has observational and explanatory adequacy, then the point of view is proved to be one which may be treated as a valid modelling of that language26 for continuing further into its description. We therefore need a device which explicitly states the conditions for treating a description as valid. Halliday’s trinocular perspective is one such device: this involves consulting the relations of the category under description from three relevant perspectives, viewing relations at the stratum above –that is, what the category realizes; viewing relations at the stratum below –that is, what realizes the category; and viewing the relations at the same stratum – that is, where the category under description is positioned with regard to other categories of its kind; these indicate its paradigmatic relations (its associative bonds). I offer here an illustration of how these perspectives function by reference to the semantic option27 suggestive (see Figure 16.4: path a1:b1 . . .) which is one possible element of meaning in the unit message: progressive: demanding; goods-&-services: the message type identified construes contextual acts of commanding, requesting, persuading, cajoling, humouring someone into doing something the speaker specifies. Looking above the semantic level, the contextual ‘reality’ which the option suggestive realizes – or signifies – is an element of the tenor of discourse: the speaker’s rhetorical stance, whereby s/he appears to place the addressee under some pressure without using physical or symbolic violence so as to get the addressee to do something by representing herself/ himself as complicit in that action (e.g. saying to someone who is about to carry something fragile: ‘lets be careful in lifting this’, or a mother instructing her child: ‘lets not tease the pussy cat, darling!’). At least two questions need to be asked: Do speakers naturally utter messages of this kind or is it simply a figment of the linguist’s imagination? Second, is there any evidence that on listening to a command type utterance with the semantic feature suggestive, the addressee would ratify the above contextual interpretation of this feature by some action or locution? A negative response to either of these questions should send the analyst back to the workbench, but for obvious reasons, such a response to the first question is more troublesome than to the second. The former would invoke doubt as to the existence of the option itself, the latter simply points to an error in description. On the assumption made by many well-known linguists (among them, Firth, 1957) that a difference in linguistic ‘form’ equals a difference in meaning,

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all that is needed is to consult corpora and observe human interaction in many different contexts to establish the interpretation of the semantic element that differentiates commands such as ‘lets be careful in lifting this’ v. ‘do be careful in lifting this’ v. ‘would you be careful in lifting this’, v. ‘I’d like you to be careful in lifting this’, ‘better be careful in lifting this’, and so on. Looking at the same level, the most immediate category in an oppositional relation to the option suggestive, is nonsuggestive, which refers to the contextual fact of the projected action being presented as the responsibility of the addressee alone albeit under instruction, as in ‘lift this carefully’, ‘better lift it carefully’, ‘could you lift it carefully’, and so on. This semantic option too is realized along with most of the others described by Figure 16.4 by some choice(s) in the MOOD system network. But looking at the same stratum cannot be reduced to simply noting its difference to the other term(s) within the same individual system28. Two points need to be clearly stated with regard to viewing the facts at the same stratum: first, what this means, in effect, is examining the over-arching system network the options of which act as the systemic description of the unit that served as its point of origin, for example, in this case message progressive as opposed to punctuative (Hasan, 1996). There are certainly other units on the semantic stratum (Section 16.2.4), but for checking on the validity of the description of some element of a message, the categories of the unit message itself are more relevant than those of a lower or higher unit. At the same time, there are many different message types: one way of identifying a primary type is by focusing on the least delicate oppositional features. In Figure 16.4, these primary oppositional systems of options are placed within the first right facing open brace. Although we are concerned here with the message type demand; goods-&-services (the primary systemic options in Figure 16.4), more specifically, the option suggestive applies to any message type one of whose primary semantic choices is goods-&-services: more simply the giving OR demanding of goods-&-services is the environment in which the choice between SUGGESTIVE v. NON-SUGGESTIVE has significance. Thus the system suggestive v. nonsuggestive will also form part of the systemic description of messages functioning as offers and invitations whose primary options are give; goods-&-services (Hasan, 1986), and in this network too, the terms will refer to the same contextual tenor-related facts. Second, the value of suggestive/non-suggestive is determined by their positioning vis-a-vis the other terms within the network as a whole: for example it is significant that although the options may be freely co-selected with the systemic options assertive v. consultative they are not freely co-selected when it comes to the options that depend on exhortative; and the more delicate options in the system network are not available to those messages which have the feature suggestive. Thus we do not find messages such as ‘we’d like us to be quiet’ (speaker-oriented: desiderative) and options dependent on the feature addressee-oriented are logically impossible with the option suggestive.


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Table 16.1 Lexicogrammatical realization statements for some semantic options Semantic options

Realization statements in terms of lexicogrammar

demand; goods-&-services non-exhortative assertive consultative exhortative suggestive

enter MOOD system network indicative declarative interrogative imperative insert Subject Subject preselects Thing Subject implied/present refers to addressee Thing at Subject preselects item we imperative: inclusive Thing at Subject preselects item lets

non-suggestive suggestive; non-exhortative suggestive; exhortative

Finally, looking at the stratum below, that is, at lexicogrammar, reveals how the semantic option(s) are realized. Simplifying somewhat, the realization statements may take different shapes depending on the logic of the network. The system suggestive/ non-suggestive is concurrent with two others, so the realization statements will differ according to what terms are co-selected. At message rank, two kinds of realizational statement are typical: (i) choice of an option from a clause rank lexicogrammatical system network, and/or (ii) statement of pre-selection(s) at some clausal element including its category identification and/or realization. Table 16.1 illustrates some cases with a few semantic options from Figure 16.4; the options are in column 1 of the table, and the realizations in column 2. Choices in the system network at the stratum of lexicogrammar entail the formation of structural information. Thus to say that something is realized as declarative is to say that a structure needs to be formed with the elements Subject and Finite in that order, represented formulaically as S^F. The default realization of element Subject is by a nominal group; that of Finite is by an auxiliary verb functioning either as primary tense (e.g. ‘is, was, will be’) or as a modal auxiliary (e.g. ‘can, may, would, should, have to, must . . .’). The pre-selecting realization is used when the option can be realized by some unique element of structure and/or linguistic item. A realization statement such as ‘Subject preselects Thing’ can be rephrased as ‘Subject must be realized as a nominal group which “has” the element Thing in it’; in other words an elliptical nominal group such as in ‘those two’ is not allowed.29 The preselecting realization statement can also call for a unique item or specify the selection of some item from a paradigm with a particular feature, for example, ‘Thing at Subject preselects item we’ may be worded as ‘a clause realizing these semantic elements must have the element Subject and Subject must be the item we’, as for example in ‘we have to be very quiet’ whose semantic description is represented in the SE below30: [demand;goods/services:nonexhortative:assertive;suggestive:affable;necessity]

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Strictly speaking, naming unique items such as ‘you/we’ is a short cut: for example, underlying ‘we’, are the word rank lexicogrammatical options for the category pronoun as shown below (after Halliday and Hasan, 1976, p. 44): [person:interactant:speaker:inclusive] and it is this lexicogrammatical ‘reality’ that is arbitrarily signalled by the sound structure represented in writing as ‘we’. Of course the realizational path should be pursued right through to the expression level, but enough has been said to establish that the description of suggestive as presented here is explicit, and likely to be valid in matching the ‘facts’. But how about explanatory adequacy?31 To me it seems that explanatory adequacy in the description of language calls for at least three kinds of evidence: (i) global evidence that the language internal description is not only adequate for one variety of some one état de langue but also offers principled path(s) within the theoretical framework for granting the potential for variation; at the same time, there is the possibility of productive movement across the many varieties which correlate with spatiotemporal phenomena as both time and space ‘reshape’ while language responds to the many social demands in the living of life in society; (ii) evidence of exotropic connections whereby the modelling and description of language is such as to entertain the findings of modern research about the interconnections between language, culture and consciousness: this chapter began with a description of the ways in which language has been central to the evolution of persons and cultures; a theory with explanatory adequacy should be able to show what aspects of language are instrumental in playing this part, and how this comes about;32 and (iii) local evidence: description of language explaining the significance of the instance in the linguistic systems and its relation to context of culture and situation. The discussion here has pertained largely to this third aspect.

16.3 The Meaning of Grammar and the Description of Meaning In the description of the semantic feature suggestive as presented above, the trinocular perspective focuses primarily on the paradigmatic relations of that category; thus the inter-stratal relations between semantics and lexicogrammar are observed largely in terms of systemic choices. If context has not participated in this celebration of the paradigmatic here, this is only because SFL so far does not have any developed contextual networks easily accessible for such use. Note, however, Saussure’s suggestion that the identity and value of a unit is the function of the relations the unit enters into both paradigmatically and syntagmatically. Of course, some syntagms were mentioned above, for example, in the realization statement regarding the option declarative, but they were realizationally


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entailed and so form part of the syntax. Significantly Saussure adds that there is more to syntagm than syntax (ibid, p. 123, note 5). This makes sense: syntax is unit-internal, and even the largest lexicogrammatical unit has a limit, recursion notwithstanding. The syntagmatic axis is not bound by any such constraints – especially if ‘syntagm’ is viewed simply as a flow of signs within some specifiable social environment, it would represent the textual environment for those patterns/units one might choose to examine. This is not the place to develop a critique of the predilection in linguistics for peering simply inside the bounds of a single unit isolating it from all else to find ‘objective’ evidence of the validity of some proposed description. Firth pointed out half a century ago that words are known by the company they keep; perhaps this generalization should be extended to most linguistic units; the trick is to establish the principles of consistency in deciding what counts as ‘company’. I pointed out in Section 16.2.2 that there can be no 1:1 realization relation between linguistic strata. Ample proof of this will be found in the very few realization statements presented in Table 16.1. For example, imperative clause is generally regarded as that lexicogrammatical category which realizes demand; goods-&-services, that is, a ‘proposal’ of some kind. Considered as a probabilistic statement, this is very likely the default position. Nonetheless, neither is every proposal an imperative, nor is every imperative a proposal. And this statement could be extended to all primary categories of MOOD. Thus a demand for goods and services may be assertive, realized as declarative (e.g. ‘you must not shout’) or consultative, realized as interrogative (e.g. ‘could you do my shoe laces, Mum?’). Faced with such descriptions, the suggestion has been to treat these as some kind of interpersonal grammatical metaphor. This is not the place to go into this debate; the problems in this solution are many and certainly some of them appear to threaten the concept of grammatical metaphor itself, which has proved so useful in the analysis of discourse (Halliday and Martin, 1993). In any event, what seems to clinch the matter is the fact that this solution may not be possible for all lexicogrammatical categories. The category negative polarity is one such. In the following sections, I will discuss what semantic options the category of negative polarity is able to realize in just one semantic context, namely, demand; information. First, a brief description of the category negative.

16.3.1 ‘Not’ as a lexicogrammatical category The system of polarity, with the options positive v. negative, is well known in SFL as a part of the interpersonal description of the English clause. It is thus positioned within the MOOD system network, with the clause itself having a function in role exchange. The functional element Mood is central to the description of the categories used for role exchange (Halliday, 1994): potentially Mood expands into the elements Subject and Finite, the former realized as some nominal category, the latter by the first auxiliary of a finite verbal group, which will

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either select for tense or modality. What happens actually by way of expansion – for example, are both elements there? if so, in what order of sequence? if not, which may be assumed where and on what evidence? – all this is realizationally relevant to the identification of the categories of role exchange. Mood is the element that according to Halliday (1994, p. 71) is ‘tossed back and forth’ in a series of conversational moves, for example, ‘he is, is he’? The Subject is the element on which the validity of the rhetorical move rests, while the Finite ties down each such move to some specific point in space and time by reference to the utterance act (for discussion, Halliday, 1994, p. 68ff; Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p. 106ff). The system of polarity is considered ‘an essential concomitant of finiteness’ (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p. 116) since ‘for something to be arguable it has to be specified for polarity: either it is so or it isn’t so’ (Halliday, 1994, p. 75). Figure 16.5 presents a simplified system network for MOOD with ‘cryptic’ realization statements.

16.3.2 Options in polarity: from grammar to meaning In Figure 16.5, the realization of the option negative is not stated fully: ‘not/n’t’ are certainly the most frequent realizations of negative polarity but there are quite a few other items, such as ‘neither/nor’, ‘never’, and in some contexts even items such as ‘hardly, scarcely, seldom’, and so on, though they have not been thought of as realizing negative polarity.33 However these latter items construe some meaning that ‘modifies’ the negation: in other words, they go beyond the default meaning of negative polarity. But what exactly is that meaning? In their descriptions, both Halliday and Matthiessen – indeed, most SFL practitioners, including myself – not only show the value and identity of the lexicogrammatical unit under description, they also give some statement about its ‘function’. These concern the default construal of meaning by that unit, and form part of what ‘looking above’ means in the trinocular perspective. With regard to polarity, Matthiessen (1995, p. 487) suggests that the choice between positive and negative . . . is clearly interpersonal . . . the speaker in principle chooses negative if s/he judges that s/he has to cancel what the addressee believes or will do. The choice of polarity thus depends on the speaker maintaining and revising a model of the relationship between himself/herself and the addressee: what is the semiotic distance between them in their construal of experience and their readiness to act? – what is the balance between consensus and conflict? According to Halliday (1994, p. 89): In a proposition, the meaning of the positive and negative poles is asserting and denying: positive ‘it is so’, negative ‘it isn’t so’. . . . In a proposal, the


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Figure 16.5 A simplified system network of options in MOOD

meaning of the positive and negative poles is prescribing and proscribing: positive ‘do it’, negative ‘don’t do it’. The default meanings of positive/negative polarity suggested by Halliday here are also echoed by most dictionaries, for example, Chambers, Collins Cobuild, Macquarie and others. The description certainly captures the meaning of positive/negative polarity in the context of the default realization of proposition and proposal. These meanings are actually category specific; thus denial is the meaning construed by negative polarity with statements; prescribing and


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prohibiting are specific to commands. However, the accounts by the grammarians and the lexicologists make two outstanding omissions, viz., neither is there an interpretation of negative in demanding information, that is, in questions, nor in giving goods/services, that is, offers. But of course there too, the choice of polarity makes a difference to the meaning of the realizing clause. In the following sections I shall discuss the function of negative polarity in demand; information, that is to say, in question. Time and space will not allow similar review of giving goods/services, that is, making offers or in demand goods/services, that is, the command family.

16.3.3 The uses of not/n’t in demanding information Table 16.2 presents the functions of polarity suggested above by Halliday together with one naturally occurring example of each category. To this account I have added an interpretation for both negative interrogatives and imperatives: the former is typically a question with an attitude and the latter ceases to be an offer. As Table 16.2 shows, interrogatives with negative polarity construe the semantic feature assumptive. Contextually the feature is related to the tenor of discourse, referring specifically to the speaker’s stance to her/his own question and her/his expectation of what the answer could reasonably be. Here are three examples from naturally occurring dialogues which substantiate this point: 1: Mother: Karen: Mother: 2: Mother: Pete: Mother: 3: Mother: Donna: Mother:

didn’t you see me go out no! you must be blind! wasn’t that a big fishy? yeah it was a whopper! you aren’t tired? nope what! After all that running around

Table 16.2 The meaning of polarity with some primary MOOD options in English Proposition

Positive

Negative

demand

meaning: asking a question did you see me go out?

meaning: assumption re response didn’t you see me go out?

meaning: telling the water’s getting too cold Positive meaning: prescribing do as you’re told!

meaning: rejecting some thesis no, it isn’t for me Negative meaning: proscribing don’t tell me ‘no’ all the time!

meaning: offer have another piece of toast!

meaning: restriction hey, don’t eat up all those nuts!

information give Proposal demand goods/services give


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Thanks to the textual syntagm, we can be quite certain that in each case the mother thought she ‘knew’ what her addressee’s mental state should be, thus revealing one subtle aspect of her social relation to her child. In the Macquarie empirical studies of sociolinguistic variation in semantic orientation, the feature assumptive showed up statistically as a highly significant element of the sociolinguistic variable (Hasan, 2009a). This is an impressive result in view of the fact that in a corpus based study Halliday and James (1993) demonstrated a skewed probability (9:1) for positive v. negative polarity choice; in their study covering over 1.5 million cases of finite clauses, they found 87.6 per cent occurrences of positive and only 12.4 per cent of negative, which included ‘never’, ‘seldom’ and other such items as well. Example 3 offered above is an instance of the category ‘question3’ in Halliday and Matthiessen (2000, p. 22; for discussion, Section 16.4); and its inclusion here indicates that not all questions are realized as interrogative, whatever their polarity choice. At the same time it should be noted that negative polarity does not always construe the feature assumptive in all kinds of questions. Figure 16.6 presents a simplified system network of options in asking English questions, while Table 16.3 shows the functions of not/n’t in the semantic environment of demand; information along with lexicogrammatical information. Table 16.3 is best examined in three parts by reference to the three systemic options in column 2 (A, B and C). Every entry in the table systemically ‘assumes’ the choices progressive: demand; information (see Figure 16.6). The feature verify (column 2(A)) is the entry point for the systemic choice between reassure v. probe (column 3); verify is itself in systemic opposition to enquire (column 2 (B)) the entry point for this system being the selection of the feature confirm (column 1), the realization of which calls for an indicative clause. For each example, column 5 provides a lexicogrammatical selection expression from the MOOD system network, which counts as the realization of the semantic selection expression stated across columns 1 to 3. It is clear from this table

progressive

Figure 16.6 Simplified system network of options in demanding information

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Table 16.3 The meaning of ‘not’ in questions: semantic and grammatical views simplified semantic SEs

simplified grammatical SEs (i) you were sad, weren’t you? (ii) you don’t like this T-shirt, do you?

declarative: tagged: reversed declarative: tagged: reversed

probe

(iii) you left it on the train did you? (iv) you don’t like sugar, don’t you?

declarative: tagged: constant declarative: tagged: constant

ask: nonassumptive ask: assumptive

(v) did you see me go out? (vi) wasn’t that a big fishy?

interrogative: polar; positive interrogative: polar; negative

check: nonassumptive check: assumptive explain: nonassumptive

(vii) was it a big fish? (viii) you aren’t hungry? (ix) why did you say ‘look’?

declarative: non-tagged: positive; Tone 2 declarative: non-tagged: negative; Tone 2 interrogative: non-polar: R-interrogate; positive

explain: assumptive

(x) why aren’t you hungry?

interrogative: non-polar: R-interrogate; negative

reassure verify (A)

enquire (B)

apprize

precise (C)


confirm


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that any message with the feature verify would have a declarative: tagged clause as its lexicogrammatical realization. The semantic option reassure is realized by the MOOD features tagged: reversed, irrespective of the location of the negative; thus in (i) the Tag is negative, in (ii) the declarative is. The semantic option probe is realized by the MOOD features tagged: constant, which for most varieties of English would imply a zero instance instead of (iv) in column 4 – however, (iv) is a fairly common occurrence in informal Australian English, especially where speakers are not concerned about the danger of being perceived as speaking a sub-standard dialect. Note that the negative in these two environments appears to be the converse of assumptive. If the feature assumptive implies that the speaker already knows what the ‘reasonable’ response is, the features reassure and probe imply that the speaker is in need of verifying something. So what is the difference between reassure and probe? It is subtle but nonetheless important as an indicator of interpersonal relationships; messages with the feature reassure may be paraphrased as follows: ‘I think something is the case, and I believe you do, too; is that so?’, whereas those with the option probe are actually probing for ‘correct’ information: so, for example (iii) may be paraphrased as: ‘I understand you left it on the train. Is that what happened?’. We can see why questions with the feature reassure would be relevant to what Bernstein (1971) called ‘sympathetic circularity’ which is a form of interaction only among people with intimate relationship – as an aspect of tenor relation, it has been described as construing minimal social distance between the interactants (Hasan, 1973; 1985); by contrast, messages with the feature probe could not have this contextual significance; the relationship here is not as close as in the previous case. The option enquire (B) is the entry point for two simultaneous systems, ask v check and also non-assumptive v assumptive (see Figure 16.6). The choice of negative polarity in a clause realizing enquire will always construe the semantic feature assumptive. We note that ask is realized by an interrogative clause and check by declarative + Tone 2. But what difference does this make to their semantic character? A message with the feature ask is a yes/no question without any strings attached – what is sometimes referred to as a ‘straight’ question; check, on the other hand, is not a ‘crooked’ question – it is simply one with additional information about some attitude on the part of the speaker regarding that question: this may be surprise, disappointment, doubt, enthusiasm . . . – the exact nature is realized by the choice in the system of key (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004; Halliday and Greaves, 2008). This leaves us with the option precise (C in column 2). As Figure 16.6 shows, the option apprize is in systemic contrast to confirm: unlike the latter it does not construe a yes/no-question, but what is known as a wh-question: it thus seeks some specific element of information, and is lexicogrammatically realized as a non-polar clause. In questions which have the feature precise, the query point is explicitly realized by the preselection of a wh— word as Theme, such as ‘why, who, what, when, where’ etc. The option precise is the entry point for a

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choice between explain and specify. The feature explain is realized by an interrogative clause in which ‘why/what for’ would be preselected as Theme. As Figure 16.6 shows, the option explain is one of the entry points into the system whose choices are assumptive and non-assumptive (note in Figure 16.6 the disjunct entry condition, one of which leads from explain to the systemic choice between assumptive and non-assumptive, while the other entry conditions is enquire. Further details concerning the realization of other options in Figure 16.6 will be found in Hasan, 2009a; Hasan et al., 2007; Cloran, 1994; Williams, 1995). The feature R-interrogative mentioned in the realization of explain (last two lines of column 3) stands for Residue-interrogative; in a clause with this feature some Residue element forms the query point, as in ‘what did you eat’?, ‘when/where did you go?’, ‘what did you do?’ and so on. This feature is in systemic contrast with S-interrogative (see Figure 16.5 for this system) which stands for Subject-interrogative; in a clause with this feature wh-element conflates with Subject as, for example, in ‘who/what/which was it?’. As is obvious from the examples, the structural realization of S-interrogative is distinct from that of R-interrogative: the structure of S-interrogative is Subject/Wh—ˆFˆPred as in ‘who said that?’ (which resembles a declarative except for its wh— element) while that of R-interrogative is Adjunct or Complement/wh—ˆFˆSˆPred as in ‘when did he say that?’ or ‘what did he say?’, which are ‘typical’ of the structure associated with interrogative, that is, F^S. The most relevant characteristic of messages with the feature specify is their ‘resistance’ to the selection of negation, as Table 16.4 attempts to show. It is not that the selection of negative polarity in clause types that realize messages with the semantic option specify is necessarily ‘ungrammatical’, simply that the right context for them is not easy to imagine, and in many cases it seems to shift the rhetorical stance of the message. Compare, for example, ‘what didn’t you do then?’ with ‘what didn’t you do to stop that kid from smoking!’ It seems appropriate to suggest that the syntactic ‘conditions’ on the selection of negative polarity in such interrogatives could benefit by the kind of semantic research

Table 16.4 The meaning of ‘not’ with demand information . . . apprize: specify Semantic options

Positive polarity

Negative polarity

Global

What’s going on? What happened? Where have you been? When did you visit Rome? With whom did you go there? What were you talking about? What did you do then? Who was calling you? What did you eat?

What’s not going on? What didn’t happen? Where haven’t you been? When didn’t you visit Rome? With whom didn’t you go there? What weren’t you talking about? What didn’t you do then? Who wasn’t calling you? What didn’t you eat?

Particpt: circs

Particpt: event Particpt: actant


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underlying networks such as presented here in Figures 16.4 and 16.6. Both pertain to the interpersonal metafunction and are realized by some feature of the system of mood, but the meanings pertaining to all four metafunctions can be described in a similar way (e.g. Hasan, 1983).

16.3.4 The meaning of ‘not’ is not in ‘not’ The above account of the meaning of ‘not’ in English is both condensed and incomplete. For example, time does not allow a discussion of the choice of negative polarity in the context of demanding or giving goods and services. Reversing the meaning construal in many types of commands, negative polarity in offers is more often than not polite, precisely because it insists as in ‘do have some more, won’t you?’. But it seems clear on the basis of the evidence offered here that categories of wording are typically multivalent. Their semantic identity and value become evident only on an examination of the range of their paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations: this is what I have attempted to show by a case study of the meanings of ‘not/n’t’ in the above discussion. This particular category of wording is not exceptional in having such a varied set of meanings: on the basis of the semantics of lexicogrammatical categories such as declarative, interrogative and imperative, we may safely conclude that the meanings of a category of wording are not in that category itself; they take particular shape in the specific environment in which the wording occurs, and significantly, this environment is most parsimoniously identified by reference to the semantic level. To extend a Firthian claim, the meaning of not only lexical categories but most probably of all linguistic categories is known by the company the category keeps.

16.4 Concluding Remarks I accept without reservation the claim that it is impossible to mean any meanings without lexicogrammar: both making meaning and reading meaning depend to a very large extent on lexicogrammar. This, however, does not imply that the only approach to meaning has to be ‘from below’, concerned only with how sets of lexicogrammatical categories are to be interpreted. True, that a metafunctional lexicogrammar will be semantically oriented: this follows logically from the genesis of metafunctions in contextually situated discourse (Halliday, 1973b; Hasan, 2005b; 2009a); but reflection on the acts of speaking and ‘hearing’ will suggest that the two outermost strata of language are in a systematic relation to these two aspects of the activity of languaging. To present a full account of meanings, we need to know not only how lexicogrammar construes meanings but also what meanings are construable in a given language variety, when, and by whom, and how they become accessible to the listener.

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If the trinocular perspective on the validity of semantic description links context to lexicogrammar via semantics, treating the latter as an interface between the two, this clearly implies that the point of origin for the speaker’s meaning is not specifiable by reference to lexicogrammar, much less phonology or phonetics: the origin is found in the speaker’s perception of the occasion of talk, which entrains a complex of social factors, a meeting of mental dispositions typically shaped by the culture that is instantiated in that context of situation, whose ‘reading’ is the identifier of the meanings at risk, and for the speaker to get to this point is to be half way into the lexicogrammar. To account both for the speaker’s choice of meanings and the addressee’s interpretation of speaker’s wordings both the construal and the activation of meaning are equally important issues for a functional linguistics. From this perspective, one question that demands immediate attention is what criteria are to be used for identifying that point in the descriptive enterprise where it is maximally productive to draw the line between a ‘most delicate lexicogrammar’ and a systemic semantics capable of representing the potential for meaning. In the course of lexicogrammatical description, we often encounter statements regarding a category’s default meaning. These, however, cannot be treated as more than excursions into semantics; I say ‘excursions’ because such statements typically do not – and cannot – state the complete meaning potential of any lexicogrammatical unit34 for reasons presented above. The non-default meanings of a category are many and just as important as the default ones; I hope the discussion of ‘not’ has indicated that looking up into semantics from lexicogrammar provides a different view into the meanings of some category from that which is presented when the main concern is with categories of semantic systems, because it is here that one asks: What possibilities of meaning are available for realizing some feature of the context of discourse: the focus is on ‘what possible meanings are pertinent to this semantic unit’, not ‘what are the meanings of this category of wording’. This is a subtle and important difference. For example, in SFL following Halliday (e.g. 1966–8) the systemic choices of MOOD have been widely regarded as construing speech role exchange and certainly they do that, but as the above discussion has shown options from this system network are capable of doing far more than just speech role exchange: they act as a rich resource for creating, maintaining and changing social distance between the interactants by varying the nuances of a speech act thus revealing subtle aspects of speaker attitude to the addressee(s). Theoretically, SFL is committed to the idea of language as an ever-renewing system: innovation, change, developments of different kinds are phenomena inherent in language use. In accounting for linguistic change, both diachronic linguistics and dominant sociolinguistics have largely been concerned with the expression level. By contrast, Halliday’s concept of semogenesis has developed in the context of the description of wording and meaning (Halliday, 1985), that is, in reflection on the content level: an over-arching concept, embracing different dimensions of human history (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2000), semogenesis


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refers to essential processes whereby the dynamic nature of language as system is able to be maintained. In their illuminating discussion of the process of semogenesis with specific reference to the level of content, Halliday and Matthiessen (2000, pp. 21–2) draw attention to ‘the dissociation of associated features in the wording’ whereby over time the ‘map’ of wording and meaning in English has been changed. The two associated features of wording they consider are those from the system of MOOD and of KEY: the Mood of an English interrogative is ‘known by’ the Mood configuration F^S with Rising Tone; the default interpretation of the pattern is demanding information. The dissociation of the features of Mood and Key and their ‘re-configuration’ expands the total meaning-wording potential of the language, giving the speaker three different ways of saying and meaning by way of asking questions: Here again one meaning has been replaced by three: we now have (say) question1 interrogative x rising tone; question2 interrogative x falling tone; and question3 declarative x rising tone, e.g., is she cóming? Is she còming? She’s cóming? (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2000, p. 22) Semantic networks of the type presented here appear to be ideally suited to describe the paradigmatic relations of the different semantic categories as well as their lexicogrammatical realizations which treat systems of MOOD and of KEY as simultaneous, thus allowing the possibilities of dissociating those choices of the two which represent their default association at some given état de langue while permitting their innovative reconfigurations. Note also that it is not easy to find a rational basis for insisting on the one hand that the lexicogrammatical patterns F^S/Tone 2, F^S/Tone1 and S^F/Tone 2 should be accommodated in their full detail within the description of that stratum while also maintaining that the expansion of Mood F^S must be treated as the only pattern capable of construing the ‘meaning proper’ of demanding information. As I see it, there are only three options: (i) subscribe to the absence of bi-uniqueness, implying that semantic functions such as demanding information may be construed by more than one lexicogrammatical pattern, all of which are paradigmatically related but distinct from each other in some way; (ii) insist that the ideal language system is bi-unique in respect to meaning-wording relation, which poses serious problems in accounting for empirical data which clearly contradict that position; or (iii) wherever bi-uniqueness is demonstrated to be absent, explain the fact away as some kind of grammatical metaphor, implying that grammatical metaphor is something other than a part of lexicogrammatical description. Accepting any of these options has a payback; in the context of interpersonal role-related meanings, I have considered the first as the best solution: it stays close to the observed facts of language use, and leaves the possibility of systematic variation open, a desirable characteristic of language as dynamic system. The outstanding characteristic of the primary modes of meaning – that is, those modes of meaning which form the object of enquiry in kinesics and

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linguistics – is that they have no other function in human life except that of enabling exchanges of meaning. Facial, physical and vocal gestures preceded that modality of meaning which we call language: the non-linguistic modes of meaning were central to the life of our ancestors, as linguistic meanings are to that of ours. With evolving, developing and differentiating cultures, human life today is infinitely more complex, discourse is more diverse, communications, more complex. Although ‘body language’ remains in use – in fact, cannot be eschewed – and although secondary modes of meaning such as images, graphs, tables, and so on make considerable contribution to some categories of discourse, there is no exaggeration in the claim that today it is verbal language that acts as the foundation of our complex social existence. Linguistic meaning appears to surpass all other modes of meaning – primary or secondary – in its efficacy35 precisely because of the limitless-seeming possibilities of subtle re-configurations of vast but limited variables. It is interesting to ask: How can semantic description and representation capture this dynamic quality of linguistic meaning?

Notes 1

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This chapter is a revised version of the talk I presented at the Free Linguistics Conference 2008 convened by Ahmar Mahboob and Naomi K. Knight on 11–12 October at the University of Sydney. I use ‘syntax’ and ‘expression’ because these terms can be applied to a large variety of ‘signing’/’symbolic’ phenomena; by contrast, ‘wording’ and ‘sound’ are restricted to language. I use here Russell’s (1940) distinction between the ‘sens-ible’ and the ‘intelligible’, the former refers to sensing acts and the latter to acts of intellection. The literature on semiotic mediation is vast, and opinions vary on the interpretation of the expression ‘semiotic mediation’. For some discussion see Lucy, 1987; Mertz and Parmentier, 1991; Wertsch, 1985b; 1997. On Vygotsky in an SFL perspective, see Hasan, 2005a. ‘Meaning’ is thus coming to acquire another meaning, namely, ‘the representation / trace of experience in the human brain’. Of course Vygotsky talked about the relationship between language and the development of higher mental functions in individuals, but Vygotsky was chiefly concerned with specialized concepts dear to official pedagogy (Hasan, 2005a). Halliday’s concern is with the growing child as a social agent living and developing in a society, who needs higher mental functions for coherently handling the logic of both the ideological and the interpersonal. Although we may attribute communicative intent to such symbols, it may not be possible to offer objective criteria for the claim. Halliday’s use of protolanguage is qualitatively different from its use in formalistic linguistics, such as Bickerton’s (1990). From this point of view, a review of experiments in psychology concerning the ability to recall will most probably provide support in the finding that a meaningful series is significantly easier for humans to ‘internalize’ than a ‘meaningless’ one: to the digital machine meaningfulness makes no difference.

The Meaning of ‘Not’ Is Not in ‘Not’ 10

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It is convenient to quote this often voiced ‘definition’ of sign/symbol, but in fairness to Noble and Davidson (1996) I must point out that their subsequent discussions of the linguistic sign go far beyond the claim quoted here. Saussure’s linguistic ‘sign’ is in fact much more carefully defined; it is perhaps the textual organization of this intricate discourse that tempts infelicitous interpretations. From now on in this chapter, SFL will refer to Halliday’s SFL as interpreted by me, without any implication that Halliday is necessarily in agreement everywhere with my interpretation. For further discussion, see Halliday, 1996; Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, Chapter 1). Hjelmslev (1961) recognized more delicate distinctions in each of his primary strata: his ‘content substance’ and ‘content form’ approximate Halliday’s ‘semantics’ and ‘lexicogrammar’, as also ‘expression form’ and ‘expression substance’ approximate ‘phonology’ and ‘phonetics’; there are however some significant differences (for some discussion, Hasan, 1995). To be more precise, up till quite recently, expression was seen in SFL as monostratal, with phonology subsuming phonetics. Recent developments (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004; Halliday and Greaves, 2008) have led to the recognition of a separate stratum of phonetics. This is what gives us the licence to say that registers are defined by the ‘meanings at risk’ in some context. Let me emphasize again that despite the use of these ‘serial/sequential’ expressions, I am not suggesting at all that the units of the various strata appear in temporal sequence. I am tempted to cite Firth (1957, p. 147) on this issue:

The utterance happens in time. The stream of speech with all its items integrated unrolls itself . . . on the time track of occurrence. But the systemic abstraction which we isolate in language systems are not limited by the time track dimension of the utterances from which they are taken. The statement of the systems when we talk or write about them have their own time track, since they are speech events (last emphasis mine, RH). 17

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Though our concept of discourse in context is capable of handling this complexity (Hasan, 2005a; 2005b), in the interest of saving space, we assume here that the occasion of talk does not involve semantic distance (Hasan, 2004). Sadly phonology does not figure in this list, but by reference to his co-text, we may conclude that Firth recognizes the contribution of prosodic phonology to meaning and is referring here simply to the minor function of segmental phonology and phonetics (for some supporting discussion by Firth, see 1957, p. 192) . I agree with the spirit of this division but take issue (Section 16.2.3) with the ‘absence’ of semantics itself from the list: although Firth is not consistent in this practice, often in his writing, semantics is dissolved into a ‘comprehensive description of a speech event’, which seems to be a move lacking in validity. Space does not allow discussion of examples, but the potential of segmental phonology and phonetics as a recognition criterion for categories of wording is highly varied from near 1:1 conventional association with strong lexical items to near nil with ‘fully grammatical’ ones. One is safe in venturing a semantic gloss on ‘honesty’ without looking for its co-text or context, but it would be foolhardy to suggest one single gloss for such phonetic units as the suffix ‘–s’ in ‘walks’, or

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‘-ing’ as in ‘painting’ or even for the item ‘not’ as I propose to show in Section 16.3, and ‘not’ is not alone – we have to think of words such as ‘see, turn, give, have, can’ and many others. Contra formalistic grammarians, fully grammatical items do make a contribution to the meaning of the utterance by virtue of realizing a grammatical relation, though the nature of this relation can only be determined by what is going on up above in worded meaning in context. Always excepting the bright linguist’s imagination, who when it suits him can turn the exception into a rule. In fact this may be a feature of all social systems; numerals do not get ‘archaic’ but words, and social practices do. I do not wish to imply that the description of the potential of each unit in terms of such paradigmatic relations is anywhere near complete for each stratum. Such description in SFL is most developed for lexicogrammar; much less so for the strata above or below it. Further, as I see it, this is one of the points where models such as Fawcett’s (2000) or Martin’s (1992) differ from Halliday’s SFL. For the former there are no systems at any other stratum than that of what he calls semantics; for the latter, either there is no system network applicable to semantics as a whole, or it is to be represented by taxonomies of already identified semantic units. For example, to name a very few: Fawcett, 1980; 1988; 2000; Halliday, 1961; 1966; 1969; 1973a; 1975; 1979; Hasan, 1983; 1987; 1989; 1996; 2009; Martin, 1992; Matthiessen, 1995; 2007. A fifth unit lower than MC would be seme, with categories such as entity, process, quality, and so on. However until some description is attempted, it is going to be difficult to decide whether this unit is needed at the semantic level: it is just possible that lexis as delicate grammar can describe such units more economically without residual problems for semantics. This would neither be claimed as ‘God’s Truth’ nor as a ‘Hocus Pocus’ theory of language: simply a pro-tem ‘real picture of language’, offering an account of some unit that may be said to possesses ‘descriptive adequacy’, until proven wrong. Semantic options are presented in small capitals to distinguish them from the ordinary and non-technical uses of the same orthographic shape. I make a consistent distinction between system and system network: a system network is a logically related set of two or more individual systems. Individual systems are viewed as ‘forming’ a system network as soon as two or more individual systems are logically related by concurrence and/or dependence. The complexity of the system network increases as the relations of dependence and/or concurrence multiply. Subject ellipsis may occur but only if an option explicitly calls for it. The semantic description has two options not discussed before: affable which contrasts with unctuous. Compare ‘we have to be very quiet’ (affable) with ‘we have to be very quiet, don’t we?’ (unctuous); and necessity as opposed to possibility as opposed to prediction. These options are realized by choices in the system of modality. Note the absence of ‘descriptive adequacy’: the reason is simple. Descriptive adequacy is what is being established by showing that the description has observational and explanatory adequacy.

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301

This clearly leads us into the issue of ‘appliable linguistics’ (Halliday, 2005) – a linguistic theory that is able to explain the efficacy of language in human life. However, see Halliday and James (1993). Hardly, scarcely and other such items do not easily co-occur with ‘not/n’t’ (? ‘He was not hardly happy’) though it is fine to say ‘he was hardly not happy’ with two ‘negatives’ making a positive (= ‘he was certainly happy’). It seems likely that we can go furthest within grammar perhaps in ‘lexis as most delicate grammar’ (Hasan, 1987b; Matthiessen, 1995; Tucker, 1998) but discourses are not a series of lexical items, and encountered in a syntagm, even lexical meaning is likely to display ‘shifts’ from its default meaning. In fact it might be better to talk about ‘effectivity’ rather than ‘efficacy’; the latter, with its ‘purr’ connotations gives the impression that the power of language is benign. This is not necessarily the case: its power is neutral as to creation or destruction; it can accomplish both equally effectively.

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Index

NOTE: Page references in italics refer to tables and figures.

3 × 3 maps 186–7, 197 theoretical underpinnings of 187–92 training for literacy tutors 8, 30, 186 abstract coding orientation 225, 227–9 abstract nouns 211–12 academic domain 187, 189–90, 191 ideational meanings in 193–5 interpersonal meanings in 195–6 textual meanings in 196–7 academic writing as assessment tool 169–70 evaluative work 8, 172–3, 182 model texts of 31–4, 36, 37 student writing vs. syllabus documents 176–7 see also Scaffolding Literacy in Adult and Tertiary Environments (SLATE) project adolescent literacy practices cultural context modelling 80–4, 89 in social activism 6, 77–8 affect in appraisal system 54, 55, 118, 173 student writing 176, 178, 179, 180, 181–2 youth justice conferencing 60, 68 affiliation 6 conversational humour and 7, 130–2, 146–7 levels of 136–8 of rap artist to consumers 246–8 role of evaluative language in 164–5 social process of 133–4, 140 within civic domain 6, 82–3

affinity group 82–3 affinity space 82–3 agent role appliable linguistics 13–14 appraisal analysis 54–5, 118, 150–1, 158–9, 173–4 academic writing 172–3, 182 affiliation and 164–5 media’s portrayal of sports star’s transgressive behaviour 125–6 visual aids 7–8, 151, 161–4 appreciation in appraisal system 54, 55, 118, 133, 173 conversational humour 134, 139–40, 141, 142–3, 145 student writing 176, 178, 179–80, 181, 182 arbitrary realization 275, 276, 277 archaeological anthropology 267–8 assessment criteria development of 26, 29, 30–1 attitude 118, 133 conversational humour 134–6 notion 155, 173 student writing 175–81 syllabus documents 174–5 youth justice conferencing 60–1, 68, 155 attributes 239, 240, 244–6, 248 bond(s) 134 conversational humour and 134–5, 138, 143–4, 145, 146 syntagmatic 278, 280, 281, 286–7

308

Index

bondicon 61, 62, 157, 158 brightness (modality marker) 225 causal conjunctions 210 causal connectives 205 therefore 213–16 causal relations 9, 202, 206, 207, 210–13 nominalization of 212 causal verbs 210, 217 types 210–11 channel aural and visual modalities 96 news text and 97–8 choice of coding orientation in visual modality texts 226, 231 meaning as 4–5, 14–18 in selection of vocalists in construction of rap songs 240–1, 243 in translation 18–19, 21–4 civic domain communicative goals and 81–2 social affiliations within 82–3, 84 clause 258, 259 rank and 259–61 coding orientation 221, 225, 231–2, 271 in pedagogic texts 225–31 coherence 200, 203–5, 207–8, 216–17 cohesive harmony analysis 95 of news text 99–100, 102 colour differentiation (modality marker) 224, 227, 228–9 colour modulation (modality marker) 224, 227 colour saturation (modality marker) 224, 226–7, 229 commissioned recounts 6, 47, 154 examples of 48–53 generic structure of 47–8, 154 ideational focus of 53, 54 community identities conversational humour and 7, 137, 141, 144–5, 146 compact prosodies 150 comparative interpretation SLATE project 34–41

complementary structures 258 conjunctions 201–3, 208, 216 subjective uses 205 conjunctive adjuncts 201, 202 see also logical connectives constituency 252, 257–60 constrained-based causation 211 content 274 content domain 203 context 27, 275 models of 76 context of culture 76, 275 models 77–8, 80–4 context of situation 76, 81 contextual configuration 94–5 contextualization (modality marker) 224–5, 228 conversational humour affiliation and 7, 130–2, 133–6, 146–7 analytical approach to research data 132–3 naming and 136–8 notion 133 coordinating conjunctions 201, 202 logico-semantic relations and 202 couplings 132, 134–6, 164 Cousins, Ben cross modal phoric references 96 cross modal resonances 96 cultural context 76, 275 cultural context model 77–8 of adolescent literacy practices 80–4, 89 cultural domain 81–4 culture meaning and 269–70 role in negotiation of communal and relational identities 132, 137–45 default meanings 288–90, 296 depictive nominal groups 99 depth (modality marker) 225, 228 description of language 283–6 dialectical realization 276, 277 diffuse prosodies 150–1 discourse markers 205 discourse relations 203–4, 205

Index discourse semantics 27, 133, 190 ideational meanings and 194 interpersonal meanings and 195 textual meanings and 196 discursive codes 103 educational linguistics 8, 185–6 elaboration 204 enforced causation 210 environment of translation 16 episode rank 253, 255 epistemic domain 203 ergativity analysis 117–18, 119–25 evaluative language affiliation and 164–5 commissioned recounts 5–6, 45–6, 54–5, 69–70, 152 commissioned recounts, gestural and phonological analysis 159–60 commissioned recounts, prosodic structure 7–8, 150–1, 158–9 commissioned recounts, visualization 7, 163–4 high-stakes examination writing 8, 172–3, 175–81 examination writings attitude and graduation 8, 176–7 evaluative language 8, 172–3, 175–6 inscribed attitude 177–8 interplay between inscribed and invoked attitude 178–81 exophoric references 96 experiential meaning potential affiliation and 248 artist’s semiotic profile and 9–10, 245–6 notion 237 of pitch register 239–40 of rhythm 239 of roughness of voice 240 experiential metaphors 209 explicit attitude see inscribed attitude expression 267, 274, 275–6, 277–8 external conjunctions 203, 205 feedback SLATE project’s structured approach to 31, 36, 38–9 on students’ writing 170

309

field 80, 94–5 of news text 97–100 notion 27 of production 93 of symbolic control see symbolic control focus of appraisal system 174 student writing 176–7 force of appraisal system 174 formative verbs 211 genre(s) 5, 76–7 in academic domain 185–6, 189, 191 distinction between register and 95 ideational perspective 193, 194 interpersonal perspective 195 Martin’s model 76, 92, 95 notion 27 pedagogical implications 27–8 social identity and 83 textual perspective 196 within civic domain 82, 89 gestural analysis of commissioned recounts 159–60 graduation of appraisal system 173 notion 174 student writing 176–7 syllabus documents 175 grammatical metaphors 209, 287 Halliday, M. A. K. on appliable linguistics 1, 3–4 on linguistic meaning 271–2 on modality 222–3 on polarity 288–9 rank grammar of 253–4, 255 on register 92 reinterpretation of rank grammar of 256–61 on relationship between systems and instances 279 on semiogenesis 296–7 social activity model 76 trinocular perspective of 283–5, 296 humour see conversational humour hyper-themes 196–7 ideation 146 notion 133, 136

310

Index

ideational meaning 27, 191 conversational humour 134–6 images 253, 261 pathway of realization 193–5 identity construction social affiliation and 7, 137–8, 146 sports stars’ transgressive behaviour and 7, 115–16, 127–8 ideological identities 132, 137 of gender 143–4 of religion 143 illumination (modality marker) 225, 228 implicit attitude see invoked attitude inchoative verbs 211 inscribed attitude commissioned recounts 63, 64–7, 158–9 conversational humour 133, 134, 138, 141, 142–3, 146–7 in student writing 177–81 instantiation 278–9 interactional identities conversational humour and 137 internal conjunctions 203, 205 interpersonal grammatical metaphors 287 interpersonal meaning 27, 150, 191 modality and 9, 223–4 pathway of realization of 195–6 student writing 175–6 syllabus documents 174–5 syllabus documents vs. student writing 176–7 intransitive verbs 210, 211 invoked attitude commissioned recounts 158–9 conversational humour 133, 135, 146 student writing 178–82 judgement in appraisal system 54, 55, 118, 156, 173 media portrayal of sports stars’ transgressive behaviour 125–6 student writing 176, 178, 179, 180, 181–2 youth justice conferencing 56–63, 68, 155, 158–9, 163–4

juvenile offenders language use 53–4 restorative justice 5–6, 44, 68–9 knowledge common-sense vs. formal 171 language resources 186 of domain experts 208–10 stratification 190 langue vs. parole dichotomy 278 lexical metaphors 209, 212 lexicogrammar 27, 190, 274, 281 domain experts usage of 208–10 ideational meanings and 194–5 interpersonal meanings and 195–6 meaning and 276, 285–7, 295–6 textual meanings and 196–7 linguistic meaning 10, 273, 298 from protolanguage to 271–2 realization 275–8 stratification 274–5 see also meaning linguistic modality 222–3 literacy domains 187, 189–90 literacy pedagogy issues 168–72 rationale and background 168–9 senior secondary school context 169 logical connectives 8–9, 200–1, 216–17 alternative terminology 201 macro-categories of 202–4 in sentence-initial position 206–7 subjective functions of 205 as surface-level fillers 206 underuse by native speakers 207–8 logical metaphors 209 logico-semantic relations 202, 209 coordinating conjunctions and 202 logogenesis 85–6, 151, 158–9, 161 long-range appraisal prosodies 151 macrogenres 46–7, 83 master identities conversational humour and 137–8, 143, 144 MCD see membership category devices

Index MDA see multimodal discourse analysis meaning 13 centrality to human life 267 as choice 14–18 history 10 lexicogrammar and 276, 285–7, 295–6 making mind 268–9 mind and culture 269–70 modes of 271–2, 297–8 popular notion 272 in social life 267–8 member rank 253, 255 membership category devices (MCD) 134, 143–4 see also couplings message component 281 message semantics 281–2 meta-redundancy 277 modal verbs 222 modalities other than language (MOL) 10, 251, 261, 262 mode 94–5 of news text 95–7 notion and definition 27, 95 model of cultural context 6, 76, 77–8 adolescent literary practices 80–4, 89 MOL see modalities other than language MOOD systems network 94, 287–8, 289, 291, 293, 296, 297 multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) 10, 152, 221, 251 rank debate 252–6 rank debate implications 261–2 multimodal texts 10, 261, 262 unfolding path of 260–1 naming 132 conversational humour and 136–8, 146–7 narrative 80 native speakers underuse of logical connectives 207–8 naturalistic coding orientation 225, 229–31

311

negative polarity (not) as lexicogrammatical category 287–8 meaning of 10–11, 289–90, 295 realization of 288 use in demanding information 290–5 neuroscience 268–9 news 93 as pedagogic discourse 93–4 register perspective 6, 92–3, 102–4, 105–11 on sports stars’ transgressive behaviour 7, 115–16, 126–8 within SFL framework 92–3 paradigmatic relations 280, 283, 286, 297 PDA see positive discourse analysis peri-causal verbs 211 personal recounts genre 53–4 persuasion 6, 77–8 in academic domain 189 in civic domain 82 in political testimony 85–9 sample text 78–9 photographic naturalism 224, 225 pitch register 239–40, 242–3 polarity 287–8 choice of 288–90 political testimony 84–5 appeal element 85 identification element 86 involvement 87–8 legitimation 86–7 motivating elements 85–6 reassurance 88–9 polysemy 201, 202–4 positive discourse analysis (PDA) 78 predicated theme 215 prosodies 191 protolanguage 271–2 rank 251–2 in multimodal discourse analysis 10, 252–6, 261–2 not an isolated parameter 256–7 rank grammar 253, 254–5, 256

312

Index

rapping voice 240 pitch register 242–3 rhythm 241–2 roughness 243–4 realization 13, 190, 274, 275–8, 285–7 instantiation and 278–9 of negative polarity 288 recount genres stages 47–8, 80, 89 reflection-based activity 98–9 text as 99 register distinction between genre and 95 ideational meanings and 193, 194 interpersonal meanings and 195 news discourse and 6, 92–3, 102–4, 105–11 notion and definition 27, 92 register analysis 94–5 rhetorical structure theory (RST) 202 rhetorical unit (RU) 281 rhetorical unit (RU) analysis 95, 203 of news text 97 rhythm 241–2 RST see rhetorical structure theory RU see rhetorical unit scaffolding notion 28 in youth justice conferencing 49, 51, 71 school genres literacy teaching and 170–2 semantics 274, 276, 280–1 semiogenesis 296–7 semiology 273 semiotic mediation 10, 269–70 sensory coding orientation 225, 226–7, 231 SFL see systemic functional linguistics shame 68–9 sign/symbol 273, 275, 278 identity and value of 278, 279–80, 283, 286–7 singing voice 240 pitch register 242–3 rhythm 242

social activity 97, 99, 100, 191 Halliday’s model 76 notion 190 social identity conversational humour and 131 role in genre determination 83 role in persuasive political testimony 86 social networks 135 social process of affiliation 133–6, 140 of news 103–4 role of language in 97 social relations conversational humour and 130–1 modality and 231 news item and 101 social semiotics modality and 221–5 social variation 270–1 sociogenesis 270 sociolinguistics 1 criticism 2 speeches of adolescent social activists persuasiveness 6, 77–8, 85–9 stages 80 text 78–9, 88 sports stars damaged heroes 127 media portrayal of transgressive behaviour 7, 115–16, 128 transgressive behaviour of 114–15, 127 stacked area graphs 151, 161–4 stake out presentation mode 96, 97, 98, 103 stratification 190, 274–5 structure 95 register analysis 102–3 student writing see academic writing subordinating conjunctions 201, 202 Sydney School pedagogy 26, 27–8, 190 syllabus documents of disciplines appraisal profiles of 172, 178–82 appropriate language and concepts in 180–1 interpersonal meanings of 174–5, 176–7

Index symbolic control Bernsteinian 93 discursive codes 103 publicly owned media and 93, 94 text producing interactants 101 sympathetic circularity 293 synoptic perspective 163, 260, 278–9 syntagmatic relations 278, 280, 281, 286–7 syntax 267, 287 system networks 234–5 notion 280 of options in demanding goods/ services 281, 282, 284–5, 287, 290–1 select expression 280 systemic functional linguistics (SFL) 4, 11, 116, 185–6, 221, 234, 296 definition criteria for categories 277 strata and metafunctions 27, 28, 190–1, 257–8 tag(s) 293 tagmemics 4, 257 teaching-learning cycle 28–9 tempo 238, 239, 241–2 tenor 94–5 academic domain 195 news item and 100–2 notion 27 text visualization 7, 161 methods 161 textual coherence logical connectives and 201, 208 textual meaning 27, 191 pathway of realization 196–7 texture 95 register analysis 102–3 thematized adjunct 214–15

313

theme 196–7 predicated 215 tone group analysis 152, 153, 160, 165 tone setting subtexts 98–9 transitive verbs 201, 209, 210–11 transitivity analysis 116, 118–25 translation appliable linguistics and 19 problem of choice 14–15 problem of choice, examples 18–19 tourist guides 16 see also Chinese-English tourist guide translation translation equivalence 16, 17, 18–19 translation shifts 16, 17, 18–19 trinocular perspective 283–6, 296 virtual addressee 96, 101 visual grammar 10 of Kress and Van Leeuwen 253, 254, 256 of O’Toole 253, 254–5, 256 visual modality 223–5 visual modality texts 9, 232 coding orientation in 225–31 visualization appraisal prosody 7–8, 151, 161–4 voice over presentation mode 96, 97, 98 vox pop presentation mode 96, 97, 98 YJC see youth justice conferencing youth justice conferencing (YJC) 5–6, 44–5, 72–3, 151–4 criminological research on 45 critique of 70–1 emotional dynamics 69 negotiation of meaning in 45–6 ritualization 69, 70–2

Appliable Linguistics

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