Exploring Functional Grammar ______________________________________
A course book by Maxine Lipson 2nd edition
TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Series Editor Preface Ch. 1: General Information Ch. 2: Review Test Ch. 3: Functional Grammar: Principles and Important Aspects 3.1 Why Functional Grammar 3.2 Fundamental Concepts 3.3 Context of Culture and Context of Situation Keys and Further Reading Ch. 4: The Rank System: Words, Groups and Clauses 4.1 The Rank Scale 4.2 Embedding Keys and Further Reading Ch. 5: Tenor: MOOD SYSTEM and Interaction in the Clause 5.1 Interpersonal Meanings and the Clause as Exchange 5.2 Mood Elements 5.3 Modality 5.3.1 Modalization and Modulation 5.3.2 Orientation of Modality 5.3.3 Value 5.4 Grammatical Metaphor: Interpersonal Metaphors 5.4.1 Metaphors of Modality 5.4.2 Metaphors of Mood Keys and Further Reading Ch. 6: Field: TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM and Representing the World 6.1 Material Processes 6.2 Mental Processes 6.3 Verbal Processes 6.4 Behavioral Processes 6.5 Relational Processes 6.6 Existential Processes 6.7 Projecting Propositions/Proposals and Verbal Group Complexes 6.8 Causality 6.9 Summary and Exercises Keys and Further Reading Ch. 7: Grammatical Metaphor: Ideational Metaphors 7.1 Ideational Metaphor and Process Types 7.2 Ideational Metaphor and Nominalization Keys and Further Reading Ch. 8: APPRAISAL SYSTEMS 8.1 Attitude: Affect, Judgement, and Appreciation 8.2 Attendant APPRAISAL SYSTEMS: Graduation and Engagement 8.3 Summary and Exercises Keys Ch. 9: Mode: THEME/RHEME SYSTEM and the Realization of Textual Meanings 9.1 The Role of Language, the Channel of Communication, and Medium 9.2 The THEME SYSTEM
i 1 2 2 5 5 7 10 13 15 16 18 21 23 24 26 31 32 34 37 38 39 40 42 45 46 51 54 56 57 62 63 70 72 73 78 78 80 83 86 86 94 100 105 110 110 113
9.2.1 Structural Cohesive Devices: Theme/Rheme 9.2.2 Structural Cohesive Devices: Grammatical Parallelism 9.2.3 Thematic Progression and Thematic Drift 9.3 Non-Structural Cohesive Devices Keys and Further Reading Appendix A: List of Common Attributive and Identifying Relational Processes Appendix B: Example of a Functional Grammar Test Bibliography and Acknowledgements Index
113 122 124 125 130 133 134 137 139
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Preface The purpose of this course-book, which is the fundamental reading text for the course Exploring Functional Grammar, is to explore and apply the principles and techniques of Functional Grammar (FG) and the Systemic Functional approach to language in order to increase the EFL student's awareness of how the English language system works to construct meanings appropriate for their cultural and situational context. The course is part of a three-year syllabus in which grammar is considered more than just applying rules in isolated sentences. As Candlin argues, “grammar is a purposeful, constructive and above all social enterprise” (in Butt et al. 2000: vi). The course-book aims to explore further the complex theory of Functional Grammar, yet make it accessible and meaningful to the intermediate EFL learner; attempts have been made to provide explanations and definitions of terminology in simple language that is reader-friendly for intermediate EFL students. Concepts and theories are illustrated by means of analyzing authentic texts (e.g. ads, headlines, short conversations, advertisements, etc. from up-to-date sources). In this way, the student becomes aware of the link between grammar and meaning. As F. Christie and L. Unsworth (2000: 2) point out, “language study should focus on meaning and on the ways people exercise choices in order to make meaning”… the focus is on “how people use language to make meanings with each other”. In his preface to Introducing Functional Grammar, Michael Halliday himself defines his aim as constructing “a grammar for purposes of text analysis; one that would make it possible to say sensible and useful things about any test, spoken or written, in modern English” (1994: xv). It is to be kept in mind that Exploring Functional Grammar, therefore, is not only a collection of theoretical notions and explanations, but a source of illustrative examples and tasks (with keys) to help students apply the analytical tools of Functional Grammar, in the hope of their becoming better readers, writers and speakers of English. The basic reference for the notions presented herein is Michael Halliday , An Introduction to Functional Grammar 1994. Throughout the course-book, there are pages assigned from the books Introducing Functional Grammar by Geoff Thompson and Using Functional Grammar by David Butt et al., both references extremely helpful and enlightening for teachers and students of Functional Grammar. Other references found to be valuable resources in the preparation of this handbook are Gerot and Wignell (1994) and Eggins (1994). The FG model of analysis is a vital aspect of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL); a full study of SFL, however, is beyond the scope of the undergraduate language program. In closing, it is important to remember the importance for university EFL students who are aiming at the acquisition of professional levels of language use to study grammar in a broader framework. As I wrote in a recent article: The study of grammar must be embedded in a broader framework of language and context if students are to understand first and foremost just what a language is and how it functions both to construct 'reality' and to construct subjectivity/intersubjectivity… This [functional] approach would therefore help future graduates acquire not only professional levels of language use in particular areas of specialization, but also a greater knowledge and appreciation of how language works, so as to be able to operate in the international job market more effectively and intelligently”. (Lipson, M. 2002: 372- 373) 1
In this second edition, I have tried to improve the organization of the chapters and clarify a few ambiguities pointed out by students and colleagues, as well as provide an example of a FG test and further reading for those students wishing to deepen their understanding of FG. The keys to the tasks are provided at the end of each chapter, immediately before Further Reading. Maxine Lipson
CHAPTER 1 General Information
To achieve the best results from this course-book, it is necessary to have proper study skills and the desire to learn. How can you develop the proper study skills? First of all, after you read a chapter do all the tasks and check your answers with the Key. You should do them more than once until you get them all right. Write down what you think are the Key points presented in the chapter in the Notes page provided for you at the end of the chapter and write questions for class as well. Consult these Notes pages frequently during the course and immediately before beginning a new chapter. Most importantly, before going on to a new chapter, read the previous one again. Besides doing the tasks in this handbook, you should reflect on language use and ask yourselves questions regarding the language you use everyday, whether reading, speaking, listening or writing. Try to apply what is presented here outside classroom. For further information regarding the course of Lingua Inglese II, students are advised to read the complete program for Lingua Inglese 2 in the guide for students which can be found on the web site of the Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere http://www.facli.unibo.it and to consult the web site of the English Language Studies Program (ELSP) (link is on the homepage of the Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere http://www.facli.unibo.it ).
CHAPTER 2 Review Test
Since being able to proceed with Exploring Functional Grammar presupposes the successful completion of the first year course-book, Functional Grammar: An Introduction for the EFL Student, students are advised to review the theory and concepts treated in that course-book and complete the following review test (an answer Key to these exercises follows). REVIEW TEST 2
1.Which of the following statements is NOT part of the notions of Functional Grammar? A) There are three levels of meanings mapped onto the same clause. B) Functional Grammar considers the role of grammar in constructing meaning. C) A text emerges from a context of situation in a context of culture. D) Language and texts are independent of social and cultural processes. 2. How many morphemes are in each of the following words? • Unfriendly Books Kicked Motherhood 3. Analyze the following sentences by identifying clauses and groups (Nominal Groups, Verbal Groups, Adverbial Groups, Prep. Phrases etc.): • According to staff, the changes were made too quickly. • He opened the door and strode into the hall. • Columbus may not have discovered America, but his accomplishments brought the medieval world into a new era. 4. Identify the independent and dependent clauses and relationships of interdependency (hypotaxis and parataxis) in the following clause complexes. • He bought the book before he went home. • He said he might go to the party. • She's great fun, but her husband is rather dull. 5. Identify the parts of the following nominal groups: (i.e. the Thing, Deictics, Numeratives, Epithets, Classifiers) • Two thousand tired factory workers went on strike last week. • She is a working mother. • He bought a little charming rural cottage 6. In the statement, “He loves football.”, the participant 'He' is A) Senser B) Phenomenon C) Target D) Goal 7. In “I made a dress for Maria”, the Process is A) material B) behavioral C) relational D) existential 8. In, “He's the only one without a ticket”, the Process is A) material B) relational - attributive C) relational - identifying D) existential 9. “He walked in (1) and demanded (2) a vodka.”, the Processes are: A) both material C) material (1) and mental (2) B) material (1) and verbal (2) D) behavioral (1) and mental (2) 10. In “She should be able to arrive in time”, the Mood Block consists of: A) She should C) She should be able to B) She should be D) She should be able to arrive 11. Identify the type of circumstance in, “They attempted to continue their conversation despite the noise”. A) Manner B) Accompaniment C) Cause D) Contingency 12. The Modal Operator ‘may’ in the statement, “John may be in the library”, expresses: A) obligation B) certainty C) usuality D) inclination 3
13. In the following clause, “All students who are attending this course must pass the oral test.”, the words “who are attending this course” is an example of a/an A. elliptical clause C. independent clause B. embedded clause D. dependent clause 14. In which of the following is there an example of embedding? A. Write your surname on the sheet B. Write your surname and sign the sheet C. Write your mother's surname on the sheet D. Write the surname of your mother on the sheet 15. In Functional Grammar, Tenor refers to C) Graphology A) The nature of the exchange B) What is going on D) Phonology 16. The Modal Adjunct ‘gladly’ in the statement “I’ll gladly help you” expresses: A) obligation B) willingness C) probability D) necessity 17. What is the Topical Theme in “The doctor will see you now.”? A) The doctor will B) The doctor will see C) The doctor D) The 18. The underlined clause in the following statement, “I didn't go to class this morning because I slept late”, is an example of a/an A) independent clause B) dependent clause C) embedded clause 19. Identify the type of circumstance in, “The old cat hadn't eaten for days”. A) Cause B) Location: time C) Extent: time D) Manner 20. The statement, “I said I would go”, is an example of a A) quoted locution B) quoted idea C) reported locution
D) reported idea
KEY 1) D 2. un/friendly = 3; book/s = 2; kick/ed = 2; mother/hood = 2 3.Analyze the following sentences by identifying clauses, groups, and phrases: a. According to the staff/ the changes /were made /too quickly.- one clause: PP, NG , VG, AG b. He /opened/ the door // and / strode /into the hall. 2 clauses paratactically linked. Clause 1: NG, VG, NG; coordinating conjunction; clause 2: ellipsis of NG , VG, PP c. Columbus/ may not have discovered /America,/ / but/ his accomplishments/ brought /the medieval world /into a new era. 2 clauses: NG, VG, NG, CONJ G, NG, VG, NG, PP 4. Identify the independent and dependent clauses and relationships of interdependency (hypotaxis and parataxis) in the following clause complexes. a. He bought the book before he went home.- Ind-dep (hypotaxis) b. He said he might go to the party.- Ind-dep (projection - hypotaxis) c. She's great fun, but her husband is rather dull.- 2 indep (parat.) 4
5. Identify the parts of the following nominal groups: (i.e. the Thing, Deictics, Numeratives, Epithets, Classifiers) a. Two thousand/ tired/ factory /workers. Numerative, Epithet, Classifier, Classifier, Thing b. a /working/ mother. Non Specific Deictic, Classifier, Thing c. a /little /charming/ rural cottage. Non Specific Deictic, Epithet, Epithet, Classifier, Thing 6. A 7. A 8. C 9. B 10. A 11. D 12. B 13. B 14. D 15. A 16. B 17. C 18. A 19. C 20. C
Keys to tasks in the following chapters are at the end of each chapter.
CHAPTER 3 A Review of Functional Grammar: Principles and Important Aspects How we formulate and construct a statement about the world is underpinned by ideological premises. Even formations taken for granted are full of ideological premises (Stuart Hall 1995: 18). Language is a resource for making meanings…. (Michael Halliday, 1994: xxvi ).
This course is based on the Hallidayan concept that language is a social semiotic which construes our social reality through lexico-grammatical structures, which are, according to Halliday, resources of a culture for making meaning (1984: 15). These lessons aim at exploring the analytic tools provided by Functional Grammar which help one to understand the relationships between the context of situation in which a text is produced, the meanings activated by this context and the language in which and by which these meanings are realized.
3.1 Why Functional Grammar? 5
The first question a student of language might ask her/himself is “What is important or relevant about the study of language?” The next question might be “ What does the functional approach to language analysis give you that the traditional one, or formal grammar, doesn’t?” The particular relevance of Functional Grammar to language study, and to one's education in general, is that Functional Grammar is fundamentally concerned with how we use language, how we structure language for use or for a specific function or functions, how language is organized to make meanings. Traditional grammar describes the grammar of standard English by comparing it with Latin. As such it is prescriptive (Halliday 1985: 5). It teaches parts of speech and correct usage and focuses on rules for producing correct sentences. Formal grammar describes language as a set of rules which allow or disallow certain sentence structures. In contrast, Functional Grammar is concerned with how structures construct meaning and describes language in actual use and focuses on texts and their contexts. The particular relevance of Functional Grammar (henceforth FG) to the teaching of language and for education in general is best expressed by Francis Christie (Halliday and Hasan 1985/1989: v): How language is taught reflects “questions regarding the nature of language as an aspect of human experience, and about language as a resource of fundamental importance in the building of human experience”. Language is not to be seen as something neutral, it is not a part of experience, “but intimately involved in the manner in which we construct and organize experience…. it is never neutral, but deeply implicated in building meaning.” Thus, as language learners and language teachers we cannot dissociate language from meaning. Functional Grammar rests on the notion of language as a social semiotic, and the “conception of experience or reality as socially built and constantly subject to processes of transformation. Functional Grammar, thus, considers language as a social semiotic, but what is meant when we say, “Language is a social-semiotic”. In Halliday's words: Language arises in the life of the individual through an ongoing exchange of meanings with significant others. A child creates, first his child tongue, then his mother tongue, in interaction with that little coterie of people who constitute his meaning group. In this sense, language is a product of the social process. (Halliday 1978: 1) Halliday (1985/89: 4-5), explains the meaning of 'social' in the term 'social-semiotic': Social in the sense of the social system, which I take to be synonymous with the culture, So when I say ‘social-semiotic’ I am referring to the definition of a social system, or a culture, as a system of meanings. But I also intend a more specific interpretation of the word ‘social’ to indicate that we are concerned particularly with the relationships between language and social structure, considering the social structure as one aspect of the social system. The perspective on language adopted by Functional Grammar is primarily a social one which relates language to a social system, to culture, and to a particular aspect of human experience, namely that of social structure. However, the relationship between language and reality is complex. How one’s perception of reality, values, and perspectives are mapped onto language is also complex. This is the specific concern of Functional Grammar and of this course-book. 6
3.2 Fundamental Concepts
To begin to answer the questions posed by Functional Grammar (How do we use language for meaning?, for example), to be able to talk about language itself and how ideology is mapped onto it, special terminology – metalanguage - is provided by SFL and FG. Halliday's approach to grammar considers the role of linguistic items in a text in relation to their function in construing meaning. For this reason, the interpretation and labelling of linguistic items are functionally based. The purpose of functional labelling in Halliday's words, “is to provide a means of interpreting grammatical structure, in such a way as to relate any given instance to the system of the language as a whole” (1994: 29). Many of the Functional labels and metalanguage has already been taught in the course Introducing Functional Grammar A.A. 2002-03 (see Freddi, 2004: slides 12 – 17): lexico-grammar, context of culture, context of situation, clause complex, Participant, Goal, Classifier, Epithet, etc. Other terms and labels will be introduced in this course-book. But first, since this approach focuses on texts in their contexts (cultural and situational), an understanding of the relationships between language and culture and ideology should be reviewed.
LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY
•
Language:
There is a variety of definitions of language, culture and ideology. Language can be considered a code from the perspective of semiotics. In semiotics, signs and symbols representing objects and also mental concepts acquire meaning through conventions and use. Signs are organized into a code – a system with rules of operation with the aim of communication of ideas. Codes are governed by rules which are consented to by all members of the community using that code. This means that “the study of codes frequently emphasizes the social dimension of communication” (Fiske 1990: 64). Language, therefore, is considered a code from this perspective (Fiske: 1990)1. Halliday prefers to consider semiotics as the ”study of meaning in its most general sense”, rather than as the study of signs (Halliday in Halliday and Hasan 1985/89: 4). When speaking about language, he says: “Each language has its own semantic code, although languages that share a common culture tend to have codes that are closely related.” (1984: xxx our emphasis). The relationship between a code and its culture is very complex and, as Halliday points out: “Only the grammatical system as a whole represents the semantic code of a language.” (1984: xxxi). As you recall, Halliday defines language, as a ‘social semiotic’; this implies that a ‘community’ of speakers shares knowledge about the language system, meanings, and situations. Language, then, can be considered, from a FG perspective, a “multilevelled system in which speakers and writers make lexico-grammatical choices motivated by the meanings appropriate to a given context, and then express these lexico-grammatical choices in sounds or writing”. (Butt et al. 2000: 11). •
Culture:
1
In Fiske 1990. Chapters 3 and 4 are interesting: chapter 3 for a brief discussion of Pierce and Saussure and chapter 4 for a summary of various kinds of codes
7
We use the word ‘culture’ often without really defining it: youth culture, popular culture, cultural background, intercultural communication etc. Fiske, in Television Culture (1987), calls culture the most ‘slippery’ concept of all. Rather than define what culture is, he says what culture consists of: “culture consists of the meanings we make of our social experience and of our social relations, and therefore the sense we have of our “selves” (1987: 20). Halliday also refers to culture as the whole of all meanings and “the total set of options” in “behavior that are available to the individual in his existence as social man.” (Halliday in Coupland and Jaworski 1997: 31). In this course, culture will be used from Halliday's and Fiske's perspective, which includes any aspect of the ideas, beliefs, or ways of behaving of a group of people which gives to them a distinctive identity and sense of social cohesion and membership. •
Ideology:
There are a number of definitions of ideology. “Ideology”, says Van Dijk (1998: 23), “is one of the most elusive notions in the social sciences”. He proposes that ideologies reflect the basic criteria that constitute the social identity and define the interests of a group. They have to do with values and a sense of membership. Since individuals belong to several groups they may have several ideologies (1998: 23-29). Stuart Hall defines the concept of ideology as “those images, concepts, and premises through which we represent, interpret, understand and 'make sense' of some aspect of social existence” (in Dines G and J.M. Humez 1995: 18 my emphasis). What is important in the study of language is that opinions, ideologies and world-views are expressed in texts through “lexical and surface structure choices …in concrete lexical items, clause and sentence structure, syntactic categories, word order, discourse intonation, graphical structures, and the organization of macrostructures…” (Van Dijk 1998:45)
THE INTERWINING OF LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY
There is an intertwining of language and ideology and culture. Stuart Hall clearly relates language to ideology in the following statement: “How we formulate and construct a statement about the world is underpinned by ideological premises” (Hall 1995: 19). The relationship between language, world view, and shared knowledge and beliefs is the premise of interactional sociolinguistics as well: Gumperz, linguist, anthropologist and founder of interactional sociolinguistics writes: Interpretation of meaning is interactively negotiated taking into account the knowledge of the context which the interactants have at their disposal…. Negotiation of meaning means understanding of culture of interlocutors. (Di Luzio in Eerdmans, Prevignano Thibault 1997: 1-5) From this perspective then, language is not to be considered just a ‘carrier of content’ (see Lee 1992: 79-83 for the ‘container metaphor’ of language). It is, rather, a heterogeneous form of social behaviour. As sociologist J. Fishman argues: Language is a referent for loyalties and animosities - an indicator of social statuses and personal relationships, a marker of situations and topics as well as the social goals and the large-scale value-laden arenas of interaction that typify every speech community. There is a systematic relationship between the social environment on the one hand, and the functional organization of language on the other. (Fishman J.A. in Coupland and Jaworski 1997: 27). 8
There are different ways of using the resources of a particular language that mediates different modes of interpretation. Individuals view their social world from different positions and construct their interpretations through different linguistic practices. TEXT A text is defined by Halliday as “language that is functional... language that is doing some job in some context, as opposed to isolated words or sentences” (Halliday in Halliday and Hasan 1985/89: 10). As pointed out in the first year course-book, text in Functional Grammar is defined as an instance of language that is playing some part in a context of situation, it is a spoken or written form of exchange, it is a social exchange of meaning (Halliday in Halliday and Hasan 1985/89: 11). It is a product of its environment - of the total environment in which it unfolds (Halliday in Halliday and Hasan 1985/89: 5).
LANGUAGE, CULTURE, IDEOLOGY AND TEXT
As seen from the above discussion of language, culture, and ideology, the mechanisms that link language and social processes and meanings are very complex and subtle. FG provides the tools to unravel the realization of meanings, the mapping of meanings onto the lexico-grammatical system of a language. We all make lexical and grammatical choices in our daily language use. Our utterances are influenced not only by our views and perceptions (our ‘ideologies’), but also by factors in the context of situation, for example by our understanding of the culture of our interlocutors - our addressees. Other choices are made accounting to the social activity taking place - sermons, lessons, after-dinner chat, etc. Furthermore, all speakers of the same community share a knowledge of their language system and the set of unmarked (typical) forms used in certain contexts. Thus a marked form is recognized in that speech community as a way to emphasize a particular meaning. Example: (from Lee 1992: 12) Place: a board meeting of American businessmen and businesswomen. After Ken presents his point of view, another person comments: 1) “A problem with Ken’s argument is... 2) “The problem with Ken’s argument is … The two statements begin exactly the same way, except for the different Deictic element. Is there a difference in meaning? In both texts, explains Lee, the speaker comments on a problem with Ken's argument. In the first text there is no indication that anyone else sees the problem, while in the second text, the use of the definite article communicates an assumption on the part of the speaker that everyone at the meeting knows there is a problem. One's perception of situations is mapped onto formal structure in language: lexically and grammatically. Communication, then, is often a site of contestation where participants attempt to 9
impose their own modes of interpretation on others or leave space for interlocutors to negotiate meanings. (whether we are dealing with written texts or spontaneous speech). Functional Grammar addresses itself precisely to this issue: how meaning is mapped onto the lexico-grammatical system of a language (see Figure 1). Ideologies and Texts
Social beliefs and value systems, world views, ideologies
TEXTS
Fig.1 from D.R. Miller, ‘English Linguistics’ lecture notes: AA 2000-01
SUMMARY 1. Language is conditioned by the context of culture and the context of situation. Every text unfolds in some context of use. (Halliday 1994: xiii) 2. In the SFL approach language is considered a social semiotic; social because it has meaning in a cultural and social context; semiotic because it is a way/mode of meaning. It is important to consider a language as simultaneously a social act. 3. Grammar is the site where ideology is embedded. Text analysis cannot be carried out seriously without analyzing grammar. Otherwise the analysis can be subjective and even trivial. A text is a semantic unit, but meanings are realized through wordings, and grammar, a theory of wordings, is the site for analysis. (Halliday 1994: xvii)
3.3 Context of Culture and Context of Situation
Language, as you know, is produced within a culture and in a situation. Culture is important in order to understand the history behind a speech event, and as seen from the above discussion, it relates to the values and norms of a speech community. Context of situation is the particular context in which a text is produced. Halliday has defined it as “the immediate environment in which a text is actually functioning” (Halliday and Hasan 1985/1989: 46) . The context of situation consists of three variables: Field, Tenor, and Mode. This notion of the context of situation, explains Halliday, helps us understand why “certain things have been said or written on this particular occasion, and what else might have been said or written that was not”. Three sets of meanings are activated by these variables, Field, the Tenor and the Mode respectively: that is to say, in Halliday’s words, the Field is expressed through the experiential function in the 10
semantics, the Tenor is expressed through the interpersonal function in the semantics and the Mode is expressed through the textual function in the semantics (Halliday in Halliday and Hasan 1985/89: 25).
FIELD, TENOR AND MODE: IDEATIONAL, INTERPERSONAL AND TEXTUAL MEANINGS
As Halliday himself explains in Language in a Social Perspective (in Coupland and Jaworski 1997: 36): The essential feature of a functional theory is not that it enables us to enumerate and classify the functions of speech acts, but that it provides a basis for explaining the nature of the language system, since the system itself reflects the functions that it has evolved to serve.
He points out that: the notion of ‘functions of language’ is not to be equated merely with a theory of language use, but expresses the principle behind the organization of the linguistic system. The options in the grammar of a language derive from and are relatable to three very generalized functions of language which we have referred to as the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual. The specific options in meaning that are characteristic of particular social context and settings are expressed through the medium of grammatical and lexical selections that trace back to one or other of these three sources. The ideational meanings (also referred to as representational or experiential meanings) are those concerned with the encoding of our experiences in the external and in our internal world; the interpersonal set of meanings concern our social role, our personalities and feelings and forms of interaction with other participants in the communication situation; the third set, textual meanings, enables us to create a text which means that our speech is organized in a way that it makes sense in the contexts and satisfies its function as a message (Halliday in Coupland and Jaworski 1997: 36). TASK 1. The Field is concerned with what is going or the subject matter. In the text below, what is the subject matter? Chicago? Singapore? Singapore airlines? What lexical items suggest the Field? Chicago, a cultural city of distinguished architecture, celebrated cuisine and legendary blues is home to a diverse mix of 3 million people. From 1 August, Singapore Airlines inaugurates the only same-plane service from Singapore to Chicago, home of the Blues. This service will operate on the new Jubilee 777ER aircraft with improved comfort in Raffles and Economy Class. Raffles Class passengers can now experience DVD quality movies for the first time in the sky! Come on board and experience inflight service even other airlines talk about. (Time Int’l magazine)
One's choices in lexis and structure are not affected just by the topic, but also by the kinds of social relationships, attitudes, social roles and discourse roles present in the situation. Tenor is associated with these features of the communication situation. 11
TASK 2. What kinds of social relationships, attitudes, social roles and/or discourse roles are suggested by the lexico-grammar in this text? Mode, the third situational variable, refers to the means adopted for communication and the role language is playing in the interaction. TASK 3. What do you think was the channel of communication of this text? In conclusion, language has three metafunctions: language constructs an action, event or state in the ‘real’ world (its experiential function, or meaning); language is an exchange and assigns roles to participants (its interpersonal function, or meaning); and language is a message, having a structure and contributing to a larger textual unit (its textual function, or meaning). We can say that these 3 levels of meaning are mapped onto any same clause in its lexico-grammatical structure. What is important is to understand that in every clause, all three sets of meanings are present. N.B. There are other meanings that, together with experiential meanings, is a sub-category of ideational meanings: logical meanings. These are the meanings realized by the logico-semantic relationships that are constructed between the clauses, “the connections between the messages” (Thompson, 1996, pg 35). See Functional Grammar: An Introduction for the EFL Student, (Maria Freddi 2004) and chapter 10 in Introducing Functional Grammar (G. Thompson 1996)
SUMMARY Within the Functional Grammar perspective of language, “context and language are interdependent” (Thompson 1996: 9). Below are three figures illustrating the process of text creation.
Fig.2 from M. Lipson, ‘Exploring Functional Grammar’ lecture notes: AA 2002-03. Adapted from Butt et. al. 2000: 4
12
M eanings and W ordings
W ORDING S
M EA NINGS -----------------------
-----------------------
SEM AN TICS
LEX ICOG RAM M A R
Fig. 3 from D. R. Miller, ’English Linguistics’ lecture notes: AA 2002-03
The relations among the Situation of Context and the levels of semantics and lexico-grammar are illustrated in the table below.
T he process of text creation activates C ontex t of Situa tion
Is realized in + b y Sem an tics (m eanings)
I F ield
Ideational
“W hat’s goin g on?”
Sp eak er as O bserver E p eriential m ean in gs L ogical m eanin gs
II T enor
Interpersonal
“W ho is tak in g p art?”
Sp eak er as Participant , In trud er
III M ode “H ow are th e m eanin gs b ein g exchan ged?”
L ex icogra m m ar (w ordin gs)
C lause as R epresentation T ransitivity Stru cture C lause Interd ep enden cy(taxis)
C lause as E xchange M O O D , M O D A L IT Y , AP P R A IS A L SY S T EM S
C lause as M essage
T extual Sp eak er as T ext-m aker
T hem atic + In fo Structure, gram m atical parallelism , n on-structural coh esive devices,discourse stru cture
Fig. 4 The Process of Text Creation – based on D. R. Miller ’English Linguistics’ lecture notes: AA 2002-03
Keys: 13
TASK 1: The lexis suggests the subject matter of advertising Singapore Airlines: Singapore Airlines, same-plane service, service, new Jubilee 777ER aircraft, Economy Class, Raffles Class, passengers, in the sky, on board, inflight, airlines. TASK 2: There is no linguistic evidence of familiarity between the writer and the reader (e.g., no vocatives indicating contact, affection, or intimacy, such as first or last names; impersonal reference to “Raffle Class passengers”). The discourse role of the writer is one of giving information (e.g. declaratives). TASK 3: This text is an example of a written text to be read (e.g. big NGs). The channel of communication will be discussed in greater detail in Ch. 9 of this course-book.
Further Reading Thompson 1996, pp. 26-35 for an overview of FG and the three metafunctions; or in Thompson 2004, pp. 28-34.
Notes Key Points
Questions for Class
14
CHAPTER 4 The Rank System: words, groups and clauses “it takes a clause to represent experience…” (Halliday 1989: 82).
In this chapter we will address the important concepts of stratification, rank, and embedding, which were introduced in the first year course-book, Functional Grammar: an introduction for the EFL student (Freddi 2004). However, first we should also remind ourselves of the fundamental role of the clause in the FG model of analysis. “The clause is generally recognized to be the pivotal unit of grammatical meaning (Eggins 1994: 139). As Halliday clearly tells us (1994: 19), in a functional perspective: Grammatical structure is explained by reference to the meaning; and there is a general principle in language whereby it is the larger units that function more directly in the realization of higher-level patterns… if we want to explore how semantic features are represented in the grammar, we look primarily at the clause.
We have said in Section 3.3 that the Context of Situation is the particular context in which a text is produced and that it consists of three variables: Field, Tenor, Mode. As you recall, the meanings activated by these variables - the experiential, interpersonal and textual meanings – are realized in the clause in/by three respective lexico-grammatical systems: the TRANSITIVITY, MOOD and THEME SYSTEMS. The basic site of the analysis of these systems is the analysis of the clause. Eggins and Slade (1997) argue how the analysis of the clause helps us to understand many socialcontextual factors regarding those participating in an exchange. “Grammatical patterns are revealed by studying the types of clause structures chosen by interactants and are displayed within each speaker’s turns… pattern choices are part of what indicates the different social roles being played by the interactants and how such roles are constructed in our culture”. (72 my emphasis). Students are advised to review clause types and relationships in the course-book of Lingua Inglese 1, Functional Grammar: an introduction for the EFL student (Freddi 2004).
STRATIFICATION: A REVIEW
The concept of constituency can be helpful in understanding the organization of language as a resource for making and expressing meanings, not only in terms of grammatical units. Language, in the perspective of Functional Grammar, is made up of strata in which one moves from soundings to wordings to meanings. Any piece of interaction can be considered simultaneously meaning, wording and sounding and this is called the stratification of language. “Stratification refers to the resources for wording and meaning. … The resources for wording and meaning (i.e. for constructing meaning in wording) are the resources of lexico-grammar” (Matthiessen 1995, 2). The figure below illustrates the system of stratification. The context of situation ACTIVATES the semantics which are REALIZED, or become accessible to us, in and by the lexico-grammar, which is REALIZED in and by graphology and/or phonology. As Matthiessen explains, “semantics, grammar and phonology are the linguistic subsystems of meaning, wording, and 15
sounding. In grammar we study the system of wording. The lexico-grammatical level is located between semantics and phonology, whereas the semantic level relates upwards to other aspects of the cultural system of which language forms one part. The phonological level relates downwards to the phonetics of articulation”(Matthiessen 1995, 6)
Stratification
Fig.1: Stratification, based on Matthiessen 1995: 6
This figure shows that for any given level, the higher one provides the ‘environment’ for the lower level. Stratification concerns a system of abstraction and, along with rank (see Freddi, 2004: slides 36-37), defines hierarchies of increasingly comprehensive layers.
4.1 The Rank Scale
As pointed out in Freddi (2004), morphemes combine into words and words into structures and these produce meanings. This is the hierarchy of constituency, in ascending order, or what defines a scale of rank – a rank scale. As already explained, the whole functional approach is built on this concept of constituency, which Halliday defines as “this kind of layered part-whole relationship which occurs among the units… each unit consists of one or more of the next smaller...” (1994: 3). The rank scale is thus a hierarchy of grammatical units. From the smaller unit to the larger unit: from the morpheme (the minimal unit of written language), to the clause complex, the highest level for our purposes, which could of course be extended to the ‘text’. Smaller units come together to form a bigger unit in the rank scale. For instance, a word consists of one or more morphemes, a group of one or more words, a clause of one or more groups, and a clause complex of one or more clauses. As you will remember, the clause complex is a language structure that consists of at least 2 clauses that work together through some kind of interdependency (taxis) and logical relationship (see Figure 2).
16
The English class is big and so it is held in a cinema.
CLAUSE
CLAUSE
CLAUSE COMPLEX Fig 2 Interdependency of clauses in a clause complex
In conclusion, the rank scale refers to levels of organization. What is important to remember is that units may be given new locations in the system through rankshift. In this case, rankshifted items do not function as constituents of higher units. A clause, for example, may be rankshifted to serve as if it were a group, as is illustrated in the example below. You will notice that the clause “I usually attend” becomes part of the NG “The English class I usually attend”. We can say that the clause has been rankshifted. Example of rankshifting Clause 1: I usually attend. (independent clause) Clause 2: The English class I usually attend is big. NG We will look more carefully at rankshifting in the section on Embedding, another word for this phenomenon. (For more on rankshift, see Matthiessen 1995: 99).
TASK 1: In the clause complex The English class is big and so it is held in a cinema, what is the interdependency (taxis) and logical relationship between the two clauses? TASK 2: Identify the units (morpheme, nominal group, verbal group, adverbial group and prepositional phrase) in the following: Many people drive too fast on Italian highways. In the following section we are going to take a closer look at groups and clauses and rankshifting in longer stretches of texts. In particular, we will be looking at the process of the embedding of nominal groups (NG) and prepositional phrases (PP). PPs should be seen as ‘minor clauses’, being more ‘clause-like’ that ‘group-like’ because they consist of a preposition and a nominal group and the preposition can be thought of as a minor verb, or Process (Halliday 1994: 213). As we will be seeing in the next section, they function as either circumstantial Adjuncts in clauses or Qualifiers in NGs (see the two examples below). • •
The digital camera is on the table. (circumstantial Adjunct) The digital camera on the table is mine. (PP as qualifier)
NOTE: Verbal groups will be referred to as VG and Adverbial groups as AG
17
4.2 Embedding As already pointed out in Functional Grammar: an introduction for the EFL student (Freddi 2004), NGs construct grammatical ‘participants’ in the transitivity structure of clauses from the point of view of experiential meanings. In example (1) below, the NGs a novelist and song (Actor and Goal) can be expanded with single words, as illustrated in Example (2), each having its own function. In fact, the NGs in Example (2) consist of a Non-Specific Deictic, Epithet, Classifier and Thing. The NGs novelist and song could be expanded not only with single words, but also with PPs, as shown in Example (3). In Example (3), the PP from Nice is an integral part of the entire NG and functions as its Qualifier. Compare Examples (3) and (4). In Example (3), the PP from Nice is part of the NG an old French novelist from Nice; thus, it is an embedded PP. In Example (4), while the PP from Nice is, again, an embedded PP, the PP in 5 minutes, is not embedded; the PP in 5 minutes is a separate constituent of the clause functioning as circumstance of Location: Time. It is not always simple to distinguish between embedded PPs and PPs which are constituents functioning as Circumstance. TASK 3: In examples (5) and (6) below there are PPs that are parts of NGs. Which are they? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
A novelist wrote a song. An old French novelist wrote a terrible love song. An old French novelist from Nice wrote a terrible love song. An old French novelist from Nice wrote a terrible love song in 5 minutes. On the occasion of her 40th birthday, she bought herself the ring with the biggest diamond. The cat with black and red spots ran into the house.
If a PP, as in Example (3), or even a clause, is being made to function as part of a larger group, it is called an embedded PP or embedded clause. What is the relationship between embedding and the rank system? First of all, we must keep in mind how groups function in a clause as constituents in the Transitivity system: VGs form the Process, NGs are the typical grammatical participants inherently involved in the Process and AGs, PPs, and sometimes NGs to a lesser degree, form Circumstances. PPs that are embedded in NGs are at a rank below those PPs which are constituents of a clause functioning as Circumstance (again see examples of an embedded PP and a PP as a circumstantial Adjunct on page 20 ); and embedded clauses are below the rank of dependent and independent clauses. When we talk about embedded phrases, groups and clauses, it means that those phrases, groups and clauses function within the structure of the same or lower ranking unit, rather than as constituents of higher units, as ‘ranking’ units. In other words, a PP or clause can be rankshifted to become part of a NG, as we have just seen. The NG in Example (6) above could also be expanded with an embedded clause as in Example (7) below. 7. The cat [with black and red spots] [[that ran into the house]] is mine. In Example (8) below, we have a clause (who answered the question) as part of a NG and also a PP (from France) as part of another NG. We will see how rankshift/embedding can contribute to construing elements in experiential meanings in different ways, and, at times, in ways that are highly complex. Compare the meanings expressed by Examples (8) and (9) below: (N.B. Single square brackets are used to mark embedded PPs and double square brackets for embedded clauses) 8. The student [[who answered the question]] is an Erasmus student [from France]. 9. An Erasmus student [from France] answered the question. 18
In Example (8) we have a participant as a Carrier in a Relational Process, while in Example (9) the participant is a Sayer. This is an illustration of how different lexico-grammatical structures express different meanings. As you should already know, the typical embedded expansion is the ‘defining relative clause’ as that ran into the house in Example (7) or who answered the question in Example (8). Below are further examples of EMBEDDING: a. The man [with blonde hair and green eyes] smiled at the photographers. - embedded PP. b. The man [[smiling at the photographers]] is a movie star. - embedded (defining relative) nonfinite clause. c. The blonde man [[who is smiling at the photographers]] is a movie star. – embedded (defining relative) finite clause d. The smile [[he gave the photographers]] seemed sincere. – embedded (defining relative) finite clause TASK 4: Identify the grammatical Subject and Finite in the statements (a) – (d) above. One NG can have more than one embedded PP, or clause, as illustrated by the examples (10) and (11) below: 10. The government has not yet raised taxes in the hope [of signs [of recovery [in the American economy]]]. 11. The book [[that you bought at the store [next to the shoe shop [[that sells those sandals [[which you adore]]]]]]] isn’t the one [[I wanted]]. In addition to this function as post-modifier of a NG, embedded clauses can also function as HEAD of a NG (i.e., as a nominalization, see Halliday 1994: 242 and Section 7.2 in this coursebook), as in the following examples of relational clauses: 12. [[What you see]] is [[what you get]]. (in computer jargon: Wysiwyg) 13. [[The time to leave]] is [[when people yawn]]. (Halliday 1994: 242) 14. [[What your mother has]] at the very least is [[what we call borderline personality disorder.]] (from the television series The Sopranos, 1st season (1999, episode13) To conclude: embedding enables the “grammatical system to create new potential at lower ranks in the system by making it available from higher ranks” and allows one to construe elements of “considerable experiential complexity” (Matthiessen 1995, 100) as in Example (15). 15. The operator [of the Kazaa music-swapping service [[who is now under investigation]]] announced a part-time partnership Monday with Tiscali SpA, one of the major Internet access providers in Europe, in a deal [[that underscores their mutual benefit [from a method of exchanging songs [[that has angered record companies worldwide]]]]]. (International Herald Tribune 2002) •
Tips How can we tell if a PP is embedded in a NG or not? If it is NOT embedded, it can usually be moved. a) There is a boy in the corner. (single clause, no embedding) In the corner there is a boy. b) The boy in the corner is my nephew. (single clause, with embedded PP) NOT In the corner the boy is my nephew. 19
NOT The boy is my nephew in the corner. In sentence (a) the PP is a constituent in the transitivity structure, functioning as Circumstance, and can be moved. In sentence (b) the PP is embedded in the NG and cannot be moved. How can we tell if a clause is embedded in a NG or not? As explained in the first year coursebook, punctuation is an important clue. If it is between commas, it is NOT embedded and thus it is a non-defining clause. • •
The car which is in the parking lot is very expensive. (embedded, defining, clause) The car, which is in the parking lot, is very expensive. (non-embedded, non-defining, clause)
The relative pronouns, which, that, or who, in an embedded clause may be omitted. For example: “The book that you bought near the bookshop…” can be “The book you bought near the bookshop…”. The relative pronoun has been omitted also in Example (d) above: The smile [[he gave the photographers]] seemed sincere. TASK 5: Identify embedded PP or embedded clauses in the following examples. 1. The quiet child in the corner has not said a word all day. 2. The child who is sitting in the corner has been absent for a long time. 3. He bought the book before he went home. 4. The person I talked to first was Jane. 5. People who exercise regularly are usually more healthy than those who have sedentary lifestyles. TASK 6: 1. Which of the following is an example of embedding? A. The book on the table is very expensive B. The book, which is on the table, is expensive.
C. The new history book is very expensive D. The book is on the table
2. Identify embedded PPs and clauses and non-embedded PPs and clauses. Not all examples include embedding. a) Clean air and effective ventilation are extremely important. Many people virtually seal themselves into their houses in the cold winter months. b) Evidence suggests that non-smokers sharing a home with a smoker can have a 30 per cent greater risk of developing lung cancer. c) Three million non-fatal accidents happen at home every year and nearly 6,000 people die. d) Advances in surgical techniques and in the technology used in medical equipment have been extremely beneficial. TASK 7: Identify embedded PPs and embedded clauses in the following examples. a) A cabinet shuffle and new board appointments at RAI may help keep the peace in Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition. (International Herald Tribune, hereafter IHT January 12-13, 2002) b) Yahoo Inc. introduced a fee-based video-game service for US customers with high-speed Internet connections. (IHT September 24, 2002) c) That the opposition would not vote in favor of the Government’s proposal didn’t surprise anyone. d) Over half of the Fortune 100 world’s largest corporations now turn to Orange for their business communication. (Orange advertisement in Time Int’l Sept. 23, 2002) e) In airport boardrooms and galleries, the unique IBM Embedded Security Subsystem offers the user an even higher level of protection by encrypting e-mail and data. (IBM advertisement in 20
Time Int’l, Sept. 23, 2002)
SUMMARY
1. Language is a complex semiotic system composed of multiple levels/strata. The central level is grammar – lexico-grammar. The higher level is semantics (Halliday 1994: 15), the lower level is phonology. 2. Rank refers to a system of levels of organization concerning grammatical units; 3. Rankshifting is a mechanism whereby a unit of one rank is used as a constituent within another unit at the same or lower rank. (Matthiessen 1995: 21. See also 99-100 for more on Rankshift (embedding)); 4. Rankshift refers to a clause or phrase that comes to function within the structure of a group (Halliday 1994: 242). Example: “The man who came to dinner was Sidney Poitier.” Embedding can be used as an alternative term synonymous with rankshifted (Halliday 1994: 188). 5. Embedded elements can act as Postmodfier (or as Qualifier in terms of Experiential meanings) in a NG, as in the example above, The man who came to dinner, or as Head of a NG, as in the following example: That the dinner guest was Sidney Poitier surprised everybody.
Keys TASK 1: parataxis and enhancement TASK 2: Many is a morpheme and a word; Many people - two words making up a nominal group; drive – is one word making up a verbal group; too fast - adverbial group; on Italian highways prepositional phrase (as circumstance: Location: Space) TASK 3: (5) On the occasion of her 40th birthday = PP as circumstance of Location: Time; with the biggest diamond = embedded PP. (6) with black and red spots = embedded PP; into the house = PP as circumstance of Location: Place or Space. TASK 4: The grammatical Subject is the entire NG, which includes the embedded PP or embedded clause. (a) S = The man with blonde hair and green eyes; F = ‘ed’ (past tense of smiled) (b) S = The man smiling at the photographers; F = is (c) S = The blonde man who is smiling at the photographers; F = is (d) S= The smile he gave the photographers; F = ‘ed’ (past tense of seemed) TASK 5: 1. in the corner 2. who is sitting in the corner 3. no embedding 4. I talked to first. 5. who exercise regularly and who have sedentary lifestyles. TASK 6: 1. A 2. Identify embedded and non embedded PPs and clauses 21
a) into their houses and in the cold winter months are circumstance of Location, the first of Place, the second of Time (Extent). b) sharing a home with a smoker – embedded non-finite clause and embedded PP; of developing lung cancer – embedded PP. c) no embedding; at home = PP functioning as circumstance Location: Space d) in surgical techniques, in the technology, used in medical equipment – 2 embedded PPs and embedded clause TASK 7 a) ‘At Rai’ is embedded; ‘in Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition’ is circumstance Location: Place b) ‘for US customers’ - PP as circumstance of Behalf. It can be moved to the beginning of the clause and can thus be considered a Circumstance, ‘with high-speed Internet connections’ Embedded PP c) ‘That the opposition would not vote in favor of the Government’s proposal’ - Embedded clause as Head d) ‘of the Fortune 100 world’s largest corporations’ - Embedded PP; ‘for their business communication’ – Circumstance of purpose e) ‘In airports boardrooms and galleries’ – circumstance Location: Place, ‘of protection’ – embedded PP
Further Reading Thompson 1996, pp. 188-189, Sections 9.1.3 and 9.2 for adverbial and adjectival groups and prepositional phrases; or Thompson 2004, pp. 14-20 recognizing groups. Thompson 1996, pp. 20-22, Section. 2.2 for Rank Scale; or in Thompson 2004, pp. 21-23. Thompson 1996, pg. 23 embedding; or Thompson 2004, pp. 24-25
Notes Key Points
Questions for Class
22
CHAPTER 5 Tenor: MOOD SYSTEM and Interaction in the Clause Mood has evolved out of the requirement that language should serve as a means of action, a way of exchanging goods-and-services and information. (Halliday 1989: 68) By looking at the mood structure, clause by clause, we can see the way the dialogue proceeds as a series of exchanges. (Halliday 1994: 102)
Why study the MOOD SYSTEM? How does the study of the MOOD SYSTEM and Modality help us understand language use or improve our language skills? These are quite valid questions. Halliday interprets dialogue as the “expression of interpersonal relations” (1994: 68-71) and the major grammatical resource in English to construct/construe interpersonal meanings is the clause systems of MOOD. The choice of clause types in MOOD is important if we want to understand how participants construct their identity and their relations with others in interaction. Dialogue is where the role of mood in constructing identity is best illustrated; however, all texts can be analyzed for interpersonal meanings, whether written or spoken. As Eggins and Slade illustrate in their analysis of conversation, (1997: chapter 3), this grammatical analysis can help us to relate linguistic behaviour to certain social roles and to understand the choices people make in order to position themselves and their fellow interactants . Their study shows the differences in social roles in parent-son talk through the analysis of clause type choice in the MOOD SYSTEM: The most significant example of the unevenness of the talk is found in the choice of clause types. While the parents produce a large number of interrogative clauses, the son produces an overwhelming number of declarative clauses (making statements). (Eggins and Slade 1997: 72) So then, different roles and role relations are expressed through continue:
MOOD
choices. The authors
only on the basis of accurate identification of clause selections can we move on to consider the conversational implications: what it means when different speakers choose different clause types.” (Eggins and Slade 1997: 72). There are, as repeatedly said, many constraints on one’s linguistic behaviour arising from the context of culture and the context of situation. For example, in one culture, a particular institutional role may not give a speaker access to all linguistic choices, while in another culture, that same role might do so. Therefore, linguistic choices reveal therefore also cultural patterns. Thus, by studying MOOD we can gather what Eggins and Slade call “hard evidence of the role grammatical choices play in constructing social identities.” (113). TASKS FOR DISCUSSION:What are some institutional roles in your country that might condition or constrain the speaker’s linguistic choices? In what situations has your language been conditioned or constrained? What was it in that particular context of situation that conditioned or constrained your language? 23
5.1 Interpersonal Meanings and the Clause as Exchange Interpersonal meanings include “all that may be understood by the expression of our own personalities and personal feelings on the one hand, and forms of interaction and social interplay with other participants in the communication situation on the other hand” (Halliday 1997: 36). As you know, within the situation of context the variable that determines such meanings is the Tenor, which is concerned with the kind of exchange taking place, the ‘animate’ participants involved in the communication event and their relationships, attitudes and personalities, social and discourse roles. In the same way as certain lexico-grammatical features (in the system of Transitivity) are particularly the result of the Field, so other lexico-grammatical features (in the MOOD SYSTEM) are particularly activated by the Tenor too. How language is structured to enact interpersonal meanings and especially to express opinions, values and judgements is the focus of this chapter.
THE CLAUSE AS EXCHANGE
As you have studied in the course Introduction to Functional Grammar A.A. 2003-04, when we analyze a text for interpersonal meanings, we study the clause in its function at the site of exchange, and in particular in terms of: a) the kind of exchange taking place b) participant relationships and discourse roles c) the assessment of the speaker about the validity or truth of the statement being made (modality) d) attitudes, values, and judgements We will now look at each of these in turn. a) kind of exchange In speaking or writing we engage in an exchange in which we take on speech roles. The fundamental speech roles we can take on are giving and demanding. In these exchanges, we give and/or demand commodities, which are either (a) goods-&-services or (b) information (Halliday 1984: 68). Exchanges are thus (a) the giving of goods-&-services or information and/or (b) the demanding of goods-&-services or information. The exchange of information gives us propositions, while the exchange of ‘goods/services’ gives us proposals. Within the category of propositions we can have the speech functions of statement and question; within the category of proposals we have the speech functions of offer and command. Each function elicits a preferred (or dispreferred) response. (See Halliday 1984: 69 and the review slides in Freddi Functional grammar: an introduction for the EFL student). Speech functions are linked to the situation of context,; the social role of participants in an interaction will constrain their choice of speech functions and, contemporaneously, of Mood choice as well. See Table 1 at the end of this section 24
illustrating the overlapping combination of speech functions with their characteristic (more congruent) Mood realizations in the clause. Compare these utterances: 1. I'll open the door. 2. Open the door, please. 3. Open the door! In (1), someone is offering a service; in (2) someone is requesting a service ; and in (3) someone is giving an order. How we formulate a request, a command or an offer of services will depend on the relationships of the participants, on the cultural norms governing these relationships, and on whether or not the speaker is working within or against those norms. TASK 1: In what situations would the three utterances above be used? No key for this task. b) participants: relationships TASK 2: Where do you think the following conversation takes place? How do the choices in the lexico-grammar of the two adjacency pairs reveal information about the participants and their relationship? The conversation is taken from Hartley 1993: 23. The discussion of this conversation is included in the Keys to the Tasks at the end of the chapter: A. B. A. B.
“What’s your name, boy?” “Dr. Poussaint. I’m a physician.” “What’s your first name, boy?” “Alvin.”
c) the assessment of the speaker about the validity of the statement (modality) Example (4) below expresses the text maker’s non-negotiable certainty of the validity of the proposition, while in Example (5) the Modal Operator may expresses only the possibility of the validity of the proposition, acknowledging other opinions. 4. Alvin is a physician. 5. Alvin may be a physician. d) attitudes, values and judgements In Example (6) below, by using the Epithets terrific and kind, the writer communicates his/her opinions; in this case s/he appraises Alvin as both a physician and a man. Attitudes, values and judgements are discussed in further detail in chapter 8 on APPRAISAL SYSTEMS. 6. Alvin is a terrific physician and a kind man.
25
Speech Function Command Offer
Congruent clause mood Incongruent clause mood Imperative Modulated interrogative, declarative Modulated interrogative (Shall I? Shall we?) Imperative, declarative
Statement Question
Declarative Interrogative
Table: 1
Tagged declarative Modulated declarative
congruent and incongruent realizations of speech functions (Eggins and Slade 1997: 184).
N.B. It is important to keep in mind that, while for statements and questions there are clear patterns of Mood choices in the clause, for offers and commands the patterns are not so clear. Especially for the case of offers, there is not really any clearly identifiable congruent form (Halliday 1994: 95)
5.2 Mood Elements MOOD BLOCK: SUBJECT AND FINITE
Let us review briefly the clause in terms of the mood block. The mood block can be divided into two parts: the Mood and the Residue. The elements that belong to the Mood are Subject (S) and Finite (F). Subject in the MOOD SYSTEM corresponds to the Subject in traditional grammar - and is also referred to as the Grammatical Subject. The Finite is the part of the verbal group that encodes primary tense (Verbal Operator) and POLARITY. It can also express the speaker’s opinion in terms of modality (in this case through a Modal Operator or Adjunct, see page 29 below). The most important constituents of the clause as exchange are the Subject and Finite: The Subject and Finite constitute the “nub” of the proposition: in order to interact we need both something to argue about, and some way in which to argue (Eggins and Slade 1997:78) .
The second part of the VG is, recall, the Predicator. For example: in He has gone – “has” is the Finite; “gone” is the Predicator. Other examples: “He arrived”, “ed”, or past tense, is the Finite. “He arrives at noon”, “s” is the Finite. Recall too, that in Imperatives, for example, Get Out!, there is no finite – only Predicator. Finites expressing opinion are discussed under the section Modal Finites. You can identify the Subject and Finite in the clause by forming a tag question. 1. 2. 3. 4.
The workers protested against the government reform yesterday, didn’t they? The workers protest against the government reform was held yesterday, wasn’t it? Riot police shot and killed 11 African demonstrators, didn't they? Eleven Africans were shot dead by police, weren't they?
We will now look further at how meanings are mapped onto the lexico-grammar of the SYSTEM.
•
Signalling speech functions with S - F MOOD BLOCK elements 26
MOOD
The Subject-Finite (S-F) positioning in a clause indicates whether the speaker is giving or demanding information or demanding goods and services. In short, the order of the S and F indicates whether the clause is declarative, interrogative or imperative. •
Organizing argumentation and signalling who or what is responsible for the validity of the proposition;
The S-F are essential elements in a clause in dialogue. Below are two examples of dialogue. Dialogue (1) is a conversation between a father (D for Dad) and his two children Samantha (S) and Morgana (M). It illustrates how argument is set up through the mood block, or how one argues using the S -F in the mood block. The verbal event is an argument centering around who did or did not break the vase. Transitivity tells us the subject focus - the event (the broken vase); Mood tells us it is an argument. The analysis of Mood also gives us the speakers' discourse roles, and thus an insight into their relationships. Dialogue (1) D: Who broke the vase? S I didn't. D Who did then? S I dunno. Maybe Fufi did. D Nah, He's been out all day. So? M I didn't. Sammy did. S did not. Dialogue (2) A patient is arguing with his psychotherapist about paying for an appointment he could not keep. (dialogue from the television series The Sopranos, episode #8, season 1, 1999) Tony: What if I got hit by a car? Psychotherapist: But you weren't. Tony: I know, but what if? Psychotherapist: But you weren't. Tony: I, I know that, but what if? Psychotherapist: You weren't. Tony: Why don't you answer my f… question? Psychotherapist: I will not. Tony: You won't? Alright fine. 27
As illustrated in both these examples, the Mood choice a speaker makes is thus important in argumentation. The S and F signal what is arguable; it signals what response is preferred. “ It’s a hot day” = “It’s a hot day, isn’t it” - either you agree it is a hot day or you don't agree. The same for Examples (1) and (2) on the previous page, “The workers protested against the government reform yesterday, didn’t they?” and “The workers protest against the government reform was held yesterday, wasn’t it?”. In Example (1), “The workers” is Subject and what we can argue about is only what the workers did or did not do, while in (2) the Subject is “protest” and we can only argue about the protest itself. Also in Example (3), “Riot police shot and killed 11 African demonstrators, didn't they?” and Example (4), “Eleven Africans were shot dead by police, weren't they?”, the addressee has 2 options available. We can see that in (3), Riot Police is Subject and thus we can argue only about what the Police did or did not do; while in (4) the action of the participant, Riot Police, is significantly not what you, the reader or listener, are asked to agree or disagree with. The validity or lack of validity of the statement regards what was done to the passive participant (as Grammatical Subject) Eleven Africans. The Mood, as you know, signals what response is preferred and what kind. By choosing an inanimate Grammatical Subject in the headline in Example (5) below, the writer does not lay responsibility for the validity of the proposition on human participants; while the choice of the writer of the headline in Example (6), does. The implications of these kinds of choices are discussed in Section 7.2 Nominalization. 5. Israeli raids leave 13 dead in Gaza 6. Gunmen kill Marine in Kuwait MOOD BLOCK: MODAL OPERATORS AND ADJUNCTS
•
Signalling speaker's opinion: Finite Modal Operators
The Finite, as already explained, encodes the primary tense and polarity. However, as has also been said, it can also encode the speaker's opinion. In this case the Finite is called a Modal Operator and its function is to express the speaker's opinion regarding the probability or certainty of the proposition being made or the degree of obligation or necessity of a proposal. Modal Operators are modal verbs such as may, might, could, etc.. A speaker's opinion regarding the certainty or credibility of the proposition made may be mapped onto the lexico-grammar of the clause in other ways besides through the use of modal oprators. A speaker may use Modal Adjuncts to do this as well: either Mood Adjuncts (MA) or Comment Adjuncts (CA) . •
Signalling speaker's opinion: Mood Adjuncts
Mood Adjuncts (MA) carry interpersonal meanings and express probability (perhaps, maybe, or probably), intensification or minimization (really, absolutely, just), obligation, and inclinations (happily, willingly). MAs also express usuality, for example sometimes or usually. In the conversation between Dad and Samantha and Morgana, Samantha uses a MA, “maybe”, to signal her uncertainty about the proposition she made. These Adjuncts are included in the Mood Block but are not part of the Finite. MAs are usually located in the middle of the clause, as illustrated below in table (A). However, they can also occur at the beginning. When they appear at the beginning they are not, however, followed by a comma. In table (B) we have the MA at the beginning of the clause. 28
A) Fufi Subject MOOD
Probably Mood Adjunct
did. Finite
Maybe MA MOOD
Fufi Subject
did. Finite
B)
•
Signalling speaker's opinion: Comment Adjuncts
As Halliday says “There is no very clear line between these [Comment Adjuncts] and the Mood Adjuncts.” (1994: 83). Comment Adjuncts (CA) are ‘added’ comments expressing the speaker's attitude to the proposition as a whole, such as unfortunately, hopefully, and surprisingly, broadly speaking, etc.. Comment Adjuncts, differently from the MAs, do usually occur at the beginning of a clause, but they can also be in the middle or in a final position. They are, however, usually set off by a comma. a) Unfortunately, he has already left. b) He has, unfortunately, already left. c) He has already left, unfortunately. TASK 3: Identify Mood Elements S and F and MAs in the following conversation. A: Perhaps the Rolling Stones wrote ‘Yesterday’, but I may have made a mistake. B: Regrettably, you did. They absolutely did not write ‘Yesterday’. A: Well, honey, who did? NB: Comment Adjuncts are at the borderline between the textual and the interpersonal. While Halliday includes them in the mood block, you will find that some other scholars do not. In this course, Comment Adjuncts are considered to be a part of the mood block. Partial list of Modal/Mood Adjuncts: (for a more complete list – but still not exhaustive - see Halliday 1994: 49 and 82-83) Polarity and Modality Polarity Probability Usuality Inclination (willingness,readiness) Obligation Adjuncts of temporality
not, yes, no, so probably, possibly, certainly, perhaps maybe, definitely usually, sometimes, always, never, ever, seldom, rarely willingly, readily, gladly, certainly, easily definitely, absolutely, possibly, at all cost
29
Time Typicality Adjuncts of Mood Obviousness Intensity Degree
yet, still, already, once, soon, just occasionally, generally, regularly, mainly of course, surely, obviously, clearly, evidently, apparently just, simply, merely, only, even, actually, really quite, almost, nearly, scarcely, hardly, absolutely, totally, utterly, entirely, completely
Table:2 based on Halliday 1994: 82-83
ADJUNCTS OUTSIDE THE MOOD SYSTEM
In addition to those covered above, there are also other kinds of Adjuncts which are not part of the MOOD SYSTEM. Conjunctive Adjuncts - These have textual rather than interpersonal functions. They include connectors such as however and moreover. They construct a relationship with some other piece of the text, usually a portion preceding it (See Halliday 1994: 84). Continuity Adjuncts – Continuity Adjuncts (Eggins 1994: 170-171 ) are continuatives (Halliday 1994: 53) or continuity items, and include words such as well, yea, oh, found essentially in conversation. Even Yes and No can be considered to be Continuity Adjuncts when they contribute to the textual organization of the clause. In this case, they would be signalling a turn in conversation, not expressing polarity, as in their interpersonal Mood function. Yes, or the common yeah, is used frequently during a conversation to signal a hearer’s continued listening; also in this case it is functioning as a textual Adjunct. Vocative Adjuncts – (Eggins 1994: 169) Vocatives are considered interpersonal elements in the clause as they add information regarding attitude and relationships, but are not part of the MOOD or RESIDUE (See analysis of the last line in the previous conversation). These Adjuncts are so called ‘address terms’, they are used to directly address a person (for ex. “Mr. Smithers”, “sir”, or “Diana”).
SUMMARY TABLES FOR MOOD ELEMENTS AND RESIDUE
Mark Subject MOOD
hasn’t Finite
got a copy of Hamlet Predicator Complement RESIDUE
30
Do Finite MOOD
you Subject
have Predicator RESIDUE
Who has Wh/Subject Finite
a copy of Hamlet? Complement
MOOD
RESIDUE
When
did
Wh/Adjunct) Finite RESIDUE
Oh,
a copy? Complement
you
read
Subject
Predicator Complement
MOOD
Hamlet?
RESIDUE
amazingly, they
Adjunct: Adjunct: Subject Continuity Comment MOOD
talked Finite
Predicator
about Hamlet Adjunct: Circumstance
RESIDUE
See Freddi, Functional Grammar: an introduction for the EFL student, Sec. 3.1, for a review of mood block and the realizations of the mood block in different Mood types.
5.3 Modality As Systemic Functional Linguistics repeatedly makes clear, language is never ‘neutral’. When we construct a text we always take into consideration, at least unconsciously and to some degree, the person/s we are interacting with. Power, contact, social status and social roles are some of the factors that influence how we interact with others. Our choices in the lexico-grammar of English can construe deference, respect, solidarity or distance; they can save face, minimize conflict, or signal uncertainty. Modality is the system that allows us to signal some kind of doubt, uncertainty, necessity or willingness for various motives. •
Who are the participants in this conversation?
Morgana: Which dress do you think I look better in honey? Dave: You might look better in that red one, dear. Why don't you try it on again? 31
The use of vocatives ‘honey’ and ‘dear’ signal intimacy and so the participants are probably girlfriend and boyfriend or husband and wife. Most would find the usage rather strange if the interactants were brother and sister or father and daughter. Why did Dave answer “might look better...”? Either he is sincerely uncertain about the proposition or he is trying to be ‘polite’, trying to minimize conflict in case his wife really prefers the other dress or doesn’t want to offend her by implying she doesn’t look great in both! Also the wording of the proposal (request) is ‘polite’. He could have simply said: “Try it on again”.
5.3.1 Modalization and Modulation As Halliday explains (1994: 356), “Modality refers to the area of meaning that lies between yes and no – the intermediate ground between positive and negative polarity.” In an exchange of information (a proposition, realized in its congruent Mood choice of the indicative), “this means either (i) ‘either yes or no’, i.e. ‘maybe’; or (ii) ‘both yes and no’, i.e. ‘sometimes’; in other words, some degree of probability or of usuality.” In an exchange of goods-&-services (a proposal, which by default will be characterized by the imperative), “it means either (i) ‘is wanted to’, related to a command, or (ii) ‘wants to’, related to an offer; in other words, some degree of obligation or of inclination” (my bold). The type of modality in the clause as an exchange of information (probability or usuality) is referred to as modalization; the type of modality in the clause as an exchange of goods-&-services (obligation or inclination) is referred to as modulation. Modality is used to temper, to qualify in some way, our propositions (modalization or epistemic modality) or proposals (modulation or deontic modality). What motivates one's use of modality in an utterance is not often clear; every instance is more or less appropriate to its own cultural and situational context. For now we need to recognize modality, understand how to encode it and to appreciate the varied functions it has in communication. Modalization (epistemic modality) and modulation (deontic modality) can also be used as important politeness strategies. Politeness is a “system of interpersonal relations to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange” (Lakoff 1990: 34). Although there may be cross- and intercultural agreement on the appropriacy of politeness, cultures and groups within them may differ regarding which situations require politeness strategies. Compare these three statements expressing condolences. (Examples adapted from Gerot 1995: 2-3) 1. Dave and I are so sorry to hear about your dad. 2. Our most sincere condolences to you and your family. 3. Well, it's about time that ol' creep kicked the bucket! As Gerot explains, cultural beliefs and norms of social behavior condition how we speak about death and how speakers/writers offer comfort (1995: 3). Death, in western culture, is considered a loss, “reason for grief and necessitating offers to provide comfort.” (1995: 3). While the first two statements above could be considered acceptable offers of comfort, the third one would not in most situations. Example (1) is appropriate if the participants in the exchange share some degree of familiarity; the reference to “Dave” and the use of “dad”, rather than “father”, signal some social contact between the speaker-writer and the hearer-reader. Example (2), with wording that is typical of most sympathy cards, has more features of written-ness and reveals a more distant relationship between the participants. The third statement, which is worded in a much more spoken and colloquial style (note the continuative “Well” and the colloquial expressions “ol’ creep” and “kicked the bucket”), would require close contact and shared knowledge among the participants in the exchange; otherwise it would probably be considered insensitive and inappropriate. Modalization: epistemic modality 32
As we have seen above, modalization communicates any degree of probability (might, may, could…) or usuality (sometimes, usually, always. Recall also that probability and usuality can be realized in the following ways : a. b. c. d. e.
with a finite Modal Operator in a verbal group (He may be at home) with a Mood Adjunct (He is possibly at home) with a Modal Operator and a Mood Adjunct (He may possibly be at home) with a PP (In all probability, he is at home) with interpersonal metaphors (I think he is at home.) See Metaphors of Modality Sec. 5.
The use of modalization, as Halliday reminds us (1994: 362-63), always indicates doubt to some degree, at least it implies more uncertainty than not using any expression of modality at all. Morgana always gets good marks in English is LESS certain as a proposition than Morgana gets good marks in English; the proposition The song “Imagine” was definitely written by John Lennon is LESS certain than The song “Imagine” was written by John Lennon. •
Modulation: deontic modality
Modulation (deontic modality), as you know, regards degrees of obligation (necessity) in propositions and inclination (or, as Halliday 1994: 359 suggests, readiness, which could be seen as including willingness and also ability.) in proposals. In the exchange of goods-&-services (offers and commands), modality regards the degree of obligation or readiness (inclination) to do or give. We have said that the imperative is the characteristic form of commands. Thus modality of this type “Try it on” is not modulated; “You must try it on” – is modulated, as is “Why don't you try it on?”. Modulation too can be an important strategy for politeness and on some occasions we all use modulation when formulating our requests. To what degree we do so will depend on the familiarity we have with the person with whom we are interacting. Thus, commands may be given with the default structure of the imperative (“Take off that dress!”) or, for example, with an interrogative (“Would you take off that dress?”) or declarative (“That dress looks awful.”). It goes without saying that the use of modulation, as that of modalization, is closely connected to social systems and cultural norms. Modality in proposals, and in propositions, is related to a type of Grammatical Metaphor, Metaphors of Mood, which are those choices in the MOOD SYSTEM in which the MOOD type (declarative, interrogative, imperative) is not used for its congruent speech function. See section 5.4. for a discussion of Metaphors of Mood.
SUMMARY MODALIZATION / MODULATION
As we have seen, the two types of modality (modalization and modulation) depend on the function of the clause. Modalization (epistemic modality) regards the clause as an exchange of information (propositions) and modulation (deontic modality) regards the clause as an exchange of goods and services (proposals). In information clauses, modalization communicates a degree of probability or usuality, while in goods and services clauses, modulation communicates degrees of obligation or inclination. See Thompson 1996: 58-59 for types of modality.
33
Modalization (indicative type)
probability (‘may be’) usuality (‘sometimes’)
Modulation (imperative type)
obligation (‘is wanted to’) inclination (‘wants to’)
MODALITY TYPE
Table: 3 Halliday 1994: 357.
Examples (1) to (4) illustrate each of the four types. (1) [probability] “There can’t be a flaw in our Windows XP software”, says Bill Gates. (2) [usuality] “Running our Xpdite program works every time”, said Steve Gibson. (3) [obligation] “If you don’t have it, you should get it right away”, added Gibson. (4) [inclination] Many people won’t install the service pack anymore until the problems are solved! As these 4 examples illustrate, Modal Operators can be used in all these ways. How these types of modality differ in their realization is according to what is called their orientation.
5.3.2 Orientation of Modality
SUBJECTIVE/OBJECTIVE AND EXPLICIT/IMPLICT FORMS OF MODALITY Orientation refers to the strategies of expressing modality, or to the extent to which a speaker accepts responsibility for what s/he is saying. These strategies are illustrated in the table and Examples below. subjective objective ORIENTATION explicit implicit Table :4 Halliday 1994: 358.
(1) (2) (3) (4)
There can’t be a flaw in our software. You should buy our software. There is certainly no flaw in our software. I believe there is no flaw in our software. 34
(5) It is certain that there is no flaw in our software. (6) It is advisable/it is required that you buy our software We will now proceed to the discussion of the strategies through an analysis of the examples. 1. Orientation: subjective and objective implicit forms Subjective implicit and objective implicit categories are those in which modality is expressed in the same clause as the proposition. Examples (1), (2), and (3) above are expressing implicit forms of modality. In these cases, modality is expressed within the one clause: There can’t be a flaw in our software. In Examples (1) and (2), modality is expressed through Modal Operators (can and should). The realization of modality through the use of Modal Operators is considered subjective implicit forms. Mood Adjuncts, such as probably, possibly, certainly, perhaps maybe, definitely, etc., express objective implicit modality. In Example (3), the speaker uses a MA (certainly) and is thus expressing objective implicit modality. Other examples of subjective and objective implicit modality are: • • • •
Mary’ll know the answer. (subjective implicit) The red one may be better. (subjective implicit) Maria probably knows the answer. (objective implicit) The red dress is possibly better. (objective implicit) 2. Orientation: subjective and objective explicit forms
Examples (4), (5) and (6) on page 36 illustrate explicit forms of modality. In Example (4), the speaker is producing an expression of explicit modality of probability. In other words, the speaker is explicitly expressing the probability of there being a flaw in the software because the modality is expressed in a separate clause: I believe. In explicit forms of modality, the speaker’s opinion is realized as a separate projecting clause – which, as we will see, is the incongruent form. In Example (4), the speaker uses the personal pronoun “I”, and consequently, the expression of modality is considered subjective. Also in Example (5), the speaker is expressing modality explicitly, by using the separate projecting clause “It is certain”. However, in this case, the speaker does not use the personal pronoun I; in this example, the expression of modality is considered objective (notice the “It” clause, not “I believe”). In these two examples, we have seen the two cases of the explicit category: Example (1) encoding the subjectivity as “I believe” and Example (4) encoding the objectivity as “It is certain”. Thus we have illustrated two categories: subjective explicit and objective explicit regarding probability. Example (6) is an illustration of objective explicit modality regarding obligation. Other examples of explicit orientation are: • •
I think Maria is going to Milan. (subjective explicit) It’s likely Maria is going to Milan. (objective explicit) Besides implicit and explicit forms, a speaker has a third choice: to choose a prepositional phrase (for ex. in my opinion), rather than a clause or MA or modal operator. Halliday (1994: 355) considers this mid-way between the explicit and implicit categories. • In my opinion, Maria is going to Milan. PP, subjective, mid-way position, a little less explicit 35
In all probability, Maria is going to Milan. PP, objective, mid-way position, a little less explicit In conclusion, what are the differences between explicit and implicit strategies/ and subjective and objective forms? • Explicit forms are expressed in clauses projecting a proposition, while implicit forms are constructed with either Modal Operators or MAs, that are part of the mood block of a single clause containing the proposition. • Subjective explicit orientation has I as Subject of the clause, as in I think, I want, I believe; while the objective explicit has It clauses, such as It is likely that. • Subjective implicit orientation has modality expressed through a Modal Operator, such as can or must; while objective implicit orientation has modality expressed with Mood Adjuncts. The table below illustrates the intersection of subjective/objective and explicit/implicit modality (Orientation and Manifestation). •
Subjective Objective
modaliz. modul. modaliz. modul.
Explicit I think Maria’s here. I want her to be here. It’s likely she’ll be here. It’s expected of her to be here.
Implicit Maria’ll be here. She should be here. She’s probably here. She’s supposed to be here.
Table:5 adapted from Matthiessen 1995: 505.
TASK 4: What is the modality type (modalization/modulation and specific category – probability, usuality, inclination, obligation) and the orientation of the following Examples? (Examples based on Matthiessen 1995: 508). 1) It is likely that you know the procedures for running this program. 2) I actually don’t. I think I’ll ask my colleague. 3) Well, you probably know the manuals we have here. 4) No, but I’ll ask for them, even though it’s very difficult to learn with a manual. TASK 5: What category of modality is construed by the speaker in the following examples? Use both labels for the two categories, i.e. epistemic and modalization, and deontic and modulation, and specify the orientation. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
I think I might read it tomorrow. Dave should read Hamlet. Jane is keen to help students. I'll lend him my copy of the book. I want Dave to read Hamlet. It is expected that you read Hamlet. Dave is supposed to read Hamlet. Dave usually reads Hamlet before going to bed.
SUMMARY ORIENTATION
36
Orientation is “the distinction between subjective and objective modality, and the explicit and implicit variants” (Halliday 1994, 357). Halliday states that “The explicitly subjective and explicitly objective forms of modality are all strictly speaking metaphorical” (1994: 362). These forms of implicit/explicit and subjective/objective modality will be discussed in Section 5.3.4 Interpersonal Metaphors: Metaphors of Modality.
5.3.3. Value We have discussed modality type (modalization and modulation) and the system of orientation. There is another variable to be considered: the value of the modality, or the extent to which a speaker commits him/herself to the validity of what s/he is saying. It is the “value attached to the modal judgment”: high, median or low (Halliday 1994: 354-367). The value of the modality runs parallel to, or can be likened to the scale of POLARITY (this brings us back to the fact that modality refers to the area of meaning between yes and no. See Sec. 5.3.1) . There are 2 ‘outer’ values - HIGH and LOW – with a third is in between – MEDIAN. Compare the following statements for obligation: a. Maria must leave now if she wants to catch the 6:15 train. b. Maria should leave now if she wants to catch the 6:15 train. c. Maria may leave now if she wants to catch the 6:15 train. Statement (a) expresses a higher degree of obligation than statement (b), because must has a high value of obligation and should has a median value. Example (c), meaning Maria is allowed to leave now, illustrates a low value of modality for obligation. Compare the next statements for probability: d. Maria might meet us at the train station. e. Maria will meet us at the train station. f. Maria is certainly meeting us at the station. Statement (d) expresses a lower degree of probability than statement (e). The Modal Operator might expresses a low value of modality, while will has a median value. In statement (f), certainly is expresses a high value of modality. The median is “clearly set apart from the ‘outer’ values by the system of polarity” (Halliday 1994: 358): the negativity of the median value is transferable without a change in meaning: i.e. it can be located either in the proposition or in the modality. For example: (1) the direct negated proposition (a) ‘Fred usually doesn’t stay’ = (b) ‘Fred doesn’t usually stay’ with the negative transferable between the proposition (1a) and the modality (1b); (2) the direct negated proposition (a) ‘I suppose she isn’t coming’ = (b) ‘I don’t suppose she’s coming’ with negated modality transferred to the projecting clause (2b). (Halliday 1994: 358-59; Matthiessen 1995: 506). With the ‘outer’ values (high and low), the value switches if the negative is transferred from proposition to modality: ‘It’s certain she isn’t coming’ (high value); ‘It isn’t certain that she is coming’ (low value). (Halliday 1994: 358-9). (Example of negated modality in the projecting clause with high value could be: ‘It isn’t possible that she is coming’ = ‘It’s certain she isn’t coming’.) 37
Below is a summary table of modality value followed by one with more complete examples.
MODALIZATION Probability High Median Low
certain probable possible
MODULATION
Usuality always usually sometimes
Oligation required supposed allowed
Inclination determined keen willing
Table: 6 Halliday 1994: 358.
OUTER LOW
HIGH
MEDIAN
Modaliz. prob. She’ll be home now. She’s probably home now. usual. She’ll be at home on Wednesdays. She’s usually at home on Wednesdays.
She may be there. She She must be there. She is is perhaps there. certainly there. She can be there on She must be there on Wednesdays. She’s Wednesdays. She is always sometimes there on there on Wednesdays. Wednesdays. You must go home now. You Modul. oblig. You should go home. You’re You may go now. supposed to go home. You’re allowed to go are required to go home now. now. inclin. I’ll go home now. I’m keen I can go home now. I’m I will go home now. I’m to go home now. willing to go now. determined to go home now. Table: 7 based on Matthiessen 1995: 506.
TASK 6: What is the value of modality in Examples (1) – (4) in Task 4 in Sec. 5.3.2?
5.4 Grammatical Metaphor: Interpersonal Metaphors
WHAT IS METAPHOR
In The Language of Metaphors, Goatly defines metaphor as follows (1997: 8): Metaphor occurs when a unit of discourse is used to refer unconventionally to an object, process or concept, or colligates in an unconventional way. 38
Fiske explains how metaphor works in the Introduction to Communication Studies (1996: 92): Metaphor… expresses the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar… it exploits simultaneous similarity and difference. The two units must have enough similarity to place them in the same paradigm, but enough difference for the comparison to have this necessary element of contrast. Halliday in The Introduction of Functional Grammar (1994: 340) defines metaphor as a word used for something resembling that which it usually refers to. In other words, metaphor works by referring to something else. He continues to define metaphor, but moving into the perspective of Functional Grammar: Metaphor is usually described as variation in the use of words: a word is said to be used with a transferred meaning. Here, however, we are looking at it from the other end, asking not ‘how is this word used?’ but ‘how is this meaning expressed?’ A meaning may be realized by a selection of words that is different from that which is in some sense more typical or unmarked. From this end, metaphor is variation in the expression of meanings. (1994: 341) Most examples of what are traditionally called metaphor, as Halliday says, move from a concrete to an abstract sense. This would be the case of those material Processes moving to mental Processes, as in the metaphorical “it escapes me” (1994: 340). In fact, Halliday argues, most abstract vocabulary was originally concrete. Halliday uses two terms to refer to the metaphorical and non-metaphorical meanings of a word: the term incongruent for the metaphorical meaning and congruent for the more ‘literal’ meaning. Since metaphorical always means there is grammatical variation in the expression of meaning, congruent would mean that there is less variation in the expression of the meaning. Since meanings are expressed in and by wording (semantics is realized in and by lexico-grammar), we need to talk about grammatical metaphor when we analyze metaphorical wording. What is important to keep in mind is that neither form – the congruent or incongruent - is better, and that metaphor is a feature of both written-ness and spoken-ness. We have previously discussed features of language which carry interpersonal meanings regarding (inter) subjective relationships, for example vocatives (address terms), and investigated how attitudes and judgements are construed through degrees of probability and obligation, by looking at the MOOD SYSTEM. This section will discuss how the grammar also realizes metaphors with interpersonal meanings. Metaphors with experiential meanings (Ideational Metaphors) will be discussed in Chapter 7. It is advisable to review the discussion of ideational metaphors in the first year course-book , Functional Grammar: an introduction for the EFL Student (Freddi 2004). In Chapter 9 textual metaphors will be mentioned as well.
5.4.1 Metaphors of Modality In Section 5.3.2., we have seen how modality can be realized through subjective and objective I implicit and explicit forms . The examples (2) and (3), You should buy our software and There is certainly no flaw in our software, are instances of implicit forms of modality. Speakers, as you also know, have many ways to express opinions, and thus, speaker modality can also be realized as 39
a separate clause, separate from the clause containing the proposition which is ‘technically’ being modalized: (e.g. I think that…, I’m certain that…, it’s likely that…, it is expected that etc.). These projecting clauses are examples of explicit forms of modality, as seen in Section 5.3.2. and are forms of interpersonal grammatical metaphors. In explicit forms of modality, the speaker’s opinion is not realized as a modal element within the clause - which would be its more congruent realization - but is realized as a separate projecting clause – the less congruent form. The use of Modal Operators are thus congruent forms of modality, while forms such as I don’t think, I believe, or It is certain that are considered to be less congruent forms, and are examples of interpersonal metaphors. One might ask, however, why the expressions “I think” or “I believe” are considered metaphors. Halliday argues that these expressions are regarded as metaphorical in that I think or I believe are not, in fact, mental Processes which are projecting ideas, as they typically do, but rather are a variant of ‘in my opinion’ or ‘it is so’ (1994: 354). Likewise for expressions such as It is certain that, it is obvious that. The following example can clarify this point. In the conversation between Morgana and Dave in the previous section, Dave answered Morgana’s question about how she looked in the dress by saying, “You might look better in that red one, dear”. In this statement, Dave construed the probability as subjective and implicit (might is a Modal Operator), congruent form of modality. However, if Dave had said: “I think you would look better in that red one, dear”, he would have encoded modality separately, less congruently, than a one clause modalized proposition. The proposition “I think” is not, in fact, what the modalized proposition (i.e. that you would look better in that red one) is ‘about’. Rather, the clause ‘I think’ is a variant of an expression of probability regarding that proposition. This is shown by the fact that if we construct a tag clause, for Dave’s answer, we would not construct it using ‘I think’ as Subject-Finite: e.g., I think you would look better in that red one, don’t I? Rather it would read: I think you would look better in that red one, wouldn’t you? This is demonstrated further if we substitute, ‘I think you would look better’ with ‘You would probably look better’ and tag it. The tag question would represent the actual proposition: You would probably look better in that red one, wouldn’t you? Another example could be: I think the red dress is gorgeous. The tag question would probably be isn’t it, NOT don’t I. As Halliday points out (1994: 355), the metaphorical process also takes place when negative polarity is a feature of the primary clause: e.g., I don’t think you look very good in that red dress”. In this example, it should be clear that it is not the thinking that is being negated. As Halliday says (1994: 355) regarding this type of example (e.g., I don’t think, it isn’t likely), “On the face of it, these are nonsensical: it is not the thinking that is being negated”. To sum up, interpersonal metaphors are considered such because the modality has been “dressed up as a proposition” (Halliday 1994:355).
5.4.2 Metaphors of Mood Besides interpersonal metaphors of Modality, interpersonal metaphors can also be a question of Mood choices: i.e., those expressions when Mood choices and communicative functions do not coincide. The 4 primary speech functions (offer, command, statement and question) are connected to the basic speech roles of giving and demanding information or goods-&-services. As you have already studied, there are congruent and incongruent realizations of speech functions (see page 34); for example, statements and questions have what Halliday calls (1994: 74) “characteristic” grammatical categories (e.g. the declarative for giving information or the interrogative for demanding information.) However, speakers have a wide choice of wordings to construe offers, commands, requests and statements. As can be said of all grammatical metaphor, Mood metaphors are fairly common. We can speak of metaphors of Mood when we use, for example, an interrogative not to demand information, but rather to demand goods-&-services, as in Example (7). 40
(7) How could you do that to your little brother? (8) Boy, is it noisy in here! (9) Dr. Melfi: I would need more information to answer that question. In this example, the speaker is using the interrogative to demand goods-&-services: i.e. correct behaviour. More congruent versions could use the declarative “You shouldn’t do that to your little brother!” or “You mustn’t do that to your little brother!” or the most congruent Mood choice for a command: the imperative, “Don’t do that to your little brother”. In Example (8) above, the speaker is probably construing a demand for goods-&-services with a declarative, rather than with imperative “Don’t make so much noise.”. In Example (9), Dr. Melfi is probably asking for more information from her patient with a declarative.
TASK 7 Below are examples of marriage proposals. How do they differ in terms of Mood choice and modality? . Marry me. Will you marry me? You must marry me.
I think you should marry me.
TASK 8. : Write out a request made in a formal institutional context of situation and in an informal family context of situation. Identify differences in modality, orientation and/or value in your examples. No key is given for this exercise.
SUMMARY
There are various ways to express modality The basic choice is between (i) using mood Adjuncts and Modal Operators within the proposition or (ii) locating the modality outside the proposition in a projecting clause. In the latter case, the modality is represented as a separate clause and the proposition being modalized or modulated is projected by it. The first of these choices gives us implicit orientation and the second, explicit. (Matthiessen 1995: 502); prepositional phrases are mid-way between the explicit and implicit. The following table is a more complete presentation of the various categories of orientation.
Modalization/ probability
Subj/explicit Subj/implicit I think Mary Mary’ll know knows
Obj/explicit Obj/implicit It’s likely that Mary probably Mary knows knows
In-between explicit in my opinion and implicit Forms Subj/explicit Modalizationusuality Modulation: obligation Modulation: inclination
in all probability Subj/implicit
Obj/explicit
Obj/implicit
Mary’ll work out daily.
It’s usual for Mary to work..
Mary usually works out…
I want John to John should go. go. Mary’ll help. 41
It’s expected that John’s supposed John goes. to go Mary’s keen to help.
Table: 8 Halliday 1994: 358
SUMMARY OF MODALITY TYPES, ORIENTATION AND VALUE
probability modalization usuality MODALITY TYPE
obligation modulation
inclination
subjective objective ORIENTATION explicit implicit median VALUE outer
high low
Table: 9 Halliday 1994: 360
Keys TASK 2: Discussion of the conversation from Hartley 1993. “What’s your name boy” leads one to think that speaker A is addressing a child. However, we soon discover that speaker B is an adult – a physician, in fact. Despite the fact that speaker B is a doctor, speaker A insists on using the vocative “boy” again. This leads one to hypothesize a situation in which either speaker A is very old or speaker A is in a position of much greater power, in a situation in which social relations are governed by a strict hierarchy. Also to be noted in this brief exchange is the lack of reciprocity that is typical of casual conversation, as in the example below: What’s your name? My name is Alvin. What’s yours? 42
The lack of reciprocity supports the hypothesis of an imbalance of power in the relationship between the two speakers. This conversation actually did take place in the United States in 1967. Speaker A was a white policeman and Speaker B was an Afro-American doctor. The vocative ‘boy’ not only signals the power the white establishment wielded at that time, but, at the same time, the use of the vocative ‘boy’ creates and maintains power. The example cited in Hartley was thoroughly analyzed by Susan Ervin-Tripp 1972. TASK 3: Perhaps MA
the Rolling Stones S
wrote F- [past]
‘Yesterday’
Predicator
Complement
MOOD but
I
may
have made
a mistake.
Conjunctive
S
F
Predictor
Complement
RESIDUE
adjunct MOOD Regrettably, CA MOOD They absolutely S MA
RESIDUE you S
did. F
did not F
MOOD Well, honey,
who
did?
S MOOD
F
write Yesterday Predicat Complement or RESIDUE
TASK 4: 1) it is likely that modality type: modalization/probability. Orientation: objective explicit 2) I think: modality type: modalization and probabitity. Orientation: and subjective and explicit 3) probably modality type: modalization and probability. Orientation: objective implicit 4) I’ll modality type: modulation and inclination. Orientation: subjective implicit TASK 5: (1) (2) (3) (4)
subjective, explicit (modalization/ epistemic - probability) subjective, implicit (modulation/ deontic - obligation) objective implicit (modulation/ deontic - inclination) subjective implicit (modulation/ deontic - inclination) 43
(5) (6) (7) (8)
subjective explicit (modulation/ deontic - obligation) objective explicit (modulation/ deontic - obligation) objective implicit (modulation/ deontic - obligation) objective implicit (modalization/ epistemic - usuality)
TASK 6 : 1. it is likely- median 2. I think – median 3. probably – median 4. ‘ll - high TASK 7 : Marry me – imperative (command), no modality Will you marry me – interrogative (requesting goods-&-services) You should marry me – declarative (command) with subjective implicit modulation of median value I think you should marry me – declarative (giving information) with subjective explicit modality (interpersonal metaphor) of median value
Further Reading Thompson 1996, pp.38-50 Interpersonal Metafunction and Mood (Subject-Finite), pp. 52-55 Modal Adjuncts and Conjunctive Adjuncts, 57-58 Types of Modality (modalization and modulation); or Thompson 2004, pp.45-57, 63-65 and 67-68. Thompson 1996, pp. 59 – 60 modal commitment (value of modalization and modulation) and 60-62 modal responsibility (explicit and implicit, subjective and objective modality); or in Thompson 2004, pp. 69 (modal commitment) and 69-72 (modal responsibility).
Notes Key Points
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Questions for Class
CHAPTER 6 Field: The TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM and Representing the World THE TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM The focus of this chapter is on the organization of the clause to realize the experiential meaning component of ideational meanings (the other component – logical meanings – is covered in a good deal of detail in the first year course-book Functional Grammar: an introduction for the EFL student (Freddi 2004). In investigating experiential meaning, we are studying its realization at the level of the clause as representation. Language in the experiential function imposes an order on the flow of events. As Halliday says (1994: xxxiv), “it is postulated that in all languages the content systems are organized into ideational, interpersonal and textual components”. However, he also points out that the descriptive categories are particular and not all languages ‘realize’ these components in the same way. The transitivity system is that system of grammar in and by which speakers/writers in English realize experiential meanings, in and by which they encode their experiences of the world around them. As you know, in the experiential function every clause in English can be seen to be made up of combinations of participants and 45
circumstances revolving around the obligatory Process. But there are almost endless possibilities as to how we encode our experience(s) in this transitivity structure. Moreover, just what part of our experience goes into which constituent part of this structure is by no means fixed and will vary widely from speaker to speaker, situation to situation. Transitivity, then, is the name for that part of the grammar in and by which speakers to realize ideational meanings in the clause; and speakers encode their experiential reality by their choice in wording, by their choice of Process type (the Process, as you know, is the core of the Transitivity system) and their choice of participant roles and circumstances. Thus, when we analyze the clause as representation, it is not enough to describe only the Process types, but we must also take note of the participant roles associated with the Process and the possible selection of circumstances. We will now discuss the system of Transitivity in greater detail (definitions and many examples have been taken from M.A.K. Halliday 1994, Eggins 1994, and Gerot and Wignell 1994, ad Thompson 1996). The external world experiences are made up of actions, events, things happening with people or things (participants) involved. Sometimes the participants do things to make things happen (they are Actors in this case) or the participants may just bear the brunt of the actions (They are Goals in this case), or they initiate an action which is taken by another participant (in this case they are Agents). There may be only one participant, as in the example “I know”, or there may be a number of participants, as in the example “I made her take a train”, which consists of three participants (Agent, Actor, and Goal). After some exercises reviewing the 7 Processes (material, mental, verbal, behavioral, relational, existential and causative), we will explore the analysis of Processes and participants in more detail.
6.1 Material Processes MATERIAL PROCESSES AND PARTICIPANTS
•
Material Processes and Participants Actor and Goal
TASK 1: Which of the following examples would you consider material Processes? What participant roles do you identify? (Examples adapted from Eggins 1998) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Diana went to New York. There were huge lines of people at the Red Cross center. Diana donated blood. Her blood was tested immediately. Diana was one of thousands of donors. 46
•
Tip One way to decide if a Process is a material one or not is to ask the question: What did X do? A way to decide if a participant is a Goal is to ask the questions: What did X do to Y ? or What happened to Y? •
Material Processes and Participant Range
There is a third type of participant role in material Processes that has a more distant relationship to the Process than do the roles of Actor and Goal. Halliday classifies this participant as Range because the participant role is less directly related to the Process; it is not who is doing something or what is being acted upon, but rather its ‘scope’. For example, in He climbed Mt. Everest twice, the mountain exists independently of the Process. Mountain specifies the range, or ‘scope’, of the man’s climb. The same is true for Morgana played the piano. Another type of Range may be actually another name for the Process, such as sing a song. In this case, the participant song is not really an entity that exists independently of the Process; it is part of the Process itself. ‘To sing a song’ should be considered the Process. Thus, song would be labelled Range. Many examples of Range participants are those that occur in expressions with verbs such as do, have, give, take, make, e.g. the common expressions and idioms, take or have a bath, give a hand, take a photo, take a nap, take a walk, etc.. Halliday argues that these constructions (‘NG-as-Rangeas-Process’) have most likely developed due to the verbal forms being de-lexicalized (i.e., lexically ‘empty’ or so called ‘dummy’ verbs) and to the greater potential that there is for the modification of the noun, such as have a hot bath, do a little work (Halliday 1994, 147). Compare the following pairs of Range/Goal: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Make a mistake/ make a sandwich Kick a habit/ kick a ball Serve dinner/ serve the ball Give a smile/ give a present
TASK 2: Identify the participants in the following examples: key is provided in the discussion. 1. They built a bridge. 2. They were playing. 3. They played bridge. •
Tip Ask the following questions for examples (1), (2) and (3) above.
1) Ask: Who did what to whom/what? Who did something and Who or What had something done to it? “What did they do to the bridge?” Answer: “They built it.” We have They as Actor and bridge as Goal. 2) Ask: Who did what to whom/what? “What were they doing?” Answer: “They were playing.” Here we have They as Actor. There is only one participant.
47
3) Ask: Who did what to whom/what? If you ask “What did they do to the bridge?” The answer, “They played it” is nonsensical. You could ask, however: “What did they play?” and the answer would be: “They played bridge” because bridge is a card game; it is the ‘scope’ of the playing, it is another name for the Process. in Example (3), the participant role of ‘bridge’ is labelled Range rather than Goal. •
Other tips for Range: A Range cannot be a personal pronoun; it also cannot usually be modified by a possessive (ex. That's my bridge makes no sense in example (3) above, but it can be in example (1), if the speaker is the engineer or construction worker who helped build it. Ranges cannot be followed by attributes of result, as can be seen in the following examples (see Halliday 1994: 148):
a) They beat the fields flat. Example (a) means that “They beat the fields until they were flat”. In this example, we have an Actor as participant (They) and a material Process (beat), a Goal as participant (fields) and a resultative attribute (flat). b) She crossed the fields. In Example (b), we have an Actor (She) and a material Process (crossed), but fields has the participant role of Range. In fact, we cannot say: “She crossed the fields flat”. •
Material Processes and Participant Beneficiary
Keeping in mind that the labelling of participants signals the relationship between the participant and the Process, we need to take into consideration a further participant role. In this case the participant is not created by or resulting from the Process, but the participant benefits from the Process (examples from Eggins 1994): 1. Diana gave them her blood in the Red Cross Center. 2. They gave her blood to one of the survivors. In the examples above, Example (1) Diana is an Actor and her blood is Goal; in example (2), They is Actor and her blood is Goal. We can say that participants them in 1) and one of the survivors in 2) benefit from the Process of giving. This kind of participant role is called Beneficiary. In both examples there are three participants, each having a different role in the action: Actor, Goal and Beneficiary. Actually, the role of Beneficiary can be further analyzed as regards the manner in which the participants benefit. In other words, they can either (a) receive goods or (b) services are done for them. In case (a), they would be called Recipients and in case (b), Clients. The preposition to is used with Recipients and the preposition for is used with Clients. In Examples (1) and (2) above, both Beneficiaries are Recipients. In material Processes, the Recipient usually occurs only if there is a Goal, as in Examples (1) and (2). In Example (3) below, the participant her brother who was seriously injured is Client. 3. Diana gave her blood for her brother who was seriously injured. 48
Clients, as Halliday points out (1994: 145), are “more restricted” than Recipients and the semantics of the Beneficiary can be at times realized as a circumstance of Behalf, as in Example (4) below. 4. Jane is giving the lecture for Dave. You will recall that expressions of Behalf typically represent a person, on whose behalf an action is undertaken – who it is for (Halliday 1994: 155). While Clients can occur without prepositions without a change in meaning, the circumstance cannot: we could say, “Diana gave her brother who was seriously injured her blood”, but “Jane is giving the lecture for Dave” does not mean “Jane is giving Dave the lecture.”. TASK 3: Identify participants. 1. George Orwell wrote Animal Farm. 2. The teacher tripped in the corridor. 3. The Medici dismissed Michelangelo. 4. He made a mistake. 5. The gun discharged. 6. I posted a letter to a friend. 7. Rooney scored a goal. 8. Two fatal shots were fired. 9. Dave threw a party for Morgana. 10. I dropped the pen. 11. Jack climbed the fence in a hurry. TASK 4: Notice the different constructions/representations of events through the choice of Processes and participants in the following 4 examples. 1. Police shoot 11 dead in Salisbury riot2 (from The Guardian) Riot police shot and killed 11 African demonstrators and wounded 15 others here today in the Highfield African township on the outskirts of Salisbury. 2. Rioting blacks shot dead by police as ANC leaders meet (from The Times) Eleven Africans were shot dead and 15 wounded when Rhodesian police opened fire on a rioting crowd of about 2,000 in the African Highfield township of Salisbury this afternoon. 3. The riots in Salisbury (editorial after the event, from The Times) The rioting and sad loss of life in Salisbury are a warning that tension in that country is rising as decisive moves about its future seem to be in the offing. The leaders of the African National Council have blamed the police, but deplore the factionalism that is really responsible. 4.3
2
Texts in Examples (1) – (3) are taken from Lee 1992. For a very thorough and interesting analysis of the complete excerpts, read 91-108.
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. Because he's been fishing for sticklebacks. Because he makes choccy cornflake cakes. Because he runs miles with the dog through the mud. Because he can't wait to hold his little sister Because you care. CAREX Antibacterial Moisturising Handwash, Hand Lotion and Hand Gel NB. 'sticklebacks' is a small fish with spikes along its back.
MATERIAL PROCESSES AND CIRCUMSTANCES
The Process types tell us what kind of action is going on or if any 'action' is going on at all. Circumstances tell about the Extent, Location, Manner, Cause, Contingency, Accompaniment, Role, Matter, and Angle of the action going on. In other words, they answer the questions, ‘how long’, ‘how far’ (Extent), ‘when ’ and ‘where’ (Location:Time/Space), ‘how’ or with ‘what’ or ‘what like’ (Manner), ‘why’ (Cause), ‘under what conditions’ (Contingency), ‘with whom’ (Accompaniment), ‘what as’ (Role), ‘what about’ (Matter), and ‘says who’ (Angle) (Halliday 1994: 151). See Gerot and Wignell 1994: 52-53 for simple examples. As you have already studied, Circumstances are realized by AGs, PPs and, to a lesser degree, also by NGs. (For more on groups and phrases see Chapter 4 in this course-book and chapter 9 in Thompson 1996). Circumstances realized as PPs can include a nominal element which introduces a 3
This advertisement was part of a corpus collected for a dissertation entitled, Pubblicità femminile contemporanea sulla rivista “Good Housekeeping”: un’analisi funzionale, presented by Jenny Bellini, thesis supervisor D.R. Miller, co-advisor, M. Lipson, A.A. 1999-2000.
50
‘minor’ participant. Halliday refers to these participants as “… ‘indirect’ participants in the main Process.” (Halliday 1994: 158.) TASK 5: Review of circumstances. Identify the type of circumstances in the following examples. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Police shoot 11 dead in Salisbury riot. The USA, unlike Italy, is a federation of states. Many people survived thanks to the courage of the faceless fire-fighters. Morgana waited on line with Dave for hours. She was travelling as a tourist. Rooney scored a goal in both games.
SUMMARY In this section, material Processes and the participants involved have been reviewed. A distinction has been made between Goal and Range (the latter is a participant involved but not directly affected by the action) and two new participant roles have been introduced: Recipients and Clients, two kinds of Beneficiaries (Beneficiary is the participant that benefits from the action). The labels of participants reflect the relationships they have with the Process.
6.2 Mental Processes While material Processes construct what is happening or being done in the external world, mental Processes construct what take place in the inner world (for ex. She cares). Halliday calls mental Processes those which encode meanings of thinking or feeling. Examples: to think, to hope, to like, to dislike. You would do well to review the comparison of the grammar of material and mental Processes in the first year course-book Functional Grammar: an introduction for the EFL student, Freddi 2004. As with all Processes, the labels of the participants in a clause with mental Processes reflect the function these elements have in the mental Process: the participants are Senser and Phenomenon (what is Sensed). As you know, the Senser has consciousness – in order to think, feel, and perceive The second participant is the Phenomenon, what is perceived by the conscious Senser. With these clauses the question “Who did what” is no longer applicable. You ask different questions, questions not about actions, but about thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. “What did X think or feel?”. While with material Processes one can say He resigned, with mental Processes utterances with only one participant, such as He thought or I like, make no sense. Mental Processes involve – at least potentially – two participants: a human conscious participant, the Senser (the active participant) and the second participant, though not necessarily explicit, the Phenomenon (the non-active participant). The Phenomenon may be only potential or understood from the context; it could also be a grammatical ‘Fact’. Recall too that mental Process verbs are divided into three classes: cognitive (thinking) and affective (liking) and perceptive (feeling). Examples of mental Processes:
51
I
hate
spinaci.
Senser
mental: affective
Phenomenon
Her question Phenomenon They Senser
baffles
me
Pr.: mental: cognitive heard Pr.:mental: perceptive
Senser the sirens. Phenomenon
The positions of Senser and Phenomenon can be reversed (what the first year course-book talked about in terms of ‘bidirectional semantics’):
I
enjoy
sci fi movies.
Senser
Pr.: mental: affective
Phenomenon
Sci fi movies
please/delight
me.
Phenomenon
Pr.: mental:affective
Senser
In mental Processes, there is ALWAYS one participant who is HUMAN, but at times one may want to give ‘human’ characteristics to inanimate objects, such as in the statement: “My car hates winter!” (see table below). Examples without an explicit Phenomenon or explicit Senser are also illustrated in the table below.
My car Senser The truth Phenomenon I Senser
hates Pr.: mental: affect hurts. Pr.: mental: affect understood! Pr.: mental: cognitive
winter. Phenomenon
TASK 6: Identify the class of the following mental Processes: cognitive, affective, perceptive. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
We don't know what they want. They wonder why it all happened. I wanted to donate my blood. They don't give a damn about us. I felt the heat on my neck from far away. They all appreciated the endless efforts of volunteer rescue teams . I saw the firemen run up the stairs while we were running out. 52
8. We all need a little help from our friends.
MENTAL PROCESSES AND PROJECTION
Mental Processes differ from material ones in that cognitive mental Processes can project: I think he's really helpful. We must keep in mind, however, that there is a difference between projected thought with mental Processes and embedded facts (Halliday 1994: 264- 8). For purposes of review, let’s look at the following two examples. 1. Maria thought that the train was going to Milan. (projection) 2. Maria realized that the train was going to Milan. (embedded Fact) In Example (1), the participant Maria is a Senser and the Process is a projecting mental Process (cognitive); In Example (2), Maria is Senser and the Process is again a mental Process (cognitive), but it is not projecting Maria’s subjective thought, it is not projecting a subjectively ‘thought’ idea. In this example, Maria is merely recognizing, or acknowledging, or ‘taking cognizance of’ what is being grammatically represented as a ‘Meta-Phenomenon’, or a ‘Fact’: that the train was going to Milan. In Example (1) there is a participant who is thinking and projecting a subjectively thought, or conceived, idea. In contrast, in Example (2), the ‘Fact’ that the train was going to Milan is not considered to be projected by the mental Process. In short, in the second clause, we are not dealing with an idea, but with a Fact. As Halliday says (1994: 267), “it is possible for a fact to enter into a mental Process without being projected by it”; the Fact ‘enters into’ the environment of the mental Process clause but is considered to be ‘pre-packaged’, and thus embedded within the clause. The meaning of the clause in Example (2) is that the ‘train was going to Milan’ and Maria realized this (fact). The Fact is mentally processed and the participant is made to recognize or acknowledge it; With projection, conversely, it is the animate participant who has opinions that s/he projects, as in Example (1). Other examples of embedded facts are 3. Maria regrets [[that the train is going to Milan]]. 4. It worries Maria [[that the train is going to Milan]]. In Examples (3) and (4), we have a Fact, “That the train is going to Milan” as a Meta-Phenomenon that Maria regrets, or that worries her. • Tip √ How to distinguish a projected idea from an embedded fact? Try to insert “the fact that” or “the case that” into the clauses as below. A projected idea would be a separate hypotactic clause and cannot therefore be preceded by the fact (Halliday, 1994, 267): 1. 2. 3. 4.
Maria thought (the fact that) the train was going to Milan – NO Maria realized (it was the case) that the train was going to Milan. Maria regrets (the fact) that the train is going to Milan. (The fact) that the train is going to Milan worries Maria. 53
5. Maria admitted (the fact) that she had made a mistake. Of the 5 examples, only statement (1) is a projected idea. The others are examples of Facts as “Phenomenon within the mental Process clause” (Halliday, 1994: 267).
SUMMARY Two important ways in which mental Processes differ from material ones are that they can • have ‘facts’ as participants: The fact that he's always late really bothers us. • project ideas: “I'll go and give blood”, she thought.
6.3 Verbal Processes VERBAL PROCESSES AND PARTICIPANTS
Some verbal Processes are immediately recognizable such as, say, tell, remark, observe, point out, report, announce, shout, cry, ask, demand, inquire, query, interrupt, reply, explain, protest, warn, insist. Other verbal Processes, such as insinuate, imply, remind, hypothesize, deny, make out, claim, pretend, maintain are less easily recognizable but also fall within this category. As you’ll remember, the active participant in verbal Processes is a Sayer, which need not be a conscious being: “My recipe says red wine!” The other participants include the Receiver and Verbiage. The Receiver is the one to whom the verbal Process is directed (the Beneficiary of a verbal message). The Verbiage is what was said: it can be (a) the content of what is said or (b) the name or label of saying (Halliday 1994: 141). Examples of Verbiage for these two cases are: (a) Can you describe the man you saw or what he was wearing? (b) Can you tell me his height? As we can see from the definition and from the examples above, Verbiage, refers to what is said, but is a participant in the verbal Process clause itself; it does not refer to what is said in a separate clause that is projected - as in the case of a quoted or reported locution. Compare Examples (a) and (b) above to the quoted and reported locutions in Examples (c) and (d) below. (c) She said, “He was wearing a black trousers and a grey shirt. No tie.”. (quoted locution) (d) She also said he was about six feet tall. (reported locution) More examples of Verbiage: I Sayer
asked her verbal Process Receiver
her age Verbiage 54
She Sayer
told them verbal Process Receiver
a dirty joke! Verbiage
Examples of quoted and reported locutions: I asked her, “how old are you?” Sayer verbal Process Receiver Quoted locution I asked her if she was really 21. Sayer verbal Process Receiver Reported locution
WARNING: Do not confuse Verbiage with Circumstances They
're talking
about the news
Sayer
verbal Process
Circ. Matter
There is also another participant involved in verbal Processes called the Target. The Target is the object of the verbiage. The relation between the Target-verbal Process is similar to the relation between Goal-material Process. We can consider the Target a participant that has been ‘acted’ upon verbally. Let’s take the example: The reporters attacked the President. If by attack we mean a physical assault, then the President is a Goal, but if by attack, we mean a verbal assault, then the President is a Target. Compare Examples (1) and (2) below. “She told him a joke”
2. “He insulted Beverly”
In example (1) joke is the Verbiage, the NG which is the name or label of what was said. The participant him is the Receiver, the addressee of the message. In example (2), Beverly is not the person who the message was directed; she might not even have been present. She is not the addressee, nor the Verbiage. She is the Target. There are not many verbs that can take a Target; Halliday lists the following as examples of those that can (1994: 141): to praise, to insult, to abuse, to slander, to flatter, to blame, and to criticize.
VERBAL PROCESSES AND PROJECTION
Like mental Processes, also verbal Processes can be projecting Processes and in that case can be followed by other clauses. They can project direct speech, as in Examples (1) and (2) below, or report speech, as in Examples (3) and (4). In Examples (1) and (2) the projected clauses, “Fiat will be a priority” and “At Ferrari our motto is: Cry and despair over mistakes or problems only the night after they occur” are independent clauses that are paratactically related to the projecting clause. In Examples (3) and (4), the projected clauses, “that Fiat would be a priority” and “that at Ferrari their motto is: Cry and despair over mistakes or problems only the night after they occur” are dependent clauses and are hypotactically related to the projecting clause. 55
1. “Fiat will be a priority”, Prodi says. (International Herald Tribune,, hereafter IHT, Oct. 15, 2002) 2. “At Ferrari our motto is: Cry and despair over mistakes or problems only the night after they occur”, said Rubens Barrichello. (IHT, Oct. 15, 2002) 3. Prodi said that Fiat would be a priority. 4. Rubens Barrichello said that at Ferrari their motto is: Cry and despair over mistakes or problems only the night after they occur. The analysis of clause complexes with projecting verbal and mental Processes is illustrated below: They
Said
he
would come
Sayer
Verbal Process
Actor
material Process
They
think mental Process (cognitive)
he
will come
Actor
material Process
Senser
with Mary Circum. (Accomp)
with Mary Circum. (Accomp)
NOTE: Although the verbs ‘ask’ and ‘demand’ are verbal Processes, in the case of ‘asking’ or ‘demanding someone to do something’, we are dealing with a request for goods-&-services and thus with reported proposals. The discussion of these will be discussed in Section 6.7 WARNING: Do not confuse embedded facts with projection. Examples (8) and (9) are examples of embedding, not of projection: Examples of Embedding: 8. I understand [[how you feel]] 9. I know [[what you are thinking.]] TASK: 7 Identify participants (Verbiage, Receiver and Target).. 1. I discussed the novel. 2. I asked a question. 3. Please describe to the court the scene of the accident.
4. He never explained the mystery to the audience. 5. Don’t insult my intelligence. 6. Don’t praise me.
6.4 Behavioral Processes BEHAVIORAL PROCESSES AND PARTICIPANTS
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Besides those Processes which relate to actions and happenings going on in the external world (e.g. material Processes) and those which relate to one’s internal world (e.g. mental Processes), there are those which border between the two: behavioral Processes. These Processes, as you know, are physiological actions , such as breathing, sneezing or coughing, and relate to those Processes which are at the borderline between the two areas of external and internal happenings and feelings, such as smiling. Examples of behavioral Processes that are semantically near material ones include: sing, dance, lie down, sit up. Examples of psychological behavior are smile, frown, scowl, grimace, yawn, sigh, sniff, and cry. Since behavioral Processes share characteristics of material and mental Processes, it is not always a simple matter to distinguish behavioral from material or mental Processes. Some of these behavioral Process verbs also come very close to verbal Processes, such as grumble and chatter (Halliday 1994: 139). The distinction is that the behavioral Processes are linked to a state of mind. The close relationship between mental and behavioral Processes can be illustrated with the example of the verbs look at and see. Look at is considered behavioral, but see is considered mental: perception. Another example of this semantic distinction can be listen to (behavioral) and hear (mental: perception). Review of features of behavioral Processes: • • •
The majority have only one Participant, the Behaver and the Process. The Behaver is typically a conscious being, but unlike the Senser in mental Processes, it is unable to project. Unlike mental Processes, the unmarked present tense for behaviorals is the present continuous (as it is for materials).
TASK 8: Identify Processes 1. What do you think of his proposal? I think it is a stupid idea. 2. What are you doing? I’m thinking.
3. He cried her name in the dark. 4. He cried alone in the dark.
6.5 Relational Processes Up to now we have looked at the structure of the Processes that involve some kind of doing. There are those Processes that do not encode action meanings at all, but rather meanings of being. They are relational Processes and existential Processes. This section will review relational Processes, but students are urged to read Thompson 1994: 86-96 on relationals for further explanations and illustrations. Relational Processes are those used when we identify experiences or relate pieces of experiences to each other. We classify our world with relational Processes, giving things attributes and names: She's my best friend, He's tall and bald, The traffic is heavy at 5:00, That's John. Relational Processes have been divided into two classes: identifying or attributive, that is either x = y or x has y. In other words, they either identify something (The woman in the corner is the dean of the Faculty = The dean of the Faculty is the woman in the corner) or they attribute a quality (The dean of the faculty is a fabulous piano player). The identifying relationals are reversible; x = y 57
and y = x, as in the case “The woman in the corner is the dean of the faculty” = “The dean of the faculty is the woman in the corner”. In the case of attributive relationals, it is not true that all fabulous piano players = the dean of the Faculty. We can only say that the dean of the Faculty belongs to the class of fabulous piano players. Thus, one way to distinguish between identifying and attributive relational Processes is to see if the x = y and y = x holds true. The most frequent verbs that fall into the category of relational Processes are to be and to have. However, relational Processes can be realized with many other verbs, such as become, appear, seem, consist of, represent, constitute, mean, stand for, etc. See the Appendix A for a more complete list of other common attributive and identifying relational Processes. The following excerpt exemplifies types of relational Processes which will be discussed in this section: Hotel Meurice is an exceptional hotel and has an excellent reputation for its exceptional services. It is located right opposite the Louvre. It’s only a short walk from the Champs Elysèes. The place is also known as the Hotel des Rois. The hotel is surrounded by vineyards, and inside the hotel, the Caudalie Wellness Center offers a series of treatments based on the therapeutic properties of grapes. (adapted from Air Dolomiti in-flight magazine January 2004: 10)
•
intensive, possessive and circumstantial Processes
There are 3 kinds of attributive and identifying Processes: intensive, possessive and circumstantial. The intensive type is when you assign a quality or classification or descriptive Epithet to a participant as in “Hotel Meurice is an exceptional hotel”. The possessive is when you describe something in terms of ownership or possession as in (a) “It has an excellent reputation” and in (b) “the Caudalie Wellness Center offers a series of treatments based on the therapeutic properties of grapes”. In the latter case, “offers” can be considered the possessive type of relational Process because the “series of treatments” can be considered a feature of the Center, something it has, necessarily if it is able to offer it; if a Beneficiary (a Recipient, in this case) were present in the clause, i.e., a person receiving the treatment, then “offer” would be considered a material Process and “a series of treatments”, a Goal. The third type of relational Processes is circumstantial: when you define something in terms of Location, Manner, Cause, Role, Accompaniment or Angle, etc., as in “It is located right opposite the Louvre.”. However, we need to distinguish between relational Processes with Circumstance expressed as a participant and relational Processes with Circumstance expressed as Process (Halliday 1994: 130-131). The distinction is illustrated in Examples (1) and (2) below: Example (1) is a circumstantial attributive: intensive Process with the Circumstance expressed as an Attribute (in a PP, as is typical); Example (2) is a circumstantial attributive Process with Circumstance expressed as Process and the Attribute is a NG. (1) The movie Carrier
is Pr. rel: intensive
about a boy growing up in the countryside. the Attribute is Circumstance
(2) The movie Carrier
concerns Pr. rel: circumstantial
a boy growing up in the countryside.. Attribute 58
Now, let’s consider the identifying type. Compare the identifying relational Processes in Examples (3) and (4) below: (3) Tomorrow is Jan.1, 2005. (4) In the heart of Sabina, the restored villa of 410 m. is surrounded by a park of 13,000 m. Example (3) is an identifying: intensive Process with the Identifier, ‘Jan.1, 2005’, a Circumstance of time; Example (4) is an identifying: circumstantial Process with the Circumstantial Process ‘is surrounded’ expressing Circumstance of Location: Place (be + extent space) with the Identifier, ‘a park’. Both Examples (3) and (4) are identifying relational Processes because they are reversible; and in identifying relational Processes of the circumstantial type, there are two types. In one type, illustrated in Example (3), the Identified and Identifier are both elements of circumstance (Tomorrow and Jan.1, 2005 are both Circumstance of Time); in the other, illustrated in Example (4), the ‘circumstantial’ Process (is surrounded) encodes circumstance. Examples (5) and (6) below are two more illustrations of what Halliday calls ‘circumstantial verbs’ (1994: 131). 5. The walk from the hotel to Champs Elysèes takes only a few minutes. (encoding time) 6. The porter will accompany you to your room. (encoding accompaniment) As Halliday points out (1994: 132), these examples of circumstantial verbs (the identifying relational Process with circumstance as Process) are, indeed, examples of grammatical metaphor. Grammatical metaphor of this kind will be discussed in Sec 7.1 of this course-book. TASK 9: Identify the type of relational Process in the following: 1. That was a really great game. 2. It lasted over 2 hours! 3. The ancient borgo located in Casterlnovetto comprises 6 independent buildings. •
Tips to recognize relationals A quick summary: -
Intensive – you are given an attribute e.g. You’re great! Possessive - ownership and possession are implied e.g. This is yours. Circumstantial- description in terms of where, when, how long, etc. e.g. The train is on Track 5.
RELATIONAL PROCESSES AND PARTICIPANTS
In attributive relational Processes, Carrier is what is described or classified. Attribute is what is attributed to or classifies or describes the Carrier. In identifying Processes, Identified will be 59
used for what is identified and Identifier for what identifies it. Identified is also referred to as Token and Identifier as Value. See Thompson1996: pages 91-92 for Token and Value.
Tiger Woods Carrier Tiger Woods Identified
is attributive: intensive is identifying: intensive
very young Attribute the best golfer in the world. Identifier
TASK 10: Identify types of relational Processes: attributive or identifying? Intensive, possessive or circumstantial? 6. A solid phase could be represented by condensates of the nuclear fluid. 7. Patsy's the best pizza place in Brooklyn. 8. The villa features a 2000 acre park and large swimming pool. 9. It was Ferrari’s 15th victory of the season.
1. 2. 3. 4.
Morgana is a teacher. That must be Morgana. Tomorrow is the 24th. Those missiles constitute the biggest threat to our security right now. 5. My story is about a young black woman from the ghetto.
TASK 11: Identify Processes: material, mental , relational (and the kind of mental and relational) 1. Morgana was frightened by the snake. 2. Morgana is afraid of snakes. 3. Morgana's story is the most stupid one I’ve ever heard. 4. Morgana's sorry. 5. She felt a presence in the room. 6. We hold these truths to be selfevident.
7. He held the knife in his left hand. 8. She felt the material and knew it was synthetic. 9. Windows XP’s Service Pack Turns Out to Be a Headache (IHT, Oct. 14, 2002) 10. Over 250 people turned out for the concert.
TASK 12: Identify participants and Processes in example 11, page 19 in the Section on Embedding. TASK 13: This text from the web (www.italian-network.it) presents a variety of relational Processes. Which kinds can you identify?
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Palazzetto a Carsoli
Description: The palazzetto dating from the mid-eighteenth century, was formerly the property of the prestigious Boncompagni Ludovisi family. Its four floors are pleasingly divided and the elegant view from the palace window offers a sweeping panorama spanning the luxuriant greenery of the surrounding valley. Nestled on 1.700 sq.m. of terraced vegetable garden and woodlands, this exclusive property also discloses a little private church, which houses the remains of the Princess Chigi. Location: This historic noble palazzetto is perched on a lovely hilltop in the historic centre of Oricola, a quaint village roughly thirty miles from Rome, and is well connected by the motorway Rome-L'Aquila.
Relational Processes are not only present in descriptions such as in this internet text advertising a villa for sale, but are also typical in subjects such as science, geography, mathematics and economics. It is through these Processes that these subjects create an ordered technical vocabulary and a way of classifying the world. They are fundamental in how the above mentioned subjects construct the world. Nominalization is also a feature of these text varieties and frequently occur as participants in relational Processes. See Section 7.2 for more on Nominalization.
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6.6 Existential Processes
Existential Processes communicate the existence of something, for example: “There's a candy machine on the third floor”. Compare the following examples (1) and (2): 1. There's a candy machine on the third floor. 2. There's the candy machine. Do not confuse the word there in (1) and there in (2). In statement (1) the word ‘There'’ s a ‘dummy’ Subject, it has no representational function, while in (2) ‘There’ is circumstance of location. Example (1) communicates the ‘existence’ of a candy machine on the 3rd floor, while (2) communicates a relation between the candy machine and its location. Statement (2) encodes a relational Process (attrib: circumstance of location). Existential Processes are expressed by a limited number of verbs: ‘to be’ is typically employed. Besides the verb ‘to be’, Halliday cites other verbs such as “exist, erupt, arise, occur, come about, happen, emerge” (1994: 142) that can be included in this category of Processes. Existential Processes are usually accompanied by circumstantial elements of place or time. The ‘dummy’ Subject there is not always necessary, as in Example (3) below. ‘There’ can be omitted when a circumstantial element of time or place is Theme (Halliday 1994:142). The newspaper article below illustrates this point very well. 3. In the middle of the hall is a candy machine.
A dazzling show captures the spirit of Gianni Versace By Suzy Menkes
To the left, beneath flashing showbiz lights, is Diana, Princess of Wales, at her most voluptuous and womanly; to her right, Liz Hurley in the black dress held together with safety pins that propelled her to celebrity fame in the 1990s on the arm of Hugh Grant. Opposite these images, at the entrance to the Victoria & Albert’s fashion exhibition, are the dresses themselves: one black with rhinestone punk pins, the other a powder blue column with hefty gold studs. Background music beats out a rock soundtrack. “Versace at the V & A”, a retrospective of Gianni Versace (19461997) at the London museum from Thursday to Jan. 12, is as effervescent and colourful as the personality of the designer himself. (IHT, 2002)
EXISTENTIAL PROCESSES AND PARTICIPANTS
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The Participant is labelled the Existent and can be any kind of phenomenon: either an entity (e.g., a ‘thing’, such as a person or object) or an event or an action. In Example (1) below, the Existent, a yellow Ferrari, is an entity. In Example (2), the Existent, a huge roar of an engine, is an event.
There was a yellow Ferrari Existential Process Existent: entity
in the parking lot. circumstance: Location: Space
There was
A huge roar of an engine in the parking lot. circumstance: Existential Process Existent: event or action Space •
Location:
meteorological Processes
There is a category of Processes that describe the weather that are called meteorological Processes. These Processes border the categories of the existential and the material Processes. There is a variety of ways in which meteorological Processes construe the weather: some with ‘It + a verb in the present continuous (Example 4), some existentially (Example 5), some as a material ‘happening’ (Example 6), and some as an Attribute (Example 7): 4. It was raining very hard yesterday. 5. There was a big rainstorm yesterday. 6. The rain came down very hard yesterday. 7. It is very rainy today. The “It” in the type illustrated in Example (4) – it was raining - is a ‘dummy’ Subject, like ‘There’ in Example (5), while the ‘It’ in Example (7) could be considered a Carrier. (Halliday 1994: 143)
6.7 Projecting Propositions and Proposals and Verbal Group Complexes QUOTED AND REPORTED LOCUTIONS, IDEAS, AND PROPOSALS
Before discussing the projection of propositions and proposals, we will review the differences between quoted and reported locutions & ideas (propositions) and quoted and reported proposals.
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1. We have quoted or reported locutions when we have verbal Processes; we have quoted or reported ideas when we have mental Processes. Examples: o I said I was hungry (reported locution – verbal Process said) o I thought , “I am hungry”. (quoted idea – mental Process thought) 2. We have quoted or reported locutions and ideas when we have two clauses, the projecting or reporting clauses and the reported-projected one. Examples: o [I said,] [“I am hungry”.] o [I said ] [I was hungry.] o [I thought,] [“I am hungry.”.] o [I thought] [I was hungry.] 3. Differently from quoted or reported locutions and ideas, reported proposals have either (a) one non-finite clause: He told her to get a sandwich or (b) a finite clause with modulation: He told her she should get a sandwich. 4. While reported and quoted locutions are propositions (either statements or questions), reported proposals are commands or offers. A. Reported locution: The policeman said it was time to leave the building. (proposition) B. Reported idea: The policeman thought it was time to leave the building. (proposition) C. Proposal: The policeman urged us to leave the building. (command) Tip : By looking at what would be the direct speech in Examples (A) – (C), one can see more clearly that Example (A) is a reported locution and (B) is a reported idea. The direct speech in both these 2 examples is a proposition (a statement in these examples): “It is time to leave the building”, the policeman said/thought; while Example (C) is a reported proposal because the direct speech is a command (“Leave the building” or “Please leave the building”.). TASK 14: Try to retrieve the direct speech from these two examples. Is it a proposition (question or statement) or a proposal (command or offer)? A. I said I was going home.
B. He begged her to go home.
TASK 15: Identify reported and quoted locutions/ ideas and reported proposals.. 1. AS Roma fans urged Totti to publish a second book. 2. Officials warn that oil prices might rise. 3. The meteorologists thought it would rain. 4. They said we should expect rain. 5. “Please relax”, the dentist told me for the fifth time. 6. The dentist suggested I relax. 7. “When will this end?”, I thought. 8. Eisenhower remarked it was a great and noble day.
PROJECTING PROPOSITIONS AND PROPOSALS 64
Halliday gives three kinds of interdependencies in projection (1994: 255-257): parataxis, hypotaxis and embedding. We will now look at these three kinds in relation to projection of propositions and proposals. •
projection of propositions (locutions and ideas) 1. The projection of direct speech or thought, constructs, as you know, a paratactic relationship between the projecting and projected clauses. Below is an example of projection of a quoted locution: I said, projecting clause
“I’m hungry” projected clause
2. Projecting reported speech or thought (reported locutions or ideas) constructs, as you know, a hypotactic relationship between the projecting and projected clause. Below is an example of projection of a reported idea: I thought projecting clause •
I was hungry projected clause
projection of proposals
The previous examples of projection regarded propositions, either statements or questions, which are related to the speech function of giving or demanding information. The projection of proposals regards the projection of orders and commands, which are related to the commodity of goods-&-services. With the projection of proposals, we can have both paratactic and hypotactic relationships between the projecting and the projected clauses, as illustrated in the next examples. 3.
Projecting a direct proposal: quoting a proposal constructs a paratactic relationship between the projecting and projected clauses: I said, projecting clause
“Get me a sandwich.” projected clause
4. Projecting a reported proposal constructs a hypotactic relationship between the projecting and projected clause: I told her projecting clause
to get me a sandwich. projected clause
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While with reporting propositions (ideas and locutions), the reported clause is almost in all cases finite (“She said she was hungry”), in reporting proposals, it may be finite (“I told her that she should get me a sandwich”) or non-finite (“I told her to get me a sandwich”). •
Embedded projections
Besides these cases of projection with hypotactic and paratactic relationships between the projecting and projected clauses, there is also a fourth case of projection: nominal groups with embedded projections (Halliday 1994: 263-264). Not only can locutions and ideas and proposals be projected by projecting clauses, but locutions and ideas can also be embedded and function as Qualifiers in a NG (Halliday 1994: 263), as in “the assertion [[that she was hungry]]….”. Embedded projections means that projection is made by nouns which are usually derived from mental or verbal Processes. The nouns projecting propositions can be, for example, “assertion”, “belief”, and “argument”, which are derived from the verbs “to assert”, “to believe”, and “to argue”. Below are examples of NGs with embedded projections of propositions: 1. The argument [[that the world is a better place]] doesn’t seem to hold water. 2. The belief [[that the world is a better place]] seems to be an illusion. Nouns projecting proposals are similarly derived from verb forms: for example, “suggestion”, “proposal”, and “order”, are derived from “to suggest”, “to propose”, and “to order”. Examples (3) and (4) illustrate NGs with embedded projections of proposals. 3. The suggestion [[to make the world a better place]] was applauded. 4. The order [[to get her a sandwich]] was ignored.
THE VERBAL GROUP COMPLEX
Having studied the projection of quoted and reported propositions and proposals, we come now to a similar structure: the Verbal Group Complex, a paratactically or hypotactically related group of verbs that can be said to form one complex (VGC hereafter). VGCs are paratactically linked when “both groups in the complex are of equal status” (Thompson 1996: 190), for example: They [shouted\ and screamed] when they saw the fire. VGCs are hypotactically linked when one of the verbs is dependent on the other, or has secondary status, for example: They began\ to shout when they saw the fire. In this example, shout has a secondary status. While in paratactically linked VGCs there are two happenings (They yelled\and shouted when they saw the fire.), in hypotactically linked VGCs there is only one happening (Halliday 1994: 282). The discussion of VGC hereafter will basically concern hypotactically linked VGCs. Let’s look at Examples (1), (2), and (3) below. 1. He asked Morgana if she would get him a sandwich. 2. He asked Morgana to get him a sandwich. 3. He asked to have a sandwich. As you should be able to recognize, Example (1) is a reported locution and Example (2) is a reported proposal. Example (3), as we have already said, is an example of a VGC. 66
The VGC, such as like to go, in the statement, I like to go to the movies, is an example, again, of a hypotactically linked VGC; in this kind, there is one participant (I) and two Processes – like, the primary verb (also called the alpha, (α)- verb ), followed by a secondary one (also called the beta, β-verb), to go, which is non-finite and which has secondary status. The sequence of the group is always the alpha verb followed by the beta (α^ β); the (α)- verb may be finite or non-finite, but the secondary one, (β), is always non-finite. It is important to analyze both the primary verb (α) and the secondary non-finite verb (β): the (α)- verb is analyzed for the tense of the finite or Modal Operator in the MOOD SYSTEM; and the (β)- verb is analyzed for the Process type in the TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM. In the example above (I like to go to the movies), like tells you the Finite is the present tense and go tells you the Process type is material and the participant role of I is Actor. Other examples of VGCs: He loves to tell jokes, He kept on telling jokes, We hated listening to his jokes. We have made the distinction between paratactically and hypotactically linked VGCs; now we will make a further distinction between the logical relations within the hypotactically linked VGCs: projection and expansion. Projection, explains Halliday (1994:290), “is a relationship between Processes – between a mental or verbal Process on the one hand, and another Process that is mentalized or verbalized (projected) by it”. “A projection of do it”, says Halliday (1994: 289 our emphasis), as in wants to do it “does not imply ‘does it’ – whereas an expansion, such as tries to do it or starts to do it, does imply ‘does it’, even though the doing may be partial or unsuccessful”. We will now look at these two types of logical relations within VGCs: projection and expansion •
VGC of projection:
As we have said, both mental and verbal Processes can project. Thus, if the (α)- verb in a VGC is a mental or a verbal Process, we have a VGC of projection. In the example I like to go to the movies, the (α)- verb, like, is a mental Process, and thus we have a VGC of projection. Other examples of projection in the VGC are: a. b. c. d.
I hope to go to the movies. I want to go to the movies. I demanded to go to the movies. I promised to see that movie.
TASK 16: Which of the above examples (a) – (d) have a mental Process as the (α)- verb and which a verbal Process? TASK 17: In the transitivity system, what is the Process type of the (β)-verb and the participant role of I in these same examples? •
Summary for the category of VGC of projection:
A projected VGC means there is a projected locution or projected idea expressed in the VGC, that is, the primary verb is either a verbal or mental Process. The Process in the non-finite clause may or may not actually take place; it is mentalized or verbalized only.
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•
VGC of expansion:
If the primary VG (α) is not a mental or verbal Process, the VGC is one of expansion. Examples of this type of VGC (in italics) are: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Morgana began to study Japanese last year. Morgana seemed to understand Japanese. Morgana managed to speak a little Japanese after a few months. Morgana tried speaking Japanese in Tokyo, but had a few problems.
As with the VGC of projection, also with the VGC of expansion, the (α)- verb carries the Mood and the (β)-verb is analyzed for Transitivity. For instance, in Example (3) above, ‘tried’ carries the Mood (Past Finite ‘ed’); ‘speak’ would be a verbal Process in the TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM for experiential meanings and the participant role of Morgana would be Sayer. As with the VGC of projection, these VGCs are hypotactically connected because the (β)- verb is dependent on the (α)-verb. The two verbs form one happening and they have a relationship in which the (β)-verb expresses an event in terms of transitivity and the (α)-verb modifies that event in some way. There are three categories of VGC of expansion according to the semantic relation between the primary and secondary verbs. These categories of expansion are discussed with an analysis of Examples (1) – (4) above. 1. Expansion: elaboration. In this category we have those VGC in which the semantic relation between the primary verb and the secondary verb is one of PHASE, either time phase or ‘reality’ phase. a. Time phase – here we have a relationship of the initiating or the ending or the duration an action, as in Example (1) above: Morgana began to study Japanese last year. Other examples of verbs expressing time phase are continue, stop, start, end, and cease. b. Reality phase – here we have a semantic relation expressing the potential or actual dimension of an action. The primary VG expresses the contrast between apparent and real (Halliday, 1984: 279), as in Example (2): Morgana seemed to understand Japanese. Other examples of verbs expressing reality phase are appear and turn out. 2. Expansion: extension. In this category we have those VGCs in which the semantic relation between the primary and the secondary verb is said to be one of CONATION, expressing the attempt to do something and the succeeding or failing to do it. Example (3) illustrates this category: Morgana managed to speak a little Japanese after a few months. Other examples of verbs expressing this semantic relationship of trying to do something and the success and failure of doing it are succeed in, fail in or fail to, try, avoid, attempt, and learn to. 3. Expansion: enhancement In this category we have those VGCs in which the semantic relation between the primary and the secondary verb is said to be one of MODULATION (not to be confused with deontic modality). The primary verb expresses circumstantial information: as Halliday says, “the verbal group is representing a circumstance and not some aspect of a Process.” (1994: 285). The circumstantial element expressed in the (α)-verb can regard the usuality or frequency of the action expressed in the (β)- verb; it can regard the typical circumstantial categories (Time, Manner, Reason, Purpose, Accompaniment, etc.). In Example (4), Morgana tried speaking Japanese in Tokyo, but had a few problems, the primary verb tried (+ ing), expresses the fact that she tried more than once, the frequency of the action, how often she spoke Japanese. Other examples of verbs that fall into this category are insist on doing, venture to do, hesitate to do, and happen to do. 68
Below are further examples of VCG of expansion and projection. For more on these hypotactic relations, students are encouraged to read Thompson 1996: 190 - 192; Halliday, 1994: 278 - 282. 1. European Union ambassadors appear to have overcome one of the main obstacles delaying the passage of an EU-wide savings tax law. (IHT, May 14, 2004) (communicating reality phase - elaboration) 2. Totti started collecting his jokes and published them in a book that became an instant best-seller (IHT June 2, 2004). (communicating time phase - elaboration) 3. Flights to NY tend to be cheaper in February, especially if you buy your tickets online. (communicating modulation: usuality/typicality) 4. Reporters attempted to speak to the Roma captain, Francesco Totti, but were unsuccessful. (communicating trying and succeeding/failing, conation - extension) 5. Reporters asked to speak to Francesco Totti. (projection: locution) 6. Reporters hoped to interview Totti. (projection: idea) TASK 18: Identify the category of VGC in the examples below: 1. Italian rapper Frankie Hi-Nrg MC’s concert at Milan’s Alcatraz club didn’t seem to differ much from its American counterparts. (IHT May 4, 2004) 2. Totti is trying to spin his popularity into a television career. (IHT June 2, 2004) 3. Christian Vieri regretted to say whether he will be sold to another soccer team. 4. Fans hope to see Totti play for AS Roma again next year. TASK 19: What is the participant role of Morgana and the (β)-verb Process type of the VG in these statements? 1. Morgana seemed to understand Japanese. 2. Morgana managed to speak a little Japanese after a few months . Tip How can we distinguish between VGCs of projection and VGCs of expansion ? Is the (α)-verb a mental or verbal Process? If so, it is a VGC of projection. The Process expressed in the second VG is mentalized or verbalized. If the primary VG is not a mental or verbal Process we have a VGC of expansion. Below are some examples of VGC, projection of reported proposals, reported locutions, and reported ideas: • • • • • • • • • • •
He demanded to go home. VGC (projection: locution) He begged to go home. VGC (projection: locution) He intended to go home. VGC (projection: idea) He hoped to go home. VGC (projection: idea) The three Italian attackers continued to create chances. VGC (expansion: time phase) They succeeded in scoring a goal in the last few minutes of the game. VGC (expansion: extension) He demanded that they go home. Reported proposal I suggest you go home. Reported proposal I hoped I would win the lottery. Reported idea I said I had won the lottery. Reported locution I thought, “I had better go home.”. Quoted idea 69
6.8 Causality CAUSATIVE PROCESSES: X MAKES Y DO SOMETHING
In this section we will look at another type of VGC, the causative one. As you recall, causative constructions are those in which a Participant called Initiator/Agent “brings about the action performed by the Actor” (Halliday, 1994: 286, our emphasis. See also slides 152-153 in Freddi 2004). A typical structure would be “He made me do it”. Compare Examples (1) and (2) below. Example (1) is a hypotactically linked VGC (projection: idea) and Example (2) is a causative VGC. (1) Maria decided to take nap. (2) Maria made Morgana take a nap. Causatives are VGCs which have 2 or 3 participants, but which can potentially have an unlimited number of participants. Causative VGCs are usually those with someone (Agent) making, getting, having and letting someone do something. Let’s look at the analysis of the causative VGC in more detail. Maria Actor
took material Process
She made Morgana INITIA causative Process Actor TOR/ VGC AGENT
a nap. Range
Take
a nap.
(Pr: material)
Range
NOTE: “made Morgana take” = causative VGC
Causative constructions are possible also with relational Processes: an Agent (in this case - Attributor or Assigner) ‘causes’ the Carrier to have an attribute ascribed to it, as in: “Living abroad made Morgana become more mature”. Compare: Morgana Carrier Living abroad Agent/Attributor
became relational Process made Morgana Carrier causative
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more mature Attribute become VGC
more mature Attribute
Even if we omit the verb become in the example, Living abroad made Diana become more mature, we would have a causative Process with an Attributor and Carrier and Attribute: Living abroad Attributor
made Pr: causative
Morgana Carrier
more mature Attribute
In the next example, “He called the ghost Casper” is considered to be a causative VGC as well and the Agent is an Assigner. The Assigner is s/he who gives an identity to the Participant the monster: He Assigner
called Pr: causative
the ghost Identified
Casper Identifier
Other examples with Assigner as Participant (Assigner in bold): He nominated her as Chairperson; They appointed Dave Winter the new principal. •
Degree of modulation in causative VGC
In the set of causatives where the meaning is clearly that of agency (make, force, let, allow, etc.), there are degrees of modulation: high, median and low. (We have already seen degrees of modulation and modalization in Section 5.5 , Value.). We need to keep in mind that there is sometimes a degree of ‘fuzziness’ in language and thus, divisions into these categories are sometimes debatable. •
High, Median and Low Causatives
High: make, force someone do something Median: have, get, oblige someone to do something Low: let, allow, permit someone to do something The same three degrees can also be found in the modulation in the VGC through the modal operator in the Mood Block (see Chapter 5 for modal operators). High: He must resign. Median: He should resign. Low: He may resign. The forms of the causative VGC may also be passive: High: He was made to resign. Median: He was obliged to resign. Low: He was allowed to resign. There are other types of causative VGCs, however, such as those which help or enable someone to do something, as in the example, “Camomile tea may help you to sleep.”.
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TASK 20: Analyze the transitivity structure in the following: 1. She made me take an umbrella. 2. The high score made her happy. 3. The creators of Slashdot, an online site for advertising, let pictures substitute a thousand words. (IHT Oct 15, 2002)
6.9 Summary and Exercises PROCESSES AND PARTICIPANTS
As you can see from this section regarding Transitivity, the labelling of Processes enables you to understand how speakers and writers represent and classify their world. Participants have labels according to their relationship to the Process; labelling these participants force you to think about the participant roles involved in the Process. Labelling provides a means of interpreting grammatical structure in such a way as to relate any given instance to the system of the language as a whole. Furthermore, certain Processes may be more frequent in certain text varieties and thus are central to the issue of register, which you will be studying in depth in your third year course.
REVIEW TASKS TASK 21: Label the participants and Processes in the following examples (do not analyze Processes in embedded clauses): 1. Security Subsystem offers the user an even higher level of protection. (IBM advertisement in Time Int’l, Sept. 23, 2002) 2. I liked the man who came to dinner. 3. The sign says “no smoking”. 4. I sold the book to a student who will be taking the course next year. 5. I threw a party. 6. My car needs new tires and a tune-up. 7. The sudden noise made me drop the dish. 8. Can you please answer the telephone? 9. Vieri won’t play because he has a bad ankle today. (IHT Oct 11, 2002)
TASK 22: Label Processes and participants in the following newspaper headlines. Stressed-out women say: We want to quit our jobs Mother thrown off bus as she struggles with disabled baby Mum-To-Be Madonna Looking Swell at Her Big Movie Premiere Don't Wed, say 70% in our poll. She's clever, she's funny, But she's not great with kids. 72
Christina Aguilera: The Hottest Thing Around.
Keys TASK 1: There are material Processes in Examples (1), (3), and (4) 1. material Process: one participant - Diana, Actor. (to New York is circumstance of Location: Place or Space) 3. material Process: two participants - Diana, Actor; blood, Goal 4. material Process: one participant - her blood, Goal NB. Example 2 is an existential Process and Example 5 is a relational Process. TASK 3: Identify Participants George Orwell wrote Animal Farm. Actor and Goal The teacher tripped in the corridor. Actor The Medici dismissed Michelangelo. Actor and Goal He made a mistake. Actor and Range The gun discharged. Actor I posted a letter to a friend. Actor, Goal, Beneficiary (Recipient) Rooney scored a goal. Actor and Range Two fatal shots were fired. Goal Dave threw a party for Morgana Actor Range and Beneficiary (Client) I dropped the pen. Actor and Goal Jack climbed the fence in a hurry. Actor and Range TASK 4: Texts and Processes. Text 1 (The Guardian). Police (Actor ) shoot (material) 11 (Goal) Riot police (Actor) shot and killed (both material Processes) and wounded (material Process) 15 others (Goal)
11 African demonstrators (Goal)
Text 2 (The Times) Rioting blacks (Goal) shot (material Process) police (Actor ) ANC leaders (Actor ) meet (material Process) Eleven Africans (Goal) were shot (material Process) and 15 (Goal) wounded (material Process) Rhodesian police (Actor) opened fire (material Process) on a rioting crowd of about 2,000. It is interesting in this text that the PP “on a rioting crowd of about 2,000” is – on the surface level – functioning as Circumstance of Location: Space, but with an inherent ‘minor’ Participant role of Goal Text 3. Editorial The riots in Salisbury - no material Process No material Process- we have relational, verbal. (The only material Process is in the embedded clause “…warning [[that tension in that country is rising]]) Text 4. An advertisement he's (Actor) been fishing for sticklebacks. he (Actor) makes choccy cornflake cakes (Goal). he runs (Actor) miles with the dog through the mud. he (Actor) can't wait to hold* his little sister (Goal). 73
you (Senser) care. *In this case “can’t wait to hold” is a Verbal Group Complex (VGC), with a material Process ‘hold’. For further information on VGCs, see Thompson 1996, pages 92-94 and its treatment in Section 6.7 in this course-book. In texts 1 and 2, who are Actors and who are Goals? The differences might imply different ideological stances when reporting the same event. The lack of material Processes in text 3 (except in an embedded clause) could be linked to the text function (of analysis and opinion, rather than reporting) or to the span of time between the action and its publication. In text 4, an advertisement, the child is attributed active doings in the external world, he is an Actor; while the mother, the target reader who should buy Carex for the health of her child, is not a Doer, she cares – she is a Senser (cares = mental Process affective). We will discuss the three different kinds of mental Processes - affective, perceptive and cognitive - in the next section. TASK 5: Circumstances: 1. Police shoot 11 dead in Salisbury riot - Location (can be temporal or spatial; in other words where or When) 2. The USA, unlike Italy, is a federation of states. - ( Manner/Comparison) 3. Many people survived thanks to the courage of the faceless fire-fighters. (Cause) 4. Morgana waited on line with Dave for hours. - (Location, Accompaniment, Extent) 5. She was travelling as a tourist.(Role) 6. Rooney scored a goal in both games.-(Location)
TASK 6 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
We don't know what they want. cognitive They wonder why it all happened. cognitive I wanted to donate my blood. affective They don't give a damn about us. affective I felt the heat on my neck from far away. perceptive They all appreciated the endless efforts of volunteer rescue teams. affective I saw the firemen run up the stairs while we were running out. perceptive We all need a little help from our friends. affective
TASK 7 : Identifying participants Target, Receiver and Verbiage 1. I discussed the novel - novel is verbiage 2. I asked a question - question is verbiage 3. Please describe to the court the scene of the accident - court is receiver; scene of the accident is Verbiage 4. He never explained the mystery to the audience. - audience is Receiver and mystery is Verbiage 5. Don’t insult my intelligence - my intelligence is target 6. Don’t praise me - me is Target TASK:8 Identifying Processes 1. mental cognitive, ‘I think’ in the reply should be considered an Interpersonal Metaphor (See Chaptaer 5). 2. material, behavioral 3. verbal 4. behavioral
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TASK 9: Identify the type of relational Processes: attributive: intensive, attributive: circ: extent, identifying: possessive
TASK 10 TASK 11 1. attributive: intensive 2. identifying: intensive 3. identifying: circumstantial (circ as participant) 4. identifying: intensive 5. attributive : cir (circ as attribute) 6. identifying : intensive 7. identifying : intensive 8. attributive: possessive 9. identifying: intensive
1. mental:affective 2. relational/attributive: intensive 3. relational/ identifying : intensive 4. relational /attributive: intensive 5. mental: perceptive 6. mental: cognitive 7. material 8. felt -material and knew –mental:cogntive 9. relational/ attributive:intensive 10. material
TASK 12: The book that you bought at the store next to the shoe shop that sells those sandals you adore = Identified; is = Relational Process: identifying: int; the one I wanted = Identifier TASK 13 : was-id:int, are-att:int, offers- att:int (or poss), discloses/att:int, or material in the sense that it reveals or exposes to view, houses/ id: poss, is perched/att: circ, is well connected/att: int TASK 14: A. “I am going home.” - proposition; B. “Go home! ” (or “Please go home.”) - command TASK 15 1. urged Totti to publish a second book – reported proposal 2. That oil prices might rise - reported locution 3. It would rain – reported idea. 4. We should expect rain – reported locution 5. “Please relax” - quoted locution 6. I relax- reported proposal 7. “When will this end?” – quoted idea 8. It was a great and noble day – reported locution TASK 16. hope and intend are mental Processes; demand and promise are verbal Processes TASK 17. In the transitivity system, the first three examples have material Processes and the participant role of I is Actor. In example (d), the Process is a mental one and the participant role is one of Senser. TASK 18. Example (1), didn’t seem to differ expresses expansion: elaboration: reality-phase Example (2), trying to spin expresses expansion: conation Example (3), regretted to say communicates circumstantial information, it shows sadness on the part of the Sayer. This is an example of expansion: modulation Example (4) is a VGC of projection: the (α)-verb is a mental Process (hope); it is a projected idea. 75
TASK 19. Morgana seemed to understand - Morgana is Senser (understand is mental: cognitive); Morgana managed to speak - Morgana is Sayer (speak is verbal Process) TASK 20 She Agent
made Pr: caus
me Actor
The high score Attributor
made Pr: caus
her Carrier (pr: relational)
The creators of Slashdot let Initiator - Agent causative Low degree
take an umbrella. (pr: material) Goal
pictures Actor
substitute Pr. material
happy. Attribute a thousand words Goal
N.B. Note what happens to the analysis of the above example if we change the wording of the sentence to: The creators of Slashdot let pictures represent a thousand words. The creators of Slashdot let Initiator – Agent causative Low degree
pictures Identified
represent Pr: relational identifying
a thousand words Identifier
TASK 21: 1.material Process; ‘the unique IBM Embedded Security Subsystem’ is Actor and ‘the user’ is Beneficiary; ‘an even higher level of protection’is Goal (We have seen that the verb offer can be considered a relational Process without a Beneficiary) 2. mental: affective Process – ‘I’ is Senser, ‘the man’… is Phenomenon. 3. verbal Process and ‘sign’ is Sayer and ‘no smoking’ is Verbiage 4. material Process; ‘I’ is Actor ; ‘book’ is goal; ‘a student’… is Beneficiary 5. material Process; ‘I’ is Actor and ‘a party’ is Range 6. (modulated) relational Process attributive possessive; ‘car’ is Carrier; ‘new tires and a tune-up’ is Attribute 7. causative VGC; ‘The sudden noise’ is Agent, ‘me’ is Actor, (drop is material Process), ‘the dish’ is Goal 8. material Process; ‘You’ is Actor and ‘telephone’ is Goal (answering the phone here means the physical activity, not speaking on the phone) 9. Independent clause: material Process and ‘Vieri’ is Actor; dependent clause: relational: possessive Process; ‘he’ is Carrier; ‘bad ankle’ is Attribute TASK 22: ‘Stressed-out Women’ is Sayer and ‘We’ is Senser ('want' is mental Process) ‘Mother’ is Goal first and then Actor ‘Mum-To-Be’ is Carrier ('is looking swell') 76
Material (imperative) and in second clause ‘70%’ is Sayer ‘She’ is Carrier ‘Christina Aguilera’ is Identified; ‘Hottest Thing Around’ is Attribute
Further Reading Thompson 1996, pp. 82 –86 on mental Processes; or in Thompson 2004, pp. 92-96 Thompson 1996, pp. 98-9 on Target and Verbiage; or in Thompson 2004, pp. 101-102 Thompson 1996, bottom of page 99 -100 on behavioral Processes; or in Thompson 2004, pp. 103104
Notes Key Points
Questions for Class
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CHAPTER 7 Grammatical Metaphor: Ideational Metaphor Having studied grammatical metaphor expressing interpersonal meanings (see Chapter 5: Metaphor of Modality and Metaphor of Mood), but grammatical metaphor includes ideational metaphor (metaphor of Transitivity). In this chapter, we will look at two ways of creating ideational metaphor: (a) by using Processes metaphorically and (b) by using NG to represent Processes (nominalization). In an example cited by Halliday, “a flood of protests”, the congruent meaning (i.e., the one with less variation in the expression of the meaning) for “They received a flood of protests” would be that “They received a large quantity of protests” (1994: 342). Thompson (1996: 163) gives the example, “The north is crippled with the burden of the industrial revolution…”. In this case “crippled with the burden” is seen as the incongruent expression, while “in a difficult situation because of the effects of the industrial revolution” would be an example of a more congruent way of expressing this meaning. These two examples illustrate metaphorical experiential meaning. We will now look at the second type of ideational metaphor: nominalization. In traditional grammar we can say that nouns represent things, adjectives the properties of things and verbs realize states and processes, adverbs the properties of processes etc. (Goatly 1997: 83). In FG, NG usually encode “things”, VG usually encode “happenings”. If we use NGs to encode “happenings” and/or VGs to encode “things” we are creating and using grammatical metaphor. There are several reasons why nouns referring to things can more directly evoke images than other parts of speech; however, also metaphorically used verbs can indirectly evoke imagery, as Goatly illustrates (1997: 86). Those students interested in exploring metaphor could read The Language of Metaphors by Goatly Chapter 3, and, for further reading on grammatical metaphor proper, SimonVandenberg et. al. Grammatical metaphor includes also textual metaphor, which is discussed in Thompson 1996: pages 175-176 and briefly mentioned in Chapter 9 in this course-book. As explained in Chapter 5, neither form – the congruent or the incongruent – is to be considered as ‘better’; neither is one or the other more frequent or even more ‘typical’. Actually, in some cases it is the incongruent way of saying that has become the norm. It is also true, however, that the two forms are not completely synonymous. As Halliday says regarding congruent and incongruent wordings, “These are plausible representations of one and the same non-linguistic ‘state of affairs’…the different encodings all contribute something different to the total meaning.” (1994: 344). Grammatical metaphor is a feature of both written-ness and spoken-ness, although one important feature of grammatical metaphor, i.e., nominalization, which will be discussed in Section 7.2, is much more typical of written-ness than of spoken-ness (for more on written-ness and spokenness, see chapter 9 in this course-book).
7.1 Ideational Metaphor and Process Types Material Processes more easily provoke imagery and they are often used as metaphors of mental Processes (perception, feeling and cognition). For example, in “They were basking in the triumphant take-over of the economy.”, basking, which is defined as “to relax and enjoy yourself by lying in the sun” (Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners of American English, 2002), provokes more imagery than the more congruent form “were enjoying” would. Further examples of metaphorical wordings are discussed below.
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Examples4: 1. Bush pins hopes on China (IHT, 2002) 2. US puts heat on UN for a tough resolution (Washington Post, reported in IHT, Oct 15, 2002) 3. Pierce ignites French passion (The Independent, June 9, 2000) 4. Queen Mary keeps her head to seize throne from Martinez (Sunday Express Sport, June 11, 2000) 5. Tempers burn over exact meaning of labor pact (IHT Italy Daily July 10) Discussion: In Example (1) the metaphorical/ incongruent use of a material Process in this newspaper headline certainly provokes more imagery than its more congruent expression would: Bush is hoping very much that China will do something. On the surface, in the incongruent form, we have a material Process (pins) with Bush as Actor. However, Bush cannot really physically pin hope on something or someone. Hopes are abstract, but in this headline they take on materiality. In the more congruent form, the participant role of Bush changes from Actor to Senser. In Example (2) we can see how puts heat on is more effective than its more congruent form which would be putting pressure on, still incongruent however. More congruently would be tyring to convince. Trying to convince, as we have seen in Section 6.7, is an extending VGC of conation whose β-verb would be considered a mental Process. The incongruent form construes the efforts of the US as greater, more intense, changes the participant role and certainly brings with it greater imagery of ‘fire’. Examples (3) and (4) both refer to Mary Pierce who won the French Open Tennis tournament in 2002, defeating 1994 Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez. In Example (3), the congruent meaning could be interpreted as the causative: Pierce makes the French people (become) passionate (or excited). In this case Pierce would be an Initiator/Attributor in a VGC and the French people Carrier. In the incongruent wording, the one chosen as the headline of the article, the choice of verb – ignites – surely evokes greater imagery than the congruent form; to ignite brings the implicit imagery of fire - to set on fire - which we have seen in Example 2, and which can be seen again in Example (5). In Example (4), the author’s choice of expression, keeps her head, enriches the metaphor already established with ‘Queen’ and ‘seize throne’ more than a congruent form would, which could be stays calm. TASK 1. What is the participant role of “tempers” in the following variations of the wording in headline (5) as shown in (a), (b) and (c) below? a) Tempers burn b) Tempers get hot c) People lose their tempers In conclusion, when analysing the transitivity structure of metaphorical forms, we first analyse the surface, what is there. A second parallel analysis, however, is necessary in search of the more congruent representation. Both analyses are necessary to give one an understanding of the full meaning of the wording. Examples (6) and (7) below, provided by Halliday (1994: 347), illustrate the transitivity analysis of congruent and incongruent forms: (6) In the evening the guests ate Circ.: Time Actor Pr.: mat.
ice cream and then swam Goal Circ. Time Pr.: mat
4
gently. Circ.:Manner
Examples (3) and (4) were part of a corpus collected for the dissertation entitled, Il Gruppo Nominale nelle testate giornalistiche: un approccio funzionale, presented by Elisa Donati, thesis supervisor D.R. Miller, co-advisor, M. Lipson, A.A. 1999-2000.
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(7) The guests’ supper of ice cream was followed NG Pr.: rel
by
a gentle swim. NG
In Example (7), we have a NG encoding a happening, which allows for the information originally expressed in two clauses to be expressed in one; we can say the information has been ‘packaged’ into a single clause: the two clauses have been transformed into a relational Process with circumstance as Process. These are some of the changes that have taken place as a result of the packaging of information: the Processes have been transformed into things (i) swam gently becomes a gentle swim and (ii) the happening of ‘eating’ and the time, in the evening, have become nominalized as supper; the participants (the guests and ice cream) have become (i) a Modifier/Deictic: Possessive (the guests’) and (ii) a Modifier/Qualifier (of icecream); the circumstance gently has become an Epithet, gentle, in the NG and the circumstance of Location: Time, then, has become the process, was followed. This Example of a Metaphor of Transitivity and its analysis by Halliday (1994: 344) illustrates two different ways of saying. Neither of the two seem completely natural. In fact a totally congruent form can seem too simplistic and a totally incongruent form can seem unnatural. As Halliday says, we “tend to operate somewhere in between these two extremes.” (1994: 344). Examples (6) and (7) above illustrate the topic of the next section, nominalization, which is the use of NGs to refer to processes.
7.2 Ideational Metaphor: Nominalization Nominalization is one of the most powerful resources for creating grammatical metaphor. As we have seen above, it typically consists in the use of a nominal form to express the meaning of a process. Processes and properties are reworded metaphorically as nouns – as Things. For example: Low installment and maintenance costs and affordable monthly rates with no interest makes our product the most advantageous. In this example above, processes have become nouns: installing it and maintaining it, which cost very little, and paying monthly sums which are affordable, and not paying interest. Also the following text illustrates the use of nominalization: Worries that interest rates will rise sooner rather than later have distracted investors from profit reports this earnings season. (IHT April 21, 2004) In the text, there is no mention of who is worrying. The NG which would typically represent the participant involved in the mental Process - who is worrying about the interest rates – is missing and the process, worrying, has been transformed into a NG representing the worries themselves (that is, the product of the process). Worries (that interest rates will rise sooner rather than later ) becomes the participant which has an effect on the other participant, investors. The original things (in this case the humans who were worrying) get displaced by metaphoric things (the worries themselves). Nominalization realigns the elements of a message, and the participants often become attributes in the sense of Epithets and Classifiers, or even Deictics as we have just seen in Section 7.1. See Examples (1) and (2) below (taken from Halliday 1994: 349). 1. If someone who has had little experience is also impaired by alcohol, something disastrous may happen. (more congruent) 80
2. To add alcohol impairment to the problem of inexperience is an invitation to disaster. (more incongruent) In the more congruent Example, (1), there are two clauses (dependent and independent, hypotactically linked in a relation of cause): the first clause is a passive material Process, with the participant role of someone who has had little experience as Goal and with the participant role of alcohol as Actor; in the second clause the participant role of the inanimate participant, something disastrous, is Actor. In the more incongruent Example, (2), there is one clause with a relational Process and 2 NGs. While in Example (1) ‘alcohol’ has the participant role of Actor, in Example (2) ‘alcohol’ is a Classifier modifying ‘impairment’, which is a much lower ranking unit than participant. Furthermore, the encoding of the ‘happening’, which is Actor in Example (2), is encoded in Example (2) as a circumstance of Location: Place, an invitation to disaster. Something disastrous has also been rankshifted to a lower unit. Nominalization therefore, not only takes away a ‘happening’ or action to be substituted by events or things, but it allows for the realignment of elements and thus a rankshifting of pieces of information. The two examples below will further illustrate this point. Headline 1: UN representatives found no evidence of arms in Iraq Headline 2: No evidence of Iraqi arms has been found In the first headline, there is a participant, UN representatives, as Actor, a material Process (found), a Goal (no evidence of arms ) and a Circumstance (in Iraq). In the second headline, not only is there no explicit Actor, thus no one explicitly doing anything, but Iraq has been rankshifted from its position in a PP as circumstance of Location: Place (in Iraq) to a possessive deictic in an embedded PP in the nominal group No evidence of Iraqi arms. Nominalization is, as mentioned at the beginning of this section, a powerful resource. Why? It allows for the masking of agency, in that nothing really happens, there is only an event, without specifying the perpetrator of the event. In this way we can say that nominalization suppresses part of reality; besides the examples of the headlines above, also Examples (3) and (4) below illustrate this. 3. The workers protested against the government reform yesterday. 4. The workers protest against the government reform was held yesterday. Furthermore, by masking agency, writers using nominalization can also avoid providing a human Grammatical Subject (the Subject in Mood) who would be responsible for the validity or veracity of the proposition (see Mood Elements in Section 5.2 or Chapter 4.3 in Thompson 1996). In this way the proposition is ‘non-negotiable’. For this reason, nominalization is frequently used in persuasive texts (e.g. advertisements, political speeches). But avoiding a human Grammatical Subject may also be a choice of a speaker who wishes to deliberately avoid placing responsibility/blame on another person. For example, (a) has an embedded fact as Subject, while statement (b) has the personal pronoun You as Subject (a human Grammatical Subject). As a result, (a) is a bit more indirect and perhaps less offensive than statement (b). As Halliday says (1994: 266), a fact can appear “as a nominalization on its own”. a. That you have difficulties in establishing relations with others worries me. b. You have difficulties in establishing relations with others. This worries me.
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Underline the Logical Subject in Examples (3) and (4) above and (5) and (6) below (Answers are immediately below): 5. Israeli raids leave 13 dead in Gaza (The Washington Post, Oct. 8, 2002) 6. Gunmen kill Marine in Kuwait (The Washington Post, Oct. 9, 2002) Answers: Logical Subjects: The workers, The workers protest against the government reform, Israeli raids, Gunmen In Example (3) the ‘workers’ actually did something. They are given the participant role of Actor, while in (4) they do nothing. They are not even a participant or constituent of the Transitivity system. ‘Workers’ in (4) merely acts as a Classifier of the Thing in the NG ‘protest against the government reform’. Also ‘the government reform’ has been down-ranked from functioning in a circumstance in (3) to an embedded post-modifying PP in (4). In Example (5), there is no one responsible for the 13 dead in Gaza. There is no human responsibility for the 13 victims. The inanimate participant, ‘raids’, is the Grammatical Subject held responsible for the validity of the proposition. Very different is the participant in (6). The difference between (5) and (6) is that (6) explicitly constructs the ‘reality’ of responsible agency, while (5) suppresses it, suppresses a part of reality. TASK 2. Underline the NGs functioning as participants in the text below.5 A Russian journalist has uncovered evidence of another Soviet nuclear catastrophe, which killed 10 sailors and contaminated an entire town. Yelena Vazrshavskya is the first journalist to speak to people who witnessed the explosion of a nuclear submarine at the naval base of Shkotovo–22 near Vldivostock. Residents were told that the explosion in the reactor of a Victor-class submarine during a refit had been a ‘thermal’ and not a nuclear explosion. And those involved in the cleanup operation to remove more than 600 tons of contaminated material were sworn to secrecy. A board of investigation was later to describe it as the worst accident in the history of the Soviet Navy. (from Gerot an dWignell: 1994)
In the above TASK, you can see how nominalization enables the author to condense information and efface human agency. Almost all human agency has been erased in this article, and only a town – not people – was contaminated, residents – classified institutionally rather than as people or individuals – are participants. Rather than individuals, people, being sworn to secrecy, the participant becomes more impersonal as those involved in the clean-up operation to remove more than 600 tons of contaminated material were then involved in the cleanup. As the authors Gerot and Wignell point out, “much of the mystification in the text is the result of removing identity”. Can you find any other examples of this strategy? Suggestions are in KEY. Nominalization, can be referred to with the acronym ECO: encapsulation, condensation and objectivization (see Thompson 1996: 170-171). Encapsulation is a phenomenon by which the meanings of a previously introduced clause can be condensed and encapsulated into a NG. That 5
The text was taken from Gerot and Wignell, Making Sense of Functional Grammar, available in the library of the Department of Lingue e Letterature Straniere Moderne. A full discussion of the text with an analysis of the NGs is provided on pages 152 – 154.
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NG can then serve as a starting point in the next clause. This is a useful tool in organizing a message/text. Encapsulation can be used to condense the meanings of a previously introduced clause into a nominalized encapsulation, which can function as a participant in another process and can also function as Theme. See Example (7). 7. The researchers found that many of the children were coming down with infection. These findings led them to halt further study. Through nominalization, processes can be seen to be ‘condensed’ and ‘objectified’. What is lost, as Thompson points out, is a Doer of a process, as seen in previous Examples (3) and (4). This point brings us back to the discussion of the text about a Soviet nuclear catastrophe. For further examples of strategies used by the writer to remove the identity of Doers in that text see Key to TASK 2. This also brings up the point that scientific and technical writing allows processes to be objectified – to be expressed without explicit Doers. Nominalization, as you recall from the first year course, having begun with scientific and technical writing, which is usually concerned with description and explanation and thus prefers the objectification of a process and relational Processs, with time has became a sign of ‘prestigious’ writing. TASK 3: How could you rewrite the words in bold below in a more congruent form? Television at one time used to provide an education in cinema – my teenage diaries record BBC retrospectives of Welles, Renoir and Bergman. Nowadays, unless you are one of the minority who has cable TV, only those who keep a firm eye on the daytime schedules have a hope of seeing anything of high quality. (adapted from The Daily Telegraph, September 3, 2003) TASK 4: Carry out the transitivity analysis of Example (8) below. First analyze the incongruent form and then attempt to rewrite the text in a more congruent form and analyze it. Your solution may not necessarily be the same as the one offered in the Key; it would be enough for your analysis to cover more or less some of the points made there. (Key is in Summary) 8. Corporate profit outlook shatters rebound hopes. (Headline of article from New York Times, in IHT, October 15, 2002)
SUMMARY Nominalization (ECO) packages or encapsulates or condenses information about Processes into NGs and thus makes the propositions in the text more ‘objectified’ and less arguable.
Keys TASK 1: a. tempers burn - Actor b. tempers get hot - Carrier c. people lose their temper – Goal Notice that the most congruent form would most likely not include ‘temper’!: people got very angry and lost control of themselves. TASK 2: Logical Subjects: A Russian journalist, evidence of another Soviet nuclear catastrophe,10 sailors an entire town, Yelena Vazrshavskya, the first journalist to speak to people who witnessed 83
the explosion of a nuclear submarine at the naval base of Shkotovo–22 near Vldivostock, Residents, the explosion in the reactor of a Victor-class submarine during a refit, a ‘thermal’ and not a nuclear explosion, those involved in the clean-up operation to remove more than 600 tons of contaminated material, A board of investigation Here are further examples of strategies used by the writer to remove the identity of Doers in that text: the victims are numbered, not named, “ten sailors”. The person/s who “swore those involved in the cleanup to secrecy” are never identified. The “board of investigation” is also left unidentified. There is nobody who is held accountable for the actions performed. “The net effects of nominalization and qualification in the text are to distance the reader from the actual event and the people involved, obfuscation of information and the removal of any sense of or opportunity for action on the part of the reader. (Commentary by M. Knobel, cited in Gerot and Wignell: 156). This commentary captures quite well the power of nominalization in grammatical metaphor. TASK 3: one possibility is: only those who closely look at (read) closely the daytime schedules. TASK 4: What is important is to arrive at the more congruent form in order to identify who is producing or making predictions, forecasts, or “outlooks”. In the headline we have an outlook, (which in ‘reality’ has to be made by somebody) regarding the bad profits that will have a negative effect on hopes (which people have) for an economic recovery/rebound. But who is making the “outlook” or making the forecast? And whose hopes are being shattered? In the nominalized form (the incongruent form, metaphorical form), agency is being masked. Below is illustrated one possible step towards a congruent version. incongruent Corporate profit outlook Shatters Actor Pr: material Congruent Expectations/Forecasts for more corporate (a) profit This is one Carrier possible version hopes for rebound in the economy Carrier
rebound hopes. Goal Are very low Pr: rel Are Pr: rel
and therefore
Attribute Broken Attribute
In the above version we have unpacked the NGs a bit, but we still have inanimate Carriers. One further step is taken below in order to attempt to uncover human agency. Congruent: Economists predict (b) Unmasking Senser Pr: mental Agency People/economists Senser
such little corporate profit
that
Phenomenon (fact) doubt that the economy will recover Pr: with projected clause mental
In version (b) “such little corporate profit” may be considered a fact in that we could hypothesize that the economists predict the fact that, or that it is the case that, there will be very little corporate profit.
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Further Reading Thompson 1996, pp. 166-167 for a parallel transitivity analysis for metaphorical forms (congruent and incongruent forms); or in Thompson 2004, pp. 224-225
Notes Key Points
Questions for Class
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CHAPTER 8 APPRAISAL SYSTEMS
Many words we choose to describe something or someone convey a positive or negative attitude: a lousy movie or a great movie. We can say “That was a lucky goal” or “That was an incredible goal”, according to our position towards the team who scored or to how we want to position ourselves and also the listener or reader of our text. We have looked at Mood and Modality and the systems of modalization and modulation. However, Mood and Modality, together with attitudinal lexis have been recently remodelled in terms of what Martin (2000) calls APPRAISAL SYSTEMS. Appraisal is a way speakers/writers express evaluation and also try to affect the reaction of the listener/reader. The APPRAISAL SYSTEM is too vast for comprehensive treatment within this course-book. However, they are not to be omitted as they are fundamental to the ways speakers/writers color their texts, enriching them with emotions and evaluations about who or what they are talking about. The definition of Appraisal: Appraisal theory is concerned with the linguistic resources for and by which a text/speakers come to express, negotiate and naturalise inter-subjective and ultimately ideological position. Within this broad scope, the theory is concerned more particularly with the language of evaluation, attitude and emotion, thus, is concerned with those meanings which vary the terms of speakers’ engagement with their utterances. It is an area of research in progress and students can consult the website by Peter White to learn more about this exciting new field of study (White www.grammatics.com/appraisal). TASK FOR DISCUSSION: Read the following short text, An Alternative to Plastic, and underline words you think reveal attitudes and feelings. Further on in our study of appraisal systems we will try to see which appraisal systems are at work in this text.
An Alternative to Plastic Italians have managed to make a revolutionary new material that should replace plastic. Environmentalists argue that we desperately need to find eco-friendly alternatives to plastic packages. Every year we produce and throw away huge amounts of plastic packaging. Greens despise plastic waste with particular passion. Italian Daily Nov. 15, 2002
8.1 Attitude: Affect, Judgement and Appreciation Appraisal, as you know, is concerned with evaluation, as said above: it is concerned with the kinds of attitudes that are negotiated in a text and the strength of the feelings involved (Martin and Rose 2003: 22). The APPRAISAL SYSTEM is divided into three systems: the main system, introduced in the first year course-book, is Attitude, plus there are two attendant systems, Graduation, and 86
Engagement (for Graduation and Engagement See Sec. 8.2). Attitude concerns the values by which speakers/writers evaluate human behavior and objects and associate emotional/affectual responses with participants and processes. “Attitudes have to do evaluating things, people's character and their feelings” (Martin and Rose 2003: 22). These evaluations can be intensified (see Graduation) and they may be made, as the authors explain, directly in a text or only implicitly (see explicit and implicit appraisal). They can also be negative or positive. Attitude is composed of three systems: Affect, Judgement and Appreciation. The core system is Affect, which has to do with the set of resources typically employed to construe the positive and negative emotional responses and dispositions of human beings. Martin and Rose define Affect as “resources for expressing feelings”, Judgement as “resources for judging character”, and Appreciation as “resources for valuing the worth of things” (2003: 24). Figure 1 illustrates Affect as the core system from which Judgement and Appreciation are institutionalized, as it were.
E thics/m orality (ru les and regu lations)
Jud gem en t
A ffect A p preciation A esthetics/value (criteria an d assessm ent)
From M artin, 2000: 147
Fig .1. Affect, Judgement and Appreciation
The other systems involved, which will be discussed later, (Engagement and Graduation), regard the positioning of the speaker/writer (Engagement) and the strengthening and weakening of attitudes (Graduation). For now we will be looking at the system of Attitude: Affect, Judgement and Appreciation. We must keep in mind that these systems (the three sub-categories of the ATTITUDE SYSTEM, but also the attendant systems of Graduation and Engagement) can and often do work simultaneously. When we express feelings and attitudes we often use more than one system. One word may be part of more than one system and in a text various systems are often at work to create general patterns of appraisal. Again, as explained by Martin and Rose, “Appraisal resources are used to establish the tone or mood of a passage of discourse” (2003: 54). The choices made by the speaker/writer form patterns “running through the text” and construct “the ‘stance’ or ‘voice’ of the appraiser” (2003: 54). In this section, we will limit ourselves to the study of the systems, while discourse semantic patterns of appraisal in a text will be dealt within the third year course. Below is a figure illustrating the ATTITUDE SYSTEM and its three systems: Affect, Judgement and Appreciation.
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People’s feelings AFFECT
People’s character and behavior JUDGEMENT
Appraisal
ATTITUDE APPRECIATION
Value of things and phenomena
Fig .2 Figure based on by Martin and Rose 2003: 54
AFFECT: RESOURCES FOR EXPRESSING FEELINGS Affect encompasses ways of construing emotions such as happiness, sadness, fear, desire, confidence, and trust. This can be done with Epithets and Classifiers, such as happy, glad, worried, etc.; with circumstances such as proudly, freely, passionately; with Processes, such as vow, suspect, claim, etc., and with Things such as those denoting the categories themselves (e.g., happiness or fear). Three main groups of emotions are accounted for by Affect, and they are described respectively by the following three basic variables: un/happiness (Ex. - They were happy/sad); in/security (Ex. - They were sure/unsure); dis/satisfaction (Ex. - They were interested/bored). So, we can say that with Affect we are dealing with feelings. Speakers can have good feelings ☺ or bad feelings , that is, one’s feelings can be positive or negative. •
Affect: Postitive/negative and grading
Construed feelings can be culturally positive, such as like, trust, adore, or negative, such as hate or despise. Furthermore, feelings can be graded along a scale of intensity (Martin and Rose 2003: 37); that is, emotions are expressed in lexicalisations that run along a scale. We can feel strongly about something and less strongly about something else. The resources available to speakers to express the degree to which they ‘feel’ about something or someone are referred to as GRADUATION and will be discussed in further detail in Section 8.2 below. In Example (1) below, like, trust, and adore are instances of positive Affect and hate is an instance of negative Affect. (Like would be low grading and adore would be high grading.) Example 1. We like and trust her; but I would hate her as a boss, though Dave adores her. (Affect) Let’s now look at the feelings expressed in the dialogue between Tony Soprano and his psychotherapist during a therapy session (adapted from television series, episode 7 and episode 2 first season, 1999), in which Tony expresses his feelings about his mother and father. 88
TASK 1: Underline four words in this dialogue you think are indicative of his feelings and label them as negative or positive. Psychotherapist: How do you and your father get along? Tony: Good, he was a good guy, my father. Everybody liked him. He loved shellfish, clams, oysters – took us to the best restaurants and taught us kids how to eat them Psychotherapist: We were talking last time about how you felt when you became aware of your father's criminal life. Do you have any more thoughts on that? Tony: I was proud to be Johnny Soprano's kid. He was tough, a great man.. a great father. I really loved him. Maybe a bit violent, a little wild sometimes. But everybody respected him. Psychotherapist: And your mother? Tony: She was high-strung, my mother, very moody. Psychotherapist: Your mother is clearly someone who has great difficulty in maintaining a relationship with anyone. Tony: Hey, she's a good woman. She put food on the table everyday. I'm the ungrateful _ _ _ because I come here and complain about her. TASK 2: Which of the following are examples of negative or positive Affect? To which category of emotions do each of them belong? Enjoy Disappointed Anxious Miserable Confident Bored TASK 3: For every word labelled in TASK 2 as positive Affect, give an example (with one or more words) of what would be an example of negative Affect. For example. Happy - positive / Sad - negative. For every word in TASK 2 labelled as negative Affect, give an example of positive Affect.
JUDGEMENT: RESOURCES FOR EVALUATING CHARACTER AND BEHAVIOR
Judgement is defined as “the institutionalisation of feeling… regarding norms about how people should and shouldn’t behave” (Martin and Rose 2003: 62, my emphasis). Judgement regards those attitudes or evaluations speakers make regarding character and human behavior. Also Judgement too can be positive or negative and can be expressed explicitly or implicitly. By explicit appraisal, we mean that there is something/someone in the text which is clearly being appraised (the appraisee) and someone doing the appraising, the appraiser. Example (2) below is an example of negative Judgement. “He” is the appraiser and “the banks” is the appraisee. Explicit and implicit appraisal will be discussed in greater detail later in this section. Example 2. He accused the banks of being a bit greedy. (Judgement)
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Furthermore, judgements made about behavior have been divided into two groups: judgements regarding social esteem (linked to admiration and criticism) and social sanction (linked to the concept of legality and behavior that is culturally valued as ‘proper’ or ‘ethical’). These two groups (social esteem and social sanction) will also be discussed in further detail later. TASK 4: Now, look again at the conversation between Tony and his psychotherapist above. Identify instances of Judgement, evaluations about character and behavior. Label them as positive or negative. Identify the appraisee. TASK 5: Label each of the three words below as positive or negative Judgement. For every word labelled as positive Judgement, give an example of negative Judgement. For every word labelled as negative Judgement, give an example of positive Judgement. a) liar b) innocent c) crazy •
Judgement: Social esteem and social sanction
Judgement, expressions of feelings regarding how people should and shouldn't behave, falls into two categories: social esteem and social sanction. Social esteem, according to Martin and Rose (2003), would include judgements of normality (linked to usuality), capacity (linked to ability) and tenacity (linked to inclination), for instance being lucky, capable, and dependable. It involves admiration and criticism. But as with all meaning-making, these too depend on cultural beliefs and values. For example, an unusual or bizarre behavior may be considered criticism, while an unusual or bizarre designer may be considered admiration. Social sanction has two categories: (i) ethics or propriety (linked to obligation), for instance, integrity, and (ii) veracity or honesty (linked to probability). It involves praise and condemnation; for example, a fair teacher could be considered an example of praise and an insincere politician could be considered an example of condemnation. As with all categories of appraisal, all word classes can construe evaluation. So then, Judgement can be expressed with Epithets and Classifiers, such as proper, fair, just, justified, etc., with Things, such as integrity, bigotry, racism, with Processes, such as to safeguard, to look after, to terrorize, and with circumstances such as, rightly, fairly, wrongly. TASK 6: What categories of Judgement is construed by innocent and crazy? Below is a summary table of the categories of Judgement with examples. Social sanction • ethics (linked to obligation): The Supreme Court judges safeguard the people’s interests. • veracity (linked to probability): She is an honest woman and would never deceive us. Social esteem • normality (linked to usuality): He is usually late. • capacity (linked to ability): He is incapable of being punctual. • Tenacity (linked to inclination): He refuses to buy a watch. •
Tip:
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√ Martin and Rose say that when we talk about social sanction, you might “need to see a lawyer if you have difficulties in this area”, while if you have problems in the area of social esteem, “you may need a therapist” (2003: 62) TASK 7: Do Tony Soprano’s judgements of his father and his mother involve social esteem or social sanction? Why? How do you account for this? Think of the Context of Situation determining the interpersonal meanings realized in the JUDGEMENT SYSTEM. Before going on to the next system, Appreciation, another word should be spent on how culturebound speaker appraisal is. Being ‘tough’ is interpreted as positive appraisal in Tony Soprano’s context of culture, but not necessarily positive in another culture. Another example of culturespecificity can be seen in AAVE (African American Vernacular English), where ‘bad’ is often an example of positive appraisal. It is defined as “Good, excellent, great, fine” and “powerful, tough, aggressive and fearless” -- all positive appraisal in African American culture. (Smitherman 1994: 52)
APPRECIATION: RESOURCES FOR VALUING THE WORTH OF THINGS AND PHENOMENA Appreciation is the institutionalization of feelings about how things and phenomena (objects, products, and performances) are valued according to social values and conventions, for example: ‘a high quality product’, ‘an elegant dress’, ‘an innovative program'. These evaluations involve also assessments of states of affairs - in contrast with Judgement which involves human behavior. Once again, Appreciation too can be expressed with Epithets and Classifiers, such as new and bestseller. As with all types of appraisal, we also have positive and negative Appreciation. Examples (3) and (4) are examples of Appreciation. Example 3. Each car is unique and perfect. (Appreciation: Positive). Example 4. The film was boring and unimaginative. (Appreciation:: Negative). Appreciation falls into three categories: reaction, composition and valuation. Reaction is concerned with the kind of reaction the appraised activates; composition is concerned with how the appraised is composed; and valuation is concerned with the social significance of the appraised (White 2001: 2). Reaction and composition are further divided into two types. First we will look at the two types of reaction: (i) reaction: impact, which has to do with the attention the appraised captures and (ii) reaction: quality, which has to do with the emotional impact the appraised has on us. Martin and Rose (2003: 63) give some examples of these two types:
reaction: impact [notability] did it capture my attention? reaction: quality [likeability] did I like it?
Positive captivating, involving, engaging, striking, interesting, fascinating, exciting, moving, remarkable, notable, dramatic, intense… lovely, beautiful, splendid, pleasing, delightful…
Table 1: Reaction, based on Martin and Rose 2003: 63
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Negative dull, boring, tedious… dry, uninviting, unremarkable, monotonous ugly, repulsive, revolting, irritating, weird…
Composition, which is concerned with the form of the appraised, is divided into the following two types: (i) composition: balance, which “has to do with our perceptions of proportionality” and (ii) composition: complexity, which has to do with “detail” (Martin and Rose 2003: 64). Examples of these two types are illustrated in the table below.
composition: [balance] composition: [complexity] valuation: [social significance]
Positive balanced, harmonious, unified
Negative unbalanced, disorganized, incomplete
intricate, rich, detailed, clear, precise… significant, profound, innovative, original, useful, fruitful, …
extravagant, puzzling, simplistic,,, shallow, insignificant, unsatisfying, useless…
Table 2: Composition and Social Significance, based on Martin and Rose 2003: 63
Valuation, differently from reaction and composition, is more concerned more with social values than with aesthetic principles. It “has to do with our assessment of social significance” (Martin and Rose 2003: 64). In this course, we will refer to valuation as Social Significance, as the two terms, in appraisal analysis, are considered synonymous. Examples of social significance are illustrated in the table above. TASK 8: In which of the categories (and their ‘sub-categories’) do the following belong to? Reaction, composition, or valuation? a) b) c) d) e) f)
Fine white sandy beaches await you in Sardinia. A five-star hotel, first-class service, reliable car Catastrophic changes came about due to the meteor. This revolutionary material will cut down on pollution. His victory was remarkable and impressive. The cuisine in Altrani is plain and tasty.
TASK 9: Look again at the same dialogue between Tony and his psychotherapist (page 89) and identify an example of Appreciation. TASK 10: Appraisal analysis is not simply a question of identifying what appraisal system is being construed by a word out of context. Nor is it a question of identifying positive or negative appraisal without taking into consideration the co-text and context. In this exercise, write a sentence for each word and on the basis of your ‘text’, decide if the word is negative or positive Appreciation. Then, for every sentence you have written labelled as positive Appreciation: give an example of a word/s that would be an example of negative Appreciation:. Example: polluted: “The polluted river hasn’t got any more fish”. “polluted”: negative Appreciation. Positive: clean, unpolluted. worst elegant
dull original
Before concluding this section on Appreciation, it is important to keep in mind that more than one can be at work at the same time. In fact, if we go back to the examples of Judgement in the dialogue on page 87, we see that “moody” was included. However, “moody” APPRAISAL SYSTEM
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could also be considered an example of Appreciation: a negative quality: unlikeability. Overlaps of Judgement with Appreciation is typical as a person can be objectified and be treated more like an object than a behaving person. In this case, the assessment is not directly concerned with the evaluation of the person’s behavior, but with the reaction the behavior provokes. TASK 11: Write about 4 lines describing a person you know and use examples of the three systems of Attitude: Affect, Judgement and Appreciation. Label the kind of appraisal system used and think about whether you used mainly positive or negative Attitude. (No key) •
explicit /inscribed appraisal
As we have said in the introduction to APPRAISAL SYSTEMS, appraisal can be either explicit or implicit in a text. Explicit, or inscribed, appraisal needs a clear, overt, or at least ‘recoverable’ appraiser (someone who does the appraising) and appraisee or appraised (someone or something that is appraised). In the dialogue between Tony Soprano and his psychotherapist, page 87, we can consider “Everybody liked him” and “everybody respected him” as examples of explicit appraisal. With inscribed/explicit appraisal, things are being explicitly appraised and people are explicitly doing the appraisal, as also illustrated in Example (5) below. 5. We are depressed that our friend is in the hospital. •
implicit /evoked appraisal
Even when there is no clear appraiser and appraisee or explicit marker of appraisal in the text, we can still reason in terms of evoked or implicit appraisal. This means that the ideational meanings have an emotional/evaluative impact or raise an emotional/evaluative response without having an explicit appraiser and appraisee (or explicit marker of appraisal in the text). In the dialogue between Tony Soprano and his psychotherapist, page 89, we can consider the utterance, She put food on the table everyday, an example of implicit, evoked appraisal. We can argue that the culture attributes appraisal to the proposition Tony makes about his mother, as it means that she was being a good homemaker; and his culture puts positive value on that kind of behavior. When we have examples of implicit/evoked appraisal, we say that the proposition is a ‘token’ of appraisal. Of course the co-text contributes unmistakably to this reading as the preceding assertion was explicit positive Judgement of his mother as a “good woman” and the following one was a negative Judgement on himself for complaining about her. We can see from this example that implicit appraisal arises from propositions, rather than from single words. 6. The women were rudely smoking in the library. (explicit) 7. The women were smoking in the library. (implicit) Examples (6) and (7) above are further illustrations of these two kinds of appraisal: explicit (inscribed) appraisal (through the word rudely) and implicit (evoked) appraisal (due to the cultural negative view towards smoking in a library, which is not only inappropriate, but in many places illegal). When a word or wordings do not directly construe appraisal, but imply, as in this case of Affect, an emotional response on the part of the writer and/or make an emotional impact on the reader, these words/wordings are ‘tokens’ of appraisal. NOTE: Summing up, we see that all the realized explicitly or implicitly.
ATTITUDE SYSTEMS
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can be positive or negative and be
8.2. Attendant APPRAISAL SYSTEMS We will now look at the two other APPRAISAL SYSTEMS: GRADUATION and ENGAGEMENT. They are called ‘attendant’, as they often co-occur with any of the subsystems of the ATTITUDE SYSTEM.
GRADUATION: AMPLIFYING ATTITUDES
Let us return to Martin and Rose’s definition given in the preceding section: “Attitudes have to do with evaluating things, people’s character and their feelings” (Martin and Rose: 22). Keep in mind that these evaluations can be intensified: attitudes are often a question of degree: they can be gradable, as can also be the worth attributed to things and judgements of character. GRADUATION can be considered, therefore, a set of resources for the strengthening and weakening of feelings and attitudes, the intensifying of attitudes we have about someone or something. Martin and Rose refer to Graduation as “resources for adjusting the volume of gradable items” (2003: 41); authors Butt et. al. say that “perhaps the most accessible appraisal motifs are lexical systems of Graduation (amplification), where the volume of a lexical item is turned up or down in positive or negative appraisal” (Butt et. al. 2000: 121). There are two kinds of ‘amplifying’: we can strengthen or weaken the degree of evaluation (FORCE) or we can sharpen or soften a Thing or the quality of the Thing we are talking about (FOCUS). Thus, we can think of Graduation as Force and Focus. We will now look at these two kinds of amplification. •
FORCE
Martin and Rose explain Graduation as the amplification of the force of attitudes (2003: 37-38). We can amplify the force of attitudes with words such as really or very, as in the following example: “He was very tough”. We can also minimize the intensity of attitudes with words such as merely or slightly, as in the example: “She is slightly high-strung”. We can also raise or lower the force through lexical choices, as shown by the attitudinal lexis in italics in the following three examples:
1. Your essay was good. fine, excellent, outstanding 2. It was an unhappy day when the news arrived. sad, sorrowful, wretched 3. Her dress was gorgeous. beautiful, attractive, nice Besides the use of attitudinal lexis, such as adore in example (4) below, also comparison can be used to amplify the force of attitudes: . i.e. we can refer to degrees of quality and of worth of things by making comparisons using better, best, worse, worst etc. 4. “I adore you sweetheart. I’ll give you the best money can buy!” Recognizing intensifiers, such as very, really, extremely, and fairly, may not present too many difficulties for students looking at appraisal in a text; but the resources of this system also require 94
the acquisition of a wide and rich vocabulary. Example (5) below (from Butt et.al. 2000:121) illustrates not degrees of similar meanings, as in the three examples above, but how different values, or connotations, are attached to the lexical choices we make. 5. He walked into the room./ He strolled into the room. / He shuffled into the room. Walk is more ‘neutral’ as regards the construing of values, while stroll has a connotation of a relaxed way of walking, thus typically positive appraisal (unless in the context of situation or cotext there is reason to think that he should NOT have been so relaxed); shuffle , on the other hand, has connotations of laziness, or slovenliness, and thus it is more negative than stroll. TASK 12: Raise and lower the force of the following words. funny wonderful a belief •
FOCUS:
As already mentioned, Focus refers to the narrowing or broadening and/or sharpening or blurring/softening of a Thing. In this case we are not “turning up the volume” (Martin and Rose 2003: 38). With the resources of Focus, we are dealing with non-gradable Things. We are, as authors Butt et. al. explain, blurring the focus of the Thing we are talking about or sharpening it (2000: 121) as in the following examples: 6. What do you do? I’m sort of a consultant. 7. After reading that magazine, I know the real Brad Pitt! Focus is, as said, not a question of grading, and therefore attempts to intensify these expressions would be inappropriate: e.g. we don’t say “I’m a very sort of a consultant”. Other examples of Focus are: “a true friend” , “pure idiocy”. Again, we don’t say “He is a very true friend” or “This is very pure idiocy”. •
Examples of Graduation: Force and Focus
1. Our fuel significantly lessens CO2 emissions. (Graduation/Force) 2. Our research team is the key factor in our success. (Graduation/Focus) TASK 13: In Example (6), “I know the terribly real Brad Pitt” would be inappropriate. In other contexts “terribly real” might be used. Can you think of one? TASK 14: Identify at least 3 instances of Section 8.1.
GRADUATION
in the dialogue from The Sopranos in
ENGAGEMENT: POSITIONING SPEAKER’S VOICE
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The ENGAGEMENT SYSTEM concerns speakers’ engagement with their utterances. Engagement employs “resources for positioning the speaker’s/author’s voice with respect to the various propositions and proposals conveyed by and invoked by a text” (White 2001: 1). Here we are concerned with who is making the evaluations; there may be many voices in a text or one single voice, that of the author. In other words, the ENGAGEMENT SYSTEM can also be considered to include resources for introducing other voices into the discourse. Two terms refer to ENGAGEMENT and the stance of the writer/speaker: monogloss and heterogloss. The basic distinction between these two is that monoglossic Engagement, as explained by White (2002: 2) is “bare, ‘undialogized’ assertion”; there is “no acknowledgement of/engagement with alternative positions and voices. [It is] typically associated with what is taken to be common/consensual ‘knowledge’ or shared ‘belief/viewpoint – thus occurs less frequently with attitudinal evaluation than with ‘factual’ descriptions” (White P.P.R. 2002:2). Monogloss ignores diversity with other utterances, while dialogic heterogloss does acknowledge in some way the diversity associated with other utterances (Miller: 2004:44). •
monogloss and heterogloss
By monogloss, then, we refer to monoglossic discourse, that is, when there is “no acknowledgement of/engagement with alternative positions and voices”… It is an unqualified “bare assertion” (White P.P.R. 2002:2, my emphasis). In heteroglossic discourse, the writer gives space for alternative standpoints. While the statement “Meteors destroyed the dinosaurs on earth” is a bare assertion, and thus, an example of monogloss, the statement, “Some experts think that meteors destroyed the dinosaurs on earth” acknowledges other positions. In other words, “some experts think that…” allows for the possibility that other experts do not think so. We will now look at heterogloss in more detail. White (2002: 3) distinguishes three levels of analysis: 1. Who is the voice? Is the writer (the textual voice) the source of the proposition or proposal or is the proposition/proposal attributed to an external voice 2. Expansion/Contraction a Expansion: to what degree are alternative positions and voices entertained or considered b Contraction: to what degree are alternative positions and voices challenged or restricted 3. Alignment/Disalignment a Alignment: the writer (the textual voice) agrees with or supports an actual, potential or construed dialogic partner b Disalignment; the writer (the textual voice) disagrees with or is at odds with an actual, potential or construed dialogic partner There are various forms in which Heteroglossic Engagement is expressed. For example, in the following conversation between Tony and his psychotherapist, Dr. Melfi, we can see an example of Expansion and Contraction. Tony: I think my mother has problems relating to other people. Dr. Melfi: Of course she has difficulty in maintaining relationships with others. 96
I think expresses the consideration of a possible alternative voice (Expansion) and Of course expresses the rejection of other voices (Contraction). The discussion that follows is concerned with Contraction and Expansion. Figure 3 illustrates the resources of Engagement that will now be discussed. Students will be required to recognize heteroglossic and monoglossic discourse, but the finer analysis of the sub-categories of Contraction and Expansion are beyond the scope of this course and consequently will not be tested. •
Dialogic Contraction includes resources for (i) disclaiming and (ii) proclaiming.
(i) Disclaiming means the writer introduces a position and then either rejects it, replaces it, or dismisses it as irrelevant (White 2002:3). An example of disclaiming is: “He’s a really nice man, but he’s a bit dull.”. Disclaiming, as you can see from the figure above, includes (a) denying (negation) and (b) countering. (a) with denial, the writer introduces a position and then rejects it, as in this example: “There were many signs that inflation would decrease, but it failed to do so.” (b) with countering, the writer “invokes an alternative proposition” but then “indicates that it does not apply” (White 2002: 4). This can be achieved by using a Comment Adjunct, such as ‘suprisingly’ in the above table. In the example, “Surprisingly, all the students came to class”, the writer, with a Comment Adjunct, introduces an expected proposition, not all the students would come to class, and then shows that it is untrue. contract
disclaim
Deny: no, he failed to Counter: yet, although, surprisingly, Concur: of course, natually Pronunce: I contend that, indeed Endorse: experts have demonstrated that…
proclaim
This may/must, I think, perhaps, probably, in my view, it appears ..
entertain
expand
Acknowledge: The author argues that… attribute Distance: The author claims to have shown that…
Figure 3: resources of Engagement, White 2002: 10
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(ii) Proclaiming means the writer represents a proposition as valid or plausible, and rules out alternative positions (White 2002: 2), using words such as: (a) naturally, of course, and obviously ( to concur) (b) there can be no doubt that and the truth of the matter is (to pronounce) (c) Mr. X has demonstrated that… (to endorse) •
Dialogic Expansion includes those resources for (i) entertaining and (ii) attributing a proposition.
(i) Entertaining means the writer “represents the proposition as one of a range of possible positions” (White 2002: 2). White gives some examples of Entertaining words: it seems, the evidence suggests, apparently, and I hear. (ii) Attributing means the writer “represents the proposition as one of a range of possible positions” but through an external voice, such as Mr. X said, Mr. X believes, according to Mr. X, Mr. X claims, and it is rumoured that. Tony’s monologue below illustrates further examples of Expansion and Contraction. In this monologue, Tony is thinking to himself about what his psychotherapist told him about his mother: Hmm, Dr. Melfi says my mother has difficulties relating to other people.(i) Indeed Mom always had problems socially.(ii) My doctor is smart, of course.(iii) Well, I think she must be right this time. too.(iv)
In (i) an external voice is expressed – that of the therapist. In (ii) indeed expresses Contraction. In (iii) of course expresses Contraction. In (iv) I think and must express Expansion. Tony begins his thinking with a proposition that has an external source – the therapist’s. Then he rejects or restricts alternative voices and ends by considering, entertaining, the proposition, “the doctor is right”. Note: If, in the above monologue, Tony thought, “My doctor is smart, but she’s not infallible.”, he would be first introducing a proposition and then rejecting it with but. In this case, but she’s not infallible would be a further example of Contraction (disclaiming: denial) • Tip √Notice that Engagement can be realized with modality resources such as Modal Adjuncts, (of course, naturally, clearly, only, etc.), Modal Finite Operators (must, may, etc.), and Interpersonal Metaphors (I think, I guess etc.). It can be realized, as Martin and Rose point out, by expressing degrees of obligation, probability, and by the choice speakers make from the cline of POLARITY (2003: 48-50). For a fuller discussion of Engagement, see White 2003a. The complete lack of these resources would suggest monoglossic Engagement. Examples (7) and (8) below are illustrations of monoglossic and heteroglossic Engagement respectively. 7. The Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, will raise rates at the next meeting on May 4 and rates will move higher by the end of the summer. (based on IHT April 2004) 98
8. Most economists claim the Fed will not raise rates at its next meeting on May 4, but many believe rates will move higher by the end of the summer. Example (7) presents the formulation as non-negotiable, unarguable. In Example (8), on the other hand, the proposition is presented as only one of a range of possible positions. (It is an example of heteroglossic Expansion, attributing alternative positions – Most economists claim and many believe) Basically every utterance is potentially heteroglossic. Some are so by explicitly acknowledging other points of view. Indeed, Monoglossic bold and bare assertions are rare and often hedged even in scientific writing. •
Further examples of monoglossic and heteroglossic Engagement:
1. Malnutrition is an important global concern. (Monoglossic Engagement) 2. The so-called culprit was a virus called WSZbigbug. exe. (Heteroglossic Engagement) TASK 15: Which of the following is monoglossic? a. He allegedly killed them. b. He killed them TASK 16: Which of the following is true of statements (i) and (ii)? (i) Technology has made it easy. Images of well-known attractions can be quickly downloaded and sent with a message to multiple recipients. (ii) I believe that writing postcards in a romantic Florentine café or a Beijing teahouse is unbeatable, but sending photos with your phone is certainly irresistible. A) statement (i) is monoglossic and statement (ii) is heteroglossic B) statement (i) is heteroglossic and statement (ii) is monoglossic C) statement (i) and statement (ii) are both heteroglossic D) statement (i) and statement (ii) are both monoglossic TASK 17: Find instances of ENGAGEMENT in the dialogue from The Sopranos in Sec. 8.1? TASK 18: Which Appraisal System/s is/are being construed in the word/s in italics in the following examples? 1. I am grateful for the sense of unity shown in Congress. A) Judgement B) Graduation C) Appreciation D)Affect 2. One of the best sites for film aficionados is www.imdb.com. A) Appreciation & Graduation: Force C) Appreciation B) Affect & Judgement D) Judgement & Graduation: Force TASK 19: read the text ‘An Alternative to Plastic’ again and answer the questions below. An Alternative to Plastic Italians have managed to make a revolutionary new material that should replace plastic. Environmentalists argue that we desperately need to find eco-friendly alternatives to plastic packages. Every year we produce and throw away huge amounts of plastic packaging. Greens despise plastic waste with particular passion. Italian Daily Nov. 15, 2002
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What APPRAISAL SYSTEM is being construed with the words revolutionary and new material? A) Judgement B) Appreciation C) Engagement What APPRAISAL SYSTEM/S is/are construed with the word despise? A) Judgement B) Graduation: Focus C) Affect What APPRAISAL SYSTEM is construed with the word huge? A) Affect B) Judgement C) Graduation: force
8.3 Summary and Exercises Figures 4 and 5 illustrate the framework of the APPRAISAL SYSTEMS. Keep in mind that we can use resources of more than one system simultaneously and that all appraisal is culturally rooted.
monogloss contraction ENGAGEMENT
heterogloss expansion
AFFECT JUDGEMENT APPRAISAL SYSTEM
ATTITUDE APPRECIATION
FORCE
GRADUATION
FOCUS
Figure 4: adapted from “Appraisal systems: an overview”, Martin and Rose 2003: 54
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Below are some examples of wordings by which speakers can construe appraisal; but, as already pointed out, co-text and context of situation and context of culture are vital in reading and understanding how appraisal is being construed.6 AFFECT - emotional response to phenomena Epithets/Classifiers: happy, glad, impressed, worried Processes: vow, claim, suspect Circumstances: proudly, strongly, passionately Things (as in the abstract categories of emotions, e.g.: happiness, displeasure, fear, etc.) JUDGEMENT a)Social sanction • ethics (linked to obligation) Epithets/Classifiers: right, proper, fair, just, sacred, wrong Things: democracy, racism, bigotry, integrity, legitimacy Processes: to safeguard the nations interests, to look after the people of this country Circumstances: correctly, fairly, rightly
feelings
Un/happiness In/security Dis/satisfaction
people’s behavior
Reaction
Compostion value of things
Valuation (Social Signficance)
Figure 5: analyzing the APPRAISAL SYSTEM in detail, adapted from Ramona Tang 2002
•
veracity (linked to probability)
6
Examples , except for those of Appreciation and Engagement, are taken from “Ways of meaning 'yea' and 'nay' in parliamentary debate as register: towards a cost-benefit analysis”, by Prof. D. Miller, 2002
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Epithets/Classifiers: real, frank, true, false Things: facts, myth, illusion Processes: deceive, enlighten Circumstances: honestly, frankly, openly b) Social esteem • normality (linked to usuality ) Epithets/Classifiers: expected, normal, usual Things: common practice Circumstances: frequently, always, forever, traditionally, normally • capacity (linked to ability) Epithets/Classifiers: as in “an effective European Europe”, “incapable of responding to the British people” Circumstances: as in “We try weakly, stupidly, and ineffectively to….” • Tenacity (linked to inclination) Processes: refuse, defy, surrender, defend Things: as in “the willingness to co-operate”, “the resolve of the nation” APPRECIATION - appreciation of objects, products, and phenomena • Reaction (linked to impact: notability): as in “He gave a moving speech after his defeat.”, “The World Atlas of Wine is an “outstanding” reference for all wine-lovers”. • Reaction (linked to quality: likeability): as in “The color of the red wine was a beautiful dark, purple/red.”, “The taste of the white wine was flat.” • Composition (linked to balance): as in “The taste of the white wine was unbalanced”, but the red was very smooth” • Composition (linked to complexity): as in “His arguments are confused and superficial” • Social Significance (Valuation): as in “This revolutionary discovery will be very useful for future medical care.” “This discovery is of crucial significance.” ENGAGEMENT - positioning of voices a) contraction: • disclaiming – as in “He denied the fact that the GM potato would solve the problem” • proclaiming – as in “The truth of the matter is the GM potato will not solve the problem of malnutrition.” b) expansion: • attributing – as in “Mr. Sharma claimed that the GM potato will not solve the problem of malnutrition. • entertaining – as in “The GM potato may solve the problem of malnutrition. GRADUATION a) Force: raising or lowering intensity: I am absolutely unequivocally convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that…(explicitly) I was horrified by his reaction. (rather than disturbed) (implicitly) b) Focus: sharpening or softening, narrowing or broadening: To sharpen: dire warnings; major historical significance; key facts
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AN ANALYSIS OF APPRAISAL IN WINERY ADVERTISEMENTS7 What do you do with a wine that's won gold medals for years? You ask wine lovers what they really love in a wine and you craft it. If you're a winemaker, you make it even better. A Glen Ellen that's fuller, smoother and better balanced than ever before. Discussion: Although functioning in a de-lexicalized NG, the ‘gold’ in ‘gold medals’ is an explicit sign of Appreciation (social esteem) of the object ‘medals’ , ‘gold’ having great social value and ‘medals’ themselves indicate social significance. A ‘gold’ medal is, of course, a symbol for the highest achievement and thus the whole proposition here in the heading is an implicit Judgement of the winemaker’s capacity. ‘For years’ tokens (is an implicit construal of) positive Judgement of the winemaker as tenacious and dependable. ‘Full’, ‘'smooth’ and ‘balanced’ are all positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality values for a wine. The comparative forms intensify this value and is are thus instances of Graduation: Force. As for “What they really love”, love is a feeling which in another context could be less intense semantically than a stronger verb such as ‘adore’, but here it really increases the force of the verb and thus is an example of Graduation.
GINA GALLO Third-Generation Family Winemaker IN Sonoma, California, premier wine growing region, Gina makes wines that are earning international awards like these:
1998 WINERY OF THE YEAR 1999 PRIX D'EXCELLENCE GALLO of SONOMA SONOMA COUNTY CHARDONNAY
7
These two advertisements are part of a corpus collected for a dissertation entitled, La Lessicogrammatica del linguaggio vitivinicolo: un’analisi funzionale, presented by Chiara Coffele, thesis supervisor, D.R. Miller, co-advisor, M. Lipson, A.A. 2000-2001. The analysis here presented reflects the more recent progress in appraisal research.
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Discussion: ‘Third Generation Family Winemaker’ is an example of a ‘token’ of Judgement of behavior (social esteem) reflecting tenacity/dependability and normality (tradition). ‘Premier wine growing region’ - Appreciation: Reaction: Quality of ‘region’; in the U.S. consensual paradigm, ‘earn’ implies: Judgment (social esteem: capacity and tenacity); ‘International Awards’ construes explicit Appreciation (social significance) and implies Judgment (Capacity: social esteem on the maker). TASK 20: Analyze the following texts in terms of APPRAISAL SYSTEMS (the appraisers and appraised and appraisees, negative/positive, inscribed/evoked and degree.). 1. Bush vows tough fight against corporate fraud (Headline in IHT July 10, 2002) 2. SUBSCRIBE NOW AND SAVE 63% Subscribe now and you’ll pay just 35 Euros – a saving of 3%! Your copy will be hand delivered early each morning to your home or office. (advertisement for IHT subscription in IHT) 3.Tony Blair’s grandiose foreign policy aims are an irrelevant distraction when his own country is in a state of collapse. (Daily Mail, Saturday, February 23, 2002) 4. FINDING THE SHOPS IN FLORENCE (IHT September 20, 2002) Procacci, an extraordinary 19th century store that sells gourmet products such a Fauchon patés, offers the best mignon truffle sandwiches you will ever taste. Travelers driving in and out of the highway entrance will love to taste one of the best coffees in town at Piansa. Pampaloni is a beautiful store off of Piazzsa Santa Trinità. Especially interesting and unique are the “Bicchierografia”, glasses glazed in silver, originally designed in the 17th century and reproduced with exceptional craftsmanship.
As we had seen in Chapter 5, the study of Mood and Modality in the clause helps us understand how people make meanings about interpersonal dimensions such as power or solidarity in relationships, their status and social roles, and their attitudes and judgements. Mood (Modal and Comment Adjuncts and vocatives are important in communicating (inter)subjective attitudes and relationships. APPRAISAL SYSTEMS, the semantic resources used to negotiate emotions, judgements and valuations, are another important resource by which writers/ speakers position themselves and also readers/hearers to what is said.
TASK 21: TEXTS FOR APPRAISAL ANALYSIS Text 1. Mr. Levin told reporters, “I think the war against terrorism has got to be fought by countries who really realize that it’s in everybody’s interest to go after terrorism. I think we may be able to find a place where we are much more welcome openly, a place which has not seen 104
significant resources flowing to support extreme fanatic views.” “I greatly respect Senator Levin, but I am surprised by his statement,” said Prince Bandar. It is widely acknowledged, however, in military circles that the Pentagon would have a hard time replacing a high-tech air operations center it opened last summer near Riyadh. (IHT, Jan. 17, 2002) Text 2. The text is from Gerot 1995: pg. 60. The analysis in the Key is provided by M. Lipson LEXUS is now a badge people respect - no longer do they say ‘It’s the luxury car made by Toyota’ - but BMW and Mercedes probably still have the status edge in the directors' car park. But this new Lexus is as good as their best. It is better than its excellent predecessor, and the only criticisms are the dull styling and that some fittings look as if they would go better in a Camry. Never Mind. This Lexis is a class act. Text 3. One of the fastest growing plagues of the modern world is osteoarthritis. It is an ugly disease. Its victims suffer from pain ranging from sporadic and mild to chronic and severe, with nothing but the realization it will only get worse with the passing of time. A victim of osteoarthritis can look forward to a life of medications to control the pain and progression of their disease. But should they expect more than what mainstream medicine has to offer? New research says these victims can. The delightful evolvement in the last 30 years or so in the health care field is the new look into old and more natural remedies. Remedies, which not only enhance mainstream medicine, but which may actually work far better than drugs. Chondroitin sulfate is one fine example of this new frontier. (adapted from Health magazine)
Keys TASK 1:- liked, proud, loved – all positive Affect TASK 2: Enjoy (positive - un/happiness), Disappointed (negative - dis/satisfaction or negative un/happiness), Anxious (negative - in/security), Miserable (negative - un/happiness or negative – dis/satisfaction), Confident (positive – in/security), Bored (negative – dis/satisfaction) TASK 3: suggested answers: enjoy – dislike, disappointed – very satisfied or pleasantly surprised, anxious - serene, miserable – extremely happy, confident – unsure, bored - interested TASK 4: good guy (father), tough (father), great man (father), great father, violent (father), wild (father), ungrateful (Tony Soprano), high-strung (mother), moody (mother), and good woman (mother) TASK 5: keep in mind that appraisal is culture-bound and that consequently much of what we consider positive or negative appraisal depends on western cultural values. o liar = a liar = negative Judgement; to be honest = positive Judgement o innocent = usually positive Judgement; corrupt or guilty = negative Judgement o crazy = in terms of what is considered normal behavior in our society = negative Judgement TASK 6: Innocent - social sanction: morality. Innocence is a western cultural value; corruption and dishonesty would be considered unethical. Crazy – social esteem: negative normality. Again, also in the analysis of ‘crazy’, the context of culture plays a fundamental role in attributing positive or negative judgement. TASK 7: Tony Soprano’s judgements of his father and his mother involve social esteem more than social sanction. The talk between the psychotherapist and Tony Soprano was focussed more on 105
Tony’s feelings about his parents, focussing more on categories of self-esteem, such as his admiration for his parents (or lack of), normality, and capacity, rather than on legal aspects of social sanction, such as propriety or veracity. (See the tip on page 89) TASK 8: a) composition: balance e) reaction: impact b) reaction: quality f) composition: complexity and reaction: c) social significance quality d) social significance TASK 9: best. One could also consider “moody” Appreciation, a negative quality: unlikeability. Review of appraisal in The Sopranos Attitude
Affect liked, loved, proud Judgement good guy, tough, great father, violent, wild, ungrateful, high-strung, moody, good woman Appreciation best (and also moody)
TASK 10: These are only suggestions. Students should review their own work in class. Worst - That was the worst performance of Hair I have ever seen! Negative [best – positive] Elegant - He took me to the most elegant restaurant in Rome for my birthday. Positive [unattractive - negative] Dull - That performance was so dull, I fell asleep. Negative [exciting – positive] Original - She is a talented woman; her art work is very original. Positive [banal - negative] TASK 12: funny - hilarious / humorous wonderful - spectacular a belief – a conviction
/ good / an opinion
TASK 13: Toxic waste is a terribly real issue today. The visual effects of the movie were so effective, that the alien invasion seemed terribly real. TASK 14. He loved shellfish, the best restaurants, He was tough, a great man, a great father, I really loved him, a bit violent, a little wild, high strung (Am English: a person who becomes very angry or emotional very quickly), very moody, and great difficulty. NOTE that in this dialogue resources from more than one system can be used simultaneously. TASK 15: monoglossic: b TASK 16: A TASK 17: maybe, clearly TASK 18: D, A TASK 19: B,C, C TASK 20: 1. Bush vows tough fight against corporate fraud vows - Affect [t positive] (and Graduation) – implicitly high Force. Also note that we do not typically ‘vow’ something negative. tough fight – explicit positive Appreciation of “fight”: Social Significance (Valuation), implicit Judgement: Tenacity, as our culture thinks we must be tough against fraud, corporate fraud - evoked [t- negative] Judgement : impropriety, immoral behavior 2. SUBSCRIBE NOW AND SAVE 63%
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Subscribe now and you’ll pay just 35 Euros – a saving of 3%! Your copy will be hand delivered early each morning to your home or office. Save: evoked [t- positive] Judgement: Capacity, positive value of behavior in consumer culture, You’ll pay just : just - Graduation: Force Also other implicit, evoked construal of appraisal is the hand-delivered early each morning to your home or office - Appreciation: Impact: Quality of service [t positive] 3. ‘Tony Blair’s grandiose foreign policy aims’ - explicit Appreciation: Social Significance (Valuation) - negative of ‘foreign policy aims’, as well as negative Judgement: Soccial Sanciton: Impropriety explicitly construed by the whole proposition.
4. FINDING THE SHOPS IN
FLORENCE
Procacci, an extraordinary 19th century store that sells gourmet products such a Fauchon patés, offers the best mignon truffle sandwiches you will ever taste. Travelers driving in and out of the highway entrance will love to taste one of the best coffees in town at Piansa. Pampaloni is a beautiful store off of Piazzas Santa Trinità. Especially interesting and unique are the “Bicchierografia”, glasses glazed in silver, originally designed in the 17th century and reproduced with exceptional craftsmanship. ‘Extraordinary’ - explicit (inscribed) positive Appreciation: Impact: Notability and Graduation: high Force (a possible low Force could be ‘nice’ and a possible median one could be ‘impressive’). (Since the text exudes a quality evaluation, one might also consider this Appreciation: (Reaction) Impact: Quality ‘19th century’ - due to cultural value given to historic buildings and tradition, implicit (evoked) Appreciation: Social Significance (Valuation) ‘Gourmet’ - explicit (inscribed) positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality ‘best mignon truffles’ – explicit (inscribed) positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality and Graduation: high Force ‘Love’ - explicit (inscribed) positive Affect: Satisfaction + Graduation: median Force (possible low option: like and possible high Force: adore) ‘best coffees’ - explicit positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality + Graduation: high Force ‘Beautiful’ – explicit positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality (this can be interpreted as Quality [likeability] but also as Appreciation: Composition: balance for the well-formed architecture of the building) + Graduation: median Force (possible low Force ‘nice’ and possible high Force ‘stunning’) ‘Especially interesting’ - explicit positive Appreciation: Reaction: Impact and Graduation: Force ‘Unique’ - explicit positive Appreciation: Reaction: Impact ‘glazed in silver’- implicit (evoked) positive Appreciation: Composition: Complexity. Also, silver is valued as a precious metal and thus it is also Appreciation: Reaction: Quality ‘17th century’ - as with the case of ‘19th century’ above, due to cultural value given to historic buildings and tradition, implicit Appreciation: Social Significance (Valuation) ‘exceptional craftsmanship’ - explicit Appreciation: Reaction: Impact: Notability and implied Judgement: Social Esteem, high degree Graduation: Force in exceptional (possible low option noteworthy and possible median remarkable)
N.B. Texts 1 – 4 are examples of monoglossic Engagement TASK 21 Texts for analysis 107
Text 1 – instances of modality are in italics (implicit and explicit, interpersonal metaphor); words belonging to APPRAISAL SYSTEMS are underlined with system in brackets. Mr. Levin told reporters, “I think the war against terrorism (explicit negative Appreciation: Social Significance and evoked negative Judgement: Social Sanction) has got to be fought by countries who really (Graduation: Force) realize that it’s in everybody’s interest to go after terrorism (the whole fact is explicit positive Judgement: Social Sanction: Propriety) I think we may be able to find a place where we are much more (Graduation: Force) welcome openly (evoked Judgement: Social Sanction: Propriety for those who are in the ‘place’ which would welcome openly the U.S. and not support terrorist views.), a place which has not seen significant (implicit Graduation: Force) resources flowing to support extreme (Graduation: Force) fanatic (inscribed negative Judgement: Social Sanction: Propriety) views.” “I greatly respect (explicit positive Affect: Satisfaction and Graduation: Force) Senator Levin, but I am surprised (inscribed Affect: Disatisfaction and Heteroglossic Engagement: Disclaim) by his statement.” said Prince Bandar. It is widely acknowledged (Heteroglossic Engagement: Expansion) however, in military circles that the Pentagon would have a hard time replacing a high-tech (implicit Appreciation: Reaction: Quality) air operations center it opened last summer near Riyadh. (IHT, Jan. 17, 2002) Text 2 - analysis is below the text. LEXUS is now a badge people respect - no longer do they say ‘It's the luxury car made by Toyota’ - but BMW and Mercedes probably still have the status edge in the directors’ car park. But this new Lexus is as good as their best. It is better than its excellent predecessor, and the only criticisms are the dull styling and that some fittings look as if they would go better in a Camry. Never Mind. This Lexis is a class act. ‘respect’ - explicit positive Affect: Satisfaction; a token of Appreciation: Reaction: Quality ‘luxury’ - explicit positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality ‘probably’ and ‘still’- Engagement ‘BMW and Mercedes’ - positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality ‘Status edge’ - explicit Appreciation: Reaction: Quality ‘Director’ - in the director's car park – the whole proposition tokens positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality of BMW and Mercedes. ‘This new Lexus’ - explicit positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality, as ‘new’ is always a positive Epithet/Classifier in Western Consumer culture ‘As good as their best’ - explicit Appreciatio: Reaction: Quality and Graduation: high Force ‘excellent’ - explicit positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality and implied scaling – Graduation: high Force (rather than ‘good’ as an option of low Force or ‘very good’ as high Force) ‘only’ - Engagement: Contraction: Disclaim: Counter (‘only minimizes the criticisms that follow, which could have been expected to be more serious. ‘dull styling’ - explicit negative Appreciation: Reaction: Impact/Composition: Complexity ‘Camry’ - explicit negative Appreciation: Reaction: Quality, this depends on shared background knowledge of the class of cars Camry belongs to (we can say the Camry’s metonymic value) ‘class act’ - inscribed positive Appreciation: Reaction: quality Text 3. Below is the analysis of only part of the text. The rest is to be discussed in class. One of the fastest growing plagues of the modern world is osteoarthritis. It is an ugly disease. Its victims suffer from pain ranging from sporadic and mild to chronic and severe, with nothing but the realization it will only get worse with the passing of time. A victim of osteoarthritis can look forward to a life of medications to control the pain and progression of their disease. 108
‘fastest growing’ - negative Appreciation (due to ff. Thing, ‘plagues’):Reaction: Quality and also Impact and perhaps even Social Significance ‘plagues’ - Graduation: high force; implicit scaling, rather, e.g., than ailments (low) or diseases (median). ‘ugly’ - negative Appreciation: quality ‘victims’ - Graduation: high force; implicit scaling, rather than e.g. targets (low), sufferers (median) ‘sporadic and mild’ - positive Appreciation: Reaction: Quality ‘chronic and severe’ - negative Appreciation: quality ‘get worse’ - negative Appreciation: Reaction: Quality and Impact; ‘worse’ - Graduation: median Force ‘look forward to’ - Affect: disquiet (typically: happiness, but in this case, disquiet).
Notes Key Points
Questions for Class
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CHAPTER 9 MODE: Theme/Rheme and the realization of textual meanings Learning a lang uage involves learning how to use the language in a way that makes sense to other people who speak the language.
Textual meanings, activated by the Mode of Discourse, and realized in the clause as message, concern the cohesion, coherence, texture, and the overall organization of a text. As McCarthy states(McCarthy 1991: 12): We daily consume hundreds of written and printed words: newspaper articles, letters, stories, recipes, instructions, notices, comics, billboards, leaflets pushed through the door, and so on. We usually expect them to be coherent, meaningful communications in which the words and/or sentences are linked to one another… Above there is a text that at first might appear to be a poem. After reading the text, one might decide that it isn't a poem after all. Why, by just looking at the text, does one assume it is probably a poem? What makes one decide it might not be? We have studied Transitivity - the realization of ideational/experiential meanings - to see how speakers as observers of ‘reality’ encode ‘what is going on’; as we have studied Mood, Modality and Appraisal - the realization of interpersonal meanings - to see how speakers, as participants, or intruders, in their texts, encode relationships, opinions, attitudes and evaluations. In this chapter we will look more deeply at the textual resources of the clause to understand better how texts become texts.
9.1 The Role of Language, the Channel of Communication and Medium In this section, we will explore the textual meanings that are activated by the Mode and realized by the speaker as text maker. Though of extreme relevance and interest, the role language plays in interaction is beyond the scope of the course and will not be tested. The following are factors that are to be considered when studying Mode: the role language plays in the interaction, the degree of process sharing, the channel of communication and the medium. (See Freddi 2004: 14 for a review of Mode) 1) the role language plays in the interaction, i.e.
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i) is the language context-dependent or context-independent (does the reader/listener need first-hand knowledge of the situation of context in which the text is being created in order to understand the text) ii) is the role of language constitutive of the communication or merely ancillary to it? When language is constitutive of the communication, it means that “language is all there is; language is constituting the social action.” (Gerot 1995: 74 our emphasis). The ancillary role of language means that the role of language accompanies the social action or what is going on (Gerot 1995: 74). Examples (a) and (b) below are examples of situations in which (a) the role of language is constitutive and (b) in which the role of language would be ancillary. (a) (b)
an oral interview for a job or a teacher revising homework orally in class a teacher advising students how to fill out their answer sheets during an exam or a student asking a library clerk if there is a particular book.
iii) is language being used as language-as-action (e.g., the language used when playing a card game, such as bridge, or when giving instructions) or as language-as-reflection (e.g. the language used when reporting an event or writing a story)? 2) the degree of process sharing, i.e. i) is the process of text-creation shared or is the text a monologue? The degree to which an addressee or text consumer participates in the process of text creation is connected to the next factor below – the channel of communication. This is partly due to the fact that the phonic channel of communication may favor process sharing more than the graphic, since in the case of phonic-delivered texts, there is usually, though not always, visual contact between the speaker and addressee; interactants hear and often see each other and what is going on. (Hasan in Halliday and Hasan 1985/1989: 58). Written texts tend to be finished products when the reader receives them and, therefore, there tends to be a lesser degree of process sharing than in spoken texts: “Written language represents phenomena as products. Spoken language represents phenomena as processes.” (Halliday 1989: 81); and we take a more dynamic role as a listener than as a reader, because, as Halliday explains, a spoken text is present dynamically. In fact, the author compares this difference to the one between watching a film and looking at a painting (1989: 81). 3) The channel of communication, i.e., i) how does the addressee receive the message (via telephone, internet, face-to-face interaction, reading, reading and listening etc.)? The degree of process sharing depends to a large degree on the channel of communication (Hasan in Halliday and Hasan 1989: 58). The channel of communication, as you know, is the “modality through which the addressee comes in contact with the speaker’s messages - do the messages travel on air as sound waves or are they apprehended as graven images, some form of writing.” (Hasan in Halliday and Hasan 1989: 58). In the former case, you should recall, the channel is referred to as phonic and in the latter, it is referred to as graphic. Today there are many new channels of communication, such as CD Rom, internet, SMS, and MMS, etc., that there is also the question of Multimodality. We create and receive texts through more than one channel of communication, for example: reading a text in class while the teacher is reading it aloud or reading and listening to a text on internet, or reading sub-titles while watching a film in a foreign language. 4) the medium, the lexico-grammatical features of language that result from a number of factors, the degree of spoken-ness/written-ness (Halliday and Hasan 1985/1989: 58) i.e., 111
i) is the language more typical of written texts, that is, very lexically dense (high incidence of lexical words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs vs grammatical words coming from closed sets of options: prepositions, conjunctions, modal verbs, pronouns, and articles) and ‘packaged’ (e.g. the e.g., nominalization); or is it more typical of spoken texts, that is, lexico-grammatically intricate and, as Halliday says, more ‘choreographic’ (1989: 87) (e.g., clause complexes with elaborate logical relations between the clauses). Spoken language responds continually to the small but subtle changes in its environment, both verbal and non-verbal, and in so doing exhibit a rich pattern of semantic and consequently of grammatical variation. The context of spoken language is in a constant state of flux and thus the language needs to be equally mobile and alert (Halliday 1994: xxiv) The medium of the message refers to “the patterning of the wordings themselves.” (Halliday and Hasan 1985/1989: 58). As Hasan explains (Halliday and Hasan 1985/1989: 58), historically, medium was closely connected to the channel of communication: spoken-ness connected to the phonic and written-ness to the graphic. Due to the modern day variety in the combination of channels of communication, there is no one-to-one correspondence between a written text and the graphic channel or a spoken text and the phonic channel. For example, a ‘friendly’ letter is an example of a graphic channel, but the medium would be + spoken-ness; a formal acceptance speech is an example of a phonic channel, but the medium would be more typical of the written medium. The example below is a headline from the International Herald Tribune: the channel of communication is graphic, but the medium is + spoken-ness (the article was about problems afflicting East Germany). Wall fell, yes, but…. IHT November 11, 2004
What is important is that the difference in features is a question of degree: there is no clear boundary between spoken texts and written texts, there are degrees of spoken-ness and writtenness. Thus, we speak in terms of features of spoken-ness and written-ness: + spoken-ness or + written-ness. For these reasons, the relationship between medium and channel is complex and, as Hasan rightfully points out, medium is often decided by the “nature of the social activity and of the social relation between the participants”… and both channel and medium “are subservient to the choices in the field and tenor of discourse. (Halliday and Hasan 1985/1989: 58-59). See the Exercises in Freddi 2004: slide18 and the key (slides 32-33) for the analysis of the channel of communication and the medium of two texts. Medium and process sharing run along a continuum as illustrated in Figure 1.
immediate feedback
process sharing
limited feedback
Card game + Language-as-action + Spoken-ness (typically)
piece of prose or fiction + Language-as-reflection +Written-ness (typically)
medium
Fig.1 Medium and process sharing
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TASK 1: What is the channel of communication of the following texts. Identify a few features of the medium. . 1. Print your name at the top of the page. Read the text carefully and mark your answer on the answer sheet. 2. Listen, I want you to print your name clearly at the top of the page. Read the text carefully and yeah, don’t forget to mark your answers on the answer sheet! 3. The compelling sound of an infant’s cry makes it an effective distress signal and appropriate to the human infant’s prolonged dependence on a caregiver. (Eggins 1994: 5) 4. S. Did our kids used to cry a lot? When they were little? C. Yea S. Well, what did you do? C. still do S. yea? [laughs] C Oh pretty tedious at times yea. There were all sorts of techniques…Leonard Cohen S. Like what [laughs] Yea I used to use… What’s that American guy that did “Georgia on your mind”? C. Oh yea (Eggins 1994: 6) 5. At this time of personal loss, please take comfort in the knowledge that many people are thinking of you and caring more than words can say. 6. We are so sorry to have heard about your loss. If there is anything we can do, please let us know. 7. Oh, Harley, we just heard about your mom. You know, dear, you can always count on us at any time, right?!
9.2 THE THEME SYSTEM What gives the clause its character as message is the THEMATIC structure, which will be discussed in this section. As you have seen in the first year course-book, the major system that is involved in the structural configuration by which the clause is organized as a message is the system of Theme. It is the resource for setting up the local context or local semiotic environment in which each clause is to be interpreted (Matthiessen: 531). Theme, states Halliday (Halliday 994: 38), is the element which serves as “the starting-point for the message: it is what the clause is going to be about”. It is the part of the clause that is given special textual status. Theme is what I, the speaker, has chosen for the message, “that with which the clause is concerned”. The remainder of the message, “the part in which the Theme is developed” - is the Rheme. Since we usually depart with what is familiar, the Theme is usually ‘given’ information already stated in the text or information in the context familiar to the reader. (Halliday 1994: 38-39). See Slides 200-213 in Freddi 2004 to review Theme and Rheme.
9.2.1 Structural Cohesive Devices: Theme/Rheme 113
How do we identify the Theme? Theme is the element that comes first in the clause (Eggins 1994: 275). This may be a person or a thing, an action, a time, place, etc.; in other words, a NG, a VG, a PP, an AG, etc. The whole nominal or verbal or adverbial group or prep phrase in the first position becomes Theme. We are referring here to what is called, as your recall, Topical Theme (TT), which is the first element that also functions as a constituent of the TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM in the clause; thus, it could be a Participant, a Process or a Circumstance. See the two examples below in which the TTs are in italics: a. Some 34 major studies involving nearly 1,000 human patients conducted during the decade between 1975 and 1986 have recently been published . (Participant in the Transitivity system is Topical Theme) b. Recently, some 34 major studies involving nearly 1,000 human patients conducted during the decade between 1975 and 1986 have been published some ……. (Circumstance in the Transitivity system is Topical Theme) A major clause always has a Topical Theme, but as you know, other kinds of Themes can precede the TT. (For a review of TTs in all the Mood choices see Freddi 2004: slides 204-207).) How do we know when the Rheme begins? The Theme of a clause extends to and includes the Topical Theme. Thus, elements that precede the Topical Theme are also thematic, but elements that come after the Topical Theme are not. TASK 2: In the texts below, identify the TTs.
An Alternative to Plastic Italians have managed to make a revolutionary new material that should replace plastic. Environmentalists argue that we desperately need to find eco-friendly alternatives to plastic packages. Every year we produce and throw away huge amounts of plastic packaging. Greens despise plastic waste with particular passion. Italian Daily Nov. 15, 2002
Snake venom may work as stroke treatment CHICAGO (AP) – A blood-thinning drug derived from the venom of the Malayan pit viper can reverse symptoms in stroke victims, a study reported. But other research suggests it might kill the patient. In a study of 500 stroke patients, 42% who were given the drug ancrod within three hours after the onset of symptoms improved significantly vs. 34% of those who got a placebo. The two groups had similar death rates three months after treatment. The promising results led ancrod’s manufacturer, BASF Pharma, to launch a separate European study. But in this study the three-month death rate in the ancrod patients was higher than in a placebo group and the study was halted in March. Adapted from article in IHT, 2001
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●Interpersonal Themes You have already been introduced to the phenomenon of Multiple Themes, i.e., the possibility for a clause to have not only a TT but also Themes that are considered to function interpersonally and/or textually. We will review Interpersonal Themes first: these Themes, when present in a text, precede the Topical Theme and indicate the kind of exchange or interaction between speakers, i.e.the positions they are taking. what can function as Interpersonal Themes are Mood Adjuncts, Comment Adjuncts or vocatives. In the examples below Interpersonal Themes are in italics and TTs are underlined. i Maybe Morgana needs to practice her Japanese more. (Mood Adjunct) ii Luckily, Maria managed to catch her train. (Comment Adjunct) iii Dr., I need a prescription for my allergy medicine. (Vocative Adjunct) in Interrogatives, the Finite (verbal and Modal Operators) is considered to be functioning as an Interpersonal Theme because it occurs at the beginning of a clause and is not a constituent of the TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM (although the predicator, or lexical verb, is). The Process as TT is much debated: predicators are said to be TTs by some scholars, whereas others want only Participants (major, or minor, i.e. in circumstances) as TTS. For example: i Are you feeling ok? ii Does Morgana speak Japanese? iii Can I have a prescription for my allergy medicine, Dr.? in negative Interrogatives, the sign of negative polarity is also considered to be a part of the Interpersonal Theme. For example: i Aren’t you ok today? ii Don’t you understand me?
●Textual Themes these Themes, when present in a text, also precede the Topical Theme; they relate to the coherence of the message as they are used to connect a piece of text to another. Textual Themes can occur along with Interpersonal Themes, both preceding the Topical Theme. they can include continuity Adjuncts, for example, well, and conjunctive Adjuncts, which link a clause to the preceding text (to another clause complex), for example, moreover, however, but, nevertheless; and conjunctions, which connect a clause to a piece of text (within the same clause complex), for example, also, while, until, because. Conjunctive Adjuncts set up a semantic relationship with what has come before, while conjunctions set up a also a grammatical relationship, and in this way construct a single structural unit from two parts (Halliday 1994: 50) (For conjunctive Adjuncts see Halliday 1994: 49; for conjunctions: page 50.)
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i Well, honey, are you feeling ok? (continuity Adjunct as Textual Theme + vocative as Interpersonal Theme + Finite as Interpersonal Theme + you as Topical Theme) ii However, Morgana speaks English and Japanese? (conjunctive Adjunct as Textual Theme and Morgana as Topical Theme) •
Summary of Themes (b and c below are also examples of multiple Themes)
a) Experiential/Ideational Theme (Topical Theme) in italics: Ferrari is now without rivals. b) Interpersonal Theme in italics: Probably Ferrari is now without rivals. c) Textual Theme in italics: However, Ferrari is now without rivals. TASK 3. Pick out Interpersonal and Textual Themes in the following two texts. An Alternative to Plastic Italians have managed to make a revolutionary new material that should replace plastic. Environmentalists argue that we desperately need to find eco-friendly alternatives to plastic packages. Every year we produce and throw away huge amounts of plastic packaging. Obviously, Greens despise plastic waste with particular passion. Italian Daily Nov. 15, 2002
Tony: I was proud to be Johnny Soprano's kid. He was tough, a great man.. a great father. I really loved him. Maybe a bit violent, a little wild sometimes. But everybody respected him.
MARKED THEMES
By unmarked Themes we mean those configurations in which the three kinds of Subject (Halliday 1994: 32) conflate: the Grammatical Subject (the Subject in the Mood system), the Logical Subject (the Actor in the Transitivity system), and the Psychological Subject (the Theme in the Theme system), that is to say, when they are all the same nominal group. 1. Police shoot 15 African Demonstrators 2. Rioting Blacks shot by police. 3. In Salisbury, 15 demonstrators were shot by police. The Theme in Example (1) is unmarked as the Topical Theme (Police) is Actor in the Transitivity structure and the Subject in the Mood System; Examples (2) and (3) have marked Themes because in Example (2), the Goal in Transitivity is the Theme and in Example (3), Circumstance in the Transitivity structure is Theme. TASK 4: A quick look at marked Themes. Which of the following headlines from the IHT have a marked Theme? a. On the EU, Blair places a new wager. (April 2004) b. Jordan’s King skips Bush talks (April 2004) 116
c. d. e. f.
Citygroup chairman survives a challenge (April 2004) Polish industrial production rises (April 2004) 4 are arrested in Sweden (April 2004) In Zurich, chic spots enrich the Swiss visit (February 2004)
•
Other kinds of simple Themes
1. Group complex or phrase complex as Theme Above we have seen examples of Interpersonal Themes and Textual Themes combining with Topical Themes to form multiple Themes. As you know a simple Theme consists of only the TT. Yet there are this does not mean that a group complex or phrase complex is not a simple Theme. A simple Theme can be composed of more than one group. In the examples below, the Topical Themes are in italics. a) Fibers found in foods like oats and in many fruits and the insoluble ones in whole wheat, corn and virtually all plant foods help to keep the stool soft and easy to eliminate. (New York Times, 2002) b) All fruits and vegetables, foods made from whole grains and all the dried peas and beans are excellent sources of dietary fiber. (New York Times, 2002) As illustrated by (a) and (b) above, the group or phrase complex is considered a single constituent of the clause and can thus constitute a TT (Halliday 1984: 40). 2. Interpolations in Theme Added information regarding a Theme and which is separated from that Theme by commas or dashes is considered part of the Theme. In the example below, the added details regarding “All fruits and vegetables, foods made from whole grains” is part of the Theme: a) All fruits and vegetables, foods made from whole grains - like whole wheat bread, brown rice and oats - and all the dried peas and beans are excellent sources of dietary fiber. (New York Times, 2002) What is the Theme in the following example? Answer is immediately below. (For more on Interpolations in Theme see Thompson 1996: 139-140) Imre Kertesz, a Hungarian novelist and Holocaust survivor with a small but devoted readership in Europe, won the 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday for what the Swedish Academy described as writing that “upholds the tragic experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.” (IHT, original article from The New York Times, October 11, 2002) Answer: Imre Kertesz, a Hungarian novelist and Holocaust survivor with a small but devoted readership in Europe 3. Thematic Equative 117
A clause with this kind of Theme consists of only two constituents linked by a relational Process: identifying, for example: What the world needs now is love sweet love. These structures are also called WH-clefts or pseudo-clefts (See Downing and Locke 2002: 249 -251). Other examples are: a) Whoever works 18 hours a day is a workaholic. b) Wherever I hang my hat is home. c) What you see is what you get. In these examples, the NG in the Rheme can be Theme since they are relational: identifying Processes. a) A workaholic is whoever works 18 hours a day. b) Home is wherever I hang my hat. c) What you get is what you see. This WH-cleft is an instance of nominalization, and, as you know, nominalization allows a group of elements to function as a NG in the clause and this NG can then function as Theme. 4. Predicated Theme The Predicated Theme is the basic cleft: It’s a holiday (that) we all need. (Downing and Locke 2002: 251). In this structure, the Theme is “It’s a holiday”. Below are two examples of Predicated Theme. a) The driver who had brought the crowd to its feet over the last 15 laps was not the man who had finished in first place under the hot, sunny skies. It was Takuma Sato, a local driver in a Hondapowered Jordan car, who finished fifth and injected some meaning into a Grand Prix won with another dominating show by Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari team. (IHT October 2002). b) “It was my mother who put food on our table every day.” The “It” in the Predicated Theme, as Downing and Locke explain (2002: 247), is an “‘empty Theme’, followed by the verb ‘to be’ and the ‘real’ Theme (the Predicated Theme). This lexicogrammatical structure allows a writer to emphasize New information. A word about Theme/Rheme and Given/New. Theme/Rheme is textual structure and Given/New is information structure; “Theme + Rheme is speaker-oriented, while Given + New is hearer-oriented, but both are, of course, speaker-selected.” (Halliday 1994: 299) As you already know, Theme tells the reader what the writer chooses as his/her point of departure in a text, what the writer sets up as the starting point of the message. The Given is what the listener already knows and the New is what the listener does not know. As Halliday says, (1994: 298), the difference between Given and New is basically the information presented to the listener: the Given is information that is recoverable and the New is information not recoverable. In unmarked Written and Spoken English, the Theme/Rheme and Given/New coincide (see also Freddi 2004: slide 203 and Downing and Locke 2002: 240-246 for New and Given in the information structure). •
Tip Do not confuse the ‘It’ structures in Predicated Themes for structures that can appear similar but are not. It is possible to have a nominal element of a clause (usually the Subject) postponed to the end of the clause and be substituted by ‘It’ in the place of Subject (see Halliday 1994: 60): 118
Here is an example of a postponed Subject as a ‘Fact’ clause introduced by ‘that’: It doesn’t help us that your mother has difficulties relating to others. In this structure Theme is what comes first – and in this example, Theme is the pronoun substitute “It”. 5. Thematized Comment “It is interesting that your mother has difficulties relating to others,” is an example of what is called a Thematized Comment (the Theme is in italics). In this structure, as in the Predicated Theme, the “It” is a placeholder for the Subject ‘to be’. The difference between Predicated Themes and Thematized Comment is that the latter structure realizes interpersonal meanings; it expresses the speaker/writer’s opinions concerning the proposition that follows. In fact, as Thompson points out (1996: 129) , while in the case of the Predicated Theme (the cleft structure), the two parts can be reduced to a single clause, as illustrated in Example (c) below: c) “It was my mother who put food on our table every day”. My mother put food on our table every day. In the case of the Thematized Comment, the too components can not be reduced to one clause (Themes are in italics): d) It’s interesting that your mother has difficulties in establishing relations with others. Your mother has difficulties in establishing relations with others. This fact is interesting. e) It wasn’t surprising that Schumacher won this year’s Formula 1 championship. Schumacher won this year’s Formula 1 championship. This fact wasn’t surprising. 6. Embedded clause as Theme Let’s take Examples (d) and (e) above and change the Thematic structure in a way so that the starting point of the clause is not the component expressing the speaker/writer’s opinion, but rather it is the proposition itself: see Examples (f) and (g) below (the Themes are in italics): (f) It’s interesting that your mother has difficulties in establishing relations with others. That your mother has difficulties relating to others is interesting. (g) It wasn’t surprising that Schumacher won this year’s Formula 1 championship. That Schumacher won this year’s Formula 1 championship wasn’t surprising. 7. A note on Theme in minor and elliptical clauses Minor clauses such as Good bye or Great! have no Mood or Transitivity - and no Theme. If the elliptical clause refers to something preceding it in the text and presupposes all of that preceding part of the text, such as “Yea” or “Of course”, there is no thematic structure. However, if it presupposes only part of that preceding text, it will have a thematic structure, depending on what was presupposed (Themes are in italics): “They’re going skiing during the school break.” “So am I”. (example adapted from Halliday 1994: 63)
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“They Theme
‘re going skiing during the school break.” Rheme
“So am Conjunctive Finite Theme
I.” topical
Table 1: Theme in elliptical clauses, based on analysis in Halliday 1994: 63
TASK 5: Identify Themes. (examples taken from IHT June 2004). 1. For 70 minutes, Italy played the best soccer any country had summoned up in the first week of Euro 2004. 2. Antonio Cassano scored Italy’s first goal of the competition with a header after 37 minutes. 3. Did the team betray itself by being too cautious? 4. Give Del Piero a chance. He will show his impish genius. 5. But, at the end, Italy’s old cautious instincts reasserted themselves. 6. Interestingly, the Danish and Swedish coaches dismiss the idea of a conspiracy. 7. Martin Olsen, the Danish coach, wants to go for a win in the game against Sweden. 8. See the Advertisement Gina Gallo8
GINA GALLO Third-Generation Family Winemaker IN Sonoma, California, premier wine growing region, Gina makes wines that are earning international awards like these:
TASK 6: Identify Theme in the texts below. Read Key carefully. 1. The 24-year-old Honda rider, who won the final 500cc championship in 2001 and the inaugural MotoGP championship last year, started from pole and, despite a slow start, dominated the race. 8
This advertisement was part of a corpus collected for a dissertation entitled, La Lessicogrammatica del linguaggio vitivinicolo: un’analisi funzionale, presented by Chiara Coffele, Thesis supervisor, D.R. Miller, co-advisor, M. Lipson, A.A. 2000-2001.
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Sete Gibernau, a Spaniard who was Rossi's closest pursuer in the standings, was second. 2. What your mother has is what we call borderline personality disorder. (based on The Sopranos, episode 13, Season 1999) 3. CNN – Thursday 9 March 2000 transcript (adapted): News Reporter: More legal developments Thursday in the custody battle for Elian Gonzales. What is at issue is whether the boy’s Miami relatives can challenge a US government ruling that would return him to Cuba. CNN’s Susan Candiotti reports. Voice Over As Elian Gonzales made his way to school, attorneys for the six-year-old’s extended family in Florida finally had a chance to plead for the right to be heard in federal court. But, Justice Department attorneys argued the Court had no right to review an INS order to reunite Elian with his father in Cuba. Lawyers for the boy’s relatives disagree.
Concluding this discussion on Theme types will be a comment regarding the notion of textual metaphor. In Chapter 7 we studied ideational metaphor and the need for a parallel transitivity analysis, one for the original wording (the incongruent wording) and one for the more congruent wording. Thompson presents two types of thematic structure which he considers textual metaphor in that these thematic structures also need this “double analysis” (Thompson:176), ie. thematic equatives and predicated Theme. Read Thompson, pages 176-177 for an example of this analysis. Textual metaphor will not be explored in this course; however, students are expected to read Thompson 1996: pages 176-177 for the explanation of this notion. •
SUMMARY OF THEMES
All the students Theme
read Hamlet last year Rheme
Multiple Themes: Probably Interpersonal Theme Theme
all the students topical Theme
read Hamlet last year. Rheme
Multiple Theme Furthermore, Textual Theme
all the students Topical
probably read Hamlet last year. Rheme
Multiple Theme 121
Below are examples of analysis of Mood and Theme. The thematic analysis is above the text and Mood analysis is below. Surprisingly,
they
didn't
Multiple Theme (Interpersonal Rheme and Topical Themes) Adjunct: Comment S F MOOD But
they
read
Hamlet
last year.
P RESIDUE
C
Adjunct: Circ.
will.
Multiple Theme (Textual and Rheme Topical) Adjunct: S F Conjunctive MOOD Oh amazingly they' re Talking Multiple Theme (Textual, Rheme Interpersonal and Topical) Adjunct: Adjunct: Subject Finite Predicator Continuity Comment MOOD RESIDUE
about Hamlet
Adjunct: Circumstance
9.2.2 Structural Cohesive Devices: Grammatical Parallelism
In this section we are concerned with Grammatical Parallelism, which will be dealt with in much more detail in your third year course. “Grammatical Parallelism” is an expression coined by Jakobson (1960) and specifically linked to one of his Functions of communication: the ‘poetic’ function as its “empirical linguistic criterion”. So, Grammatical Parallelism is a fundamental feature of poetry, but not only, and consists in a regular reiteration of equivalent units – e.g. of sounds, syllables, words, groups, phrases, and clauses. These ‘recurrent returns’, as Jakobson calls them, are seen as calling forth a corresponding recurrence of sense. That is, grammatical parallelism is semantic parallelism of some sort. (Jakobson 1960, 368-69). Grammatical Parallelism is not dissimilar to what Thompson (1996: 117118) calls ‘grammatical repetition’. SFL (especially in the work of Hasan in Halliday and Hasan 1985/89) has incorporated Grammatical Parallelism into its description of structural cohesive devices. Since, at times, the phenomenon gives us more cohesion than what is strictly needed, we are required to examine its function. This aspect of the grammatics and semantics of Grammatical Parallelism will be further investigated in your third year course. Below is an example of Grammatical Parallelism, where all Themes are marked Themes of circumstance of Location: Space. 122
On the banks of the Arno River, Capocaccia is the trendiest bar in Florence for an American-style brunch on Sundays. At Piansa, travelers driving in and out of the highway entrance will love to taste one of the best coffees in town. Off of Piazza Santa Trinità is the beautiful store Pampaloni. Especially interesting and unique are the “Bicchierografia”, glasses glazed in silver, originally designed in the 17th century and reproduced with exceptional craftsmanship.
Words in italics (glasses glazed) offer an example of reiteration of sounds through the phonemes /gl/ and /s/ and /z/, another example of grammatical parallelism. See the Carex advertisement (text 4) in Chapter 6 for a further example of grammatical parallelism. Below are two short separate extracts from the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, in which we have instances of grammatical parallelism at the word level, phrase level, and clause level. Extract 1: Then I slowly saw that not only was I not free, but my brothers and sisters were not free. I saw that it was not just my freedom that was curtailed, but the freedom of everyone who looked like I did. That is when I joined the African National Congress, and that is when the hunger for my own freedom became the greater hunger for the freedom of my people. The chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me. […] Extract 2: I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
Word level: brothers and sisters, chains. Lexical scatter: freedom and free Phrase level: Thing + PP as Qualifier: hunger for my own freedom, hunger for the freedom of my people; chains on …; Clause level: In the first extract, there is a reiteration of mental Processes of perception (I saw) with Fact and a reiteration of relational processes of identity with extended NGs (Identifier/Pr.: rel/Identified). In the case of the reiteration of mental Processes of perception (Senser/Pr.: mental /Fact), note that both Facts contain not only/but or not just /but extension of the clauses (with reiteration of relational processes attributive was not free, were not free). The but and only are reiterated again in the second extract. In the second extract there is the pattern of material Processes (walked, falter and made) with a reiteration of the tense (in this case pertinent to the idea of Mandela’s struggle) followed by the reiteration of two mental Processes (discovered and finds): I have walked, I have tried, I have made, I have discovered and one finds, I have taken. There is a reiteration in the expansion as well: to steal a view, to look back on. ; for with freedom, for my long walk. This has been a brief introduction to the notion of grammatical parallelism, which will be explored in further detail in the third year course. (Acknowlegements to J.R. Martin for his thorough and fascinating analysis of “Long Walk to Freedom”. See Martin 1999 and Martin and Rose 2003: ch. 7. Acknowledgements also to M. Ghadessy, who presented a longer extract in a study on the loss of grammatical parallelism in translation, “Textual Parallelism in Parallel Texts”, ISFC, Liverpool, 2002 and ) 123
9.2.3 Thematic Progression and Thematic Drift
What is the usefulness of the analysis of Theme? “The thematic organization of the clauses (and clause complexes, where relevant) is the most significant factor in the development of the text” . (Halliday 1994: 67). The thematic structure of a text provides “signposts” to help readers and addressees follow the development of the text (Butt et. al. 2000: 142). Theme reflects what the writer chooses to talk about, what is set up for the reader as background information or familiar. Thematic analysis also tells us something about the transparency of the text’s design and how well the text maker anticipates the needs of the reader. Thematic progression refers to how cohesion is created by placing “elements from the Rheme of one clause into the Theme of the next, or by repeating meanings from the Theme of one clause in the Theme of subsequent clauses” (Butt et.al. 200:142). Thematic drift refers to the accumulated meanings emerging as overall patterns in a text (Butt et al.: 144). In SFL, this is also known as a form of semantic prosody. By examining sequential and cumulative patterns of Theme (the choices writers make in selecting an item as Theme), we can often discover the degree to which the messages mesh with an overarching purpose or concern. Understanding thematic structure helps writers also construct their own texts. Students can use the technique to ensure that TTs progress in an orderly and even ‘predictable’ way. Students should also try to make sure Textual Themes are functioning to make logical connections between clauses clear. Thematic progression can be very straightforward: either parallel progression (or Constant Progression, see Bloor and Bloor 1995: 90), in that the Theme of each clause links to the Theme in the next clause or linear progression, in that the Rheme of one clause links to the Theme of the next, and so on. There is also the split Rheme pattern, which is a third common type of thematic progression. This is when the Rheme of a clause has two components, each of which is taken in turn as the Theme of a subsequent clause (Bloor and Bloor 1995: 91). For further information on Theme patterns see Bloor and Bloor 1995: 90- 94. This is not to say there is only a limited choice of thematic patterns. As Halliday explains, “the speaker can exploit the potential that the situation defines, using thematic and information structures to produce an astonishing variety of rhetorical effects. He can play with the system.” (1994: 300). Here Halliday is also referring to the various types of Themes one can choose (predicated Themes, marked Themes, etc). However, thematic choices in a text should not be totally unexpected, i.e. Themes should be connected with ideas already met in the Theme or Rheme of a clause not too far away. Writers may put elements from the Rheme of one clause into the Theme of the next, or they may repeat elements from the Theme of one clause in the Theme of following clauses. When writing, students should try to construct a clear progression: even though unexpected thematic development is part of ‘creative’ writing, expository or persuasive texts, e.g., need to be well constructed and thematically coherent. Below are examples of Parallel (constant) Theme progression (1), Linear Theme progression (2), and a Split Rheme pattern (3). (1) Protein, next to water, is the most plentiful substance in the body. Protein is one of the most important elements for the maintenance of good health and vitality and is of primary importance in the growth and development of all body tissues. It is the major source of building material for muscles, blood, skin, hair, nails, and internal organs, including the heart and the brain. Protein is needed for the formation of hormones which control a variety of body functions such as growth, sexual development, and rate of metabolism. 124
(2) One of the fastest growing plagues of the modern world is osteoarthritis. It is an ugly disease that causes pain ranging from mild to severe. The pain and suffering can become so intolerable for most victims. They should expect more than what mainstream medicine has to offer. (3) Well, Mrs. Moss, I think you should avoid sleeping pills if you can. You may come to rely on them completely and find it impossible to sleep without them. I’d suggest some other remedies, perhaps very obvious ones. Drinking herb tea, like camomile, before you go to bed is one. This can help you relax. Listening to music or reading is another. If neither of these work, an alternative approach is to be as active as possible during the evening. Go out and do something so that you are really tired when you go to bed. (adapted from health magazine, adapted from Lipson Exploring Functional Grammar, A. A. 2001-02) TASK 7: In the text below, identify Themes. How are they connected to elements in the text? What is the thematic progression? 9 It’s easy. It’s cheap. It’s convenient, and it’s a good way of meeting people. It simply involves standing by a road and sticking out your thumb. Every day, hundreds of people in Ireland hitch lifts. It is a frequent method of getting around, especially in rural areas where there is little danger, since people often know those offering them a lift. But hitch-hiking can be risky. (adaped from text in Landmark: Upper Intermediate Student’s Book, OUP) TASK 8: Analyze thematic progression (text from Butt et.al, 1995, pg. 60): Traumatic inflammation of the stomach results from the presence of a foreign body. This condition is not rare in cattle, because these animals have the habit of swallowing their feed without careful chewing, and so nails, screws, hairpins, ends of wire, and other metal objects may be swallowed unconsciously. Such objects gravitate to the second stomach where they may be caught in the folds of the lining mucous membrane, and in some instances the wall of this organ is perforated. From this accident, chronic indigestion results. The symptoms include pain when getting up or lying down, pain when moving suddenly, and coughing.
9.3 Non-Structural Cohesive Devices10 In this section there is a review of non-structural resources for organizing discourse. Students should review their first year course-book , sec 5.2.
9
This text was analysed for Field, Tenor and Mode, in a dissertation entitled, La grammatica funzionale e suoi risvolti didattici per la comprensione del testo scritto, presented by Lucia Degli Esposti, Thesis supervisor, M. Lipson, coadvisor, D.R. Miller, A.A. 2002-2003, Facoltà di L.L.S. , Università di Bologna 10 This section, explanations and examples, has been broadly based on Halliday and Hasan, 1976, Halliday 1994 and Toolan 1998.
125
The expression of the unit of meaning lies in the cohesion among the sentences. Any piece of language that has a meaning as a whole in some context, whether spoken or written, formal or colloquial, or journalistic or academic, etc., has cohesive elements tying the discourse together. Cohesion gives a sense of continuity. Sentences are linked to others throughout discourse to help readers understand the text. Understanding the role of cohesive elements will improve ones’ reading and writing skills. The following types of cohesion devices discussed in this section are: 1. reference 1. exophoric and endophoric references. 1. homophoric reference 2. anaphoric and cataphoric references 2. ellipsis and substitution 3. conjunction 1. Conjunctive Adjuncts and conjunctions 4. lexical cohesion 1. hyponymy 2. meronymy 3. collocation 1. Reference As you know, exophoric references point outside of the text and endophoric references point in the text. Homophoric reference is a sub-category of exophoric which refers to only one possible referent. Example (1a) is an instance of homophoric reference: there is only one moon which would make sense to the listener: the Earth’s moon. 1a. Did you see the eclipse of the moon last night? Examples (1b) and (1c) below are instances of exophoric and endophoric reference respectively. In (1b), “I” is an exophoric reference. The listener knows from the context of situation who “I” is referring to. In (1c) “It” is an endophoric reference pointing backwards in the text to “car”. and is thus an anaphoric reference. 1b. I have a car that hates winter.
1c. I have a car. It hates winter.
In the text below, the pronoun they points forward and is thus a cataphoric reference to the unemployed American workers. They are sometimes black, but more often white; traditionally male, but increasingly female, frequently teenagers, but usually adults. They might be autoworkers from Detroit or clerks laid off a by a Chicago plastics company with weakening orders. They are, in all their faces and feelings, the unemployed American workers of 1980. (from Time Magazine in M. Lipson 1981: 50)
With exophoric references it is the reader who has to decipher its meaning. The meaning lies in the environment or situation of the text. Often in advertising, the use of the personal pronouns you 126
or he, she and we are used. Understanding these references requires an understanding of the cultural context of the text. In the Carex advertisement, page 47, the you is recoverable from the cultural context which the reader understands: it is you, the Mother. In the same advertisement, the pronoun he refers to the picture of the boy in the ad. This could be considered therefore an endophoric reference, in that it is recoverable in the text. Actually, we might consider this pronoun both endophoric and exophoric, because while it has a visual reference in the text, it also relates to the reader’s own conceptual reference of a baby boy. 2. Ellipsis and Substitution Ellipsis is when we “presuppose something by means of what is left out” (Halliday 1994: 316). Unlike reference, the relationship that is set up is “not semantic but lexico-grammatical – a relationship in the wording rather than directly in the meaning” (Halliday 1994: 316). Ellipsis means that “continuity is established by means of leaving out given information: a clause or a part of a clause can be omitted or substituted.” (Freddi 2004 slide 219 our emphasis) In the first case, the cohesion device is ellipsis and in the second it is substitution. Ellipsis-substitution means, says Halliday: “‘go back and retrieve the missing words’. Hence the missing words must be grammatically appropriate” (Halliday 1994: 322); this is not the case with reference.. Examples (2a) and (2b) are instances of ellipsis and substitution respectively. 2a. “Did he get back yet?” “He must have.” (“got back” is understood, but not stated) 2b. “I like your Compaq Pocket PC. I think I’ll buy one.” (“one” substitutes Compaq Pocket PC) 3. Conjunction Here, as you know, we are dealing with how logical semantic relationships between clauses are constructed through Conjunctive Adjuncts - AG or PP - or one of a small group of conjunctions typically and, or, nor but, yet, so, and then at the beginning of a sentence (Halliday 1994: 324). Conjunctive Adjuncts, such as although, as a result, furthermore, accordingly, besides, etc., differ from other cohesive relations such as substitution or reference because they not only help the reader predict the discourse that follows by linking up with preceding text, but they also express particular meanings. These set up logico-semantic relationships of elaboration, extension and enhancement. (categories and examples based on Halliday 1994: 324-325)
1. Elaboration: apposition: they can exemplify, represent some information, e.g.: in other words, that is to say, for example, for instance, to illustrate etc. clarification: they can clarify information e.g.: in particular, in short, to sum up, actually, in fact etc. 2. Extension: addition: they can add information, e.g.: moreover, in addition, on the other hand, however, on the contrary, except for that, alternatively. adversative: they can add on adversative information, e.g.: but. variation: these include ‘replacives’ and subtractives’ and ‘alternatives’: instead, except, and alternatively 3. Enhancement: They create adhesion concerning time, manner, cause, matter, etc. 127
spatio-temporal: – here and there, metaphorically also – in the first place (spatial metaphor). The temporal conjunction covers the following relations: (i) simple a. following - then, next, afterwards b. simultaneous – just, then, at the same time c. preceding – before that, previously d. conclusive – in the end, finally e. simple internal – parallel to simple: likewise, similarly, in a different way (ii) complex a. immediate – at once, b. interrupted – soon c. repetitive – next time d. specific – next day, an hour later, that morning e. durative – meanwhile, all that time f. terminal – until then , g. punctiliar – at this moment Manner – likewise, similarly in a different way Means - thus, thereby, Relation of cause – so, then, therefore, consequently, hence, in consequence, as a result Matter – cohesion is established by reference to the ‘matter’ that has gone before – here, there, as to that, in that respect. Many expressions of matter are spatial metaphors – involving words like point, ground . 4. Lexical Cohesion
With lexical cohesion we are concerned with cohesion achieved through vocabulary selection: repetition (the repetition of the same word), synonymy (which includes hyponymy and meronymy) and collocation. In the text below, there are examples of cohesion through repetition of plastic, package and packaging (lexical scatter): An Alternative to Plastic Italians have managed to make a plastic. Environmentalists argue alternatives to plastic packages. amounts of plastic packaging. passion.
revolutionary new material that should replace that we desperately need to find eco-friendly Every year we produce and throw away huge Greens despise plastic waste with particular
IHT, Nov. 2002
Synonymy means that a lexical item has some kind of similar sense to another item. Hyponymy and meronymy are two different ways in which lexical items may relate to one another. By hyponymy we are referring to the specific-general (superordinate and instances of) relationship, as in the relationship between chair and sofa, which are both kinds of furniture (Halliday 1994: 332). ‘Furniture’ would be the superordinate and ‘chair’ and ‘sofa’ the instances. 128
By meronymy, we are referring to the relationship of part-whole (Halliday 1994: 332), the relationship among parts of the something else (co-hyponyms), such as in the example of stomach, colon, intestine, liver, pancreas, etc. which are all parts of the digestive system. In the following text, there are examples of meronymy and hyponymy: Well, Mrs. Moss, I think you should avoid sleeping pills if you can. You may come to rely on them completely and find it impossible to sleep without them. I’d suggest some other remedies, perhaps very obvious ones. Have you tried drinking herb tea, like camomile, before you go to bed? This can help you relax. You could also try listening to music or reading. Drinking, listening and reading are instances of textually-created meronymy: they are cohyponyms (parts) of ‘remedies’(the whole); herb tea and camomile are instances of hyponymy (herb tea is superordinate of camomile) The last non-structural cohesion device in this category is collocation: the tendency for words to co-occur. Collocation is lexical cohesion which depends on a particular association between the items (Halliday 1994: 133). Halliday gives us the examples of ‘friends’ and ‘relations’ and ‘friends’ and ‘neighbors’ as possible co-occurrences, while pointing out the exception of ‘relations’ and ‘neighbors’ (Halliday 1994: 133-4). In the text below, there are examples of cohesion through collocation: One of the fastest growing plagues of the modern world is osteoarthritis. It is an ugly disease that causes pain ranging from mild to severe. The pain and suffering can become extremely intolerable for most victims. They should expect more than what mainstream medicine has to offer. Notice also, for example, that osteoarthritis and disease are related through hyponymy. TASK 9:. Identify the cohesion devices in the following texts (words in bold): 1. That was a great story, Mary, but what is the point of it? 2. Here they give you chocolate with your espresso. 3. I woke up and the sun was shining. 4. The point of my story is this: you should never underestimate your opponents. 5. Dave: Want a coke? Jane: Yeah Dave: I thought so. TASK 10: Identify the cohesion devices in the following text (words in bold): It’s easy, it’s cheap, it’s convenient, and it’s a good way of meeting people. It simply involves standing by a road and sticking out your thumb. Everyday, hundreds of people in Ireland hitch lifts. (Landmark, Upper Intermediate, OUP)
SUMMARY CHART OF NON- STRUCTURAL COHESIVE DEVICES 129
Cohesion devices • Reference:
(Homophoric)
Exophoric Endophoric
• Ellipsis: • Conjunction:
Ellipsis
Substitution
Elaboration
• Lexical Cohesion repetition
Anaphoric Cataphoric
Extension
Repetition
Enhancement
Collocation
synonomy meronymy & hyponymy
Fig..2 Cohesion devices
KEYS TASK 1:: 1. Role: language-as-action. Channel graphic, medium +written-ness 2. Role: language-as-action. Channel originally phonic, medium +spoken-ness (evidence: Imperative form ‘Listen’, the use of the exclamation mark, and of fillers, such as ‘yeah’), a bit more friendly than number 1. 3. Role: language-as-reflection. Graphic, + written-ness (evidence: nominalization) 4. Role: language-as-reflection. Originally phonic, spoken (evidence: spontaneous conversation and friendly – yea, well, yea, laughs, etc.) 5. Role: language-as-reflection. Graphic, + written-ness (evidence: embedding and packaging of information, lexical density, not very personal. )Seems very much like a formulaic message, perhaps a card. 6. Role: language-as-reflection. We might consider the imperative “please let us know” as being more towards the continuum of language-as-action than the rest of the text, but overall, it is more of an example of language-as-reflection. Channel: could be phonic or graphic. Medium has features of spoken-ness (evidence: personal pronoun as Subject, information given in a 2clause clause complex rather than through the packaging of information. ) 7. Role: language-as-reflection. Channel Phonic, + spoken-ness (‘oh, ‘you know’ and ‘right’), friendly (use of name ‘Harley’, ‘your mom’, ‘dear’, etc) TASK 2. Italians, Environmentalists and Greens and Every year. A blood-thinning drug derived from the venom of the Malayan pit viper; a study; other research (But is a Textual Theme, not TT); it; In a study of 500 stroke patients; The two groups; The promising results; in this study (But is a Textual Theme, not TT) ; the study TASK 3. Obviously and maybe are Interpersonal Themes; But is a Textual Theme TASK 4. a, e, f (a + f have Circ as Theme, e has Goal as Theme) 130
TASK 5. 1. For 70 minutes- marked Theme (Circumstance as Theme) 2. Antonio Cassano - Theme - unmarked 3. Did the team –unmarked for polar interrogative 4. Give - unmarked Theme imperative, He -unmarked 5. But, at the end, - multiple Theme, Textual and TT; marked Theme – Circ as Topical .Theme) 6. Interestingly, the Danish and Swedish coaches - multiple Theme, Interpersonal and Topical Theme, unmarked 7. Martin Olsen, the Danish coach, - Interpolations in Theme (see Thompson pg. 140) 8. Gina Gallo Third Generation Family Winemaker TT: in second part of advertisement, In Sonoma- marked Theme (circ: Location: Space as Theme) TASK 6. 1. The 24-year-old Honda rider, who won the final 500cc championship in 2001 and the inaugural MotoGP championship last year; Sete Gibernau, a Spaniard who was Rossi's closest pursuer in the standings 2. What your mother has 3. CNN – Thursday 9 March 2000 transcript (adapted) NR – JR What is at issue; CNN’s Susan Candiotti VO As Elian Gonzales made his way to school = Theme; attorneys for the six-year-old’s extended family in Florida finally had a chance to plead for the right to be heard in federal court = Rheme*. But, Justice Department attorneys; the Court; Lawyers for the boy’s relatives. *Note that we can analyze this clause complex in two ways: (1) we can consider the dependent clause, “As Elian Gonzales made his way to school”, as Theme and the independent clause, “attorneys for the six-year-old’s extended family in Florida finally had a chance to plead for the right to be heard in federal court”, as Rheme, as shown above in the Key; or (2) we could analyze each clause separately and in this way the Themes would be As Elian Gonzales and attorneys for the six-year-old’s extended family in Florida. We will follow Thompson’s choice (1996: 131 – 132 ) in choosing for less detail and thus choosing the dependent clause as Theme. See Thompson 1996: 131 – 132 for Theme in clause complexes and 139 for Theme in reported clauses. Keep in mind that if a clause complex is composed of two independent clauses, both clauses are then analyzed for Theme. (Thompson 1996: 133) TASK 7:: (1) It’s easy. (2) It’s cheap. (3) it’s convenient, and (4) it’s a good way of meeting people. (5) It simply involves standing by a road and sticking out your thumb. (6) Every day, hundreds of people in Ireland hitch lifts. (7) It is a frequent method of getting around, especially in rural areas where there is little danger, since (8) people often know those offering them a lift. (9) But hitch-hiking can be risky. Theme 1 = It Rheme 1 Theme 2 = It linked to Theme (1) Theme 3 = It is linked to Theme (1) and to Theme (2) Theme 4 = It is linked to Theme (1) and to Theme (3) Theme 5 = It is linked to Theme (1) and to Theme (4); Rheme = simply involves standing by a road and sticking out your thumb Theme 6 = Every day is a marked Theme; Rheme 6 = hundreds of people in Ireland hitch lifts. In this clause Rheme (6) is linked to Rheme (5) Theme 7 = It linked to Rheme (6) – hitch lifts – the activity of hitch-hiking; 131
Theme 8 = people can be considered linked to Rheme (7) to those people living in rural areas who use this “frequent method of getting around” Theme (9) Multiple Theme – But hitch-hiking linked all the previous Themes It . The Textual Theme But introduces a new topic in the text which is developed in the second paragraph. In fact, the author goes on to discuss the dangers involved in hitch-hiking and suggested solutions that might help to solve the problem. Thematic progression is basically an example of Parallel/Constant progression. TASK 8: (1) Traumatic inflammation of the stomach results from the presence of a foreign body.(2) This condition is not rare in cattle, (3)because these animals have the habit of swallowing their feed without careful chewing, and so (4) nails, screws, hairpins, ends of wire, and other metal objects may be swallowed unconsciously. (5) Such objects gravitate to the second stomach where they may be caught in the folds of the lining mucous membrane, and (6) in some instances the wall of this organ is perforated. (7) From this accident, chronic indigestion results. (8) The symptoms include pain when getting up or lying down, pain when moving suddenly, and coughing. Theme 1 Rheme (1) Theme 2 linked to Theme (1) Theme 3 to Rheme (2) Theme 4 to Rheme (1) Theme 5 to Theme (4) Theme 6 (marked theme – as Circ.: Abstract Location: Time/Space is Theme Theme 7 refers to the two clauses where they may be caught in the folds of the lining mucous membrane, and (6) in some instances the wall of this organ is perforated. Theme 8 refers to Rheme (7) TASK 9: 1. that = exophoric; it = anaphoric 2. Here = exophoric 3. the sun = homohoric (exophoric) 4. this = cataphoric word reference (endophoric) 5. yeah = ellipsis; so = substitution TASK 10:. They are all cataphoric reference; referent is hitch[ing] lifts.
Further Reading Thompson 1996, pp. 117 - 133 Themes, 136 - 138 Interpersonal and Textual Themes, and 176 – 177 for Textual Metaphor; or Thompson 2004, pp. 144 – 154 Identifying Themes, 158 - 160 Interpersonal and Textual Themes and 235 - 236 for Textual Metaphor Thompson 1996, pp. 148 – 158 on Cohesion (reference, ellipsis and conjunction); or Thompson 2004, pp. 180 – 190
Notes Key Points
132
Questions for Class
________________________________________________ Appendix A Common attributive and identifying relational Processes Common Attributive Relational Processes (Halliday, 1994: 120) be and become (sometimes also identifying) remain, stay, keep, seem, appear, turn out, end up, look, sound, smell, feel, taste (like) Identifying Relational Processes Verbs realizing relational Processes from the ‘equative’ classes (Halliday, 1994: 123) act as, function as, serve as indicate, suggest, imply, mark equal, add up to comprise, feature, include represent, constitute, form exemplify, illustrate express, signify, realize, spell, stand for, mean, ‘Circumstantial’ Verbs: Identifying Relational Processes with Circumstance as Process (Halliday, 1994: 131-132) surround, accompany, last, take up, follow, resembles, take up, span, occupies
133
Appendix B Example of a Functional Grammar Test Adapted from Time International Nov. 10, 2003
Postcards: on the Edge The digital age represents the end of a venerable vacation tradition. But are e-cards and text messages really better? It’s amusing that so many magazine travel articles are entitled “Postcard from … , because people just aren’t sending them like they used to. In an age of e-mail, text messaging and mobile phones equipped with cameras, the postcards you receive these days are probably from elderly relatives. A recent study reports that 50% of the people interviewed intended to send fewer postcards in the future. Fourteen % said they had no time to write them. Ten % preferred to call home instead. The delivery time for postcards is also at fault*. In another study, 25% of respondents commented that postcards took too long to arrive. This problem may not have existed 20 years ago when people took longer vacations. But in these days of three-night packages, you usually get home before your postcards do. I believe that writing postcards in a romantic Florentine cafè or a Beijing teahouse is unbeatable, but sending photos with your phone is certainly irresistible. If you don't have a mobile phone with a built-in camera, you can use your laptop. Luckily, there are also internet cafès in most vacation spots. There you can download images of well-known attractions and send them with your message to multiple recipients. Technology has made it too easy. I miss those colorful postcards from distant places. I enjoyed sticking them on my refrigerator - they would remind me of my friends who were far away.
1.
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
In the sub-heading, “The digital age represents the end of a venerable vacation tradition”, what is the process type of ‘represents’? A) Relational: identifying-intensive C) Relational: attributive - intensive B) Relational: identifying-possessive D) Relational: attributive - possessive In par. 2, line 5, what is the participant role of ‘A recent study’? A) Actor B) Agent C) Sayer D) Senser In par. 3, line 10, what is the participant role of ‘vacations’? A) Actor B) Carrier C) Goal D) Range In par. 4, line 14, what is the process type of ‘are’ A) Relational: circumstantial C) Existential B) Relational: possessive D) Behavioral In par. 5, line 17, what are the participant roles of ‘Technology’ and ‘it’? A) Initiator-Agent and Actor C. Actor and Goal B) Attributor-Agent and Carrier D. Actor and Carrier In par. 5, line 17, what is the participant role of ‘postcards’? A) Phenomenon B) Target C) Goal D) Beneficiary What is the semantic relationship between the verbs in the VGC in par. 2, line 5, ‘intended to send’ ? A) Expansion: conation C) Projection: idea B) Expansion: modulation D) Projection: locution 134
A B C D
A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D
8.
In par. 3, line 9, that postcards took too long to arrive is a A) Reported idea B) Reported locution C) Quoted idea D) Quoted locution 9. Which of the following has NO embedded clause or embedded PP? A. the only postcards you receive these days (line 3) B. they would remind me of my friends who were far away ( lines 18-19) C. But sending photos with your phone is certainly irresistible (line 13) D. If you don-t have a mobile phone with a built-in-camera (lines 13-14) 10. In par.1, line 1,what is the Subject ^ Finite in the following clause? It ’s amusing that so many magazine travel articles are entitled “Postcard from …” a b c d 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17.
18.
19.
A B C D A B C D
A B C D
A) a + b B) a + b + c C) a+ b + d D) b + d In the space below, cite an example of a Modal adjunct in paragraph 1. ___________________________________________________ In par. 3, line 9, ‘may’ construes what kind of modality orientation? A A) Objective implicit C) Objective explicit B) Subjective implicit D) Subjective explicit In par. 4, line 12, 'I believe that writing postcards…’ is an example of A A) Ideational Metaphor C) Interpersonal Metaphor of Modality B) Textual Metaphor D) Logical Experiential Metaphor In par. 4, line 13, ‘certainly’ in is certainly irresistible is an example of A A) Modalization: high value C) Modulation: high value B) Modalization: low value D) Modulation: low value In par.4., line 14, the word ‘Luckily’ in Luckily, there are also internet cafes… A is an example of a A) Vocative Adjunct C) Mood Adjunct B) Conjunctive Adjunct D) Comment Adjunct In the sub-heading,what APPRAISAL SYSTEM is being construed with the word A 'really'? A) Graduation B) Affect C) Judgement D) Appreciation What APPRAISAL SYSTEM is construed with the word ‘colorful’ in the last par A line 17? A) Engagement B) Graduation: Focus C) Judgment: social sanction D) Appreciation: aesthetics In par.5, line 18, the word ‘enjoyed’ in I enjoyed sticking… refrigerator A inscribes: A) Positive Appreciation: quality B) Negative Appreciation: social impact C) Positive Affect: happiness D) Negative Affect: dissatisfaction Which of the following is true of statements (i) and (ii) in the text: A (i) Technology …. it too easy. (last par., line 17) (ii) I believe that …. your phone is certainly irresistible. (par. 4, lines 12-13) A) statement (i) is monoglossic and statement (ii) is heteroglossic B) statement (i) is heteroglossic and statement (ii) is monoglossic C) statement (i) and statement (ii) are both heteroglossic D) statement (i) and statement (ii) are both monoglossic 135
B C D B C D B C D B C D
B C D B C D
B C D
B C D
20.
The wording The delivery time for postcards in par. 3, line 8, exemplifies A) Projection C) Marked Theme B) Nominalization D) Metaphor of Mood 21. In par. 3, lines 8 - 9, the clause complex In another study, 25% of …too long to arrive. is an example of A) Marked Theme C) Thematic Equative B) Thematized Comment D) Predicated Theme 22. Where does the Rheme begin in But in these days of three-night packages, you usually get home (par. 3, lines 10-11 )? A) in these days of three-night packages B) you C) usually D) get 23. In par.2, line 6, what cohesive device is the word ‘them’ an instance of? A) Substitution C) Exophoric reference B) Ellipsis proper D) Anaphoric reference
A B C D
24.
A B C D
The repetition of sounds, words, groups, phrases, clauses calls forth a corresponding recurrence of sense. By this we are referring to A) Grammatical metaphor C) Condensation B) Encapsulation D) Grammatical parallelism 25. Compare these two statements: (i) Internet cafés hit your eye wherever you go on vacation. (ii) You see internet cafés everywhere you go on vacation
A B C D
A B C D A B C D
A B C D
A) Statement (i) is expressed in a more incongruent way than statement (ii) B) Statement (i) is expressed in a less incongruent way than statement (ii) C) Statement (i) and statement (ii) are both expressed in an equally incongruent way D) Statement (i) and statement (ii) are both expressed in an equally congruent way 26. OPEN-ENDED QUESTION: Identify and label all the constituents of the TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM in the following clause complex (Process types, participant roles and circumstance types): “There you can download images of well-known attractions and send them with your message to multiple recipients”. (par. 4, lines 15-16). For example: She told a story .Answer: Sayer/ Pr. verbal/ Verbiage
KEY A
C
D
C
B
A
C
B
C
C
Just, probably B
C
A
D
A
D
C
A
B
A
B
D
26: There - Circumstance: Location Space/ you – Actor/ download - material Process/ images of well-known attractions – Goal/ send – material Process/them – Goal/ with your messageCircumstance of Accompaniment/ multiple recipients – Beneficiary (Recipient).
136
D
A
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Bloor T. and M. Bloor, 1995, The Functional Analysis of English: a functional approach, Edward Arnold, London. Butt, Fahey, Feez, Spinks, and Yallop, 2000, 2nd ed.n, Using Functional Grammar, NCELTR, Macquarie University, Sydney. Coupland N. and A. Jaworsky, 1997, Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Course-book, St Martin's Press, New York. Christie F. and L. Unsworth, 2000, “Developing socially responsible language research”, in Unsworth L, (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and Communities, Cassell, London. Eggins, S., 1994, An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics,: Pinter Publishers, London Eggins, S., 2000, “Researching everyday talk”, in Unsworth L. (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and Communities, Cassell, London, 130-151. Eggins, S. and D. Slade, 1997, Analysing Casual Conversation, Cassell, London. Ervin-Tripp S., 1972, “Sociolinguistic Rules: Alteration and Co-occurrence”, in Gumperz J.J. and D. Hymes, eds., 1972, Directions in Sociolinguistics, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. Fishman, J. A., “The Sociology of Language”, in Coupland N. and A. Jaworsky, Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Course-book, St Martin's Press, New York, pp. 25-30. Fiske, J., 1987, Television Culture, Routledge, New York. Fiske, J., 1990, Introduction to Communication Studies, Routledge, New York. Freddi, M. , 2004, Functional Grammar: an introduction for the EFL student Gerot L., 1995, Making Sense of Text, Gerd Stabler Antipodean Educational Enterprises, Qld, Australia. Gerot L. and P. Wignell, 1994, Making Sense of Functional Grammar, Gerd Stabler Antipodean Educational Enterprises, Qld, Australia. Ghadessy, M., and Y. Zhizhi, “Textual Parallelism in Parallel Texts”, paper presented at the ISFC 29 Congress, Systemic Linguistics and The Corpus, Liverpool, 15-19 July, 2002. Goatly, A., 1997, The Language of Metaphors, Routledge, New York. Hall Stuart, et.al (ed), 1980, Culture, media, language, Hutchinson, London. Hall Stuart, 1995, “The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media”, in Dines G. and J. M. Humez, eds., 1995, Gender, Race and Class in Media, Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp. 18-22. Halliday, M.A.K., 1985/1989, Spoken-ness and Written Language, Oxford University Press, Oxford Halliday, M.A.K., 1994, 2nd edition, Introduction to Functional Grammar, Arnold, London. Halliday, M.A.K., 1997, “Language in a Social Perspective”, in Coupland N. and A. Jaworsky, Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Course-book, St Martin's Press, New York, pp. 31-39,. Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan, 1985/1989, Language: Context and Text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective, Deakin University Press (republished by OUP 1989) Halliday M.A.K. and R. Hasan, 1976, Cohesion in English, Longman, London. Hartley, Peter, 1993, Interpersonal Communication, Routledge, New York. Jakobson, R., 1960, “Closing statement: linguistics and poetics”’ in Sebeok, T. (ed.), Style and Language, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Lee, D., 1992, Competing Discourse: Perspective and Ideology in Language, Longman, London. Lemert C. and A. Branaman, 1997, The Goffman Reader, Blackwell, London. Lipson, M., 1981, Reading and Understanding, CLUEB, Bologna. Lipson, M., 2002, “The Pedogogical Applications of Hallidayan Functional Grammar in
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University EFL Courses”, in Evangelisti P. and E. Ventola (ed.), English in Academic and Professional Settings: Techniques of Description/Pedagogical Applications, Textus: English Studies in Italy, Tilgher, Genova, pp. 369-388. Martin J., 1999, “Grace: The logogenesis of freedom”, in Discourse Studies 1 (1): 29-56 Martin J., 2000, “Beyond Exchange: APPRAISAL Systems in English”, in Hunston S. and G, Thompson (eds.), Evaluation in Text, OUP, Oxford, pp. 142-175. Martin, J. and D. Rose, 2003, Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the clause, Continuum, New York. Matthiessen, C. 1995, Lexicogrammatical Cartography: English Systems, International Language Sciences Publishers, Tokyo. McCarthy, M., 1991, Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers, CUP, Cambridge Miller, D., 2002, “Ways of meaning ‘yea’ and ‘nay’ in parliamentary debate as register: towards a cost-benefit analysis” in Bignami M., G. Iamartino, and C. Pagetti (eds.), The Economy Principle in English: Linguistic, Literary and Cultural Perspectives, Edizioni Unicopli, Milano, pp. 220-233. Miller, D., 2004, “…to meet our common challenge”: ENGAGEMENT Strategies of alignment and alienation in Current US International Discourse, Textus, XVII, 1, 2004, TilgherGenova, pp. 39 - 62 Simon-Vandenberg, A.M., M. Taverniers, and L.Ravelli (eds.), 2003, Lexicogrammatical metaphor: systemic and functional perspectives, John Benjamins: Amsterdam Smitherman, G., 1994, Black Talk, Houghton Mifflen Company, New York. Tang, Ramona, 2002, “Exploring written academic voice through Appraisal”, paper presented at the 29th International Systemic Functional Congress, Liverpool, 15-19 July 2002 Thompson, G., 1996, Introducing Functional Grammar, Arnold, London Thompson, G., 2004, Introducing Functional Grammar, Arnold, London Toolan, M., 1996, Language in Literature: An introduction to Stylistics, OUP, New York Unsworth L. (ed.), 2000, Researching Language in Schools and Communities: Functional Linguistic Perspectives, Cassell, London. Van Dijk, 1998, “Opinions and Ideology in the Press” in Bell A. and P. Garrett, Approaches to Media Discourse, Blackwell, London. White, P.R.R, 2001, “The Appraisal System in Outline”, presented workshop held at 29th International Systemic Functional Congress, Liverpool, July, 2002 White, P.R.R., 2002, “The Semantics of Intersubjective Stance”, paper and workshop held at ISFC Congress, Liverpool, July, 2002 White P.R.R., 2003a, “Beyond modality and hedging: a Dialogic View of the Language of Intersubjective Stance”, Text [special issue on Appraisal], 23, 2, pp. 259-284 White, P.R.R., 2003b, “Appraisal – the language of evaluation and stance”, in C. Bulcaen (ed.), The Handbook of Pragmatics, Benjamins, Amsterdam
Acknowledgements Acknowledgements go to Prof. Donna Miller, Chair of English Linguistics at the University of Bologna, for her continuous time and energy dedicated to exchanging ideas and clarifying complex concepts and for her diligent and invaluable editing of the course-book. I would also like to thank all the hundreds of students who have been subjected to the first drafts of this handbook. Their difficulties and constructive feedback have been a major source of insight into pinpointing those areas that have needed further 138
clarification. Special thanks go to Dott.ssa Marina Manfredi and Dott.ssa Emanuela Boiardi for their generous collaboration in reviewing and commenting on some of the draft chapters.
Index AFFECT
Agent/ Initiator Agent/Attributor-Assigner Anaphoric reference Appraisee/Appraiser APPRECIATION
Beneficiary Cataphoric reference Channel of Communication Client Cohesion – non structural resources Collocation Comment Adjunct Condensation Congruent forms/incongruent forms Conjunctions and Conjunctive Adjuncts in cohesion Conjunctive Adjunct Constant thematic progression Continuity Adjunct Deontic modality Ellipsis Embedded clause as Theme Embedded facts Embedded PPs and embedded clauses Embedded projections Embedding . See Section 4.2 Encapsulation Endophoric reference ENGAGEMENT
Epistemic modality Exophoric reference Explicit/inscribed appraisal Focus Force Given and New GRADUATION
Heterogloss Homophoric reference Hyponymy Ideational Metaphor – See Chapter 7 Ideology 139
88-89 70 70-71 126 89 91-93 48 126 111; 113 48 125 129 29; 115 82 26; 32-33; 3941; 78-84 127-128 30; 44; 115 124 30; 115 33 127 119 53 18-21 66 18-20 82 126 95-100 32 126 93 94; 102 95; 102 118 94-95 96-100 126 128-129 7-10
Implicit/evoked appraisal Interpersonal Metaphor Interpolations inTheme JUDGEMENT Linear thematic progression Marked and unmarked themes Medium Meronymy Metaphor of Mood Modal Operators Modal/Mood Adjunct Modality type (also modalization or modulation) Modalization Modulation Monogloss Morpheme Nominalization Objectivization Orientation of modality Parallel thematic progression Predicated theme Process sharing Projection of propositions and proposals Projection with mental processes Projection with verbal processes Range Rankshift Receiver Recipient Reference Reported locution and reported ideas Reported proposal Split Rheme thematic progression Spoken-ness Subject-Finite in Mood Substitution Text Thematic equative Thematic progression Thematized Comment Theme in elliptical clauses Value Verbal Group Complex Verbal Operator Verbiage Vocative Adjunct Written-ness
140
93 39-40 117 89-91 124 116; 122; 124 111-113 128-129 40 28 28-30; 115 32-34 32-34 32-34 96-100 3; 16 80-83 82 34 36 124-125 118 111 64-66 53-54 55-56 47-48; 51 17; 21 54 48 126-127 64 64 124 112-113 26-28 127 9 117-118 124 119 119 37: 71 66-69 26 54 30; 115 112-113
