A systemic functional analysis of multisemiotic biology texts 2

CHAPTER TWO SYSTEMIC-FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS In this chapter I present the SFL framework for linguistic analysis and in Chapter Three, drawing upon previous research on visual semiosis, I propose the SFL-informed frameworks for the analysis of visual display in biology texts. These serve as a set of coherent and consistent perspectives by which the multisemiotic biology texts will be analyzed. SFL attempts to account for the way language works in a social and cultural setting. It sees language as a meaning potential that its users draw upon to “construe physical and biological reality (including consciousness)”, “enact social relations” and “bring into being a semiotic reality alongside the physical, biological and social” (Halliday and Martin 1993: 27-28). SFL does not study language for the sake of language alone. Rather, this approach seeks to contribute to educational, economic and political processes. Nor does it confine itself within language proper; instead it seeks a social and cultural account of language by means of mapping out the relationships between language and the social context in which it is used. In the words of Ruqaiya Hasan (1996: 1), her job as a linguist is to deal with the “continuity from the living of life on the one hand right down to the morpheme on the other”. There have been a number of introductions to SFL, notably works by Halliday (1994), Eggins (1994), Martin (1992), Martin and Rose (2003) and Martin, Matthiessen and Painter (1997). In what follows, I focus on three aspects of SFL, language as system of meaning (Section 2.1), metafunctions: modes of meaning (Section 2.2), and social context (Section 2.3). 29 2.1 Language as System of Meaning SFL gives theoretical priority to both types of relationships between signs, syntagmatic and paradigmatic, that is, the sequential structural and the alternative and oppositional. The paradigmatic orientation allows us to explore what potential meanings are put at risk in a language or a variety of language and to account for why this is so by relating the language features to the social context in which language is used. Halliday (1996a: 321) notes that “[t]he organizing concept of a systemic grammar is that of choice (that is, options in ‘meaning potential’)”. The formalism by which systemicists map out the options in meaning is the system and the system network. “A system is a set of options together with a condition of entry, such that if the entry condition is satisfied one option, and one only, must be chosen” (1996a: 321). That is, a system consists of entry condition, system name, and terms. For example, an English clause selects one of the process types in the experiential component of the grammar. This can be represented as in Figure 2.1. In this figure, “clause” is the entry condition, “PROCESS TYPE” is the system name, and the “material”, “mental”, and so forth are the terms or features of the system. The system means that if the entry condition of “clause” is met, then one and only one of the six process types is to be selected. Seen from this perspective, grammar (the phenomenon of grammar, or part of the workings of language) is the meaning potential, the numerous systems of meaning, out of which the language user makes a choice. 30 Material Mental Relational Clause PROCESS TYPE Existential Behavioural Verbal Figure 2.1 A system However, as Eggins (1994: 206) points out, “[m]ost semiotic systems cannot be described using only one system” and “choices lead to other choices”. “[A]ll systems deriving from a common point of origin (…) are agnate and together form ‘a system network’” (Halliday 1996a: 322). The terms in different stages of choice are linked by delicacy levels. The more to the right of the system network, the more delicate the term. In the example above, the relational process comes in identifying and attributive modes, each of which in turn has several subtypes. The example cited above is of the “either a or b” type, indicated by a square bracket “[”. Systems also allow simultaneous choices, the “and” relation, that is, if an entry condition applies, one is to choose both from set a and from set b. The simultaneous choice is indicated in the system network by a curled bracket “{”. Thus mapped, every term in a system network has a “selection expression”, a description of “all the options taken up in the various functional components” (Halliday 1996a: 322), the systemic specification or co-ordinates for the term. In connection to the example above, we can write a selection expression as: [clause: 31 process type: material]. We know what the term means because of its relationship to other terms in the network. Having assigned the paradigmatic relation an important place, we need also take account of the syntagmatic relation, that is, the structure. The structure realizes the paradigmatic option by means of some lexicogrammatical, or phonological configurations. As Matthiessen and Halliday (n.d.; original emphasis) explain, “systemic terms, or features, are realized (expressed, coded) by aspects of the wording”. That is, the relation between the system and the structure is one of realization. Take the above example, the term of material process is realized by the functional configuration of “+ Actor ^ Process: material (+ Goal) (+ Range) (+ Beneficiary) (+ Circumstance)”. This is called the “realization statement” of an option and is indicated in the system network by a downward arrow below the term as in Figure 2.2: Material + Actor… Figure 2.2 Term and realization statement 2.2 Metafunctions: Modes of Meaning The paradigmatic orientation and stratification allow for the SFL postulation that a natural language, in its content plane (the semantic stratum and the lexicogrammatical stratum), is organized around three modes of meaning, that is, three metafunctions. The justification for this trio-functional organization of the semantic stratum arises 32 from three sources (Halliday 1996b: 26): (1) from the semantic level itself, in this case, we can show that three types of meaning exist by and large independently one of another in the semantic stratum; (2) from “above”, the stratum of social context, we can find a systematic relationship between the metafunctions and the three context variables of field, tenor and mode; and (3) from “below”, the type of structures by which each metafunction is realized. As elaborated in Halliday (1979: 70), the experiential metafunction tends to be realized by “elemental” structure, the interpersonal metafunction by “prosodic” structure, textual metafunction by “culminative-periodic” structure. The logical metafunction is different from all the other three in that it is realized by “recursive” structure and generates “complexes – clause complex, group complex, word complex – and not simple units” (1979: 79). In this section I present the definitions of the three metafunctions and the lexicogrammatical systems that realize each mode of meaning. But first a note of clarification on stratification. The principle for stratification is that one, more “concrete” stratum realizes a second, more “abstract” one (Halliday and Martin 1993: 29). SFL stratifies language and social context, the two strata being related to each other by realization. Within language, SFL recognizes three levels: semantics realized by lexicogrammar, which is realized by phonology /graphology. The first two strata are content “planes” of language and the third stratum is called the expression “plane” of language. Within the social context, Martin (1992) recognizes register, genre, and ideology, each of which again is related to the other by realization, whereas Halliday discusses the social context in terms of the register variables of field, tenor and mode (in Halliday and Hasan 1989 [1985]: 26) and context of culture (1989 [1985]: 46) (see Section 2.3 33 below). Within the content plane of language SFL recognizes three modes of meaning, three “metafunctions”, ideational, interpersonal, and textual. 2.2.1 The Ideational Metafunction and its Realization The ideational metafunction is language as representation, as reflection of human experience. As Halliday (1978: 21) explains, Language has to interpret the whole of our experience, reducing the indefinitely varied phenomena of the world around us, and also of the world inside us, the processes of our own consciousness, to a manageable number of classes of phenomena: types of processes, events and actions, classes of objects, people and institutions and the like. Within the ideational metafunction, “[t]here are two subcategories: an experiential, where we represent experience ‘directly’ in terms of happenings (actions, events, states, relations), entities that participate in these happenings (persons, animate and inanimate objects, institutions, abstractions) and circumstantial features (extent, location, time and space, cause, manner and so on); and a ‘logical’, where we represent experience ‘indirectly’ in terms of certain fundamental logical relations in natural language – ‘and’, ‘namely’, ‘says’, ‘is subcategorized as’ etc.” (Halliday 1979: 59). The experiential function is realized in the lexicogrammar by the system of TRANSITIVITY and the logical function by recursive structures which are defined by TAXIS and LOGICO-SEMANTIC TYPE. These two systems are discussed below. 34 TRANSITIVITY “Transitivity is the representation in language of PROCESSES, the PARTICIPANTS therein, and the CIRCUMSTANTIAL features associated with them” (Halliday 1976: 159). It is the lexicogrammatical resource to construe human experience, or to realize the experiential metafunction. It does so by reducing innumerable kinds of experience into a “manageable set of PROCESS TYPES” (Halliday 1994: 106). A system network for TRANSITIVITY is provided in Eggins (1994: 228) and reproduced in Figure 2.3: material pr:material: +Actor; (+Goal) (+Range) (+Beneficiary) mental pr:mental; +Senser; +Phenomenon verbal pr:verbal; +Sayer; (+Receiver) (+Verbiage) behavioural pr:behavioural; +Behaver; (+Behaviour) (Phenomenon) clause existential pr:existential; +Existent identifying pr:identifying; +Token;+ Value relational circumstance +Circumstance attributive pr:attributive; +Carrier; +Attribute not Figure 2.3 System for TRANSITIVITY 35 As suggested by Eggins (1994: 229), a transitivity study of a clause involves describing three aspects, the process type, the participant, and the circumstance. Logical Meaning Logical meaning in SFL refers to that subcomponent of the ideational metafunction where compared with the experiential metafunction “reality is represented in more abstract terms, in the form of abstract relations which are independent of and make no reference to things” (Halliday 1979: 73). Prototypically the logical meaning is concerned with how one process configuration combines with another process configuration to form a sequence. It is realized in the stratum of lexicogrammar as clause complex relations of TAXIS and LOGICO-SEMANTIC TYPES. As presented in Halliday (1994: Chapter 7), a clause complex is defined simultaneously along two dimensions, hypotaxis or parataxis on the one hand, and expansion or projection on the other. The TAXIS (hypotaxis or parataxis) describes whether a clause complex consists of clauses of equal (parataxis) or unequal (hypotactic) status. In a hypotactic clause complex, one clause (the secondary clause) is dependent on the independent clause (the primary clause), whereas in parataxis, “both the initiating and continuing element are free, in the sense that each could stand as a functioning whole” (1994: 221). At the same time, a paratactic or hypotactic complex cross-couples with one of the LOGICO-SEMANTIC TYPES. The first distinction (the least delicate taxonomic category) is between expansion and projection. In expansion, one clause expands on another by means of elaboration (i.e. “further specifying or describing it” (1994: 225)), extension (i.e. “adding something 36 new to it”) (1994: 230) and enhancement (i.e. “qualifying it in one of a number of possible ways: by reference to time, place, manner, cause or condition” (1994: 232). Projection is different from expansion in a number of ways, one of which relates to the level of representation. The projecting clause (mental or verbal clause) in itself is a representation of experience, not unlike any other representation of experience. But what is projected, the projected clause, “represents a second-order phenomenon, something that is itself a representation”, “a metaphenomenon” (1994: 252). That is, projection brings into existence a world of wording (“locution”) or meaning (“idea”) and fleshes out the intervention of human consciousness. In terms of the speech function of the projected clause, it can either be information (proposition) or goods-&-services (proposal). It is important to note that the two dimensions of the logical meaning are not confined to the rank of clause. Halliday (1994: 221) notes that “parataxis and hypotaxis are general relationships which are not restricted to the rank of clause. They define complexes at any rank: clause complex, group or phrase complex, word complex”. And the logico-semantic types of expansion and projection “represent the basic semantic motifs that run throughout the language as a whole” (Halliday 1994: 225). Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 127; original emphasis) further note that “expansion and projection are trans-phenomenal categories in the sense that they are manifested over the system as a whole − not merely in different logical environments across ranks but also experientially”. As an illustration, Halliday (1994: Appendix 3) demonstrates how the expansion: enhancement: cause relation is realized in a wide variety of ways: cohesively (as structurally unrelated clause complexes), interclausally (in a clause complex of paratactic and hypotactic nature), and clausally (both transitivity congruent and metaphorical), totaling more than 22 expressions of the 37 general logical relation of cause. In other words, the logical relation captures partially the nature of agnation among a range of structures in all sorts of environment, including the metaphorical mode of expression. The framework within which this study is conducted is set out in Figure 2.4. parataxis TAXIS hypotaxis locution idea projection proposition proposal clause complex LOGICOSEMANTIC TYPE expansion elaboration exposition exemplification clarification extension addition variation alteration enhancement time space manner cause condition Figure 2.4 System for logical meaning (Adapted from Halliday 1994: 218-273) 2.2.2 The Interpersonal Metafunction and its Realization The definition Halliday (1978: 112) gives for interpersonal meaning is as follows: The interpersonal component represents the speaker’s meaning potential as an intruder. It is the participating function of language, language as doing something. This is the component through which the speaker intrudes himself into the context of situation, both expressing his own 38 attitudes and judgements and seeking to influence the attitudes and behaviour of others. It expresses the role relationships associated with the situation, including those that are defined by language itself, of questioner-respondent, informer-doubter and the like. These constitute the interpersonal meaning of language. Halliday (1994: Chapter 4) formulates the semantics of interpersonal metafunction along two axes, that is, the axis of “role in exchange”, either giving or demanding, and the axis of “commodity exchanged”, either goods-&-services or information. These two dimensions give four SPEECH FUNCTIONs of “offer” (i.e. giving goods-&-services), “statement” (i.e. giving information), “command” (i.e. demanding goods-&-services), and “question” (i.e. demanding information) (1994: 69). There is a third dimension to the interpersonal metafunction, i.e. whether a speaker is responding or initiating. “These semantic categories are realized by grammatical MOOD options” (Martin et al 1997: 58; original emphasis). The MOOD options in English are summarized in Eggins (1994: 212) and a revised system network is presented in Figure 2.5. In this network, the interpersonal meaning of the clause is defined by the type of mood, e.g., either indicative or imperative and the like, and the modality. Also in this network, the MOOD option is accompanied by a realization statement in the form of the interpersonal functional structure. For example, the option of declarative is realized by the structure Subject ^ Finite. It is important to note that the lexicogrammar of interpersonal meaning extends far beyond the MOOD options. One particularly interesting area is the research on APPRAISAL, which includes “AFFECT (resources for construing emotion),” “JUDGEMENT (resources for judging behaviour in ‘ethical’ terms)” and 39 elliptical full +Residue interrog. indicative +Subj.+Finite polar Finite ^Subj. Wh as Subj. Wh +Wh/Subj.;Subj.^Fin. + Wh Wh as other Finite^Subj. imperative declarative Subj. ^ Finite major +MOOD exclamative +Wh;Subj.^Finite non-exclamative probability clause modalization usuality inclination modulation minor obligation modality high median low not subjective objective Figure 2.5 MOOD network (Adapted from Eggins 1994: 212)1 “APPRECIATION (resources for valuing objects ‘aesthetically’)” and so on (Martin 1997: 18; 2000; Martin and Rose 2003: Chapter 2). 2.2.3 The Textual Metafunction and its Realization The third metafunction, the textual metafunction, is defined by Halliday (1978: 112113) as follows: The textual component represents the speaker’s text-forming potential; it is that which makes language relevant. This is the component which provides the texture; that which makes the difference between language that is suspended in vacue and language that is operational in a context of situation. It expresses the relation of the language to its environment, including both the verbal environment – what has been said or written before – and the non-verbal, situational environment. Hence the textual 40 component has an enabling function with respect to the other two; it is only in combination with textual meanings that ideational and interpersonal meanings are actualized. Halliday (1994: 334) summarizes the lexicogrammatical resources for the textual metafunction in the following way: (A) structural thematic structure: Theme and Rheme (…) information structure and focus: Given and New (…) (B) cohesive (…) reference ellipsis and substitution conjunction lexical cohesion In the analysis of the biology texts below, I am concerned with the contribution of THEME to the meaning of the texts. According to Halliday (1994) there are different types of Themes. The system of THEME in the English clause is summarized by Eggins (1994: 274) and a revised version is provided in Figure 2.6. Halliday (1994: 61) also notes that “the choice of clause Themes plays a fundamental part in the way discourse is organized; it is this, in fact, which constitutes what has been called the ‘method of development’ of the text”. To explain the textual meaning beyond the rank of clause, Martin (1992: 437) proposes “hyper-Theme”, “macro-Theme”, “hyper-New” and “macro-New”. A hyperTheme “is an introductory sentence or group of sentences which is established to predict a particular pattern of interaction among strings, chains and Theme selection in following sentences”. And a macro-Theme is “a sentence or group of sentences (possibly a paragraph) which predicts a set of hyper-Themes; this is the Introductory 41 paragraph of school rhetoric. The proportionalities being set up here are as follows macro-Theme: text:: hyper-Theme: paragraph:: Theme: clause” (Martin 1992: 437) single +topical Theme attitudinal +topical Theme; +interpersonal Theme interpersonal ^ topical multiple unmarked Subject/Theme [declarative] Wh/Theme [wh-interrog.] Finite/Theme [interrog.] Process/Theme [imperative] clause conjunctive +textual Theme textual ^ topical both +textual Theme; +interpersonal Theme textual^interpersonal^topical marked other/Theme predicated Theme; it + be + … Rheme; that/who … not predicated equative +'pseudo-cleft' clause embedding non-equative Figure 2.6 THEME network (Adapted from Eggins 1994: 274)2 42 Martin (1992; 1993a) and Martin and Rose (2003) also draw attention to the functions of hyper-New and macro-New. Hyper-New is a clause (or combination of clauses) that serve to collect the preceding News and summarize the point of a text (Martin 1993a: 247) and macro-New is “a clause or combination of clauses collecting together one or more Hyper-News” (1993a: 249). Figure 2.7 brings together the complementary functions of Hyper-Theme, Macro-Theme and Hyper-New, MacroNew in abstract written discourse. Method of Development (genre focus) Point (field focus) Macro- Theme n Hyper-Theme predict Theme…New accumulate Hyper-New Macro-New n Figure 2.7 Sandwich texture in abstract written discourse (Martin 1992: 456) The concepts of ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions constitute a foundation and framework for SFL. To describe a language or a variety of language is to describe how all these metafunctions are realized in the lexicogrammar, both qualitatively and quantitatively, and how they themselves realize the social context. 2.2.4 Grammatical Metaphor The general definition Halliday (1994: 342) gives for grammatical metaphor is: “for any given semantic configuration there will be some realization in the lexicogrammar – some wording – that can be considered CONGRUENT; there may also be various 43 others that are in some respect ‘transferred’, or METAPHORICAL”. In other words, once a construal of experience and an enacting of social relations are completed in the form of lexicogrammatical wording (this is indeed what the metafunctions and their lexicogrammatical realizations describe, as reviewed above), such semantic relations can be RE-construed and RE-enacted in the form of a range of other lexicogrammatical alternatives; grammatical metaphor expands the language’s resources to make meaning. It follows that grammatical metaphor falls into two broad types: the ideational and interpersonal. A provisional classification is presented in Figure 2.8. In what follows I discuss the ideational metaphor in scientific English. Ideational: transitivity Grammatical Metaphor modality Interpersonal mood type Figure 2.8 Grammatical metaphor (Adapted from Halliday 1994, Chapter 10) In “On the language of physical science”, Halliday (1993a) traces the development of the written English in the physical science for the past six centuries, from the writing of Chaucer, to the writings of Isaac Newton, to those by Joseph Priestly, and to those by scientists in the late 1980s, and identifies the nature of the increasingly metaphorical construction of knowledge in scientific English. That is, scientists, in their efforts to construct and communicate their findings in a written form, have preferred to present happenings or qualities as things rather than as happenings or qualities, and to use verbal groups to link the nominalized processes rather than the conjunctions to link two or more congruent clauses in a clause complex. 44 In other words, they have tended to use what Halliday later (1998: 206-207) calls the “favorite clause type”: a nominal group (representing a process / happening / quality) + a verbal group (relational: identifying: intensive, circumstantial or possessive) + a nominal group (representing a process / happening / quality) and its variant types. An example of this metaphorical syndrome is: “The rate of crack growth / depends not only on / the chemical environment but also on the magnitude of the applied stress”. (analyzed in Halliday 1993a: 55). A more congruent variant of the original might be: “If you apply more stress on the silica // it will crack more quickly”. Halliday (1993a: 64) summarizes the features of the metaphorical clause and the functions of each element as follows: Nominal elements: (i) form technical taxonomies (a) technological categories (b) methodological categories (c) theoretical categories (ii) summarize and package representations of processes (a) backgrounding (given material as Theme) (b) foregrounding (rhematic material as New) Verbal elements: (i) relate nominalized processes (a) externally (to each other) (b) internally (to our interpretation of them) (ii) present nominalized processes (as happening) Halliday (1998: 208-211) and Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 244-249) further categorize grammatical metaphor into thirteen types of elemental transference, type being the transference from quality (for instance, “unstable”) to thing (“instability”) and type being that from process (for instance, “absorb”) to thing (“absorption”), and so forth. An abbreviated version of Halliday and Matthiessen’s 45 (1999: 246-248) summary table of types of grammatical metaphor is presented in Table 2.1. Halliday (1998: 214; original emphasis) notes that “grammatical metaphors tend to occur in syndromes: clusters of interrelated transformations that reconfigure the grammatical structure as a whole”. These syndromes come in two types: lower rank syndrome, i.e. “figures reconstrued as if elements” (1998: 216) and higher rank syndrome, i.e. “sequences reconstrued as if figures (1998: 217). In the example cited above, the move from figure “you apply more stress on silica” to element “the magnitude of the applied stress” belongs to the lower rank syndrome, and the move from the congruent sequence (the clause complex) to the metaphorical figure belongs to the higher rank syndrome. Furthermore, Halliday (1998: 228) believes that the move from the congruent verbal grammar to the metaphorical nominal grammar is not simply a renaming of the same old things. “On the contrary; what is brought into being in this reconstrual is a new construction of knowledge; and hence, a new ideology” (1998: 228). That is, grammatical metaphor (here referring to the ideational metaphor only) has ideational, interpersonal, textual, and ideological consequences (Halliday and Matthiessen 1999: 238-242). On the critical role grammatical metaphor has played in the development of science, Halliday (2003: 22) further comments, It is no exaggeration to say that grammatical metaphor is at the foundation of all scientific thought. You cannot construct a theory – that is, a designed theory, as distinct from the evolved, commonsense theory incorporated in the grammar of everyday discourse – without exploiting the power of the grammar to create new, ‘virtual’ phenomena by using metaphoric strategies of this kind. 46 TYPE: Grammatical shift (1) grammatical class (2) grammatical functions adjective => noun Epithet/ Attribute => Thing verb => noun: i Event => Thing ii Auxiliary => Thing iii Catenative => Thing i ii preposition(al phrase) => noun preposition prepositional phrase Location, Extent & c => Classifier conjunction => noun verb => adjective Conjunctive => Thing i ii iii i ii i ii Minor Process => Thing preposition(al phrase) => adjective preposition prepositional phrase conjunction => adjective preposition(al phrase) => verb preposition prepositional phrase Example unstable => instability;…* transform => transformation will/ going to => prospect;… try to => attempt; … to => destination; … … so => cause, proof; … Semantic element congruent => metaphorical quality thing process: event tense; modality phase; contingency circumstance: minor process minor process + thing relator process: Event => Epithet/ Classifier Auxiliary => Epithet/ Classifier Catenative => Epithet/ Classifier … event … tense; modality phase; contingency circumstance: Minor Process => Epithet/ Classifier Location, Extent &c => Epithet/ Classifier Conjunctive => Epithet/ Classifier … begin (to) => initial … before => previous; … minor process minor process + thing relator circumstance: Minor Process => Process Location, Extent &c => Process (be) about => concern; … … quality process minor process minor process + thing 47 10 i ii 11 12 i ii iii 13 i conjunction => verb conjunction => preposition(al phrase) => preposition => prepositional phrase + noun + verb + verb Conjunctive => Process Conjunctive => Minor Process Conjunctive => Location, Extent &c + Thing Thing => (b) Possessive Deictic (c) Classifier adverb => adjective Manner => Epithet prepositional phrase => adjective adverb => (various) Location, Extent &c => Epithet prepositional phrase => (various) when => in times of; … so => as a result, … [x] => the fact/ phenomenon of [x] (none) [x] =>[x] occurs/ exists; … … (none) started [to survey] => started [a survey];… the government [decided] => [decision] of/ by the government … (phasal &c) + Process (a) Qualifier ii relator relator + (causative &c) verb + (phasal &c) verb noun => (various) then => follow; … Location, Extent &c => Possessive Deictic Location, Extent &c => Qualifier circumstance: minor process minor process + thing thing process (agency &c) thing (qualifying) … [decided] hastily => hasty [decision] … expansion of thing: circumstance (possessive) (classifying) expansion of thing: (descriptive) … … Table 2.1 Types of grammatical metaphor (Adapted from Halliday and Matthiessen 1999: 246-248) * The ellipsis “…” means that some entry in the original table has been omitted here. 48 Inspired by Halliday’s research into grammatical metaphor in professional science writing, SFL researchers have been investigating a number of disciplinary discourses in a range of social and educational settings. Some of these studies are collected in Halliday and Martin (1993), Martin and Veel (1998) and elsewhere. 2.3 Social Context SFL models the social context where a language operates and that language realizes in terms of “context of situation” and “context of culture”, the relation between these two being instantiation, i.e., a situation is “an instance of culture” (Halliday 1999: 8). In addition, Martin (1992; 1997) proposes stratifying the context into the stratum of register and that of genre. These are briefly introduced below. 2.3.1 Context of Situation Halliday (in Halliday and Hasan 1989 [1985]: 12) proposes the following conceptual framework for the description of the context of situation of a text: the field of discourse, the tenor of discourse, and the mode of discourse: 1. The FIELD OF DISCOURSE refers to what is happening, to the nature of the social action that is taking place: what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which language figures as some essential component? 2. The TENOR OF DISCOURSE refers to who is taking part, to the nature of the participants, their statuses and roles: what kinds of role relationship obtain among the participants, including permanent and temporary relationships of one kind or another, both the types of speech 49 role that they are taking on in the dialogue and the whole cluster of socially significant relationships in which they are involved? 3. The MODE OF DISCOURSE refers to what part the language is playing, what it is that the participants are expecting the language to for them in that situation: the symbolic organization of the text, the status that it has, and its function in the context, including the channel (is it spoken or written or some combination of the two?) and also the rhetorical mode, what is being achieved by the text in terms of such categories as persuasive, expository, didactic, and the like. These three variables constitute the context for a variety of language, a “register”. For instance, from the perspective of the field of discourse, we can identify whether a piece of language is about chemistry, linguistics, or psychology; from the perspective of the tenor of discourse, we can identify interpersonal relationships such as parent-child, teacher-pupil, passenger-bus driver and so on; and from the perspective of the mode of discourse, we can identify whether a piece of language is written or spoken, whether it is constitutive of or ancillary to the action going on, etc. A register is a variety of language according to use, it belongs to the stratum of language, but it redounds with, or realizes, the social context. Further, there is a systematic relationship between the three metafunctions in the semantics of language and the three sets of variables in the context of situation: the ideational metafunction realizes the field of discourse, the interpersonal metafunction realizes the tenor of discourse, and the textual metafunction realizes the mode of discourse. This relationship has been called the “metafunctional hookup” (Halliday 1996a: 323). 2.3.2 Context of Culture The context of situation is “only the immediate environment” (Halliday in Halliday and Hasan 1989 [1985]: 46) for the text. “There is also a broader background against 50 which the text has to be interpreted: its CONTEXT OF CULTURE” (Halliday in Halliday and Hasan 1989 [1985]: 46). “[A] culture is the potential behind all the different types of situation that occur” (Halliday 1999: 8-9). The relationship between the context of situation and the context of culture is that the former is an instance of the latter, that is, a particular context of situation comes out of the system of context of situations and has to be interpreted in the whole of the context of culture. It is useful to bring together Halliday’s conception of the relationship between language and context in Figure 2.9. instantiation INSTANCE context of culture context of situation (cultural domain) (situation type) (register) (text type) realization CONTEXT SYSTEM LANGUAGE language as system language as text Figure 2.9 Language and context; system and instance (From Halliday 1999: 8) (Halliday’s original note to the Figure: Note: Culture instantiated in situation, as system instantiated in text. Culture realised in / construed by language; same relation as that holding between linguistic strata (semantics: lexicogrammar: phonology: phonetics). Cultural domain and register are “sub-systems”: likeness viewed from “system” end. Situation type and text type are “instance types”: likeness viewed from “instance” end.) 51 2.3.3 Stratifying the Context: Genre and Macro-genre Martin (e.g. 2001 [1984]: 155) proposes stratifying the context into register comprising field, tenor and mode, and genre, an instance of which is defined as “a staged, goaloriented, purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of our culture. Examples of genres are staged activities such as making a dental appointment, buying vegetables, telling a story, writing an essay, applying for a job, writing a letter to the editor, inviting someone to dinner, and so on”. Genre “makes meanings by shaping register – by conditioning the way in which field, mode and tenor are recurrently mapped onto one another in a given culture” (Martin 2001 [1984]: 160-161). Martin’s view of the relationship between language and social context (register and genre) is outlined in Figure 2.10. connotative semiotic stratified context plane genre expression form tenor field mode discourse semantics lexicogrammar stratified content form phonology/ graphology expression form denotative semiotic Figure 2.10 Genre in relation to social context and language (From Martin 1997: 7) 52 Martin (1993a; 1993b) and Wignell, Martin and Eggins (1993) investigate the major genres in secondary science, history and geography. They attempt to unravel their ideational and textual structures, in other words, how the technicality in science and abstraction in history (Martin 1993a: 222-223), or the un-commonsense of the curriculum are constructed through various genres such as reports, explanation and exposition and how science and history texts are organized in distinctive ways in terms of their message structure (e.g. Theme and Rheme) and information structure (e.g. Given and New) at a number of ranks. They show, for example, that the genre of report functions to classify things in the world (order them into class-subclass taxonomy) or to break them into their component parts (order them into part-part or part-whole relations) (Martin 1993b: 187). The report unfolds in several stages and features a particular co-patterning of lexicogrammatical resources, e.g. the intensive identifying relational clause to define technical terms (for instance, “Precipitation refers to all forms of water which fall (precipitate) from the sky” (Wignell et al 1993: 149)), the possessive attributive relational clause to classify technical terms, to organize them into a taxonomy particular to a field (for instance, “Desert landforms consist mainly of those due to erosion and those due to deposition” (Wignell et al 1993: 153)). That is, a genre evolves to serve some particular social purpose, unfolds in stages and deploys particular lexicogrammatical features. More recently, Martin (1997: 12-16; 1999: 40-47; 2002: 109) suggests that a topological orientation to genre types can be useful in accounting for a text that straddles features of more than one genre type. The topological approach is also useful for constructing a learner pathway for the range of genres commonly found in a discipline, e.g. secondary school history. The notion of types of genre is being 53 complemented by that of a cline, or continuum where genre types differ from or resemble each other along a range of parameters. It is “more or less” rather than “yes or no”. For example, what distinguishes a personal recount from a historical recount is whether the participants involved are more specific or generic (Martin 1999: 47). Also relevant to the present study are longer texts that university students are required to read and write for their degree programmes; for example, textbooks and extended learning activities such as project work in science or history. Martin (1997: 16) proposes the term “macro-genre” for these longer texts which “combine familiar elemental genres such as recount, report, explanation, exposition and so on” and suggests that such genre-complexing can be conceptualized in terms of the logicosemantic relations such as elaboration, extension and enhancement that Halliday (1994) proposed for clause complexes. However, much more research on macro-genre clearly needs to be conducted in a variety of disciplines. Mostly associated with secondary school science and humanities and in particular with the field and mode of these disciplines, the research conducted by Martin and his colleagues has laid a solid foundation for further expansion to the analysis of disciplinary discourses taking place in tertiary institutions. 54 [...]... experience and an enacting of social relations are completed in the form of lexicogrammatical wording (this is indeed what the metafunctions and their lexicogrammatical realizations describe, as reviewed above), such semantic relations can be RE-construed and RE-enacted in the form of a range of other lexicogrammatical alternatives; grammatical metaphor expands the language’s resources to make meaning It... follows that grammatical metaphor falls into two broad types: the ideational and interpersonal A provisional classification is presented in Figure 2. 8 In what follows I discuss the ideational metaphor in scientific English Ideational: transitivity Grammatical Metaphor modality Interpersonal mood type Figure 2. 8 Grammatical metaphor (Adapted from Halliday 1994, Chapter 10) In “On the language of physical science”,... Theme…New accumulate Hyper-New Macro-New n Figure 2. 7 Sandwich texture in abstract written discourse (Martin 19 92: 456) The concepts of ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions constitute a foundation and framework for SFL To describe a language or a variety of language is to describe how all these metafunctions are realized in the lexicogrammar, both qualitatively and quantitatively, and how... summarize and package representations of processes (a) backgrounding (given material as Theme) (b) foregrounding (rhematic material as New) 2 Verbal elements: (i) relate nominalized processes (a) externally (to each other) (b) internally (to our interpretation of them) (ii) present nominalized processes (as happening) Halliday (1998: 20 8 -21 1) and Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 24 4 -24 9) further categorize... simply a renaming of the same old things “On the contrary; what is brought into being in this reconstrual is a new construction of knowledge; and hence, a new ideology” (1998: 22 8) That is, grammatical metaphor (here referring to the ideational metaphor only) has ideational, interpersonal, textual, and ideological consequences (Halliday and Matthiessen 1999: 23 8 -24 2) On the critical role grammatical metaphor... grammatical metaphor into thirteen types of elemental transference, type 1 being the transference from quality (for instance, “unstable”) to thing (“instability”) and type 2 being that from process (for instance, “absorb”) to thing (“absorption”), and so forth An abbreviated version of Halliday and Matthiessen’s 45 (1999: 24 6 -24 8) summary table of types of grammatical metaphor is presented in Table 2. 1... disciplinary discourses in a range of social and educational settings Some of these studies are collected in Halliday and Martin (1993), Martin and Veel (1998) and elsewhere 2. 3 Social Context SFL models the social context where a language operates and that language realizes in terms of “context of situation” and “context of culture”, the relation between these two being instantiation, i.e., a situation... context of situation: the ideational metafunction realizes the field of discourse, the interpersonal metafunction realizes the tenor of discourse, and the textual metafunction realizes the mode of discourse This relationship has been called the “metafunctional hookup” (Halliday 199 6a: 323 ) 2. 3 .2 Context of Culture The context of situation is “only the immediate environment” (Halliday in Halliday and Hasan... circumstance (possessive) (classifying) expansion of thing: (descriptive) … … Table 2. 1 Types of grammatical metaphor (Adapted from Halliday and Matthiessen 1999: 24 6 -24 8) * The ellipsis “…” means that some entry in the original table has been omitted here 48 Inspired by Halliday’s research into grammatical metaphor in professional science writing, SFL researchers have been investigating a number of disciplinary... LANGUAGE language as system language as text Figure 2. 9 Language and context; system and instance (From Halliday 1999: 8) (Halliday’s original note to the Figure: Note: Culture instantiated in situation, as system instantiated in text Culture realised in / construed by language; same relation as that holding between linguistic strata (semantics: lexicogrammar: phonology: phonetics) Cultural domain and register . 2. 2: Material + Actor… Figure 2. 2 Term and realization statement 2. 2 Metafunctions: Modes of Meaning The paradigmatic orientation and stratification allow for the SFL postulation. metaphorical), totaling more than 22 expressions of the 37 general logical relation of cause. In other words, the logical relation captures partially the nature of agnation among a range of. and paradigmatic, that is, the sequential structural and the alternative and oppositional. The paradigmatic orientation allows us to explore what potential meanings are put at risk in a language