Semantic Interpretation in a Systemic Functional Grammar

Author(s):  
Tim F. O’Donoghue
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 01
Author(s):  
Olusegun Owolewa ◽  
Rafiu Jimoh

<p>Correct verbal identification of different mood system has been a source of concern to teachers of English as a Second Language in Nigeria. Classroom efforts are mostly geared towards recognition of this concept, usually, in abstract and without connection to functional usage. Studies by scholars identify great difficulty in recognition of the verbal elements in sentence conveying the mood. However, such work never establishes a correlation between correct identification of mood and semantic interpretation. The purpose of this study is to establish the syntactic choices of the verbal elements in <em>Julius Caesar </em>and how they have helped to depict the mood of the characters in the text. This work relies on Systemic Functional Grammar approach to establish connection of mood to setting, tone and diction. It establishes that Shakespeare unconsciously reflects the mood through the characters use of certain clauses with the view to probably enhance the readers’ understanding of scene of actions in the play. Implications for the language teachers are discussed. </p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Odoemenam Temple Chibueze ◽  
Rosemary Chinyere Ordu ◽  
Ikphemhosimhe Aslem Omoghie

This paper examines the lexico-semantic choices in the Pentecostal church posters. The researcher attempts to approach the interpretation of the Christian posters from the stylistic view point. Its meaning was made explicit using the tool of linguistics. It is a known fact, that stylistics is beneficial to both the teachers and students. Using M.A.K Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar, as the analytical framework, this paper, examines the lexical semantic choices in the Pentecostal church posters.Pentecostal church posters happen to be one of the several media of advertisement employed by the churches to disseminate information about the churches’ events to the audience/passers-by. Previous studies on the language of advertisements are concerned with the themes of commercial and political posters while the others looked at the elements of pragmatics such as speech acts and implicature etc. This paper reveals that the construction of posters (texts) is a linguistically conscious activity.


ExELL ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-39
Author(s):  
Amin Karimnia ◽  
Shidak Rahbarian

Abstract This study investigated Nowruz (Persian New Year) messages by Presidents Hassan Rouhani and Barack Obama in March 2016. The study critically analyzed the discourse of these two presidential messages and uncovered the hidden aspects of their ideologies, policies, and background worldviews. In doing so, an integrated version of Halliday’s systemic functional grammar (SFG) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used. The analysis of data included various linguistic dimensions (e.g. processes, modality, transitivity) of the messages and their statistics. Although results suggested that Obama intended to build a more intimate situation, both presidents tried to inspire a spirit of action, development and effort in their respective governments. The messages did not reveal considerable thematic differences, except some discoursal religious features expressed in Rouhani’s message.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhai Rui ◽  
Liu Jingxia

News is a kind of writing style, which is so valuable that many linguists choose it to study. This thesis aims to conduct a systemic analysis of modality type, value and orientation under the framework of Halliday’s Systemic-functional Grammar in order to explore the interpersonal meanings of modality in English news discourse. The research data is drawn from micro-blogging official platforms, among which 20 pieces of news discourse in all are selected to establish a small type of corpus. All the 20 pieces of news discourse are taken from the micro-blogging in 1.20 to 2.20 of 2017. All the news is about “Donald Trump’s Muslim Entry Ban” (A ban made by Donald Trump, which claimed that Muslim can’t enter America). Meanwhile, both qualitative and quantitative research methods are adopted to discover the distribution of modality in micro-blogging news discourse and its interpersonal meanings, and hence to deepen people’s cognition and understanding on micro-blogging news discourse. Through a detailed analysis, the study has a lot of findings. We found that modality language is widely used in micro-blogging news. From the perspective of modality type, reporters prefer to use finite modal adjunct such as will in the type of modulation to show their emotional attitude of the target thing. From the perspective of modality value, we can see that median value is the most popular among three values for reporters, and “will” and “would” are the most popular expressions that express the speaker’s expectations, willingness and determination or the reporter’s views, attitudes on the possibility of a certain event. Meanwhile, from the perspective of modality orientation, the speaker or writer tends to use implicit objective orientation in order to show objectiveness of the news discourse and get rid of writers’ responsibilities. This paper attempts to analyze modality in micro-blogging English news discourse from the perspective of interpersonal functions which aims to provide a new method for discourse analysis and acts as a beneficial complementary to modality language analysis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-46
Author(s):  
Md. Saiful Alam ◽  
Adelina Binti Asmawi ◽  
Mohib Ullah ◽  
Shafinur Nahar ◽  
Sayeeda Fatema

This article explores the patterns of father figures, the father -child relationships and power imbalance depicted in Katherine Mansfield's “The Little Girl”, using one tool of analysis from Systemic Functional Grammar, which is Transitivity. Examined are the ways Mansfield, as a Modernist and feminist writer, thematizes and engages herself to the theme of the fathering model and the father - child relationships typical of her time in her story. The study concentrates on The Little Girl, by Mansfield, which contains father figures and children as one of the central issues. The study concludes that there is a remote father syndrome in Mansfield's “The Little Girl”, and that the fathering style and practice of the Old Father type makes the impossibility of healthy father-child relationships, and that the Old Father's conventional fatherhood creates a power imbalance between males and females, and finally there is an aspiration for the New type of father in the child’s life.


2021 ◽  
Vol VI (I) ◽  
pp. 50-60
Author(s):  
Malik Haqnawaz Danish

Entangled in history awash with events of war and conflict, both India and Pakistan have ensured the representation of national narratives in their respective media. Being apprehensive neighbours since the day of partition, the sensation of patriotism has led these nations towards three major wars and numerous skirmishes on the borders, claiming lives of the peoples on both sides of the border. The mutual derision for the 'other' has secured the text, both written and visual. Besides endeavours to justify stances of conflicts, these narratives of history have also created space for standoffs. An attempt to such reconciliation and shatter the image of 'other' is investigated in Indian movies, Border and Bajrangi Bhai Jan, through grammatology of image. The signification in the image is explored by applying Multimodal introduced by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen. The multimodal by the theorists have been appropriated by utilizing Halliday's theoretical Systemic Functional Grammar. Both of the movies have been selected to compare the occasions depicted the historical backdrop of war and fear-based oppression and occasionally delineated attempts of reconciliation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Chen Liping

<p><em>Interpersonal metafunction has been studied in the four translated versions of Song Ci Jiang Cheng Zi. Ji Meng through </em><em>contrastive analysis</em><em> with the focus on personal pronouns. It aims to find out that the use of different personal pronouns connotes different interpersonal meaning and test the</em><em> feasibility and applicability of Systemic Functional Grammar to discourse analysis.</em><em> It also helps people who love Song Ci better appreciate this Ci-poem from a different angle.</em></p>


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