Linguistica Inglese 3, Appunti di Linguistica Inglese

Scarica Linguistica Inglese 3 e più Appunti in PDF di Linguistica Inglese solo su Docsity! LINGUISTICA INGLESE 3 SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL) Theoretical, descriptive (including comparative and typological) and analytical activities have been undertaken not only as ends in themselves but also in order to address a diverse spectrum of applications in education, healthcare, administration, computation etc. Tight from the start, SFL has been designed to have the theoretical potential to be applied to solve problems in communities, ultimately to improve the human condition. SFL as appliable linguistics → SFL has been used in studies of a wide range of institutions, including the institutions of the family and of friendship and mate ship, of education, of commerce, of law, and in the application of the results of such studies to address problems in institutions. One of the most exciting features of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is the extent to which one can actually say relevant and useful things about what is happening in language, that is, the extent to which you can do something with analysis. LANGUAGE AS PURPOSEFUL: what does it mean? Basically, exploring specific types of contexts - which, like all Situations of Context, tend to determine meanings → then tend to be realized in/by the lexico-grammar in texts. Investigating the Context of both Situation and Culture in which the text is being produced/consumed → exploring the text producer’s/consumer’s world views, or belief and value system, their ideologies and identities, all of which are construed in and by their texts. In the SFL perspective, “culture” is a global social-semiotic system made up of interrelated meanings, or networks of meaning relationships, or a set of interrelated semiotic (meaning) system → an integrated body of the total set of meanings available to any discourse community: its total semiotic potential, a social-semiotic. Only one among a number of semiotic systems that - together - make up human culture and, consequently, are said to comprise the social system underlying it: LANGUAGE. The social system at the basis of each culture is also known as:  a social belief and value system;  a world view;  a cultural paradigm;  ideology → define as the common sense, taken-for-granted assumptions, values and meanings that social individuals and groups give to their world (what accounts for our instinctive everybody behaviour). REPERTOIRES vs RESERVOIRS The text producer’s/consumer’s worldviews/belief and value system/ideologies and identities (construed in and by their texts) are NOT IDENTICAL for all text producers and consumers. They will vary according to both:  one’s individual subjectivity (i.e., Bernstein’s repertoires)  and one’s socio-cultural subjectivity (i.e., Bernstein’s reservoirs). To study the social system and culture from a linguistic point of view, for example, to investigate linguistic evidence of the social system, we study its ways of saying/meaning → the language of the texts it produces, because a text is a fragment of the culture that produces it. Social belief and value systems/worldviews/ideologies/cultural paradigms are dynamically constructed/realized IN/BY texts (which re-propose, or challenge, them) → circulatory process. A text is related not only to its specific Context of Situation but also to the Context of Culture → the most “outer”, more external or “highest-order” context surrounding both the text and its specific Context of Situation. The labels of Context of Situation AND Context of Culture were coined by the anthropologist Malinowski. What is a text? - It’s a consistent semantic unit no matter how long or short it is, whether spoken or written; a text will be consistently meaning-full.  As process, attention on the ongoing choices of speakers for making meanings; 1  As product, one studies the “frozen” output of these speakers' choices, the result of the process. - It’s an interaction/social exchange of meaning: text as process, this time, a social one → process of meaning being exchanged in social settings, performed by making choices from the entire SYSTEM of the language (where “ system ” is our total meaning potential, what we can do with words ). ⇒ Text is also both the result of a context and the “creator” of a context. - It’s a multiple-coding system, or realization cycle, each stratum ( = level) of which is open to investigation. “Stratification” concerns the organization of language in ordered strata, which means contextual level; semantic level; lexico-grammatical level and phonetic/phonological level → each of which becomes accessible to us through the level above it. Extralinguistic levels → context of culture and context of situation. These are realized in/by linguistic levels:  Semantic levels (meanings) → i.e., Semantics realized in/by lexico-grammar (wording);  Expression levels (wording + …) → i.e., Phonology + graphology + gestures. Three “hierarchies” (key concepts for understanding resources for meaning): Realization: concerned with abstract strata; distinguished from instantiation: concerned with concrete instances of language use in text. Individuation: it relates language use to its users, and to both their individual and socio-cultural subjectivities, or to their repertoires and reservoirs. THE NOTION OF REGISTER, or, LANGUAGE VARIATION ACCORDING TO USE, AND RELATED ISSUES Register theory attempts to reveal the general principles governing this kind of language variation - a search that is motivated by the need for understanding what contextual features determine what linguistic features. ⇒ System of a language is equal to its speakers’ total meaning potential (i.e., it comprises all that it is possible for them to say/mean). When we make texts, we choose from this vast set of linguistic resources, from this system, which is available to us for making meanings → speakers choose the wording to realize these meanings on the basis of the Context of Situation and that of the Culture in which they are producing their texts.  Variation in a CC has predictable repercussions in the wordings and meanings of the instance of text being instantiated. Register variation: similarities and differences in the selection of features from the Field and/or Tenor and/ or Mode of discourse to which the grammar being instantiated is enormously sensitive → BUT the notion of meaning potential “contracts” variation, which means that is limited to the range of options that belong to a specific situation type. So, tweaking the CC means that we get a tweaked text → the entire range of such slightly different text- types constitute a single register family. In fact, the study of register is the study on one hand, of the regularities within these “families”, and, on the other, of their divergences from features of other “families”. The reasoning is based on that “resonating” text-context we spoke before. More in particular, it is based on specifiable similarities and differences in the selection of features from the Field and/or Tenor and/or Mode of discourse to which the grammar being instantiated is sensitive. “Register-idiosyncrasy” (D.R. Miller & J.H. Johnson) in contrast to the less precise, because more constraining, term “register specificity” → It’s a question of probabilities, tendencies (a language works with tendencies rather than certainties). Probabilities can be destabilized; they are particularly sensitive to the ways in which areas of meaning can overlap or blend → this leads us to the CONCEPT of “registral”. A perfect example of such blending: the second service encounter example above, where the core doing gets mixed with the sharing of non-related information. 2 LANGUAGE VARIATION According to the USER According to the USE Dialects 1. Geographical 2. Social 3. (non-)Standard DIALECTS = USER-RELATED VARIETIES Registers 1. Field of discourse 2. Tenor of discourse 3. Mode of discourse REGISTERS = USE-RELATED VARIETIES An extreme case of social dialectal differentiation is what Halliday has called antilanguage, which construes sharp divisions within the social structure. Why ‘extreme’? Because an antilanguage is generated by a closed discourse community, or antisociety , “a society that is set up within another society as a conscious alternative to it” . The defining characteristics of antilanguages are difficult to pin-point, however, mainly because the environments where they are spoken are not easy to penetrate. Despite this difficulty of access, there have been studies which show a tendency to over-lexicalization and other distinctive features. But a true antilanguage, as Halliday stresses, is not a question of the contamination of other social dialects; it “is nobody’s mother tongue → it exists sorely in the context of resocialization, and the reality it creates is inherently an alternative reality”.  Register vs Genre Some SFL scholars differentiate register from genre. Genre, as it has developed in SFL theory, “can be seen as register plus purpose” (Thompson, 1996). By those who adopt genre theory, it’s located at a “higher” level than register and is linked to the context of culture rather than to the context of situation, which is reserved for register. The main reason for NOT embracing genre theory is what is called ‘generic/rhetorical/discourse structure’, i.e., or how a text is organized into consecutive communicative acts. → this, in SFL genre theory, is seen as being the quasi-predictable result of the ‘genre’ of the text. That may be ok for a ‘service-encounter’ (ex. buying a litre of milk & a kilo of oranges), but it is more problematic for ++complex textual purpose. In a register theory which ignores ‘genre’, such as ours (Halliday’s), this discourse/rhetorical structure is important, but is seen simply as the (less predictable) result of the overall “rhetorical aim”, or purpose, of the text, which is located basically within ‘Mode’ (how the meanings are being exchanged) - all through to full CC spoken about in our course in terms of Jakobson’s model of communicative factors and their corresponding functions.  Register and the Corpus As Matthiessen tells us, “Corpus linguistics is a set of methods for assembling and analysing large samples of text, complementing manual discourse analysis” → these large samples, or text collections, are authentic and typically created to be representative of a language or language variety. For the analyst interest in identifying the typical conglomeration of linguistic features that a REGISTER displays, there are 2 options: 1. Manual analysis (tradition one, and until very recently the only option) → not very economical and “it is severely constrained in terms of the sample size since it is very labour intensive”, but it can range over all levels (strata); 2. Corpus methods → large samples of texts, automated analysis, to have a more reliable and accurate picture of the typical conglomeration of linguistic features in a given register (‘register idiosyncrasy’).  Register and Translation Matthiessen (2009) views Translation & interpreting Studies as a sub-category of ‘multilingual studies’. He also notes how, more recently, interpreting studies have increased and how the distinction between translation and interpreting is of course a registral (Mode) one - the former being a question of the graphic channel and the latter, of the phonic. 5 Kunz and Teich (2017) examine SFL’s notion of register as a basis for theorizing and modelling translation, noting how, of all the many conceptual categories that SFL offers for the modelling of language, the most productive one for translation studies has been that of register:  The notion of register offers a framework for text analysis in a cultural context;  Instrumental in transcending boundaries between theoretical/descriptive/applied translation studies (importance of the last);  They discuss future integration of the register model into TS, including quantitative corpus-based methods to investigate how register patterns differ in different languages;  Ever-growing attention on the construction of multilingual corpora (and automated analysis).  Moreover, translators (like interpreters) tend to specialize in terms of REGISTER as well: either focussing on the translation of particular text-types, or even examining two or more original texts in different languages within the same register. SFL-based study of translation: theory ⇔ practice “[...] the practice of translation without a theoretical background tends toward a purely subjective exercise, and a theory of translation without a link to practice is simply an abstraction”. “[...] ‘translation equivalence’ is defined in ideational terms; if a text does not match its source text ideationally, it does not qualify as a translation [...]. For precisely this reason, one of the commonest criticisms made of translated texts is that, while they are equivalent ideationally, they are not equivalent in respect of the other metafunctions - interpersonally, or textually, or both” → a translator should attempt to translate all 3 different kinds of meanings, because text are configurations of multidimensional meanings, rather than containers of content. More matters surrounding register  Intertextuality The notion of intertextuality, in the SFL senso of the term, is a vital notion for understanding text and the purposes text serves, but also for understanding the concept of a register: the meaning of a text depends directly on the kinds of connections made in a particular [discourse] community between it and other texts (Lemke). In literary and philosophical circles, what is usually meant by this term is more or less simply “allusion”. A ‘weak’ intertext → Kristeva, in 1969, proposed a more dynamic and dialogic differently realized text collide in (i.e., a novel); this definition is different from Hatim and Mason’s own in their discussion of the distinction between weak and strong intertextuality. They call “weak” the kind that simply ensures the text’s internal coherence; however, we agree totally with their definition of ‘strong’ intertextuality, which they say “activates knowledge and belief systems beyond the text itself”.  “[...] Yet the idea of a nation safe and whole behind its borders - in our own case, a precious stone set in the silver sea - taking its own sovereign decisions without having to give a fig for the opinions or ambitions of Johnny Foreigner, is decades out of date” - The Guardian. → intertextual with … “[...] This happy breed of men, this little world,/This precious stone set in the silver sea,/[...]This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” - Richard II (Shakespeare). A ‘strong’ intertextuality: “This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality” - M.L. Kings Jr, I have a dream (1963) → echoing … “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York” - from the opening of Shakespeare’s Richard III. In any case, what SFL is interested in is not mere quotation-borrowing, but rather in ‘strong’ intertextuality. From this perspective: “The meaning of a text depends directly on the kinds of connections made in a particular community between it and other texts”. ⇒ Synchronically, it establishes links with contemporaneous meaning-making practices of a given community; ⇒ Diachronically, it establishes connections with a set of texts, constructed over time, with which it can be said to share meanings/wordings. So then, for SFL intertextuality is what ultimately explains how any text - in a specific Context of Situation and of Culture - is produced, but also consumed. It’s a question of how texts “mean” the meanings that 6 people in specific discourse communities give to them → so, every time we say or write something, we’re connecting up to a larger intertext.  Contratextuality A textuality challenging of the dominant belief to mean that the dominant culture paradigm, world view, ideology … is being essentially re-constructed in the text (Martin). → texts can espouse, re-propose and re-legitimate, to some degree, the dominant ideology/worlds view etc. of their discourse community, OR they can position themselves in opposition to the prevailing cultural paradigm, again to some greater or lesser extent. SO:  Intertextuality means that the dominant cultural paradigm/worldview/belief and value system, ideology etc. is being basically re-construed, re-legitimated;  Contratextuality means it is NOT, that, at least to some degree, this paradigm is being questioned and opposed, i.e., not simply accepted and re-enacted. Bakhtin’s heteroglossia The notions to the concept of heteroglossia, a term you should all recognize as being at the basis of the modelling of the ENGAGEMENT SYSTEM within appraisal theory. He theorized two conflicting ‘forces’ at work in such diversity, in heteroglossia: 1. The Centripetal force, which is a unifying, homogenizing, indeed enslaving, force which works towards centralizing meaning-making practice. The language of any form of institutional power tends to do just this; 2. The Centrifugal one: it’s seen as having the power to decentralize meanings and is thus a (constructively) conflictual force, operating to propose alternative ways of thinking/meaning – contratextually, as it were. This, for Bakhtin, is the ‘positive’ force, the truly ‘polyphonic’ and ‘dialogic’ one. Identifying the Rhetorical Aim in different instances of register and exploiting Jakobson’s model of Factors and Functions of Language We bring in Jakobson’s model (1960) to talk less complicatedly about the rhetorical aim (purpose) of texts, globally-speaking. We locate such aim/purpose (RA) within the Mode (How the meanings are being exchanged) even though:  RA affects more than just textual meanings - it also influences ideational and interpersonal meanings;  Although additional functions are usually subordinated to a primary one, texts are rarely mono- functional. The factors & functions of language: adapted from Jakobson: FACTORS OF COMMUNICATION Context Message Addresser Contact Addressee Code ↕ CORRESPONDING SCHEME OF FUNCTIONS Referential Emotive Poetic Conative Phatic Meta-lingual (Meta-textual) 7 Code & Lexico-grammar Which concrete lexico-grammatical features are typically realized by the respective codes? Hasan suggests it is best to state the distinctive characteristics of each code in terms of semantic structure, or meaning, rather than formal patterns of lexico-grammar, or wordings - which are almost impossible to predict for all instances → Codes are located above the linguistic system and are defined in relation to their semantic properties. Code & Meaning Halliday proposes that the restricted code gives on an orientation towards:  the concrete and particular in ideational meanings (i.e., shunning ideational metaphor);  implicit taken-for-granted interpersonal meanings → this makes sense, because recall that the focus of interest in the communalized role system is on practice and on positional relations (what you are, what social role you fulfil, rather than who, personally, and more complicated, you may be). In contrast, the elaborated code will give an orientation towards:  more ideational abstraction and generalization, and thus also towards ideational metaphor (which, as the points out, is a sign of power);  more explicit interpersonal ways of meaning → this makes sense because the focus of interest in the individuated role system is on principles and on personalities rather than on the positions they occupy. TO SUM UP Communalized:  we are likely to find rigidly scripted/unambiguous/communal belief/value/attitudes;  tendency not to analyse or question principles → emphasis on concrete social practices (doings);  personal relations tend to be ‘positional’ (what you are);  as a result: interpersonal meanings tend to be implicit (treated as ‘givers’);  meanings are inclined to be closely linked to context (context-dependent). Individuated:  situations are more ‘open’, less likely to be pre-categorized → more space for critical scrutiny of cultural paradigms;  questioning is permitted, also of principles;  relations tend to be more ‘personal’ (who you are, as an individual);  interpersonal meanings tend to be more explicit (less taken-for-granted);  meanings are also more context independent. PART II - FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE WORKING TOP-DOWN → starting with the contextual variables of the situation (i.e. from Field, Tenor, Mode). The process of text creation Context of Situation Semantics (meanings) Lexico-grammar (wording) 1 FIELD “What’s going on?” i.e. What’s the ongoing social activity the text performs?; What’s the subject matter? 2 TENOR “Who’s taking part?” i.e. Who is the Speaker & IDEATIONAL Speaker as Observer Experiential meanings Logical meanings INTERPERSONAL Speaker as Participant/Intruder CLAUSE AS REPRESENTATION Transitivity structure Clause interdependency (taxis) Logico-semantic relations CLAUSE AS EXCHANGE Mood/Modality/Appraisal system 10 Addressee?; What is their social status?; What is their discourse role?; What attitude do they take (towards each other or towards the subject matter?). 3 MODE “How are the meanings being exchanged?” i.e. What is the text’s “channel” / “Medium”?; Is it more context- dependent or independent?; Is language basically constitutive of the communication or merely “ancillary” to an activity?; How is the text organized? (what is its rhetorical/discourse, structure/staging?); Monologue or dialogue? TEXTUAL Speaker as Text-Maker CLAUSE AS MESSAGE Structural cohesive devices → thematic + info structure, grammatical parallelism; Non-structural cohesive devices & rhetorical/discourse structure. Register-idiosyncrasy Beware that we do not claim to offer all-inclusive typical characteristics which are valid for each and every text belonging to this register. Our steps are: 1. Making predictions; 2. After our predictions, we’ll see the linguistic resources chosen to instantiate THIS instance of a ‘How-to’ text → we’ll compare the concrete findings of our analysis and our predictions; 3. Finally, we’ll be able to see the extent to which such choices can be considered REGISTER- IDIOSYNCRATIC. The ‘Didactic’ register: one instance  Field - What’s going on? Recall - 2 basic questions: 1. … nature of the ongoing social activity of the speech event? (teaching/advising on how to carry out a procedure, typically step-by-step) and 2. … subject matter? (specific, how-to-best-apply for a scholarship in order to receive it). Experiential meanings are usually realized in/by transitivity structure:  Processes (What Process type will dominate?) → typically the material processes, because this text should ‘tell’ inexperienced people how to do things successfully in this context of the application for a scholarship. Other typical processes we could predict will depend on how detailed and ‘explanatory’ the text is (i.e. relational, mental, verbal etc.).  Participants → typically we have Actors, because the addressee is given suggestions/instructions, but also Goals (i.e. hypothesis: firstly you will have to fill out the form carefully…).  Circumstances → predictably there could be Location (place and/or time) and Manner (how to do…).  The Tenor - Who’s taking part? Interpersonal meanings will be likely to be instantiated in terms of the following lexico-grammatical choices:  Communicative functions → typically there would be, in the hypothetical situation of a class lesson, the teacher that will be the giver of information, making statements with the indicative (declarative mood). It is also predictable that she/he will demand information at moments, asking questions most likely ‘rhetorical’.  Modality system → as epistemic modality, or modalization, is always semantically linked to propositions, high value probability, or even the speaker certainty entailed in the monogloss. Implicit orientation will dominate, but there is no reason to exclude the possibility of other orientations being opted for, or even of lower argumentation. 11  Appraisal systems → the use of non-negotiable monogloss and of contracting heteroglossic mechanisms such as rhetorical questions.  The mode - How are the meanings being exchanged? Textual meanings, or the ‘enabling’ textual meta-function, without which the ideational and interpersonal meta-functions wouldn’t have their realization, will be likely to be instantiated in terms of the following:  Structural Cohesive Devices → 1. Thematic Progression, a coherent textual organization should give us a ‘method of development’ of the text; 2. Information Structure; 3. Grammatical Parallelism (GP), it is to be expected that some selection of grammatical parallelism, of a reiteration of units, will be made to construe a corresponding reiteration of sense, of meaning.  Non-structural Cohesive Devices → it is impossible to predict precise textual instances of reference, but we can foresee that a need for explicitness will mean that there may be more exact reiteration of elements than pronominal reference to them. For the same reason ellipsis may be avoided, and reference chains and lexical strings are likely to come together to form participant chains in the text. Rhetorical/Discourse structure/staging is difficult to predict with any precision exactly what the steps will be. The speaker and hearers do not, in this setting, share text creation. Meaning making is the job of the teacher-as-sole-speaker. The channel of the communication as a process was originally basically phonic, while the product you will see, and we will analyse, is graphic. The medium of the register is typically mixed: i.e., coming somewhere between the extreme ‘spoken’ and ‘written’ ends of the continuum. This is because the lecture is not a spontaneous text-type. Rather it is at least semi-scripted, and so to a certain degree pre-prepared to be delivered. As a consequence, its language will not usually be that of genuinely extemporaneous, ‘choreographic’ talk. The text is basically context-independent, meaning self-sufficient, meaning that one can fundamentally understand it, even without having physically been there at its production. The role of language is constitutive of the social activity. So we are dealing with a talk-oriented register rather than an action-oriented one. In this kind of text one typically finds a predominance of language as reflection, even meta-linguistic reflection, as already noted above. Again, due to its being in part pre-scripted, the organization of the text is more ‘rational’ than not. Its discourse/rhetorical staging and method of development (Thematic Progression) reflect this. The Procedural, or ‘How-to’, register: one instance  The Field The kind of ongoing social activity taking place is that of enabling/instructing (Matthiessen) those who are in need of/desiring guidelines on how to have a profitable job interview. The text’s title is “Interviewing 101: Tips for a successful interview”; thus the tips are aimed at the novice, not someone with experience of the activity. The specific subject matter is how to conduct yourself in any kind of job interview, and so the sub-register that this text belongs to might be labelled ‘a how-to-behave in an interview text’, meant to give advice to inexperienced people about how to behave verbally and non-verbally in a way that will get them the job. The ideational (experiential) meanings of the text, instantiated in/by its transitivity structure, will be likely feature the following choices being made from the speaker’s total meaning potential:  Processes → we expect the material type because this text should tell inexperienced people how to do things or how to do them successfully. This implies an ‘ideal’ verbal exchange: we therefore also predict verbal processes.  Grammatical Participants → in the text in which suggestions and instructions are given to the addressee, we can easily predict that s/he will often figure as the logical Subject in the transitivity structure (i.e. as Actor, Behaver, Sayer etc). We might also predict ‘Things’ related to appropriate dress and demeanour functioning, perhaps as Goals.  Circumstances → are likely to define the temporal and spatial setting of this procedure, perhaps being related to a general time and place that the speaker indicates in describing the procedure. Circumstances of Manner are also to be expected, such as Circumstances of Cause. 12