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This study presents a comparative analysis of the inaugural speeches of U.S. President Joe Biden and Vietnamese President To Lam, utilizing Michael Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) framework. By examining the Ideational (Transitivity), Interpersonal (Modality), and Textual (Texture and Cohesion) metafunctions, the study reveals how each leader's linguistic choices mirror the distinct political and cultural contexts of their respective nations. Joe Biden's speech underscores the urgency of immediate action and crisis management, employing Material Processes to stress the importance of unity and national recovery. Conversely, To Lam's speech is rooted in long-term nation-building and the leadership of the Communist Party, with a focus on Relational Processes to reinforce collective responsibility and national unity. The Modality analysis demonstrates Joe Biden's use of High Modality to convey decisiveness and transparency, aligning with American expectations for solid and clear commitments. In contrast, To Lam emphasizes collective duty and the Party's enduring leadership, reflecting Vietnam's socio-political ethos. Additionally, both speeches use Theme-Rheme structures and lexical repetition to ensure textual cohesion, though their cultural and ideological differences lead to distinct rhetorical approaches. By deepening our understanding of how political leaders use language to shape identities, communicate visions, and influence public perception, this study contributes to the broader field of political communication, offering insights into the strategic use of language across different cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Basic Variety has been described as a fully fledged system that is developed in second-language acquisition. It is guided by a small number of interacting phrasal, semantic, and pragmatic constraints. This article is devoted to the semantic controller-first constraint, which says that “the NP-referent with highest control comes first” in discourse contexts where this constraint comes into conflict. The Basic Variety, as described by Klein and Perdue, relates to migrant learners that were exposed to target languages in naturalistic contexts and situations outside the classroom. Our study also deals with learners living in the target language’s country at the time of the data collection, but our learners were benefiting from foreign language teaching at university. The goal of this study is twofold. The first part of the article discusses the origins of the key notion of ‘controller’ and introduces related theoretical underpinnings, such as argument hierarchies of transitive verbs and crucial factors determining argument realization. Our analysis shows that the controller-first constraint overlaps with two key concepts of the description of L1 functional grammars – i.e., control asymmetry and the Actor-Undergoer Hierarchy – suggesting that it does not only pertain to the Basic Variety but broadly speaking to the human language capacity. The second part of this study presents some preliminary results on the L2 grammars of Spanish-speaking learners of French in a context of ‘competition’. Our results show the pervasiveness of the controller-first constraint on L2 grammars beyond initial, non-instructed learner varieties, suggesting that this semantic principle is not totally independent of (a) the specifics of the source language and (b) the target constructions of the foreign language classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a formal analysis of two displacement phenomena in Mandarin Chinese, namely inner topicalisation and focus fronting, capturing their correlational relationships with control and complementation. It examines a range of relevant data, including corpus examples, to derive empirical generalisations. Acceptability-judgment tasks, followed by mixed-effects statistical models, were conducted to provide additional evidence. This paper presents a constraint-based lexicalist proposal that is couched in the framework of Lexical- Functional Grammar (LFG). The lexicon plays an important role in regulating the behaviour of complementation verbs as they participate in the displacement phenomena. Unlike previous analyses that cast inner topicalisation and focus fronting as restructuring phenomena, this lexicalist proposal does not rely on hypothesised clause-size differences. It captures the empirical properties more accurately and accounts for a wider range of empirical patterns. Adopting the formally explicit framework of LFG, this proposal uses constraints that have mathematical precision. The constraints are computationally implemented using the grammar engineering tool Xerox Linguistic Environment, safeguarding their precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to show how Functional Grammar of Dance (FGD) can be applied to dance discourse analysis to reveal the discursive strategies that underlie choreographies and support movement-based communication. In recent years, studies in Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) have benefited from the development of several models of analysis, and from the emergence of a new focus on the materiality of semiotic modes. The Functional Grammar of Dance is a recently developed model of analysis that draws on Systemic Functional Linguistics theory and focuses on movement-based communication starting from dance (particularly ballet as a starting point). The Functional Grammar of Dance has been adopted as a central theory in an international collaborative project funded by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) in the UK and the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 'German Research Foundation') in Germany, The Kinesemiotic Body, where it has been used with the ELAN annotation system. ELAN annotation based on the Functional Grammar of Dance was used for both live-collected data from dance rehearsals and for dance videos and revealed aspects of dance performances that are not necessarily captured by the naked eye. This paper proposes three case studies where we show that our ELAN annotation with the FGD provides an effective and very flexible interface for the grammaticalization of movement-based communication and the study of movement-based discursive strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the concept of Theme and thematic progression in Towriss's novel Ordinary Woman of the Bible: A Mother's Sacrifice: Jochebed's Story (2019). The impetus behind these elements is to pay heed to the journey of Mose's mother through a systematic functional grammar landscape. The aim of this study is to show how different Themes and thematic progression targeted by the novelist and their consistent manipulation serve to expose the story of the secondary characters, Mose's mother as an example. The study follows descriptive analysis including qualitative and quantitative techniques as well as inferential analysis via the chi-square test and the probability value. The analysis reveals that both Theme and thematic progression are escapement techniques to regulate the movement of the lines to form a unified system in the novel. It is concluded that Theme and thematic progression help divulge the suffering, struggle, and tolerance of Jochebed to keep her son safe through a systemic functional grammar frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a lexicalist, constraint-based grammatical theory that shares a lot of the basic assumptions of Construction Grammar (CxG), such as a commitment to surface-oriented descriptions (no transformations), and the simultaneous representation of form, meaning, and other grammatical information (no derivations). Nevertheless, LFG is not standardly viewed as a kind of CxG, in particular since its adherence to the principle of Lexical Integrity means that it insists on a strict morphology-syntax distinction where CxG canonically rejects such a divide. However, such a distinction is in fact entirely compatible with CxG assumptions; the actual problem with viewing LFG as a CxG is the difficulty it has in describing the more substantive end of the schematic-substantive spectrum of constructions. I suggest that by replacing the limited context-free grammar base of LFG responsible for this shortcoming with a more expressive formalism (in this case a description-based tree-adjoining grammar), we can obtain a fully constructional LFG, suitable as a formal framework for CxG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the challenges and opportunities presented by technology in the field of writing instruction. The first article explores the concept of "ungrading" as an alternative assessment method that focuses on qualitative learning and student self-assessment. The second article addresses the need for a translingual approach in working with multilingual students, emphasizing their agency in self-identifying and utilizing their diverse language repertoires. The third article highlights the importance of explicit language instruction in developing students' metalinguistic awareness and facilitating transfer of writing skills. The fourth article proposes an individualized intervention for "promising but struggling" multilingual students, aiming to bridge the gap between their reticence and conventional tutoring methods. Overall, the articles emphasize the importance of building connections and understanding between instructors and students in the writing classroom. [Extracted from the article]

Responding to a lack of attention to language in transfer pedagogies, this study examines the potential effects that direct language-level instruction has on the metalinguistic awareness of students who were enrolled in stretch and corequisite courses at two four-year, public universities. Informed by a functional view of language, the instruction made explicit the connections between conventional language-level features and the related socio-rhetorical practices of academic discourse and provided metalanguage for students to describe these connections. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participating students to determine the extent to which the metalanguage from the instruction aided their ability to articulate their awareness of these connections. The findings suggest that the instruction cultivates a metalanguage that helps students verbalize their metalinguistic awareness. When considering the role that such awareness has on the transfer process, these findings indicate that functional language-based instruction can prepare students to transfer their writing strategies across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a Functional Discourse Grammar (Hengeveld; Mackenzie, 2008) account of concessive constructions articulated by two specific complex conjunctions: ainda que and mesmo que. Based on contemporary Portuguese data from Corpus do Português corpora (Davies; Ferreira, 2006), the analysis proposes an association between concessivity and scalarity underlying the use of concessive constructions with ainda que and mesmo que (König, 1985a, 1985b). This association is evidence of an in-between position of these conjunctions in the lexical-grammatical continuum. These results demand, for a FDG representation, two directions: (i) a multilayered representation that aligns properties from formulation levels (Interpersonal and Representational), arriving to impacts on Morphosyntactic encoding, and (ii) the distinction of a new morphosyntactic primitive, the semi-fixed conjunctional template (Keizer, 2013). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Elementary Education / Revija za Elementarno Izobraževanje is the property of University of Maribor, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article proposes a fine-grained semantic analysis of similative and comparative constructions within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). The core idea is that, when used in their prototypical modifying functions, the two types of constructions are built upon two semantic frames that share an identical structure but differ as regards the semantic category that underlies the whole modifying expression – whence the title of the article: similatives are Manners and comparatives are Quantities. At the same time, I argue that similatives can also be put to modifying and predicative uses in which they do not express a Manner but a Configurational Property (i.e., a “nuclear predication”) and that comparatives do not express a Quantity when occurring as arguments of lexical(ized) ditransitive predicates like prefer or would rather, nor when the two terms of the comparison are introduced by a specific type of temporal expression. Finally, the paper refines previous FDG approaches to the alternation between analytic and synthetic expression of comparison in such languages as English and Latin, proposing that the English comparative suffix -er is liable to being modified by narrow-scope measure expressions and is therefore a partly lexical element and not a fully grammaticalized marker of comparison.

This article discusses the diachronic development and the different uses of the reportative word dizque (diachronically based on diz que ‘she/he/it says that’) using data from Colombian and Mexican Spanish. The study presents a predominantly qualitative analysis of diachronic, twentieth- and twenty-first-century written data. The theoretical framework applied in this article is Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), which is particularly useful in this context as it distinguishes between the interpersonal and representational functions of language. The main points made are: (i) dizque is an adverb that arose from a process of lexicalization rather than grammaticalization; (ii) in most of its uses, dizque has an interpersonal function in the sense that the Speaker instructs the Addressee that she/he is not the source of the information provided; (iii) by means of diachronic, dialectal, and typological data, it is shown that the scope of dizque is gradually decreasing; (iv) the only scope decrease that leads to a functional change of dizque is its application outside the context of speech-reports. FDG serves to account for each step in the scope decrease of dizque by means of its hierarchical approach to the actional and descriptive functions of verbal interaction.

This article addresses the question of how the distribution and role of English evidential -ly adverbs in the noun phrase can be accounted for using the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). Both adverbs and adjectives occurring in noun phrases are categorized in various ways. The results of the categorization offer insights into the distribution of these adverbs and adjectives. Four generalizations are arrived at concerning the combination of evidential adverbs and adjectives in noun phrases. First, the lower in the FDG hierarchy the category of an adverb, the less frequent the occurrence of that category in the noun phrase. Thus, higher reportative adverbs are very frequent, and lower adverbs of event perception are very infrequent. Second, evidential adverbs do not modify adjectives that express the speaker’s subjective evaluation of the referent. Third, the higher-level reportative and inferential adverbs modify adjectives expressing permanent properties, whereas the lower adverbs of deduction and event perception do not. Finally, neither restrictiveness nor the evaluative vs descriptive nature of the adjective appears to solely determine the category of evidential modification of the adjective. We furthermore discuss the pragmatic effects of the evidential adverb in the noun phrase, such as distancing, and the stress shift that may accompany it.

This study traces the relationship between two erstwhile separate linguistic elements, just and so, within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). In keeping with FDG’s form-oriented function-to-form approach, the study proceeds semasiologically by, first, examining the uses of relatively independent forms (i.e. the focus particle just modifying so as a degree word and a manner proform), then turning to more tightly-knit structures (i.e. just so as a subordinator of purpose and condition), and finally, looking at the fixed expression just so used as a part of a pragmatic marker. Using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the Corpus of Historical American English, we argue that the different meanings of just so raise a number of issues related to the analysis of modification in FDG, namely the status and function of the modifier just in the constructions under discussion and the concomitant representation of so. Furthermore, the analysis shows that FDG can model very precisely the interplay of semantic and pragmatic information in the stages when just so is still compositional, with just providing interpersonal (i.e. pragmatic) and so representational (i.e. semantic) information, as well as its development into the non-compositional and purely pragmatic discourse marker just so you know.

Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) assumes a strict separation between representational and interpersonal meaning, which are captured in independent levels within the grammar, and utterance meaning, which arises in contexts of language use. This article argues that this division of labour is problematic for the treatment of modifiers in the noun phrase (non-subsective adjectives in particular), which induce semantic changes in the designation of the noun they modify. It is further claimed that the view of semantics in the model should pivot around a weak interpretation of the notion of compositionality, which allows the modulation of linguistic meaning in context in the dynamic construction of term structures. This is shown to be compatible with the basic tenets of functional linguistics that FDG endorses and very much in line with the contextualist tradition that treats linguistic expressions as propositionally underspecified units which can be truth-conditionally enriched in actual use. The article shows that only minor modifications are necessary in the model, which basically amount to increasing the functional role of the Contextualizer.

This is an introduction to the Special Issue on Modification in Functional Discourse Grammar.

It is generally accepted that the order of elements within the English noun phrase is relatively fixed, and that, in the prefield, determiners (primary and secondary) precede modifiers. This article is concerned with a group of noun phrases exhibiting non-canonical word order, namely those cases in which a modifier precedes a numeral, such as a fabulous two years, a staggering 30 singles, that short fourteen months, and the largest two markets. Using corpus data from the British National Corpus, it is shown that such noun phrases are far more heterogeneous (in terms of the kind of noun, the scope and type of the modifier, the form and number of the determiner, and subject-verb agreement) than assumed in previous studies. It is argued that the variation observed in the data can only be accounted for if different subtypes of such NPs are distinguished, each characterized by its own combination of functional and formal properties. Finally, it is demonstrated how Functional Discourse Grammar, with its function-to-form approach and its different levels and layers of representation, is particularly well-suited to capture the main features of the construction as a whole, as well as the more specific semantic and syntactic properties of each of the subtypes.

Copyright of Adab Al-Kufa is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Alustath is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The present paper is a theoretical study of the system of transitivity which is an analytical tool in Functional Grammar under Systemic Functional Linguistics, a novel approach to language study offered by Michael Halliday. Although, transitivity as a system has been comprehensively dealt by Michael Halliday and others in various studies, still the literature on the subject is not widely available and needs attention. Further on, despite the availability of the limited studies on transitivity many minor topics under it are underexplored and, therefore, vague. The present paper has attempted to make a contribution in filling up deficiency in the transitivity studies. The sections related to the explanation of • the causative and permissive agents, • the subtypes of relational processes • and the relationship between Circumstance of matter and Phenomenon of matter have often been found indistinct in the extant literature on the subject and therefore these topics have been investigated with special clarity, system and lucidity which are the hallmark of all scientific inquiry and a prerequisite for all scientific discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a teaching program for the Functional Grammar (FG) unit at an English Education Study Program of a state university in West Java Indonesia in 2020-2022. Three cohorts of pre-service teachers in semester six were involved in the program (38 students in 2020, 26 in 2021, and 36 in 2022). The teaching program was conducted online due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The report focuses on exploring students' understanding of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) - FG in particular, and their ability to use SFL in text analysis. The study also addresses students' opinions on learning SFL through FG unit. The study used a qualitative case study design and the data were obtained from participant observations, a questionnaire distributed at the end of the teaching program, and analysis of students' essays on text analyses. In the interest of space, the paper will only present and discuss data from the questionnaire and three samples of student essays. The questionnaire data were analysed qualitatively using a thematic analysis of different aspects of the unit and SFL, and students' essays were analysed using SFL, especially theme, transitivity, and mood systems in lexicogrammar stratum. The data from the questionnaire indicate that all the students in all cohorts responded positively to the teaching program. Many students in each cohort said that learning FG is fun, enjoyable, interesting, and useful for both daily and academic life. They displayed a good understanding of SFL, including its basic principles, notions, and values - especially concerning their reading and writing improvement. The data from students' essays also reveal their ability to show how and why the text means what it does and to evaluate why the text is or is not effective for its own purposes. On this basis, it is recommended that SFL be introduced to Indonesian university students to enhance their literacy capacity and to Indonesian teachers to improve their teaching skills and their ways to develop assessment that is linguistically informed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hengeveld/Mackenzie (2008: 52) consider that the constructions with mas 'but' result from the combination of two Discursive Acts with different communicative statutes, there being a Nuclear Discursive Act, with greater communicative weight, and a Subsidiary Discursive Act, which will have a rhetorical function named "Concession". This paper aims to investigate the various uses of mas 'but', according to Functional Discourse Grammar, in order to determine the pragmatic, semantic, and morphosyntactic properties of each case in real occurrences of Portuguese. The combination of linguistic units through mas 'but' always indicates interpersonal strategies, which are differentiated by the communicative intention of the speaker as well as reflected in the layer involved. However, mas maintains the capacity to attribute the most salient status of information to the unit it scopes or operates on. We identified four uses of mas 'but' in different layers: Move Operator in the Move layer, Emphasis Operator and Concession rhetorical function in the Discursive Act layer, and the Contrast pragmatic function in the Communicated Content layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to verify how Pantene's hair products are represented in the advertising discourse, aiming to boost the brand and consumption. In a qualitative-interpretative approach, two Pantene advertisements, extracted from the online environment, are analyzed. The analysis is anchored in the analytical categories proposed by Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), based on Halliday and Matthiessen (2014), and by the Grammar of Visual Design (GDV), proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2021). It is concluded that sense-making emerges from the interaction of several semiotic modes, of which, each is responsible for a communicative task, but are interdependent on each other. The results point to multisignificative constructions, marked by material, mental and relational processes and by the choice of the discursive functions of statement, question and command, associated with visual semiotics, building representations of status, glamour, patriotism, seduction, softness, brightness and beauty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to analyze and compare transitivity processes of "Bei Chou Ge" and its five English versions from the perspective of experiential function of Halliday's systemic-functional linguistics and makes a comment on the similarities and differences between them. Through the analysis of the transitivity of the poem and its translations, it is found that there are 5 versions for the first line, 3 versions for the second, third and sixth lines, and 1 version for the fourth and fifth lines, in which the transitivity maintains a high consistency with the original poem. Spearman Correlation shows that there is a significant positive relationship of transitivity between the version by Watson and the original poem, and the translation by Watson is highly correlated with the transitivity of the original poem with the following coefficient, p = 0.890. This study can give clues to the study of poems and their translations of the transitivity processes, by exploring the differences of participants and circumstantial elements with the theoretical framework of functional grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to gain knowledge of how School-Age EduCare (SAEC) staff in and through collegial conversations construe a child/children. Collegial conversations with two SAEC staff teams were analyzed using the theoretical concepts from the fields of discourse analysis and systemic functional grammar. The results show that children were repeatedly construed as a group subject by the staff and more rarely as individual subjects. The SAEC staff construed the children as group subjects in four different ways: as general groups, as pre-determined groups, as quantity-rela- ted groups, and as behavior-related groups. The children who were construed as individual subjects were mainly the ones who diverged from the group, often in negative ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting in 1948, Australia's Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) has continued to deliver language education to migrants for the purposes of settlement and attaining employment. Both in Australia and internationally, the AMEP and its related developments in English language education have had a profound impact on the teaching and learning of English as an Additional Language (EAL), particularly in terms of their contributions to the field of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), which became the theoretical underpinning of the AMEP curriculum in the early 1990s. However, it would seem that a quarter of a century later, SFG is missing in action. This paper traces SFG's presence in the AMEP through its inception in the Certificate in Spoken and Written English (CSWE) through various evolutions of the AMEP, and speculates on the implications of SFG's apparent absence in the AMEP today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the concept of ambiguity in argumentation. Ambiguity in linguistics lies on the coexistence of two possibly interpretations of an utterance, while the role of contextual factors and background/encyclopedic knowledge within a specific society seems to be crucial. From a systemic point of view, Halliday has proposed three main language functions (meta-functions): a) ideational function, b) interpersonal function, c) textual function. Language could reflect speaker's experience of his external and internal world, interpersonal relationships and organization of text, respectively. Lexico-grammatical choices under a micro-level perspective and context (the environment of language) may lead to inconsistent interpretations through semantic or syntactic ambiguities. In philosophy and argumentation logic, strategies of ambiguity have been investigated by Aristotle, since the first sophistic movement. In his Topics, Metaphysics and Rhetoric, has pointed out the notion of "τό διττῶς / διχῶς λεγόμενον", meaning that a term can have different senses and double interpretation. In this paper we discuss how we reconstruct the meaning of an utterance in dialogue through the mechanism of interpretation and how we analyze and construe ambiguities, combining the insights of argumentation theory and text linguistics. Research results show that in case of misunderstanding, the "best interpretation" is the less defeasible one according to contextual presumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamentally, meaning is organized along two dimensions, similarity and contiguity, corresponding to two areas of the brain primarily responsible for language processing, Wernicke's area and Broca's area, respectively. Modern culture has tended to overemphasize the similarity dimension through money/commodification in capitalism, and mathematics in science, with disastrous ecological consequences. Ecostylistics can celebrate and analyze themes and linguistic patterns of poetry and novels which challenge this overemphasis. Five such themes are suggested in this article. To counter overemphasis on similarity (1) individuation. To celebrate Broca's area's contiguity dimension (2) dynamic process, and (3) interrelatedness and communication with the natural world. However, concentration on local contiguities of time, manifest in the contemporary English-speaking novel, distracts from the global contiguities of (4) long-term ecological change. (5) The two dimensions are also manifest in metaphor, which challenges conventional similarity-based classification, and narrative, which expands the contiguity dimension beyond the clause. These themes are illustrated by poetic examples from Wordsworth and Edward Thomas, and detailed analysis of the following texts: Gerard Manley Hopkins' "As Kingfishers Catch Fire" and "Nature is a Heraclitean Fire"; Edward Thomas's "The Word", Alice Oswald's "Sonnet" and "Birdsong for Two Voices", and, returning to a text whose analysis by Michael Halliday was seminal for Stylistics, William Golding's The Inheritors. Transitivity analysis within the framework of Systemic Functional Grammar is used throughout, and connections are made with quantum physics, Daoism, and other process philosophies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest management practices have been addressed widely in the forestry discipline but are rarely considered from a linguistic perspective. Linguistic exploration of the construction of meaning in forest discourses helps provide greater detail on how forest resources are governed through the forest management practices carried out by forestry professionals. This study adopted the approach from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar to examine how lexicogrammatical resources are used by forestry professionals to institutionalise their narrative on sustainable forest management practices. Six field inspection reports issued by the Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia were selected as data for analysis. The reports were examined as a genre to ascertain their generic structure and the elements they contained. The findings show that the reports provide essential information concerning various aspects of forest management best practices, including technical information of the forest areas, their geographical and topographical conditions within and around the areas, the distribution of tree stands and other equally important aspects including their environmental, socio-economic and economic values. This paper suggests that a linguistic orientation employed in uncovering forestry matters such as the field inspection report allows concrete evidence of how forest management practices are communicated, especially in written reports and whether these practices are aptly represented through their language use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work has as its main objective to examine, from the perspective of Functional Discourse Grammar (HENGEVELD; MACKENZIE, 2008), which are the pragmatic, semantic and morphosyntactic motivations underlying the ordering of the constituents of the discontinuous Np in different synchronies of Brazilian Portuguese, in order to verify whether the synchronic characterization of the phenomenon has a diachronic basis and whether there are differences in the productivity of the phenomenon in speech and writing. The empirical analysis of the phenomenon is based on samples from different historical sources: (i) letters from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries from the Projeto Para a História do Português Brasileiro (PHPB) and from the Corpus Histórico do Português Tycho Brahe; (ii) readers' letters from the 21st century from the newspapers Folha de São Paulo and Diário do Norte; and (iii) spoken language records from the 20th century, extracted from the minimum corpus of the NURC/Brazil, and from the 21st century, taken from the Iboruna database (Amostra Censo). The methodology includes analysis parameters of interpersonal (rhetorical and pragmatic functions of the Np constituents), representational (type of semantic entity designated by the head noun and the semantic relationship between the head and the displaced constituent) and morphosyntactic nature (morphosyntactic configuration of the Np constituents and structural weight of the displaced constituent). Based on the analyses, the conclusion is that the discontinuity in the structuring of the Np has a stable behavior over time and it is motivated by factors of a more pragmatic order rather than morphosyntactic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The translation of government work report (GWR) should not only be faithful to the spirit of the original text, but also close to the stylistic features of target language and the context. These features correspond to the Ideational, Interpersonal and Textual functions of Three Meta-functions Theory, which is of great research value in the current circumstance beset by COVID-19. Taking 2020 GWR as the research material due to its special social environment, this paper makes a systematic comparative study of lexical features between the source text and its English translation based on three meta-functions theory. Through quantitative statistics and qualitative text analysis, the realization and distribution of three meta-functions in the source text and its translation are discussed. At the same time, the reasons for the equivalence and non-equivalence between two texts are explored to summarize corresponding modification suggestions and translation strategies. Through comparative analysis, it is found that for ideational process, the discrepancy is significant in terms of material and relational processes between the source text and its translation. For interpersonal function, the source text mainly uses modal operators of high value while the translation the median. And for textual function, there were many additions of first-person plural pronouns in translation due to its writing habits. These findings can help better understand the language mechanism and connotation of the translation of GWR, thus enriching their research perspective to some extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the syntactic and semantic functions of "NP + (aca/ece)" in the Mongolian comparatives and "(bi)+ NP" in the Chinese comparatives from the perspective of the model of Cardiff Grammar in Systemic Functional Linguistics. It is found that "NP +/ece)" in the Mongolian comparatives is case group, which can function as Main Verb and Adjunct. (bi)+ NP" in the Chinese comparatives is prepositional phrase, which can serve as Main Verb, Adjunct and Complement. Through the typological analysis, we find that the similarities in Mongolian and Chinese comparatives outweigh their differences in terms of process type and subject theme. However, the detailed features vary in the most delicate systems - within the lexical zone at the stratum of lexicogrammar. The findings not only provide a tentative solution to the long-standing debates on the comparatives, but also shed light on the teaching and learning of the comparatives in Mongolian and Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of the information age, language is no longer the only way to construct meaning. Besides language, a variety of social symbols, such as gestures, images, music, three-dimensional animation, and so on, are more and more involved in the social practice of meaning construction. Traditional single-modal sentiment analysis methods have a single expression form and cannot fully utilize multiple modal information, resulting in low sentiment classification accuracy. Deep learning technology can automatically mine emotional states in images, texts, and videos and can effectively combine multiple modal information. In the book Image Reading, the first systematic and comprehensive visual grammatical analysis framework is proposed and the expression of image meaning is discussed from the perspectives of representational meaning, interactive meaning, and composition meaning, compared with the three pure theoretical functions in Halliday's systemic functional grammar. In the past, people often discussed films from the macro perspectives of literary criticism, film criticism, psychology, aesthetics, and so on, and multimodal analysis theory provides film researchers with a set of methods to analyze images, music, and words at the same time. In view of the above considerations, Mu Wen adopts the perspective of social semiotics, based on Halliday's systemic functional linguistics and Gan He's "visual grammar," and builds a multimodal interaction model as a tool to analyze film discourse by referring to evaluation theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: Augmented musical creativity, computational musicology, and procedural representation of music for machine learning algorithms. We present GenoMus, a new model for artificial musical creativity based on a procedural approach, able to represent compositional techniques behind a musical score. This model aims to build a framework for automatic creativity, that is easily adaptable to other domains beyond music. The core of GenoMus is a functional grammar designed to cover a wide range of styles, integrating traditional and contemporary composing techniques. In its encoded form, both composing methods and music scores are represented as one-dimensional arrays of normalized values. On the other hand, the decoded form of GenoMus grammar is human-readable, allowing for manual editing and the implementation of user-defined processes. Musical procedures (genotypes) are functional trees, able to generate musical scores (phenotypes). Each subprocess uses the same generic functional structure, regardless of the time scale, polyphonic structure, or traditional or algorithmic process being employed. Some works produced with the algorithm have been already published. This highly homogeneous and modular approach simplifies metaprogramming and maximizes search space. Its abstract and compact representation of musical knowledge as pure numeric arrays is optimized for the application of different machine learning paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic changes of grammatical functions in English teaching in different language environments are different. Based on this background, this paper studies the discrete dynamic modeling technology in the big data complex system. By analyzing the current situation of the English language, this paper studies the dynamic path of the development of English functional grammar. Different from traditional modeling algorithms, dynamic modeling of complex systems can accurately process the relevant data provided by big data. This paper discusses the influence of functional grammar on English listening teaching through dynamic modeling and predictive analysis. This study reduces the error rate of the English prediction model and determines that the change of English achievement is closely related to functional grammar. The results show that the dynamic modeling of complex systems can promote the rapid development of functional grammar in English teaching and provide an effective basis for grammar research. At the same time, the dynamic prediction model based on complex system modeling can accurately predict the actual effect of English grammatical functions on improving English proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Resumo: Neste trabalho, objetivamos descrever e analisar as expressões modalizadoras deônticas constitutivas de discursos do presidente Donald Trump, sob um enfoque funcionalista, conforme os postulados de Hengeveld (2004) e Hengeveld e Mackenzie (2008). Para compreensão da categoria modalidade, trabalharemos com a Gramática Discursivo-Funcional (GDF), que busca integrar os aspectos sintáticos, semânticos e pragmáticos. Partindo da compreensão de que as expressões modalizadoras deônticas estão a serviço da argumentação, tomaremos também o conceito de ethos da Análise do Discurso (AD) para compreensão do ethos do presidente Trump, construído discursivamente. Nosso corpus é constituído por quatro discursos, traduzidos para a língua espanhola, proferidos pelo presidente Donald Trump após sua posse e divulgados nas mídias sociais digitais. Empreendemos leitura dos discursos, conforme os seguintes aspectos: (i) contextuais: qual o tema do discurso e o tipo de público para o qual o presidente se dirige; (ii) semânticos: qual o valor semântico instaurado e a fonte da avaliação modal; e (iii) discursivos: que tipo de ethos é projetado pelo falante. Observamos que os discursos direcionados a um público amplo, portanto mais heterogêneo, favorecem a construção de valores deônticos atenuados, corroborando à construção de um ethos presidenciável não-autoritário. Por sua vez, os discursos destinados ao povo norte-americano, cuja temática é a plataforma de governo de Trump, favorecem a construção de valores deônticos asseverados, construindo, assim, uma imagem autoritária. Constatamos que o valor semântico de obrigação e a fonte deôntica do tipo enunciador foram as mais frequentes. Palavras-chave: modalidade deôntica; Gramática Discursivo-Funcional; construção discursiva; ethos em discursos de Donald Trump. Abstract: In this paper, we aim to describe and analyze the deontic modals expressions constituting President Donald Trump’s speeches, under a functionalist approach, according to the postulates of Hengeveld (2004) and Hengeveld and Mackenzie (2008). To understand the modality category, we will work with the Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), which seeks to integrate the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects. Starting from the understanding that deontic modals expressions are at the service of argumentation, we will also take the concept of Discourse Analysis (AD) ethos to understand President Trump’s ethos, constructed discursively. Our corpus consists of four speeches, translated into Spanish, delivered by President Donald Trump after taking office, and disseminated on digital social media. We undertake reading of the speeches, according to the following aspects: (i) contextual: what is the theme of the speech and the type of audience to which the president is addressed; (ii) semantics: what is the installed semantic value and the source of the modal assessment; and (iii) discursive: what kind of ethos is projected by the speaker. We observed that the speeches aimed at a wide public, therefore more heterogeneous, favor the construction of attenuated deontic values, corroborating the construction of a non-authoritarian presidential ethos. In turn, speeches aimed at the American people, whose theme is the Trump administration platform, favor the construction of asserted deontic values, thus building an authoritarian image. We found that the semantic value of obligation and the deontic source of the enunciator type was the most frequent. Keywords: deontic modality; Functional Discourse Grammar; discursive construction; ethos in Donald Trump speeches.

This study identifies, analyses and describes the devices and functions of focus in information structuring in Hadiyya, a Highland East Cushitic language. Data, which were collected from native speakers, were dealt with based on the theory of Functional Grammar (Dik 1997). For focalization, the language uses morphological, lexical and syntactic means. The latter involves word-order change and cleft construction (including pseudo-cleft). Comparatively, the morphological mechanism is the most dynamic and frequent in use while the lexical means is limited both in the number of items employed and in frequency of occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study deals with emphatic constructions in English and Arabic scientific texts. To the researcher's best knowledge, this topic received little attention from linguistic researchers, exceptionally in functional grammar analysis. The importance of this study arises from the fact that some syntactic forms are effective linguistic choices for conveying the meaning of emphasis to the readers. The study aims to identify and analyze different types of linguistic constructions in English and Arabic scientific texts and show the similarities and differences between the two types of scientific texts under investigation. The study intends to analyze the structure of complex clauses by adopting Halliday and Matthiessen's (2004) modal of 'Systemic Functional Grammar' of syntax and Prince's (1978) modal of 'Given-New' information of discourse analysis. These models analyze-samples of English 'Spaceport' magazine and pieces of Arabic 'Sadeem Bulletin' magazine. Moreover, the study depends on a qualitative approach to answer the research questions and confirm its hypothesis. The results show that both languages use some syntactic forms, but Arabic is rich in its constructions. This difference is due to the nature and flexibility of both languages. The findings will be helpful for researchers concerned with syntax and scientific issues because it provides a rigorous analysis of complex clauses into simple parts and shows the focus of information in its suitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formally, however, this construal type involves (complex) NP-hood in some cases, and may then perhaps be included under for example rigidly structured NPs (Section 3.1.1) or flexibly structured NPs (Section 3.1.2), but this is certainly not always so. Keywords: discourse functions; nominal expression; noun phrase; syntax-prosody interface; word classes EN discourse functions nominal expression noun phrase syntax-prosody interface word classes 659 714 56 05/19/22 20220501 NES 220501 1 Introduction This article offers foundations towards a comprehensive typology of the nominal domain, capturing the significant language-internal and crosslinguistic diversity of nominal expressions. Another path towards further NP-internal slots is proposed by Mark Van de Velde (this issue) for some Bantu languages, where appositional modifiers following NPs, marked by a prefixed augment, have in some languages become reanalyzed as part of the NP. The first set of determiners (pronoun, demonstrative and quantifier) are normally placed at the left edge, but occur at the right edge when the NP is the subject of a non-verbal predicate (as in (34b)), in coordination structures, and in subsequent mentions where the NP adds extra specification (as in the second NP in (34c)). For example, [155]: 19-23), in his crosslinguistic study of the NP, distinguishes between integral NPs (where elements that semantically modify the head are also modifiers syntactically), non-integral NPs (where elements that semantically modify the head are in apposition to it at sentence level), and something in between (where each element is a minor NP; all are in apposition within a larger phrasal structure). [Extracted from the article]

The distinction of systemic linguistics and generative linguistics has led to more problems for systemicists than for generativists: Halliday's theory has been widely applied but has not been adequately valued as an influential strand of functional grammars in discussions on functionalism and formalism in linguistics; Halliday recognizes Chomsky's theoretical importance but fails to get Chomsky to respond to his questioning. By focusing on the complementarity and reconcilability of functionalist and formalist approaches to language, this paper discusses the common concerns and dialogues along with discursive differences and rhetorical conflicts between Halliday and Chomsky, and proposes that what stands between them is a difference of discourses of argumentation rather than an opposition of functionalism and formalism. It suggests a few things that at least some systemic linguists need to do in order to further interact with generative linguists who may not be interested in the systemic enterprise. It concludes that since Halliday's social semiotic theory aims at everyday problems of living and learning, it should not be difficult for systemic linguists to solve the problem of communicating with Chomsky and his followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional Discourse Grammar presented by Hengveld and Mackenzei (2008) as one of the newest Functional Grammar. This theory is mainly based on Dick’s Functional Grammar (1970s). According to Dick, every perfect Grammar should have Pragmatic, Psychological and Typological adequacy. FDG considers a top-down procedures for making speech for the sake of psychological adequacy. For acquiring Pragmatic adequacy, Speech act is considered as the basic element of studying in this approach. Furthermore, In FDG, language is studied in four separated levels in a top-down manner. The order of levels reveals the governing notion of functional and pragmatic units on formal and syntactic ones. Furthermore, FDG introduces a new approach for constituent order which has 84 positions in contrast to Greenberg (1963) 6 positions theory. In this paper, the general principles of FDG and different steps for making speech act is presented by giving Persian examples. Alongside this presentation, some typological behavior of Persian based on FDG and analyzing some Persian grammatical and discoursal phenomenon are discussed.

In subordinate clauses, the finite verb also belongs to the verb cluster, so that the terms "verb cluster" and "verb construction" in that syntactic context refer to the same verbs. Keywords: Dutch; functional category; selectional restriction; semantic scope; verb construction EN Dutch functional category selectional restriction semantic scope verb construction 123 176 54 01/18/22 20220101 NES 220101 1 Introduction Dutch is known for its ability to combine a wide variety of verbs into complex verb constructions. Our corpus data (Table 15) show that perception and causative verbs are overwhelmingly used as nonfinite verbs in three-verb constructions (point estimate proportion for finite perception/causative verbs 0.04; 95% CI, 5 comparisons, finite I zien: i 0 I . i 04-0.30, which means that I zien i is somewhat more commonly finite than the other perception/causative verbs, according to our data). In particular, the tendency for a particular verb or a group of verbs to appear as finite or nonfinite verbs in a three-verb construction is of interest, which is captured by the proportion of finite versus nonfinite occurrences for this verb or verb group. A last verb that requires some extra discussion is I gaan. i As an aspectual marker, it differs from other external aspect verbs, in that it is frequently used as a finite verb with scope over internal aspect verbs, causative verbs and passive auxiliaries. [Extracted from the article]

Engaging with a spectrum of intermodal and intermedial translation, the primary aim of this study is to present and apply a holistic multimodal approach to song translation through which the interaction of the potential meaning of semiotic resources can be considered as a composite and indivisible whole. The focus of this study is Fiddler on the Roof, chosen because it has been translated for both stage and film musicals in Turkiye. With this purpose, we adopted a triple model which operationalized Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), Kress and van Leeuwen’s integrated approach by combining textual and visual grammar, and Leeuwen’s (1999) framework of musical analysis. Our historical approach to the Turkish musical landscape proposes that translation strategies for songs in film musicals reflect a consistent pattern of choice (mainly mixed translation) arising from state-monopolized TV impositions; while in contrast, for stage musicals, the wider range of translation strategies shed light on fluctuations in multi-semiotic popular arts entertainment, caused by ideologically- and economically-driven practices. Our in-depth multimodal analysis revealed that an integrated approach can bring to the surface the potential density of interacting semiosis in the performative and narrative dimensions of musicals. These new dimensions, enabled through a multimodal analysis, require new skills, knowledge and literacies, thus, expanding the boundaries of translation studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A generally accepted view regarding proper names is that they have reference, but no lexical meaning (Lyons, 1977). This idea is the basis for the Functional Discourse Grammar (Hengeveld & Mackenzie, 2008) view of proper names as primitives of the Interpersonal Level and the lexical head of Subacts of Reference. At the Representational Level, the entity is designated by an absent head, which captures the fact that proper names do not have a meaning. Although this approach accounts for the most prototypical use of proper names, it fails to explain a range of other uses. In addition to the referential use of non-modified proper names, this paper analyses other uses of proper names in Portuguese: modified proper names, metaphorical proper names, and proper names in naming constructions. The proposal presented here explains cases of restrictive modification and metaphorical uses of proper names as instances of reflexive language and coercion, respectively. As for proper names in naming constructions, they are considered to have a third, different, function, in addition to the vocative and referential use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar provides a new perspective and method for political discourse analysis. This paper first introduces the research status of political discourse at home and abroad, and then elaborates three metafunctions of Systemic Functional Grammar, namely ideational function, interpersonal function as well as textual function. On this basis, this paper makes an in-depth transitivity analysis of the inaugural address of the 46th president of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden. Through profound research, this paper attempts to reveal how English language is applied to hide ideology in political speeches and how president Joe Biden uses various language features to persuade and inspire American people in order to reach his political purpose; at the same time, it also verifies the practicability of Systemic Functional Grammar in the analysis of political speech discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Synergies Chine is the property of GERFLINT (Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherches pour le Francais Langue Internationale) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)