Applied Linguistics - Literature review Example

Applied Linguistics: The systemic functional grammar is one of the forms of grammatical that was developed by Halliday (Halliday, 1994). It is a form of social semiotic approach to systematic functional linguistics (Hacquard, 2000). In this context, systemic is used to refer to a view that language is an interrelated set of options or the network of system applicable in making meaning. Halliday made use of the term functional to imply that language is what it is following its course of evolving into what it is today. Functional grammar, therefore seeks to put together language patterns alongside those things that one can do with them. According to Halliday (1985) language is just but a system of meanings, often accompanied by forms through which the realization of meanings can be achieved. There are various contexts that are associated with language. It can be interpret as a case of sentences and words that carry different contextual meanings. Systemic Grammar can be broken down into three key areas. These are transitivity, appraisal and modality. In this respect, modality entails analyzing a clause using many syntactic functions. Transitivity, on the other hand, is used to refer to a range of processes alongside the participants who get involved in such processes. This way, persons express themselves through language (Fawcett, 2013). According to Fawcett, it is through the transitivity structures that clauses realizing different experiential meanings within a text are realized. Arguably, transitivity consists of many types of processes including the material, mental, verbal and relational. Taking the example of the first text, in the story ‘Grinch who stole Christmas hope,’ it is reported by the author that the economy of Britain is forecast to shrink this year.” In the analysis of the text, it is noted that the subject in this case is the economy of Britain, also seen as the participant who is involved with the process. ‘Shrink’ in this context is the process with this year as the circumstance given that it provides details as to when the event shall eventually take place. Taking into consideration the fact that the action of the economy being physical the process becomes material. This implies that the total money or financial value is decreasing, thus, leading to a shrink in the economy. This clearly points out to the fact that, Transitivity lets the reader know “who is doing what to whom,” and here the intended audience sees that the ‘economy of Britain’ is getting ‘shrunk’ by the ‘bankruptcy’ and ‘debt mountain’ mentioned in the earlier sentences. Using the second text, Ben Chu says “Households with annual incomes of around £14,200 lose £5.10 a week…” Here the participant is ‘household/s,’ the process is to ‘lose’ and the circumstance is ‘a week.’ The author says that the households in Britain that earn around £14,200 as annual income would end up losing a total of £5.10 each week due to the tax rises and benefit cuts. Here also the process can be seen to be a material one as the households do ‘lose money,’ the money which is rightfully a part of their hard earned income. Basing on the very text with this example “The poorest 50 per cent of households will see their incomes squeezed by the Coalition’s decision…” it is certain that the types of processes, as it is comprises both mental, as in ‘see,’ and material, as in ‘squeezed’ processes. In both texts, the authors have settled on employing the element of transitivity. As often is the case, each clause consists of a participant, a process as well as a circumstance. IFor instance, inn the first text, the majority of processes are material ‘robbing,’ ‘gifting,’ ‘unleashed,’ ‘make,’ ‘pay,’ ‘wandered off,’ ‘stole’ and so on. Mental process, in this case, include such words like ‘saw,’ ‘thinks,’ ‘feel’ with the relational ones noted as ‘has,’ ‘is,’ ‘was’ and ‘will be.’ Notably, there are hardly any verbal processes mentioned in the text. Basing on the second text, material processes include ‘lose,’ ‘benefit,’ ‘slash,’ ‘squeezed,’ and ‘create’. Those that can be categorized as mental include ‘bore,’ ‘see,’ ‘cope’ and others. It will be interesting to know that Ben Chu has presented his text with a focus on the element of transitivity more in the way of verbal processes as he brings facts to the table in a manner that emphasizes interactivity. This can be seen through ‘announced,’ ‘said,’ ‘warned,’ ‘described’ etc. Some of the relational processes include ‘with,’ ‘will be’ and ‘have.’ As highlighted above, Modality is an element of grammar that enables a person to “talk about events that may not have happened, but are desired or required” (Hacquard, 2000, p.11). Charles Hockett’s theory of displacement brings to fore one of the unique characteristics of the human language, which is the ability to talk about things beyond the here and now” (Hacquard, 2000, p.11). Modality, therefore, is an element that aligns tense to help people to displace themselves or the things they talk about, as it “expresses the notions of possibility, probability and certainty” (Downing & Locke, 2006. p.157). Modality also explores various worlds or various possible situations that may happen in the future or maybe happening currently in another world, had a different set of events or course of actions have taken place. For example, in the first text ‘Grinch, who Stole Christmas Hope,’ the author says “Every man has to eat but Cameron would’ve choked on his lunch if he had any shame.” Here it is understood that Cameron did not choke on his lunch, but the author says that Cameron would have choked had he got any shame. That is, the author explores an alternative world where Cameron chokes on his lunch, being ashamed of exploiting the helpless common man. It opens the possibility of a situation where he becomes so disgusted about the terrible things he has done that he finds it hard to swallow his meal, thus ending up choking on it. The same way, in the second extract taken from ‘The Independent,’ Ben Chu says “The package of tax rises and benefit cuts announced by the Chancellor will cost the poorest 10 per cent of households in Britain £3.34 per week by 2015.” The text has been written in 2012, three years before the actual event. Therefore, it is clear that the event has not happened, although the author presumes that it will happen if the taxes go on rising and the plans of benefit cuts are executed properly. Modality along with tense is what enables the writer to not only to predict such an event but also express his prediction trough the text to an audience. Appraisal: Appraisal refers to the “subjective presence of writers/speakers in texts as they adopt stances towards both the material they present and those with whom they communicate” (Peng, 2008, p.2). Appraisal is another element in the systemic functional grammar and it is also usually used to analyze texts. Appraisal comprises three main constituents, namely: attitude, engagement and graduation. According to De Souza (2006) the appraisal concept is often used by most speakers to amplify the feelings, express feelings, as well as in incorporating additional voices in discourses. It comprises three main constituents, namely: attitude, graduation and engagement. The definition of appraisal stems from the definition of these three constituents, that is, attitude becomes the feelings, judgments and evaluations that the speakers express. Graduation is how they amplify those feelings that is bring to the fore “how strongly (they) feel about someone or something” and engagement is how the speakers bring in additional voices through “projection, modalization or concession” (Halliday, 1994). Under attitude, come affect, judgment and appreciation. Affect is positive or negative emotional feeling that the speaker has or the response to an external stimulus which again involves any such emotion. For example, in the first text, ‘gloom, gloom and more gloom’ expresses the negative sad feeling that the author sees or experiences as a result of the grave mistakes of the Chancellor. ‘Pain’ in the second text again reveals the negative impacts that emerge as a result of the tax rises and benefit cuts. It can be noted here that in both the texts the authors primarily employ negative affects and this is due to the topic at hand. They do not feel much in the way of positive impacts and thus the negative feelings. Now, judgment is an element that evaluates a process in a clause in terms of the norms and beliefs followed in the society. In the first text the author writes ‘robbing low paid families and the jobless,’ where robbing is the process which is just immoral and unacceptable. Robbing in itself is an unjust deed, when it is done to the jobless as well as low paid people the intensity multiplies as they do not own or have much in their name in the first place. Therefore, the author is criticizing George Osborne for his decision of extracting money out of the jobless as well as low paid sections of the society. On the other hand, in ‘The Independent,’ the author says ‘the country bore the brunt,’ that is Britain had to take toll for the wrong decisions of George Osborne. It can be observed that both texts criticize the wrong decisions that are merely aimed at exploiting the public rather than for their welfare. Appreciation is somewhat similar to judgment, but can easily be differentiated as the former is related more with visual qualities whether positive or negative that describes nature or phenomenon and not the person. ‘Stunning error,’ ‘richest households,’ ‘poor households’ are such examples. Examples of graduation are ‘really thinks’ in the first text and ‘partially offset’ in the second text. In the former the author is emphasizing on the fact that the subject strongly ‘thinks’ and in the latter, the author is minimizing or lowering the impact of how much the subject will be ‘offset.’ In case of engagement, there are a lot of examples seen, more in the second text, some of which include: ‘every man has to eat but Cameron,’ where the author expresses disclaim through the use of ‘but’, ‘government departments may have to slash,’ where author probabilizes by way of using ‘may’. Reference Downing, A. & Locke, P. (2006). English Grammar: A University Course. 2nd Ed. New York: Routledge publishers. Fawcett, R. (2013). The Functional Syntax Handbook: Analyzing English at the Level of Form. Bristol, CT: ISD Publishers. Hacquard, V. (2000). Aspects of Modality. Retrieved on Jan 2013 from http://ling.umd.edu/~hacquard/papers/hacquard_thesis.pdf. Halliday, M. (1994). The Introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold Halliday, M. (2003). The "Architecture" of Human Language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. (1985). Dimensions of Discourses Analysis: Grammar. London: Edward Arnold. Peng, X. (2008). Evaluative Meanings in Literary Texts: The First Step towards Appraisal Stylistics. Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29. Retrieved on 15th Jan 2013 from http://static.sdu.dk/mediafiles//Files/Om_SDU/Institutter/ISK/Forskningspublikationer/OWPLC/Nr29/Xuanwei%20Peng.pdf. Read More