4.1.1 Appositive and Clarificative CMs
According to Halliday & Matthiessen(2004:540-542),appositive and clarificative CMs function either to represent or to classify the elaborated elements.In this sense,the author could restate or summarize what he/she has said before by using these two kinds of CMs.In this way,he/she explicitly agrees to,or reaches a consensus on some dialogic propositions,or indicates his/her certainty of the proposition.For example,
(37)The New York partners should have avoided any hint of speculative activity related to investments in corporate securities-whether outright purchases of securities or cash loans to third parties who offered railroad stocks and bonds as collateral.In other words,these two European partners lamented,in hindsight,the allegedly missed opportunities for achieving even greater successes during these difficult and stressful times.
(H,AEs)
(38)The difficulty with these types of definitions,of course,is to identify the type,level and intensity of environmental factors that causes stress,as opposed to a normal homeostatic response,as there may not be a sharp threshold between these two conditions.(N,AEs)
In Example(37),the appositive CM in other words connect two clauses by restating the former proposition.It appears to signal that the propositions after in other words are presented to fulfill the natural expectations.Similarly,in Example(38),the author’s use of the clarificative CM of course construes an audience for the text which shares the author’s assessment of the difficulty to define the types of environmental factors.
In fact,apposition and classification are dialogic in that they present the author as in dialogue with the text’s audience generally.By using these CMs,the authors construe the dialogic backdrop so as to achieve an alignment between the audience and themselves.
All in all,appositive and clarificative CMs on the one hand are cohesive in connecting various texts,and on the other hand they back it up with some form of explanation or explanatory comment,at the same time construing the author as the one who writes to fulfill the natural expectations of the readers.The occurrences and frequencies of the typical appositive and clarificative CMs are listed in Table 4.1[1].
Table 4.1 Occurrences and frequencies of typical appositive and clarificative CMs
续表:
Table 4.1 lists the occurrences and frequencies of appositive and clarificative CMs per 100,000 words in the chosen corpus.Obviously,clarificative CMs used in the chosen EAPs are more diversified than appositive CMs,with the number of 18 vs 4.However,there is not a great gap between their total frequencies,i.e.,59.5 v.s.31.4.Among all the 22 CMs,indeed,for example and actually are the most frequently used CMs,with the frequencies of 19.7,19.2 and 11.5 respectively.
Indeed is usually considered as the CM to express epistemic stance(Biber et al.,1999).It indicates that the author wants to make the proposition more precise.Consider the following example,
(39)It is a misconception to suggest that in order to succeed in London’s fashionable West End a store needed to embrace modernity and novelty.Indeed,Bourne and Hollingsworth’s safe,respectable image was absolutely to be expected from a mid-level metropolitan department store,just as it was for its provincial counterparts.(H,AEs)
In Example(39),indeed is used to confirm the importance of a metropolitan department store in the success in London’s fashionable West End.
For example signals that the author develops the thesis of the primary clause by becoming more specific about it,implicitly showing that he/she is citing a specific instance which concurs or supports the expectations set in the primary clause.
(40)They suggest that the damage that builds up during chill exposure can be either prevented or repaired by molecular processes that are either activated before the imposition of chill stress or re-activated during warming periods.For example,ion gradients are re-established(Kostál et al.,2007),heat shock proteins(HSPs)or other cytoskeletal components(Michaud and Denlinger,2004)are upregulated,depleted energy reserves(Cheng-Ping and Denlinger,1992)are recharged,and accumulated toxic metabolites are removed(Colinet et al.,2007).(N,ANEs)
In Example(40),the CM for example is followed by various types of molecular processes which are pointed in the former clause.Similarly,actually in Example(41)made the proposition more precise by talking about more about the soft micelles.
(41)The formation mechanism of the native spider silks was simply considered as a self-assembly mechanism,mainly originating from the process that the silk proteins,being driven by hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic action,self-assembled intoβ-sheets and further assembled into soft micelles(10-100 nm in diameter).Actually,the formed soft micelles were further transformed,which finally caused the emerging of the multiscale microstructures on and in the native spider silks.(N,ANEs)