3.3.3 Text in Context
Context in SFL refers to the immediate environment in relation to the use of language.It is also seen as a higher-order semiotic system surrounding the language system that contains the first semiotic model of social process, and the second model of linguistic and other specific semiotic processes in the domain of experience.As presented in Section 2.3.4.1, Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) distinguish between context of culture and context of situation in that the extralinguistic world surrounds language.Butt et al.illuminate the former as the sum of all possible meanings in a culture, and the latter as an abstraction that is defined by the sum of the motivating features of text construction.These motivating features can be accounted for by three variables that ‘cover the things going on in the world outside the text that make the text what it is’ (Butt et al., 2000, p.4).Comprehensively, field, tenor and mode are explained by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) as follows:
‘field-what’s going on in the situation:(i) the nature of the social and semiotic activity; and (ii) the domain of experience this activity relates to (the ‘subject matter’ or ‘topic’)
tenor-who is taking part in the situation:(i) the roles played bythose taking part in the socio-semiotic activity-(1) institutional roles, (2) status roles (power, either equal or unequal), (3) contact roles (familiarity, ranging from strangers to intimates) and (4) sociometric roles (affect, either neutral or charged, positively or negatively); and (ii) the values that the interactants imbue the domain with (either neutral or loaded, positively or negatively)
mode-what role is being played by language and other semiotic systems in the situation:(i) the division of labour between semiotic activities and social ones (ranging from semiotic activities as constitutive of the situation to semiotic activities as facilitating); (ii) the division of labour between linguistic activities and other semiotic activities; (iii) rhetorical mode:the orientation of the text towards field (e.g.informative, didactic, explanatory, explicatory) or tenor (e.g.persuasive, exhortatory, hortatory, polemic); (iv) turn:dialogic or monologic; (v) medium:written or spoken; (vi) channel:phonic or graphic.’ (pp.33-34)
Together, field, tenor and mode configure the context of situation of a text.A complete description of contextual meaning of any text in a given situation is supposed to include all these three variables.Therefore, context of situation can be used to predict the kind of grammatical components produced in a text, which in turn has an impact upon the making of the text.
The current study applies the concept of context of situation in mapping and analysing the disciplinary identities construction in discourse practice by focusing on registerial variables of field and tenor and their corresponding ideational and interpersonal meanings in the use of classroom discourse.These two variables enable the current study systematically to explore the abovementioned second order of role relationships in interaction defined by the linguistic system and structure.Halliday (1978) remarkably actualises social interaction in the linguistic form of text, which he defines as a semantic choice that represents ‘a continuous progression of meanings’ (p.122) occurring in a situational context.Therefore, systemic analytical approaches to field and tenor are adopted in this study to analyse how Chinese students differently construe their disciplinary identities in the performance and negotiation of classroom discourse.
3.3.3.1 Field:Ideational Meaning
3.3.3.1.1 Rank Scale
Rank scale in SFL is used to distinguish between the constituent grammatical hierarchies of language as to the relationship of whole unit and part features, wherein the compositional layers of language are organised by a syntagmatic order.Table 3.1 summarises an overview of SFL rank scale and its structure (cf.Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014).The orders at each rank consist of one or more units of the rank below.At the lowest rank is the morpheme, the smallest unit of language with semantic meaning.Words at the above rank can be recognised from the traditional grammar classes such as nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs.At group level, Systemic Functional Grammar recognises groups such as nominal group, verbal group or adverbial group and only one kind of phrase, that is, the prepositional phrase.
Table 3.1 SFL rank scale and its structure
Clause in Systemic Functional Grammar is seen as ‘the central processing unit in the lexicogrammar—in the specific sense that it is in the clause that meanings of different kinds are mapped into an integrated grammatical structure’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.10).At the highest rank is clause complex, which refers to any group of clauses that are related logically.It is necessary to distinguish the difference between clause complex in functional grammar and sentence in traditional grammar.In traditional grammar, words are combined into phrases, phrases into clauses and clauses into sentences.This organisation takes place in written texts.However, in analysing spoken language, sentence description may be problematic because grammatical criteria for writing and speaking are different.Aiming to describe both spoken and written texts systemically, the concept of clause complex is more appropriate for the language description at the level above clause.
The current study is mainly concerned with Halliday’s functional grammar analysis as to discourse at the clause level.As mentioned earlier, this study adopts the structures of Transitivity, Clause Complex and Mood to interpret clause as representation and clause as exchange.Their grammatical patterns are presented as follows.
3.3.3.1.2 Clause as Representation:Transitivity
Transitivity structure construes experience in the form of clauses consisting of Participant (of thing), Process (of event), and Circumstance.Halliday identifies six types of Processes in terms of Transitivity system that builds up the meanings of experience based on the clause rank, that is, material, behavioural, mental, verbal, relational, and existential.Table 3.2 below summaries these six types of Process, meanings, key Participants, and their examples (cf.Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014).
Table 3.2 SFL structure of Transitivity
Continued
3.3.3.1.3 Clause as Exchange:Mood
Mood structure is the principle grammatical system in expressing the interpersonal meaning or meaning as exchange.Analysis of the clause at this level is separated into the elements of Mood and Residue.As shown in Table 3.3 below, the Mood in the clause consists of Subjects, the duke, that teapot, and Finites, has, won’t, wasn’t and would, and realises the selection of mood element.The Mood often comes first in the clause and affords its consistent information exchange, leaving the rest of the clause unaffected.
Table 3.3 Subject and Finite (from Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.141)
The Residue is the remainder of the clause and is made up of Predicator, Complement and Adjunct.The example with these elements is presented in Table 3.4.As Residue is not focused on in the current study, it will not be explained in great detail here.
Table 3.4 Structure of Residue (from Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p.121)
3.3.3.1.4 Above the Clause:Logical Mode of Ideational Meaning
In the ideational metafunction, logical meaning is where the experience of world is represented by a set of relationships between phenomena, such as cause and effect, comparison and contrast, or addition.These serially chained phenomena are related by logico-semantic relationships in which the complexity of text is created.In the logical mode, the complexes of units are realised as either equal (paratactic) or unequal (hypotactic) status in the system of TAXIS, at both group and phrase, and clause ranks.Therefore, its patterns will be realised with or without the conjunctive relators, such as because, however, if, or when.These complex structures represent the development of text by two primary types in LOGICO-SEMANTIC system, that is, expansion and projection.In the current study, clause complexing is an important logical feature revealed from the classroom discourse data to examine the students’ language development.To give a cohesive and holistic picture, the detailed explanation on the structural and functional representation of clause complexes in the two systems of TAXIS and LOGICO-SEMANTIC relations will be given in the analytical section 7.3.1.1.2.
3.3.3.2 Tenor:Interpersonal Meaning
3.3.3.2.1 Speech Function
Interpersonal meaning in SFL is concerned with how people use language to realise interaction.To organise the interactive event in the clause, two distinctions are drawn to recognise the processes of role and message exchange.The fundamental one is about the speech role in exchange.In interactive events, the interactants may give goods & services or information, or they may demand goods & services or information.The second distinction concerns the nature of the commodity exchanged.Language can be used to exchange information or goods-&-services.In Table 3.5, they further distinguish four primary speech functions that based on the variables from these two distinctions, that is offer goods-&-services or give statement of information, as well as command for goods-&-services and question about information.
Table 3.5 Speech functions (from Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.136)
A detailed application of speech functions to the analysis of classroom discourse in this study will be described in Chapter 7.
3.3.3.2.2 Appraisal Theory
Appraisal theory is used in this study to examine the attitudinal resources in the participants’ self-evaluation of disciplinary practices in the community and how these practices are mediated to construe possible disciplinary selves.Appraisal theory is a model at the discourse semantic level in SFL theory developed by Martin and his colleagues (Martin, 1993a, 1997, 2000a; Martin & Rose, 2003; Martin & White, 2005).The model originally builds on Labov and Waletzky’s (1967) work on narrative analysis and focuses on the encoding of evaluation across narrative stages.Its theoretical construct is concerned with interpersonal meaning in texts, in that discourse moves to align or disalign with participants.
Appraisal theory is also concerned with the subjective and intersubjective stance of writers or speakers as well as related contextual and individual factors embedded in texts.Therefore, it provides useful global semantic patterns for the current study to interpret evaluative stance in texts, including identification and expressing of feelings and attitudes, and enables a deeper understanding of how group membership affiliation is realised in disciplinary practices.The analytical procedures and tools of Appraisal theory will be introduced in Chapter 6.