7.3.1 Field:Ideational Instantiation of Processes ...
I identified and divided the clauses into three types, that is, full clause, ellipsis and minor clause, in terms of the lexicogrammatical components of Process, Participant and Circumstance.In order to compare the density of grammatical intricacy, I then calculated the total number and mean number of clauses with Process types, clause complexes and words in each text.As the analysis progressed, I discovered that Participant and Circumstance could not saliently tell the difference between the texts, so I continued to identify and calculate the total number of the technical terms and categories of abstraction in the clauses that were produced by the Chinese students.After all, the tertiary classroom is a primary context for observing and interpreting how students enact their disciplinary identities in participation of re-constructing specialised knowledge (refer to Section 7.3.1.2).
The corresponding quantitative results of the total number and mean of clauses and words, Process types, intricate clause complexes and technicality and abstraction provide a synoptic picture of classroom discourse structure on different scales.They explain how the Chinese students in different years construct their own group membership from novice to competent participants in the logogenetic instantiation of classroom discourse and in the ontogenetic development of individuals.Grammatically, this is examined in terms of the selection of linguistic features, reconstruction of disciplinary knowledge and sense of belonging developed through disciplinary participation.
7.3.1.1 Grammatical Intricacy
Halliday (1985b) states that spoken language generates a higher degree of grammatical intricacy.Eggins (2004) points out, grammatical intricacy ‘relates to the number of clauses per sentence, and can be calculated by expressing the number of clauses in a text as a proportion of the number of sentences in the text’ (Eggins, 2004, p.97).Except for the density of clauses, Matthiessen (2002) suggests that clause complex is another important grammatical structure to explain the fluid intricacy of spoken discourse.
7.3.1.1.1 Clauses
Clause is the highest grammatical unit on the lexicogrammatical rank scale.The division of clause in accordance with the ideational structure is to identify Participant, Process and Circumstance.Process types in the experiential system of TRANSITIVITY are a starting point to look at the instantiation of field in both written and spoken texts where six Process types of material, behavioural, mental, verbal, relational, and existential construe the semiotic meanings of ‘doing’, ‘behaving’, ‘sensing’, ‘attributing’, ‘identifying’ and ‘existing’ respectively.Halliday (2003) explains that the frequencies of these processes represent the systemic probabilities of language use. Hence, the analysis of the frequency of Process types in this study provides an entry view to examine the different instantiation of fields in four classroom discourse texts.
However, the dynamic nature of spoken discourse in interaction affords a challenge to generate major clauses containing the processes, either because of the quality of response, or the occurrence of interruption in the information exchange.Most often, minor clauses and ellipsis occur in spoken language.Thus, clauses in the interpersonal system of MOOD are identified according to the Mood elements of Subject and Finite.The difference between major and minor clauses is the use of Predicator which subtracts the Finite elements of the temporal or modal operator.Clauses like ‘Hmm.’, ‘Yeah, okay.’, ‘Thank you!’ or ‘Jane!’ are accounted as minor structures, whereas some such as those in Extract 7.1 are major clauses.In major clauses (i) and (ii), two Predicators underlined are set up and get.
Extract 7.1 Major clauses from Y3 Chinese students’ classroom discourse
Ellipsis is another common structure found in interaction, especially in reacting clauses.It occurs in both clauses and clause complexes.In this study, as the interpersonal meaning is the primary interpretation of classroom interaction, more relevant description of these grammatical patterns with the Mood elements and Mood clause types will be given in Section 7.3.2.
7.3.1.1.2 Clause Complexes
The clause complex is a grammatical structure that logically combines more than two clauses.Usually, they are linked by conjunctions to realise the relations of reason (e.g., because, so) or condition (e.g., if).A clause complex is different from a ‘sentence’ of the traditional view.Halliday (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) argues that a sentence is an orthographic unit in English, while a clause complex is a grammar pattern that represents the way of how the related message is realised in a sequence of clauses and expanded meanings.In this sense, the analysis of clause complexes manifests ‘the impressive intricacy of the structure’ (Matthiessen, 2002, p.2).
Figure 7.1 demonstrates the system of clause complexing in the SFL model.Two systems of TAXIS and LOGICO-SEMANTIC TYPE decide how the units of clause are related to each other.First, in the system of TAXIS, hypotaxis and parataxis are two categories that represent the degree of interdependency between the clause units.In a hypotactic clause complex, a clause modifies the meaning of another one, with one clause as a primary or dominant unit and the other is a secondary or dependent one.In a hypotactic relation, the two units are labeled as Greek alphabets α and β.In a paratactic relation, a unit labeled as 1 and the other as 2 represent an equal status between the two units.And the examples and notations are demonstrated in Table 7.1.
Figure 7.1 The system of clause complexing
(from Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.438)
Table 7.1 Types of clause complexes (modified from Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.447)
When there are more than two clause units in a clause complex, the clauses will be related in a combination of both hypotactic and paratactic categories.For example, in Extract 7.1, the first and the second clauses form a paratactic relationship of 1 and 2, while the second and the third clauses form a hypotactic one, with the meaning of the third one dependent upon the second one:
1 He has also set up his own homepage,
2 α and so people can get more information about his
personality and other events [[he has done before]],
β to better understand him.
Second, projection and expansion in the system of LOGICO-SEMANTIC RELATION are another two categories linking clauses in a clause complex.The system of projection (i.e.the dependent clause is projected through the dominant one) includes the choices of direct and indirect speech and thought.Locution and idea are two options instantiated in projection, which are respectively notated as the double quote ” and the single quote ’.In the system of expansion, the dependent clause expands the dominant one through three relational options of elaboration, extension and enhancement.These three relationships are symbolised in the notations of =, +, ×, with the respective meanings of ‘equals’, ‘is added to’, and ‘is multiplied by’.
Halliday and Matthiessen (2014, p.444) define these categories as follows:
Structurally, the clauses in elaboration, extension and enhancement are related either with or without overt linkers.In particular, there are less overt linkers used in spoken discourse than in written texts.First, in the elaborating relations, there is usually no conjunction between the clauses, but possibly being realised by a colon or a semi-colon.And some abbreviations like i.e., e.g., viz.are used in certain types of written text.Second, the extending relations are most frequently combined with parataxis, but less so with hypotaxis.The typical conjunctions used in paratactic patterns are and, or, but, or nor, and those in hypotactic patterns are whereas, while, instead of, rather than, except for, besides, apart from, or as well as.Third, the meanings in the enhancing relations are multiplied, being realised between the clauses by the linkers categorised as in time (e.g., while, when, as soon as, since, after, before, until), place (e.g., and there, where, everywhere), manner (e.g., as, as if, like, the way, by (means of )), and cause-condition (e.g., because, as, since, seeing that, considering, because of, so that, if, unless, even if, although, despite, in spite of).
7.3.1.2 Thing Types
Technicality and abstraction represent the meanings of the specialised knowledge in a particular field (Halliday & Martin, 1993).Often in the classroom, students need to understand and interpret the disciplinary knowledge, and thus produce written or spoken texts to describe or explain the idea or information.When students engage in the ways of using language to share knowledge associated with the discipline, they are transferring the commonsense knowledge into the uncommonsense interpretation of experience.Through the engagement in the experience of knowledge reconstruction, students enhance their use of academic language, and subsequently contribute to the changes of their disciplinary identities from novice to competent members.
Grammatically, technicality and abstraction are established in nominal resources with taxonomic relations.In SFL, it is an important dimension to explore how students reconstruct specialised knowledge in the development of language (cf.Derewianka, 1995; Halliday & Martin, 1993; Martin, 1993a).According to Halliday, children learn to make meanings in the development of language from congruent to incongruent structures and from concrete to abstract meanings, by using linguistic resources such as technical terms, lexical density, grammatical intricacy and grammatical metaphors.
7.3.1.2.1 Technicality
Technicality is a part of the language of a discipline which enables ‘the inventory of what it can talk about, and the terms in which it can talk about them’ (Halliday & Martin, 1993, p.180).Technical terms are commonly identical with abbreviating expressions (e.g., SFL) and jargon words (e.g., propaganda, Multitude).They are used to name and classify a thing glossed as a nominal component, and then to order the thing along a cline of taxonomic constituents.At the clause level, this taxonomic classifying and ordering of the experiential world can be realised in nominal groups, relational processes, existential processes and material processes.
Another function of technicality (cf., Halliday & Martin, 1993) is to distill or condense the meaning by defining a thing or process.Grammatically, this can be realised in the relational process, with the taxonomic relationships of meronymy (‘A is a part of B’) or superordination (‘A is a kind of B’).Here, technical terms are normally identical in A, meanwhile, new technical ones related to less uncommonsense terms may be identical in the defining process B.
7.3.1.2.2 Abstraction
Abstraction is another nominal resource representing the development of language.Sometimes, it is difficult to distinguish between the categories of abstraction in text, because there is a vague boundary between abstraction, the grammatical metaphor and technicality.To give an effective description of abstraction from the linguistic perspective, the current discussion adopts Martin’s (1997) framework to identify abstractions as Things.The differences between abstractions, technical terms and grammatical metaphors will be explained in accordance with his framework of thing types in Figure 7.2 below.
Figure 7.2 Kinds of Thing:covering abstractions and grammatical metaphors
(from Martin, 1997, p.30)
In Figure 7.2, three types of thing are classified:namely, concrete, abstract and metaphoric.In the concrete category, everyday things like apple, bottle and blanket are the most common ones.Specialized things are those that stretch out to view in everyday life, but meanwhile restrict access to certain people.For example, mattock is a kind of common agricultural tool for peasants, but not for the others who never see it.Once you point these out to people, they would then know what it is.
In the abstract category, technical things are particularly field-specified, and need a certain detailed linguistic definition to explain what they mean.Examples are the technical terms inflation in Economics, metafunction in SFL, gene in Biology.Institutional things refer to the things ‘organize our lives’ (Martin, 1997, p.31) such as regulation, bureau and policy.Moreover, the things representing semiosis and generic dimensions of meaning in everyday life are grammatically instantiated as the wordings of fact, idea, concept, and colour, time, manner.In the metaphoric category, processes and qualities are identical as things.Metaphor in SFL refers to the use of words or clauses with transferred meanings from congruent to incongruent, from concrete to abstract.It may be a challenge to analyse technical terms and metaphoric things, because technical terms actually carry metaphoric meanings in their own right.However, as explained above, a technical term is established in a specific field; as Derewianka (1995) suggests, it is ‘no longer the case that both the congruent and metaphorical options are equally “at risk’’ ’ (p.230).
Furthermore, Martin (1997) points out the analysis of abstract and metaphoric things are not limited to derivation alone.In the following example, regulation can be interpreted as either 1) an institutional abstraction or 2) a metaphorical process:
1.Regulations don’t permit that activity.
2.Excessive regulation of students’ behaviour may not always
be in the school’s best interest.
To enable a clear distinction between metaphorical and abstract things, Martin (1997) suggests that Halliday’s concept of grammatical metaphor is a good resource to look at.The concept of grammatical metaphor in SFL is associated with a structural feature of nominalisation on which both technicality and abstraction depend.Grammatically, nominalisation of verbs, such as regulation in clause 2 above, can be realised at the ranks of word, phrase/group, and clause, representing the reified processes of events.
7.3.1.2.3 Nominal Group with Defining and Classifying Elements in Relational Process
Field is also construed in the defining and classifying of commonsense or specialised knowledge.Halliday and Martin (1993) point out that ‘technical discourse has developed to reconstruct the world’ (p.252), and students would learn their disciplines better when they are able to use their own disciplinary words.In this study, therefore, the defining and classifying of technical terms in classroom discourse are two important distinguishing features to measure the different representation of these Chinese students’ disciplinary identities in accessing and mobilising experience of disciplinary knowledge in the classrooms.
Grammatically, Halliday and Martin (1993) suggest that these linguistic features can be realised in relational processes which include a range of relational clause types.They are listed with the examples as follows.The examples of these types are presented along with the analytical results in Section 7.4.2.3.
