Interpersonal Meaning(语篇分析)

Function
• The Subject-Finite (S-F) positioning in a clause indicates whether the speaker is giving or demanding information or demanding goods and services. In short, the order of the S and F indicates whether the clause is declarative, interrogative or imperative.
Function(1)
• The Subject and Finite constitute the “nub” of the proposition: in order to interact we need both something to argue about, and some way in which to argue (Eggins and Slade 1997 :78)
Subject and Finite
1. 2. Kate didn’t like this at all. In that case, the universe should contain a number of regions that are smooth and uniform. Tears [past] streamed down his face. So the four we have don’t count. The other few items in the printing history of this work are easily summarized. 6. 7. In the footnotes, the titles of works which we have had to cite fairly frequently have been abbreviated to the author‟s surname. It is a matter of common experience that one can describe the position of a point in space by three numbers, or co-ordinate.
• In yes/no interrogatives, it‟s primarily the polarity of the message that the speaker wants the listener to specify. • In WH-interrogatives, the Subject can be either before or after the Finite. It depends on whether the speaker what to supply the Subject or the speaker demands the listener to fill in a missing part of the message. • The unmarked form of imperative clause has no Mood. An command is not open to negotiation, so most of the functions of the Finite are irrelevant here. The Finite only appears to signal negative polarity. The Subject of the an command can only be the addressee.
Mood Elements
• In terms of mood system, the clause can be divided into two parts: the Mood and the Residue. The elements that belong to the Mood are Subject (S) and Finite (F). Subject in the MOOD SYSTEM corresponds to the Subject in traditional grammar - and recall - is also be referred to as the Grammatical Subject. The Finite is the part of the verbal group that encodes primary tense (Verbal Operator) and POLARITY. It can also express the speaker‟s opinion in terms of modality.
3. 4. 5.
• We can see that the Subject functions can be carried out by any nominal group of any kind, The Finite is drawn from a small number of verbal operators, including those for tense („be‟, „have‟ and „do‟, „used to‟, plus „be‟ as the marker of passive voice) and those that express modality („can‟, „may‟, „could‟, „might‟, „must‟, „will‟, „would‟, „shall‟, „should‟, „ought to‟, „have to‟ and needn‟t)
R
Giving
C
Goods-andservices Offer
information
Statement
demanding
command
Question
Examples
• Compare these utterances:
– 1. I'll open the door.
– 2. Open the door, please.
Grammatical structures
Declarattem
mood
questions
Interrogative clauses
commands
Imperative clauses
offer
modality
Notes
• It is important to keep in mind that, while for statements and questions there are clear patterns Offers are the odd one in the table, since they are not associated with a specific mood choice of Mood choices in the clause, for offers and commands the patterns are not so clear. Especially for the case of offers, there is not really any clearly identifiable congruent form (Halliday 1994: 95) • Such matching between functions and structures represents an idealized view of the actual use of language system. How we formulate a request, a command or an offer of services will depend on the relationships of the participants, on the cultural norms governing these relationships, and on whether or not the speaker is working within or against those norms.
– 3. Open the door!
• In (1), someone is offering a service; in (2) someone is requesting a service ; and in (3) someone is giving an order.
Functions
Statements
Subject
• Organizing argumentation and signaling who or what is responsible for the validity of the proposition
• The workers protested against the government reform yesterday, didn‟t they?” • The workers protest against the government reform was held yesterday, wasn‟t it?”
Interpersonal Meaning
Mood and Modality
• Language is two-way system to interact with other people, to exchange meanings, to establish and maintain appropriate social links with them. There must be aspects of the grammar that can be identified as enabling us to interact through language. (Thompson, G. 2008)
Kinds of Exchange
• In speaking or writing we engage in an exchange in which we take on speech roles. The fundamental speech roles we can take on are giving and demanding. In these exchanges, we give and/or demand commodities, which are either (a) goods-&-services or (b) information (Halliday 1984: 68). Exchanges are thus (a) the giving of goods-&-services or information and/or (b) the demanding of goods-&-services or information. The exchange of information gives us propositions, while the exchange of „goods/services‟ gives us proposals. Within the category of propositions we can have the speech functions of statement and question; within the category of proposals we have the speech functions of offer and command.