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The textual metafunction. Yang Xinzhang English Dept, Xiamen Univ. The textual metafunction. " The textual metafunction creates discourse"
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The textual metafunction Yang Xinzhang English Dept, Xiamen Univ.
The textual metafunction • "The textual metafunction creates discourse" • "Of the various structures which, when mapped on to each other, make up a clause, we will consider first the one which gives the clause its character as a message. This is known as thematic structure.
The textual metafunction • We may assume that in all languages the clause has the character of a message: it has some form of organization giving it the status of a communicative event. But there are different ways in which this may be achieved. In English, as in many other languages, the clause is organized as a message by having a special status assigned to one part of it. One element in the clause is enunciated as the theme; this then combines with the remainder so that the two parts together constitute a message." (Halliday, p 37)
The textual metafunction • creates discourse • clause as message • the linguistic expression of the other two metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal) • theme vs. rheme
The textual metafunction • Subject – grammatical function Actor – doer of the action Theme – ‘what the sentence is about’
The textual metafunction • The chef is preparing dinner in the kitchen. • Dinner is being prepared in the kitchen. • In the kitchen the chef is preparing dinner. • In the kitchen dinner is being prepared by the chef.
The textual metafunction • Definitions of Theme • the starting point of the clause message • realized in English by first position in a clause • must contain a participant, process or circumstance • includes any element preceding the first participant, process or circumstance
The textual metafunction • Theme. Textual clause function: the point of departure of the clause as message. It sets up the local context for each clause. This local context often relates to the method of development of the text: the Theme is selected in such a way that it indicates how the clause relates to this method and contributes to the identification of the current step in the development. => IFG Chapter 3.
The textual metafunction • Topic. The subject matter of a clause; what it is about – often as one member of the pair topic + comment. Topic corresponds roughly to the experiential part of Theme, Topical theme, in Halliday's analysis of English, but it typically excludes textual and interpersonal Themes. (Sometimes the notion of given or known is also included in topic, but never in Halliday's Theme.) Cf. IFG p. 39.
Theme in declarative sentences • Unmarked (Theme = Subject): • The two Indians stood waiting. • Nick and his father went into the stern of the boat. • The Indian who was rowing them was working very hard. • But I will have some photographs taken. • Oh, you’re a great man. • No, I think it’s pretty easy. • There was no need of that. • Of course it’s an accident.
Theme in declarative sentences • Marked (Theme =Subject?): • Across the bay they found the other boat. • In February 1979 he was awarded the George Cross posthumously. • And when you get down there you find he hasn’t actually got any. • Inside him was rising an urge to do something, take some action. • That I don’t know. • What she had felt he never knew. • Most troubling of all to some social scientists is the message men get that being a good father means learning how to mother.
Theme in interrogative sentences • Polarity (yes/no) questions • Are you interested in syntax? • Would you like a cup of tea? • Oh, so isthat your plan? • But don'tanyof the artist-folk fancy children? • By the way, wereyou serious about moving to Milton Keynes?
Theme in interrogative sentences • Wh-questions • What are you doing here? • Where are we going? • Then, in the name of goodness, why does she bother? • If it's true that contented cows give more milk, why shouldn't happy ball players produce more base hits?
Theme in imperative sentences • Wake me up before the coffee break. • Don’t disturb me while I’m taking a nap. • Let’s have a look at this recipe. • Oh please stop it.
Long thematic constituents • The question of who we are – what kind of creature is a human being – has been with us for a long time. • Only a person who knew that Aubrey St John was going to be here at this time could have killed him.
Long thematic constituents • The fact that the role of the parents and the elders does not appear to be relevant to the younger generation is an important contributory factor in the intergenerational gap and the alienation of the youth. • Teachers who normally lived in the city but had accepted an appointment in an institution located in a village and had put in less than five years, were also considered urban.
Long thematic constituents • Sarah Smith, an immigration official who questioned Mr Malka when he arrived on a Eurostar train from Brussels, said that he had told her that Miss Simmons was going to be his wife.
Multiple Theme • The theme extends from the beginning of the clause up to (and including) the first element that has a function in transitivity. This element is called the 'topical Theme'; so we can say that the Theme of the clause consists of the topical Theme together with anything else that comes before it. (Halliday: 1994:53)
Theme • What elements go into the Theme? • The first experiential element in the clause (participant/process/circumstance) • Any element preceding the first experiential element in the clause (modal/connective adjuncts, conjunctions, finite, vocative,
Thematic analysis of a text • Is it any wonder that, when it comes to T. S. Eliot, pond-owners are ambivalent? On the one hand, he spoke for all of them in imperishably declaring April to be the cruellest month: while pond-owners do not care one way or the other about breeding lilacs out of a dead land, they worry themselves sick, every April, about breeding frogs out of a dead pond, because April is when frogs descend upon our ponds to breed, and when, as the direct result, the cruellest things happen to them.
Thematic analysis of a text • Which brings us, unfortunately, to T. S. Eliot's other hand: for he loved not frogs, but cats, the more practical the better, and, thanks to an irony which must have the old Modernist spinning gleefully in his grave, it is practical cats which are the very source of the April cruelty. Here's how it works.
Thematic analysis of a text • Of all the many things they like killing, cats like killing frogs best. Frogs are not only less elusive than mice and sparrows, they taste better. We know this because if they didn't, Frenchmen would be called Mice or Sparrows.
Thematic analysis of a text • However, for 11 months of the year, frogs are elusive enough to escape the feline diet, since, as soon as a paw appears at the edge of their pond, the frogs leap from reed or lily-pad and scull rapidly out of harm's way. But they cannot do this in April, because in April frogs have big heavy things on their backs. They have other frogs there. (Alan Coren in The Times, 9. March 1999)
Thematic analysis • There is nothing in the whole range of human experience more widely known and universally felt than spirit. • Apart from spirit there could be no community, for it is spirit which draws men into community and gives to any community its unity, cohesiveness, and permanence. • Think, for example, of the spirit of the Marine Corps. • Surely this is a reality we all acknowledge.
Thematic analysis • We cannot, of course, assign it any substance. • It is not material and is not a "thing" occupying space and time. • Yet it exists and has an objective reality which can be experienced and known.
Thematic analysis • So it is too with many other spirits which we all know: the spirit of Nazism or Communism, school spirit, the spirit of a street corner gang or a football team, the spirit of Rotary or the Ku Klux Klan. • Every community, if it is alive has a spirit, and that spirit is the center of its unity and identity.
Thematic analysis • In searching for clues which might lead us to a fresh apprehension of the reality of spirit, the close connection between spirit and community is likely to prove the most fruitful. • For itis primarily in community that we know and experience spirit. • It is spirit which gives life to a community and causes it to cohere.
Thematic analysis • It is the spirit which is the source of a community's drawing power by means of which others are drawn into it from the world outside so that the community grows and prospers. • Yet the spirit which lives in community is not identical with the community. • The idea of community and the idea of spirit are two distinct and separable ideas. • One characteristic of the spirit in community is its givenness.
End of the Lecture Thank you for your attention
