A systemic functional analysis of multisemiotic biology texts 2

It sees language as a meaning potential that its users draw upon to “construe physical and biological reality including consciousness”, “enact social relations” and “bring into being a s

CHAPTER TWO SYSTEMIC-FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

In this chapter I present the SFL framework for linguistic analysis and in Chapter Three, drawing upon previous research on visual semiosis, I propose the SFL-informed frameworks for the analysis of visual display in biology texts These serve as a set of coherent and consistent perspectives by which the multisemiotic biology texts will be analyzed

SFL attempts to account for the way language works in a social and cultural setting It sees language as a meaning potential that its users draw upon to “construe physical and biological reality (including consciousness)”, “enact social relations” and

“bring into being a semiotic reality alongside the physical, biological and social” (Halliday and Martin 1993: 27-28) SFL does not study language for the sake of language alone Rather, this approach seeks to contribute to educational, economic and political processes Nor does it confine itself within language proper; instead it seeks a social and cultural account of language by means of mapping out the relationships between language and the social context in which it is used In the words

of Ruqaiya Hasan (1996: 1), her job as a linguist is to deal with the “continuity from the living of life on the one hand right down to the morpheme on the other”

There have been a number of introductions to SFL, notably works by Halliday (1994), Eggins (1994), Martin (1992), Martin and Rose (2003) and Martin,

Matthiessen and Painter (1997) In what follows, I focus on three aspects of SFL,

language as system of meaning (Section 2.1), metafunctions: modes of meaning (Section 2.2), and social context (Section 2.3)

2.1 Language as System of Meaning

SFL gives theoretical priority to both types of relationships between signs, syntagmatic and paradigmatic, that is, the sequential structural and the alternative and oppositional The paradigmatic orientation allows us to explore what potential meanings are put at risk in a language or a variety of language and to account for why this is so by relating the language features to the social context in which language is used Halliday (1996a: 321) notes that “[t]he organizing concept of a systemic grammar is that of choice (that

is, options in ‘meaning potential’)” The formalism by which systemicists map out the options in meaning is the system and the system network

“A system is a set of options together with a condition of entry, such that if the entry condition is satisfied one option, and one only, must be chosen” (1996a: 321) That is, a system consists of entry condition, system name, and terms For example, an English clause selects one of the process types in the experiential component of the grammar This can be represented as in Figure 2.1

In this figure, “clause” is the entry condition, “PROCESS TYPE” is the system name, and the “material”, “mental”, and so forth are the terms or features of the system The system means that if the entry condition of “clause” is met, then one and only one of the six process types is to be selected Seen from this perspective, grammar (the phenomenon of grammar, or part of the workings of language) is the meaning potential, the numerous systems of meaning, out of which the language user makes a choice

However, as Eggins (1994: 206) points out, “[m]ost semiotic systems cannot be

described using only one system” and “choices lead to other choices” “[A]ll systems deriving from a common point of origin (…) are agnate and together form ‘a system network’” (Halliday 1996a: 322) The terms in different stages of choice are linked by delicacy levels The more to the right of the system network, the more delicate the term In the example above, the relational process comes in identifying and attributive modes, each of which in turn has several subtypes

The example cited above is of the “either a or b” type, indicated by a square

bracket “[” Systems also allow simultaneous choices, the “and” relation, that is, if an

entry condition applies, one is to choose both from set a and from set b The

simultaneous choice is indicated in the system network by a curled bracket “{”

Thus mapped, every term in a system network has a “selection expression”, a description of “all the options taken up in the various functional components” (Halliday 1996a: 322), the systemic specification or co-ordinates for the term In connection to the example above, we can write a selection expression as: [clause:

process type: material] We know what the term means because of its relationship to other terms in the network

Having assigned the paradigmatic relation an important place, we need also take account of the syntagmatic relation, that is, the structure The structure realizes the paradigmatic option by means of some lexicogrammatical, or phonological configurations As Matthiessen and Halliday (n.d.; original emphasis) explain,

“systemic terms, or features, are realized (expressed, coded) by aspects of the

wording” That is, the relation between the system and the structure is one of realization Take the above example, the term of material process is realized by the functional configuration of “+ Actor ^ Process: material (+ Goal) (+ Range) (+ Beneficiary) (+ Circumstance)” This is called the “realization statement” of an option and is indicated in the system network by a downward arrow below the term as in Figure 2.2:

Material

+ Actor…

Figure 2.2 Term and realization statement

2.2 Metafunctions: Modes of Meaning

The paradigmatic orientation and stratification allow for the SFL postulation that a natural language, in its content plane (the semantic stratum and the lexicogrammatical stratum), is organized around three modes of meaning, that is, three metafunctions The justification for this trio-functional organization of the semantic stratum arises

from three sources (Halliday 1996b: 26): (1) from the semantic level itself, in this case,

we can show that three types of meaning exist by and large independently one of another in the semantic stratum; (2) from “above”, the stratum of social context, we can find a systematic relationship between the metafunctions and the three context variables of field, tenor and mode; and (3) from “below”, the type of structures by which each metafunction is realized As elaborated in Halliday (1979: 70), the experiential metafunction tends to be realized by “elemental” structure, the interpersonal metafunction by “prosodic” structure, textual metafunction by

“culminative-periodic” structure The logical metafunction is different from all the other three in that it is realized by “recursive” structure and generates “complexes – clause complex, group complex, word complex – and not simple units” (1979: 79) In this section I present the definitions of the three metafunctions and the lexicogrammatical systems that realize each mode of meaning But first a note of clarification on stratification

The principle for stratification is that one, more “concrete” stratum realizes a second, more “abstract” one (Halliday and Martin 1993: 29) SFL stratifies language and social context, the two strata being related to each other by realization Within language, SFL recognizes three levels: semantics realized by lexicogrammar, which is realized by phonology /graphology The first two strata are content “planes” of language and the third stratum is called the expression “plane” of language Within the social context, Martin (1992) recognizes register, genre, and ideology, each of which again is related to the other by realization, whereas Halliday discusses the social context in terms of the register variables of field, tenor and mode (in Halliday and Hasan 1989 [1985]: 26) and context of culture (1989 [1985]: 46) (see Section 2.3

below) Within the content plane of language SFL recognizes three modes of meaning, three “metafunctions”, ideational, interpersonal, and textual

2.2.1 The Ideational Metafunction and its Realization

The ideational metafunction is language as representation, as reflection of human experience As Halliday (1978: 21) explains,

Language has to interpret the whole of our experience, reducing the

indefinitely varied phenomena of the world around us, and also of the

world inside us, the processes of our own consciousness, to a

manageable number of classes of phenomena: types of processes,

events and actions, classes of objects, people and institutions and the

like

Within the ideational metafunction, “[t]here are two subcategories: an experiential, where we represent experience ‘directly’ in terms of happenings (actions, events, states, relations), entities that participate in these happenings (persons, animate and inanimate objects, institutions, abstractions) and circumstantial features (extent, location, time and space, cause, manner and so on); and a ‘logical’, where we represent experience ‘indirectly’ in terms of certain fundamental logical relations in natural language – ‘and’, ‘namely’, ‘says’, ‘is subcategorized as’ etc.” (Halliday 1979: 59) The experiential function is realized in the lexicogrammar by the system of TRANSITIVITY and the logical function by recursive structures which are defined by TAXIS and LOGICO-SEMANTIC TYPE These two systems are discussed below

TRANSITIVITY

“Transitivity is the representation in language of PROCESSES, the PARTICIPANTS therein, and the CIRCUMSTANTIAL features associated with them” (Halliday 1976: 159) It is the lexicogrammatical resource to construe human experience, or to realize the experiential metafunction It does so by reducing innumerable kinds of experience into a “manageable set of PROCESS TYPES” (Halliday 1994: 106) A system network for TRANSITIVITY is provided in Eggins (1994: 228) and reproduced in Figure 2.3:

material pr:material: +Actor; (+Goal) (+Range) (+Beneficiary) mental

pr:mental; +Senser; +Phenomenon verbal

pr:verbal; +Sayer; (+Receiver) (+Verbiage) behavioural

pr:behavioural; +Behaver; (+Behaviour) (Phenomenon) clause

existential pr:existential; +Existent

identifying

pr:identifying; +Token;+ Value relational

circumstance attributive +Circumstance pr:attributive; +Carrier; +Attribute

not

Figure 2.3 System for TRANSITIVITY

As suggested by Eggins (1994: 229), a transitivity study of a clause involves describing three aspects, the process type, the participant, and the circumstance

Logical Meaning

Logical meaning in SFL refers to that subcomponent of the ideational metafunction where compared with the experiential metafunction “reality is represented in more abstract terms, in the form of abstract relations which are independent of and make no reference to things” (Halliday 1979: 73) Prototypically the logical meaning is concerned with how one process configuration combines with another process configuration to form a sequence It is realized in the stratum of lexicogrammar as clause complex relations of TAXIS and LOGICO-SEMANTIC TYPES

As presented in Halliday (1994: Chapter 7), a clause complex is defined simultaneously along two dimensions, hypotaxis or parataxis on the one hand, and expansion or projection on the other The TAXIS (hypotaxis or parataxis) describes whether a clause complex consists of clauses of equal (parataxis) or unequal (hypotactic) status In a hypotactic clause complex, one clause (the secondary clause)

is dependent on the independent clause (the primary clause), whereas in parataxis,

“both the initiating and continuing element are free, in the sense that each could stand

as a functioning whole” (1994: 221) At the same time, a paratactic or hypotactic complex cross-couples with one of the LOGICO-SEMANTIC TYPES The first distinction (the least delicate taxonomic category) is between expansion and projection In expansion, one clause expands on another by means of elaboration (i.e

“further specifying or describing it” (1994: 225)), extension (i.e “adding something

new to it”) (1994: 230) and enhancement (i.e “qualifying it in one of a number of possible ways: by reference to time, place, manner, cause or condition” (1994: 232)

Projection is different from expansion in a number of ways, one of which relates to the level of representation The projecting clause (mental or verbal clause) in itself is a representation of experience, not unlike any other representation of experience But what is projected, the projected clause, “represents a second-order phenomenon, something that is itself a representation”, “a metaphenomenon” (1994: 252) That is, projection brings into existence a world of wording (“locution”) or meaning (“idea”) and fleshes out the intervention of human consciousness In terms of the speech function of the projected clause, it can either be information (proposition)

or goods-&-services (proposal)

It is important to note that the two dimensions of the logical meaning are not confined to the rank of clause Halliday (1994: 221) notes that “parataxis and hypotaxis are general relationships which are not restricted to the rank of clause They define complexes at any rank: clause complex, group or phrase complex, word complex” And the logico-semantic types of expansion and projection “represent the basic semantic motifs that run throughout the language as a whole” (Halliday 1994: 225) Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 127; original emphasis) further note that

“expansion and projection are trans-phenomenal categories in the sense that they are

manifested over the system as a whole − not merely in different logical environments across ranks but also experientially” As an illustration, Halliday (1994: Appendix 3) demonstrates how the expansion: enhancement: cause relation is realized in a wide variety of ways: cohesively (as structurally unrelated clause complexes), interclausally (in a clause complex of paratactic and hypotactic nature), and clausally (both transitivity congruent and metaphorical), totaling more than 22 expressions of the

general logical relation of cause In other words, the logical relation captures partially the nature of agnation among a range of structures in all sorts of environment, including the metaphorical mode of expression The framework within which this study is conducted is set out in Figure 2.4

Figure 2.4 System for logical meaning (Adapted from Halliday 1994: 218-273)

.2.2 The Interpersonal Metafunction and its Realization

he definition Halliday (1978: 112) gives for interpersonal meaning is as follows:

The interpersonal component represents the speaker’s meaning potential

as an intruder It is the participating function of language, language as

parataxis TAXIS

hypotaxis

locution idea projection

proposition proposal

addition expansion extension variation

alteration time space enhance- manner ment cause

condition

2

T

doing something This is the component through which the speaker

intrudes himself into the context of situation, both expressing his own

attitudes and judgements and seeking to influence the attitudes and

behaviour of others It expresses the role relationships associated with

the situation, including those that are defined by language itself, of

questioner-respondent, informer-doubter and the like These constitute

the interpersonal meaning of language

Halliday (1994: Chapter 4) formulates the semantics of interpersonal metafu

terpersonal meaning of the clause is defined by the type

speaker is responding or initiating “These semantic categories are realized by

grammatical MOOD options” (Martin et al 1997: 58; original emphasis) The MOOD options in English are summarized in Eggins (1994: 212) and a revised system network

is presented in Figure 2.5

In this network, the in

d, e.g., either indicative or imperative and the like, and the modality Also in this network, the MOOD option is accompanied by a realization statement in the form

of the interpersonal functional structure For example, the option of declarative is realized by the structure Subject ^ Finite

It is important to note that the lexico

ond the MOOD options One particularly interesting area is the research on APPRAISAL, which includes “AFFECT (resources for construing emotion),”

“JUDGEMENT (resources for judging behaviour in ‘ethical’ terms)” and

median low

objective

Figure 2.5 MOOD network (Adapted from Eggins 1994: 212)1

“APPRECIATION (resources for valuing objects ‘aesthetically’)” and so on (Martin 1997: 18; 2000; Martin and Rose 2003: Chapter 2)

2.2.3 The Textual Metafunction and its Realization

The third metafunction, the textual metafunction, is defined by Halliday (1978: 113) as follows:

112-The textual component represents the speaker’s text-forming potential;

it is that which makes language relevant This is the component which

provides the texture; that which makes the difference between language

that is suspended in vacue and language that is operational in a context

of situation It expresses the relation of the language to its environment,

including both the verbal environment – what has been said or written

before – and the non-verbal, situational environment Hence the textual

component has an enabling function with respect to the other two; it is

only in combination with textual meanings that ideational and

interpersonal meanings are actualized

Halliday (1994: 334) summarizes the lexicogrammatical resources for the textual metafunction in the following way:

(A) structural

1 thematic structure: Theme and Rheme (…)

2 information structure and focus: Given and New (…)

In the analysis of the biology texts below, I am concerned with the contribution

of THEME to the meaning of the texts According to Halliday (1994) there are different types of Themes The system of THEME in the English clause is summarized by Eggins (1994: 274) and a revised version is provided in Figure 2.6

Halliday (1994: 61) also notes that “the choice of clause Themes plays a fundamental part in the way discourse is organized; it is this, in fact, which constitutes what has been called the ‘method of development’ of the text”

To explain the textual meaning beyond the rank of clause, Martin (1992: 437) proposes “hyper-Theme”, “macro-Theme”, “hyper-New” and “macro-New” A hyper-Theme “is an introductory sentence or group of sentences which is established to predict a particular pattern of interaction among strings, chains and Theme selection in following sentences” And a macro-Theme is “a sentence or group of sentences (possibly a paragraph) which predicts a set of hyper-Themes; this is the Introductory