3. Discourse analysis
In 1952, Zellings.Harriss, the structuralists, reported the article “Discourse Analysis” in the magazine “Language”. In the last 50 years, a lot of scholars make some efforts to this subject and gain some achievements. From the document, discourse analysis involves linguistics, semiotics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, literature, information science and so on, and gradually forms the knowledge studying language-in-use in the communication.
“Discourse analysis is the study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful units such paragraphs, conversations, interview, etc. For example, discourse analysis deals with (a) how the choice of articles, pronouns, and tenses affects the structure of the discourse. (b) The relationship between utterances in a discourse. (c) The moves made by speakers to introduce a new topic, change the topic, or assert a higher role relationship to the other participants.”
“Discourse analysis emphasizes that language is not merely a self-contained system of symbols but more importantly a mode of doing, being, and becoming. Discourse analysis seeks to describe and explain linguistic phenomena in terms of the affective, cognitive, situational, and cultural contexts of their use and to identify linguistic resources through which we (re) construct our life (our identity, belief, ideology, and so forth). Essentially, it asks why we use language the way we do and how we live lives linguistically. Discourse analysis insists on the use of naturally occurring language date (as opposed to invented data)”.
Generally speaking, discourse analysis is a developing and non-qualitative subject, which has neither the guidance of a specific theory nor generally recognized analysis ways and steps. Schiffirn, American discourse analyst, introduces six methods using in the discourse analysis: speech act theory, international sociologist, and the ethnography of communication, pragmatics, conversation analysis, and variation analysis. M.A.K.Halliday in his book “An introduction to Functional Grammar”holds that “The aim (of SFG) has been to construct a grammar for purposes of text analysis: one that would make it possible to say sensible and useful things about any text, spoken or written, in modern English.”
3.1 Purpose of discourse analysis
SFG construct a grammar for purposes of text analysis, so most of scholars insist that it is more suitable for discourse analysis than any other theories. That is SFG is the approach proposed in the study of discourse analysis. The discourse analysis guiding by SFG is called as “Functional discourse analysis”.
Some analysts think discourse analysis is the interpretive activity, because its purpose is to help the readers understand the meaning of the text and the writer. But functional discourse analysis is the explanatory activity; its purpose is to explain why the text expresses the meaning. Halliday and Hasan hold that the purpose of the text analysis is explanation not interpretation. For a text, the purpose of “interpretation” is to understand what the meaning of the text is, but the purpose of “explanation” is to make clear that how the text expresses its meaning. According to the author’s understanding, the explanatory activity includes interpretive activity, because before explaining how a text expresses its meaning, people will know what the meaning of a text is.
The purpose of functional discourse analysis is to evaluate the text. Before evaluating a text, discourse analysis must study the text from “What is the meaning of the text?” “How does the text express the meaning?” “Why does the text express the meaning?”
In all, the purpose of discourse analysis is explanatory activity to evaluate the text.
3.2 Scopes of discourse analysis
Halliday holds that discourse analysis consists of context of culture, context of situation, language.
(I) Context of culture: language is the social phenomenon and the reflection of the social activity. Every text is produced and then affected in a particular context of culture. “Context of culture” refers to the text expressing all the meanings in the special society and culture (including purpose of communication, way of communication, form of communication, content of communication, etc). Context of culture is reflected by “genre”. Genre consists of schematic structure and realizational pattern.
(II) Context of situation: it is immediate environment of language activity, which is time, place, talking content, the relation among people related to transfer communicational meanings. Halliday and Hasan (1985) divide context of situation into three parts: field, tenor and mode.
(a) Field refers to what is being talk about, what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which the language figures as some essential components.
(b) Tenor refers to the people involved in the communication and the relationship between them. What kinds of role relationships obtain among the participants, including permanent and temporary relationships of one kind or another, both the types of speech role that they are taking on in the dialogue and the whole cluster of socially significant relationships in which they refer to.
(c) Mode refers to how the language is functioning in the interaction, e.g. whether it is written or spoken.
(III) Language includes semantics, lexico-grammar, and phonology/graphology. According to the view of Halliday, language chiefly expresses three functions/meanings: Ideational function, Interpersonal function and Textual function. The three functions are related to context and lexico-grammar. Field determines the experiential meanings that expressed. Tenor determines the interpersonal meanings. Mode determines the textual meanings. And these three functions are embodied by lexico-grammar. “However, but, nevertheless” express textual meanings.
Schematic structure
Context of culture
Realizational structure
Field
Text Context of situation Tenor
Mode
Semantics
Language Lexico-grammar
Phonology/graphology
3.3Levels of discourse analysis
In “An Introduction to Functional Grammar”, Halliday holds “In any piece of discourse analysis, there are always two possible levels of achievement to aim at. One is a contribution to the understanding of the text: the linguistic analysis enables one to show how and why, the text means what it does. In the process, there are likely to be revealed multiple meanings, alternatives, ambiguities, metaphors and so on.” That is, the low lever is the activity of describing and explaining the text. “It is one that should always be attainable provided features of the language---provided it is based on a grammar, in other words.” Another level is the evaluation of the text: “the linguistic analysis may enable one to say why the text is, or is not, an effective text for its own purposed---in what respects it succeeds and in what respects it fails, or is less successful.” That is, the high level is the activity of interpreting and evaluating the text. In order to attain the goal, it requires analyzing the text, and analyzing the context (context of situation, context of culture) and the relationship between context and text. So the analysts need to decode the further meaning of the text and evaluate the use of words and grammars in context of situation and the context of culture.
According to huangguowen, SFG is more suitable for analyzing the text. It is because SFG is the text grammar. It is because grammar is to describe how the use of language, that is, the way to say and understand the meaning of the text clearly. It is because SFG describe the systemic network of the three metafunction clearly. It does because applying the framework of SFG to analyze the text can avoid evaluating at will.
The following is the description of SFG, and why it can guide discourse analysis.
4. Systemic functional grammar
In Halliday’s book “An Introduction to Functional Grammar”, he says” the theory on which this description is based, systemic theory follows in the European functional tradition. It is largely based on Firth’s system-structure theory, but derives more abstract principles from Hjelmslev and owes many ideas to Prague School. The organizing concept is that of the “system”, which is used essentially in Firth’s sense of a functional Paradigm but developed into the formal construct of a ‘system network’.”
SFG has two components: systemic grammar and functional grammar. In Huzhuanglin’s book “Linguistics. A course Book”, he holds that “Systemic grammar aims to explain the internal relations in language as a system network, or meaning potential. And this network consists of subsystem from which language users make choices. Functional grammar aims to reveal that language is a mean of social interaction, based on the position that language system and the forms that make it up are inescapably determined by the uses or functions which they serve.”[10]
4.1 Systemic grammar
“Systemic grammar is an approach to grammatical analysis which is based on a series of systems. Each system is a set of options of which one must be chosen at each relevant point in the production of an utterance. For example, in English, the speaker or writer makes choices among the systems of number.”[11] The central component of a systemic grammar is a chart of the full set of choices available in constructing a sentence, with a specification of the relationships between choices. Halliday’s systemic grammar has the following aspects: First, it has “system” as its central category. Second, it lays stress on relating the sociology. Third, it attaches importance to describe the characteristics of particular languages and particular varieties of languages. Fourth, language is a mode of action and not an instrument of reflection. Fifth, it uses clines to explain some language problems.
According to Huzhuanglin’s instruction “ In systemic grammar, the notion of system is made of a central explanatory principle, the whole of language being conceived as a ‘system of systems’, systemic grammar is concerned with establishing a network of systems of relationships, which accounts for all the semantically relevant choices in the language as a whole.”[12]
A system is a list of choices; the choices in a system are mutually exclusive. Every system is finite. The meaning of every choice in a system depends on the meaning of other choice in the system.
In all, systemic grammar makes people know “system” and “structure”. It requires people to analyze the text logically and regard the text as a unit.
In the description of the system, if the feature of the system appears in other system, that can be simultaneity or echelon. If the two systems appear in order, the features of them are ordinal. The systemic grammar is selecting a general area of meaning, and gradually breaking it into smaller and smaller sub-areas. Choice is meaning. System gammar describes three Metafunctions. Each of the metafunctions is a complex system consisted of other systems, and choices are simultaneously done in the three metafunctions. This is the close relationship between systemic grammar and functional grammar.
4.2 Functional gammar
“In a functional grammar, on the other hand, the direction is reversed. A language is interpreted as a System of meanings can be realized.” [13] “Functional Grammar aims to reveal that language is a mean of social interaction, based on the position that language system and the forms that make it up are inescapably determined by the uses or functions which they serve.”[14] The functions of language are the most important things in Functional Grammar.
As the tool of people’s communication, language undertakes all kind of functions. Halliday divides the function of language into three kinds: ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction, and textual metafunction.
4.2.1 Ideational Metafunction
“…A fundamental property of language is that it enables human beings to build a mental picture of reality, to make sense of their experience of what goes on around them and inside them.” [15] It is to convey new information, to communicate a content that is unknown to the listener.
The ideational metafunction is to organize the speaker or writer’s experience of the real or imaginary world and includes experiential function and logical function. What experiential function is that language expresses people’s experiences in external world (things, events qualities, etc) and internal world (thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc). What logical function refers to that language expresses the logical relationship between two or more than two meaning units.
(I). Experiential Function
Experiential function is chiefly embodied by transitivity and voice. “… Parallel with its evolution in the function of mood, expressing the active, interpersonal aspect of meaning, the clause evolved simultaneously in another grammatical function expressing the reflective, experiential aspect of meaning. This later is the system of transitivity. Transitivity specifies the different types of process that are recognized in the language, and the structures by which they are expressed.”[16] Transitivity is a semantic system. Its purpose is to divide something around people into several processes involving participant and circumstantial element. Halliday holds that transitivity includes six processes: (a) Material process. (b) Mental process. (c) Relational process. (d) Behavioral process. (e) Verbal process. (f) Existential process.
(a) Material Process: process of doing
Material process is a process of doing. The process usually consists of verb, actor (logical subject) and goal (noun or pronoun)
He killed all the people
Actor Process goal |
