Linguistics and The Human Sciences 

About: Linguistics and The Human Sciences is an academic journal published by Equinox Publishing. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Systemic functional linguistics & Grammar. It has an ISSN identifier of 1742-2906. Over the lifetime, 201 publications have been published receiving 1390 citations.

Halliday's model of register revisited and explored

Abstract: Halliday’s description of register as ‘a variety of language, corresponding to a variety of situation’, with situation interpreted ‘by means of a conceptual framework using the terms “field”, “tenor” and “mode”’ (Halliday, 1985/89: 29, 38) is revisited to reflect on the theoretical work the term ‘register’ does within the SFL paradigm. In doing so, we recognise that the concepts of a linguistic theory are ‘ineffable’ (Halliday 2002[1988]); i.e. that ‘providing definitions of a theoretical term... requires that it be positioned vis-a-vis other concepts in the theory’ (Hasan, 2004: 16). It follows that changing the position of ‘register’ in the theory changes the nature of the concept. So while alternative uses of the term ‘register’ – such as in Martin’s genre model (e.g. 1992) and Halliday’s model – may advance a shared program for language description and explanation as a route to social change, they must be seen as more than terminological variants. One consequence of the productivity of Martin’s approach has been that the Hallidayan line of register theory has not had sufficient critical explication. This paper therefore begins with a brief review of the register concept. It then exemplifies the term, as postulated by Halliday, with a registerial analysis of surgical interaction, drawing on Hasan’s context modelling (e.g. Hasan 1995, 2004, 2009a), and adopting what Matthiessen (1993) calls a ‘metafunctional slice’ with ‘multistratal coverage’. By accounting for choice at different strata, we seek to ‘relate wording to context via meaning which acts as the interface between the two’ (Hasan 2009a: 182).

Breast Cancer Narratives as Public Rhetoric: Genre Itself and the Maintenance of Igorance

Abstract: This paper explores questions of the permissible and the impermissible in breast cancer narratives. It deploys (inter alia) a theory of discourse and counterdiscourse to argue that the genre itself of the personal narrative performs a regulatory function in public discourse on cancer. The paper is inspired by an idea introduced into science studies by Schiebinger and Proctor—the idea of agnotology: the cultural production of ignorance. The paper argues that ignorance about cancer is maintained, in part, by the rehearsal of stories that have standard plots and features, and that suppress or displace other stories. The paper turns on examples of both conventional and unconventional stories. It focuses on Barbara Ehrenreich’s renegade cancer story and its public reception, and Wendy Mesley’s renegade cancer television documentary and the public reception of that. The paper seeks to contribute to genre studies by analyzing instances of a genre of public discourse, and suggesting the nature of the social action performed by the genre itself.

Reading Genre: A New Wave of Analysis

Abstract: Genre based literacy pedagogy has been developed over 25 years, in what has become known as the Sydney School (Martin 2000). The initial motivation was to improve the academic success of marginalised school students by giving them explicit models to organise the genres they were expected to write. In the 1980s the research focus was on writing genres in the primary school, and in the 1990s on writing genres across the secondary school curriculum. A new generation of genre-based literacy pedagogy, known as Reading to Learn (Rose 2004, 2005b, 2007) is now focusing on teaching reading at all these levels. As reading texts in any curriculum are highly diverse, learners and teachers need a flexible set of tools for identifying how meanings unfold through them. While the writing pedagogy focused on highly predictable staging of genres, the reading pedagogy focuses on smaller phases of meaning within each stage, that are more variable, and sensitive to register variations such as a text’s field. Another wave of genre research is now identifying potential types of phases in various genres, as a basis for inform teaching of both reading and writing across academic curricula.

On matter and meaning: the two realms of human experience

Abstract: There are two phenomenal realms that we as human beings inhabit: a world of matter, and a world of meaning. Both matter and meaning are involved in all the regions of our experience. Meaning relies on matter to make it accessible to a receiver; and matter relies on meaning to organize it. Processes that take place in human consciousness may be conceptualized as processes of meaning. Language is the leading edge of meaning, even if not all types of human semiotic are necessarily realized by language. A language is more than just a semiotic system, a system of meanings; it is also a system that makes meanings, a semogenic system; and the source of this semogenic power is grammar. The powerhouse of a language is its lexicogrammar, the unified stratum of syntax and vocabulary; so thinking about meaning means thinking grammatically. Expressed in functional terms, the grammar both construes and enacts: it enacts the social process, our relationships one with another; and it construes the human experience. Language can be seen as the prototype of a semiotic system; hence a theory which is designed to represent the multidimensional ‘architecture’ of language should be ‘thick’ enough, and rich enough, to offer insight into other semiotic systems. As well as providing a metaphor for language, linguistics also stands as metaphor for the whole of meaning as theorizing – for the ability of the semiotic realm to construe itself into successive planes of virtual reality, in the (so far) unremitting human effort to understand.

Genre, Ideology and Intertextuality: A Systemic Functional Perspective

Abstract: This paper considers the relationship among three hierarchies in systemic functional linguistics, realisation, instantiation and individuation, focussing on how these can be used to interpret genre, intertextuality and ideology. The discussion considers four related war stories, especially with respect to appraisal analysis, and argues that a complementarity of hierarchies is needed to interpret their variously interested readings.