https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/gateway/plugin/WebFeedGatewayPlugin/atomLinguistics and the Human Sciences2023-07-12T15:39:49+00:00Jonathan Websterctjjw@friends.cityu.edu.hkOpen Journal Systems<p><em>Linguistics and the Human Sciences</em> is committed to fostering a dialogue of disciplines, in which linguistics figures prominently. This journal is devoted to the exploration of how understanding about language – our principal meaning-making semiotic system – helps us understand other phenomena in human experience, and vice versa. It aims to explore the relationships between linguistics and such areas of scholarly concern as history, sociology, politics, archaeology, religious studies, translation and the study of art in various semiotic modalities.</p>https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/23546Viewing to Learn2023-07-12T15:37:12+00:00David Rose
<p>This study investigates the interplay between language, image, and gesture in science teaching in the school. It applies the theoretical framework of systemic functional semiotics, and the investigative method of pedagogic register analysis, to construct a detailed description of intermodal pedagogic practice. The approach is illustrated with a secondary science lesson that can be viewed online. The lesson is analysed from three perspectives: the structuring of learning activities, the interplay between verbal, visual, and gestural modalities in these activities, and teacher/learner interactions that negotiate the intermodal activities. Consistent patterns emerge in the global structures of lesson activities, and in micro-structures of interactions, in the ways that teachers orient learners to fields of study, guide their attention to salient elements of images and texts, and use their perceptions to build technical knowledge. The analyses offer an appliable resource for designing effective pedagogic practice using images.</p>
2023-07-12T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/23599Revisiting Halliday (1990) ‘New Ways of Meaning: The Challenge to Applied Linguistics’2023-07-12T15:34:58+00:00Locky LawChristian M. I. M. Matthiessen
<p>Three decades ago, M. A. K. Halliday, the founder of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), presented a paper to AILA in Greece entitled ‘New Ways of Meaning: A Challenge to Applied Linguistics’ (Halliday, 1990), which introduced the notion of an ecological study of language (Fill and Mühlhäusler, 2001). In this seminal paper, Halliday emphasizes that ‘language does not passively reflect reality; language actively creates reality’ (cf. Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999) and that ‘lexicogrammar... shapes experience and transforms our perceptions into meanings’ (Halliday, 1990: 65). He identifies three ‘problematic spheres’ as foreseeable challenges – language planning, the register of scientific discourse and of language and prejudice, involving the deployment of resources within the system that constructs sexism, racism, growthism, and classism; and highlights the role of future applied linguists – ‘to use our theory of grammar... as a metatheory for understanding how grammar functions as a theory of experience’ (1990: 69) and ‘to learn to educate five billion children ... at such a time it is as well to reflect on how language construes the world’ (1990: 91), one that contains numerous ecosystems essential to the human survival.</p> <p>Three decades later, at a time when we humans continue to destroy the only habitable planet known in the universe, ‘ecolinguistics’ has been established and recognized as a field of research and activity (one involving ideological tensions, cf. Martin, 1986), drawing centrally on Halliday (1990), but is his challenge being met outside the academic community? We revisit the challenge and mission envisaged by Halliday to answer the questions, ‘What has changed?’ and ‘What still needs to be done?’ We adopt a systemic functional linguistics approach to investigate the questions in a wide range of registers where environmental issues are being processed semiotically and opinions are being formed, including examples from political discourse, news media, social media, and late-night talk shows on topics surrounding climate change, renewable energy, wildlife conservation and extinction, and economic inequality. We also pay attention to texts likely to be influential in the life of children and their gradual construal of their own world views with associated value systems (cf. Matthiessen, 2015).</p>
2023-07-12T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/24319The Language of Vietnamese School Science Textbooks2023-07-12T15:32:12+00:00Van Van Hoang
<p>This paper explores textual meanings realised in the theme resources of a Vietnamese lower secondary school science textbook – <em>Sinh h?c 8 (Biology 8)</em>. The theoretical framework employed for analysis is Systemic Functional Linguistics. The data for analysis is ten texts selected randomly from the textbook. The units of analysis are major independent clause simplexes and hypotactic clause complexes which have a subordinate clause in initial position. The research has brought to light a number of significant findings of which eight stand out. First, all five types of general Themes: simple Theme, multiple Theme, clausal Theme, unmarked Theme, and marked Theme are employed in the texts. Second, of the four mood function Themes: Subject Theme, Predicator Theme, Complement Theme, and Adjunct Theme, Subject Theme takes up the largest proportion. Third, of the three mood function simple Themes: simple Subject Theme, simple Predicator Theme and simple Adjunct Theme, simple Subject Theme has the highest number. Fourth, between textual + topical Theme and interpersonal + topical Theme, textual + topical Theme predominates. Fifth, of the three mood type simple Subject Theme: simple Subject Theme in declarative clause, simple Subject Theme in imperative clause and simple Subject Theme in interrogative clause, simple Subject Theme in declarative clause accounts for the highest number. Sixth, between simple Predicator Theme and multiple Predicator Theme, simple Predicator Theme has a much higher proportion. Seventh, of the nine types of simple Adjunct Theme examined, six are found in the texts, among which spatial location Adjunct Theme takes the highest number. And Eighth, Complement Theme, multiple Adjunct Theme, textual + interpersonal + topical Theme, interpersonal + topical/Subject Theme, matter Adjunct Theme, role Adjunct Theme, and stance Adjunct Theme are not found in the texts. It is concluded that Vietnamese textbook writers have employed quite a variety of theme resources to construct textual meanings and to create coherence and continuity of their texts.</p>
2023-07-12T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/25767Condensing Meaning2023-07-12T15:29:41+00:00J. R. MartinDavid Rose
<p>In this chapter we address the challenge of interpreting and teaching complex infographics of the kind read and viewed in secondary school science in Australia. Inspired by the work of Bateman and his colleagues we adopt a complementary bottom-up and top-down perspective – analysing infographics bottom-up in terms of general gestalt grouping principles (for both micro- and macro-groups) and interpreting images top-down with respect to abductions based on modelling of the relevant field (as activity, item, and property), in Systemic Functional Linguistic theory (SFL). We then compare two infographics in detail, considering how mitosis is intermodally construed as activity and composition in verbiage and image. The key finding arising from this analysis is that in spite of the complexity of the infographics, considerable information has to be abduced, drawing on additional knowledge of the field – information that the co-text in the textbooks accompanying these infographics may not make explicit. This highlights the importance of multimodal literacy pedagogy as a crucial part of science education. We show how such a pedagogy can address the complexity of reading infographics in conjunction with verbal co-text. In this kind of carefully scaffolded methodology, the synoptic view of complex knowledge aggregation provided by infographics can play a significant role in the dynamics of knowledge building.</p>
2023-07-12T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/18384The Man (of) Who(m) Laughs2022-12-01T07:13:24+00:00Dina FerreiraElayne Gonçalves SilvaMarcos Roberto dos Santos Amaral
<p>This paper analyzes the dialogized heterodiscourse and the ideological-evaluative positions sustained by the social voices moving around the movie Joker (2019). Our theoretical framework is based on the proposals of dialogic discourse analysis (DDA), more specifically, the Bakhtinian notion of (dialogized) heterodiscourse and the Volochinovian concept of ideological sign. The relations and effects of meaning constructed by the film narrative emerge from the dialogical relation of opposition established between the centripetal/dominant speeches and centrifugal/oppositional speeches which, in turn, inscribe different meanings and values in the signs, which are configured as the arena of class struggle among antagonistic social classes.</p>
2021-04-19T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19675Investigating Stancetaking in Russian and Chinese2022-12-01T07:13:21+00:00Jim Davie
<p>The proposition that stancetaking is pervasive in communication is widely argued (e.g., Halliday, 1978; Ochs, 1990; Englebretson, 2007; Jaffe, 2009). However, as a subject of critical analysis, stance is not typically studied in foreign language courses at UK universities. UK civil servants therefore developed and piloted a course on interpreting stance in Russian and Mandarin Chinese, incorporating Poynton’s (1989 [1985]) extended tenor network and Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Framework. Survey feedback from 53 language analysts and instructor observations indicated, inter alia, that the course helped the majority of learners to enhance their awareness of how stance is expressed in their L2. Responses also highlighted perceived merits and demerits of the course and signalled the value of a larger, gradated offering to optimise course benefit. While preliminary, these results have implications not only for civil service language instructors, but also – potentially – those in higher education.</p>
2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19496The Language and Identity of the German Minority in Poland According to a Language Biographical Study Conducted in Pomerania and Warmia-Masuria Regions2022-12-01T07:13:22+00:00Barbara Alicja Jańczak
<p>This paper provides an insight to the language use and identity construction of the German minority inhabiting northern parts of Poland, studied through their language biographies. The border shift after World War II changed the lives of millions of people. For the Germans who decided or were forced to stay in Poland, it meant learning a new language and culture. This study examines the influence of language management on the language biographies and identity constructions of German minority members living in northern parts of Poland. This study uses the tools of discourse analysis and aims to answer the following questions: How did language management at the macro level (primarily the post-war language policy) influence the language biographies of the interviewees regarding their language use? How do the interviewees define their identity and what patterns do they use? The language use amongst the German minority varies greatly, ranging from speakers who are competently bilingual and still use both languages in everyday communication to people who have lost the ability to speak German. One of the factors that influenced this is language management at the macro level, especially the post-war language policy, which not only affected the linguistic situation of Germans in Poland but also contributed to the creation of three different identity patterns.</p>
2022-06-24T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/20269The Concept of ‘Translation Equivalence’2022-12-01T07:13:20+00:00Van Van Hoang
<p>This paper focuses on how Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) conceptualizes translation equivalence (TE) – a concept which seems to resist any satisfactory treatment. To provide background for the study, the paper first examines some widely known formal and non-systemic functional (non-SF) perspectives on TE. Then it presents the SFL perspective on TE, focusing in particular on the current SFL perspective on TE as expounded by Halliday (2001, 2017) and Matthiessen (2001). To demonstrate the ‘appliability’ (Halliday, 2017: 34) and relevance of SFL to TE studies and translation practice, a mini-case study is conducted in which, using the current SFL model as the theoretical framework, the paper analyzes, compares, and establishes equivalent as well as non-equivalent points between a source language text passage from ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by the American Nobel Laureate in literature, Ernest Hemmingway, and its Vietnamese translated version from ‘Ông già và bien ca’ by Huy Phuong. The study shows that SFL is highly relevant for TE. It is an ‘extravagant’ (Halliday and Martin, 2005: 26), comprehensive, coherent, and multidimensional model of language which can open huge potential for researchers and translators to use it as a theoretical framework for TE studies and translation practice.</p>
2022-06-24T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/20785Systemic Functional Linguistics and Translation Studies Edited by Mira Kim, Jeremy Munday, Zhenhua Wang and Pin Wang2022-12-01T07:13:19+00:00Daqun Zhang
<p>Systemic Functional Linguistics and Translation Studies Edited by Mira Kim, Jeremy Munday, Zhenhua Wang and Pin Wang 2021, Bloomsbury Academic, xvi + 242 pp., ISBN: 978-1-3500-9186-3</p>
2022-06-24T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19981Systemic Functional Linguistics in Translation2021-05-12T10:49:34+00:00Van Van Hoang
<p>This article is concerned with my personal account of the process of translating into Vietnamese a world famous grammar book: An Introduction to Functional Grammar, Second Edition, written by world renowned scholar M. A. K. Halliday. The account of the translation process is placed within the compass of systemic functional linguistics. It is clear from my account that in translating An Introduction to Functional Grammar, Second Edition, the translator may experience many daunting problems, among which the problems of translating technical terms and long and heavily loaded nominal groups seem to be the toughest. It is also clear from my account that systemic functional linguistics is highly relevant to translation theory and translation practice. It can stand to benefit the translator from analysis of the source text, to discussion of translation problems, to explanation for establishment of points of equivalence between the choices in the target text and those in the source text, and to synthesis of the target text.</p>
2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19703Hatim, Basil (2020) Communication Across Cultures: The Linguistics of Texts in Translation2021-05-12T10:30:16+00:00Raymond Wai-man Ng
<p>Hatim, Basil (2020) Communication Across Cultures: The Linguistics of Texts in Translation. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. ISBN: 978-1-905816-30-9</p>
2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19138The space between forgetting and remembering2021-03-28T22:24:27+00:00Hagit Evan-Rifinski
<p>This article examines the reoccurring dialogic structure ‘negation+forget’ in stories written by adolescent orphans living in the shadow of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. The employment of Appraisal, a detailed systematic framework of evaluative language has provided insights into their memories. The analysis identifies two major targets the narrators cannot, or will not forget: (a) distant memories of their parents, and (b) specific memories of growing up as orphans. The dialogic resources in the construction demonstrate that the writers clearly reject any form of putting aside their painful memories, despite public voices which call for doing so in the spirit of national reconciliation. The significance of the appearance of ‘negation+forget’, mainly in specific story stages, is also discussed. Finally, the analysis distinguishes between the use of ‘negation+forget’ and remember, and contends that the former is used to refer to deep emotional memories. The article suggests that ‘negation+forget’+quantifiers of time (never, all my life) may signal emotional hotspots in personal accounts.</p>
2021-03-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19986Zhihui Fang on SFL-Informed Literacy Education2021-05-12T10:43:47+00:00Zhihui FangYanmei GaoChengzhu YinHanbing Li
<p>As appliable linguistics, systemic functional linguistics (SFL) has been widely applied in various areas of education – in studies of classroom discourse, in teacher training, curriculum development, etc. Zhihui Fang is a leading scholar who has applied systemic functional linguistics in the development of pedagogical models for secondary literacy education. In this interview, Yanmei Gao, Chengzhu Yin and Hanbing Li ask Zhihui Fang about the applicability of systemic functional linguistics in literacy education, especially in the United States. They also discuss the possible influence of the new developments of the Sydney School, such as genre relations, on content areas teaching practice.</p>
2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/20037Don’t Speak Local Languages2021-05-12T10:37:17+00:00Syed Abdul Manan
<p>This study demonstrates how various stakeholders’ orientations about languagein- education policy and linguistic/cultural diversity are shaped by a monolingual habitus in Pakistan. The notion of habitus originates from Bourdieu’s (1991) social theories that refers to ‘a set of dispositions which incline agents to act and react in certain ways. The dispositions generate practices, perceptions, and attitudes which are regular without being consciously coordinated or governed by any “rule”’ (p. 13). Using a mixed methodology that utilized questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, the study presents insights from students, teachers, and school principals within 11 low-fee schools in part of Pakistan. Results suggest that the respondents consider native languages economically and culturally deficient. Their dispositions are marked by linguistic commodification and linguistic shaming as they theorize English-medium policy as an ideal choice. Linguistic and cultural diversity is viewed as a challenge, whereas myths of uniformity of language and culture influence their beliefs. The respondents maintain ideological positivism, which is reflected in their unquestioned legitimization of the normative sociolinguistic order. I conclude that stakeholders have been socialized within a unified linguistic market, dominated by English or Urdu-medium policies; therefore, they envision a monolingual habitus, and fail to imagine alternative policies beyond the current language hierarchy.</p>
2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/17637The Language of Vietnamese School Science Textbooks2020-04-17T15:39:36+00:00Van Van Hoang
<p>In this article, an attempt is made to explore in some depth the transitivity features of seven lessons (texts) of a Vietnamese science textbook – Sinh h?c 8 (Biology 8). The findings show that in constructing biological knowledge in their texts, the Vietnamese biologists as textbook writers have employed very high frequency of material and relational processes, virtually no behavioural process, very low percentage of mental, verbal and existential processes, relative small number of circumstances, high percentage of participants/Subjects, high lexical density, high frequency of grammatical metaphor, and only two types of expansion clause complex: elaboration and enhancement. These transitivity features constitute part of what Halliday (2005a: 59) refers to as the ‘prototypical syndrome’ that characterizes the language of Vietnamese school science textbooks. They explain in part why the language of school science textbooks often creates a feeling of ‘alienation’ (Halliday and Martin, 1993: 2) to school students.</p>
2020-04-10T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/17638Creativity and Multimodality2020-04-17T15:39:37+00:00Locky Law
<p>Creativity studies have been expanding into multimodality in recent years, particularly in the field of computational creativity (Elgammal and Saleh, 2015) and cognitive science (Gardner, 2008). Comparatively, linguistics is far behind in productivity in this area. A key linguistic contribution by Carter (2004) theorizes creativity in everyday common talk into two main categories: pattern-reforming and patternforming. This paper extends Carter’s (2004) hypothesis on linguistic creativity to multimodal texts. Inspired by the concept of ‘given’ and ‘new’ from Halliday’s (1967) information status, a new framework for creativity analysis is proposed and discussed in detail using scenes from TV drama House M.D., movie Casablanca (1942), sitcom Blackadder the Third (1987), digital arts such as logos of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Tesla Inc., Hotel ICON, fractal art from the novel Jurassic Park (1990) as well as viral MTV of Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen – PPAP Song (2016). This paper also discusses the importance of a base unit of creativity to both the creator and the target. Special attention is placed on endo-referenced and exoreferenced creativity, and their relationship with the implicitness and explicitness of the formula of creativity construction.</p>
2020-04-10T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/17639Linguistic Rhythm and its Meaning2020-04-17T15:39:38+00:00Radan Martinec
<p>Linguistic rhythm has generally not been considered to realize semantic units.Exceptions are van Leeuwen (1992) and Martinec (1996, 2000, 2002). This articledevelops further Martinec's hierarchical model of rhythm by relating it to semanticfields. The semantic units realized by rhythmic units in his model are wavesof import, which belong to the textual metafunction (see e.g. Halliday and Matthiessen,2014). They are shown to be mapped onto semantic fields, signalling theirgreater or lesser importance. Import foci fall on those members of the semanticfields which have the most import and thus also attract attention to importantsemantic fields. The two criteria often harmonize with one another and when theydo not, this is explained by textual and lexicogrammatical reasons. The model isalso further developed by the principle of frustrated expectations being added tothe contextual factors from which import is derived.</p>
2020-04-10T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/17644Linguistic Politeness in Online Discussion Boards2020-04-17T15:39:39+00:00Rhodora S. Ranalan
<p>The move away from relying on location and physical interaction to define community has brought about a recognition of non-geographic communities particularly those that meet only through the Internet. This paper explores one such online community, a group of animé lovers which have grown in recent years due to the global spread of Japanese pop culture. The data mined from this fan forum are used to determine how its members behave linguistically to reinforce this community. It also aims to investigate the politeness strategies used by the members of the community paying attention to the context of how linguistic politeness is deployed in online environments devoted to fandom. As politeness is more often a facet of face to face interaction, the paper is interested in knowing if politeness can be employed as a strategy of accommodation in an online context. The findings reveal that positive politeness strategies dominate the comments of the members of the discussion forum. The creative use of language also helps maintain this virtual environment where they establish relationships. For fans who meet online, this relationship is not a given but rather is a communicative accomplishment where each member works toward the construction and maintenance of the online community.</p>
2020-04-10T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/17645A Contextual Investigation of Chinese Translations of Detective Stories – Mismatched Holmes2020-04-17T15:39:40+00:00Yan Wang
<p>This study is carried out within the scope of the academic discipline of Translation Studies interfacing with Systemic Functional Linguistics. Different from comparative studies among different translations synchronically, this article adopts a diachronic perspective to compare two Chinese translations in the late nineteenth century and late twentieth century of Conan Doyle’s nine detective stories, with a view to identifying mismatches of verbal clauses in terms of three contextual parameters, i.e., field, tenor and mode. Drawing upon House’s scheme for translation quality assessment (1977; 1997) and the concept of instantiation in systemic functional linguistics, this article forms a model to investigate mismatches of verbal clauses in nine parallel texts and expand to the cline of subsystem based on the findings of the present corpus.</p>
2020-04-10T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/17646Popularity of Latin and Law French in Legal English2020-04-17T15:39:40+00:00Chuanyou YuanShaomin ZhangQingshun He
<p>This paper is a pilot study of the Language of the Law (or Legal English), a subsidiary of a broader research project on the Disciplinary English (DE), from the perspective of SFL. It starts with reviewing Halliday's seven features or difficulties of scientific English that are presumably shared by Legal English. Then, the features of legal English identified by Forensic linguists, Mellinkoff and Tiersma among others are also perused. Subsequently, this paper focuses on and examines a particular feature, that is, the alleged ‘popular use' of Latin and Law French in contemporary legal English. We build a small corpus consisting of journal articles (or academic papers) and legal textbooks to examine their frequency in the corpus and analyze their uses and users (authors and readers) by means of instantiation. The findings include Latin and law French are still active in legal text and they tend to occur more in legal journals than in legal textbooks. The findings are of implication to the teaching and learning of legal English.</p>
2020-04-10T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/17647Interview with Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen On Translation Studies (Part III)2020-04-17T15:39:41+00:00Christian M.I.M. MatthiessenBo WangYuanyi Ma
<p>As the final part of the interview on translation, this transcript further explores the relationship between the two areas, namely Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and translation studies. Christian Matthiessen and Bo Wang first discuss works by various scholars, including Bell (1991), Baker (1992) as well as Hatim and Mason (1990). Then, Christian Matthiessen suggests some theoretical developments needed, comments on the developments in different parts of the world, and points out the challenges and oppositions. Finally, Christian Matthiessen examines the relationship between literary and non-literary translation in translation studies.</p>
2020-04-10T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/17648Applying Systemic Functional Linguistics: The State of the Art in China Today by Jonathan Webster and Peng Xunwei (Eds) (2017)2020-04-17T15:39:42+00:00Nana Zhou
<p><em>Applying Systemic Functional Linguistics: The State of the Art in China Today </em>by Jonathan Webster and Peng Xunwei (Eds) (2017)</p>
2020-04-10T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/18957Ecolinguistics and ecosophy2021-03-28T22:23:20+00:00Zhang RuijieHe Wei
<p>This article presents a philosophical framework for studies of ecolinguistics, combining the Eastern wisdom of ecological harmony and the Western human geographical concept of sense of place. To establish the basic criteria for ecolinguistic analysis, the article traces the three most influential Chinese schools of philosophy and extracts three of their shared disciplines: benevolence, frugality and intimacy with nature. To reveal the dynamic relationship between human beings and the places where they reside, the article revisits the concept of sense of place and extends it to cover an ecological dimension of people and place. Connecting ecological ethics derived from classical Chinese philosophy with systemic human-place dynamics, this proposed framework provides an ideological basis for ecolinguistic research, especially for discourse analysis. Following this ecosophy, the involved human beings and other elements of places included in a discourse can be revealed through the system of sense of place; and the ecological implications of linguistic features can be evaluated according to the three major principles. To complete the analysis, positive and negative orientations will be distinguished as well as a middle ground of ambivalent orientation. To conclude, this article aims to provide a well-grounded ideological reference for the deconstruction and subsequent assessment of linguistic resources, and thereby to establish a crucial strand of ecolinguistic scholarship.</p>
2021-03-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19142Bridging boundaries between systemic functional linguistics and translation studies2021-03-28T22:19:43+00:00Erich SteinerBo WangChristian M.I.M. MatthiessenYuanyi Ma
<p>Erich Steiner, as a leading scholar in systemic functional linguistics (SFL), has been involved in various important strands of research on SFL and translation. In this interview, he discusses his motivation of studying linguistics, and introduces his works in different areas, including machine translation in the 1980s, corpora, register, explicitation, grammatical metaphor, integration of product- and process-based researches, as well as language description and comparison. </p>
2021-03-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19337Bridging boundaries between systemic functional linguistics and translation studies2021-03-26T09:06:34+00:00Erich SteinerBo WangChristian M.I.M. MatthiessenYuanyi Ma
<p>Erich Steiner, as a leading scholar in systemic functional linguistics (SFL), has been involved in various important strands of research on SFL and translation. This transcript is based on the second part of the interview during his visit to Hong Kong. We continue to discuss the application of SFL to translation, covering topics like SFL and other functionalist theories of translation, the tools for translation contributed by functionally-oriented work, and translation as a method for language teaching. In addition, Steiner summarizes the contributions of SFL to translation, and introduces some possibilities for future research.</p>
2021-03-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19339Disambiguating ambiguity2021-03-28T22:22:03+00:00Giulia BakerMichelle Aldridge
<p>This paper addresses inconsistencies in findings for children’s humour development by examining the ways in which five different ambiguity types (lexical, phonological, morphological, syntactic and idiomatic) have been interpreted and applied in earlier studies on humour comprehension. It identifies discrepancies in linguistic phenomena perceived to constitute each ambiguity type and highlights how differences have contributed to contrasting claims being made about ambiguity types comprehended by young children during the final humour stage. Definitions are subsequently provided for each ambiguity type examined. Definitions accommodate the fact that verbal humour is intrinsically embedded with the form in which it is delivered (i.e. the language in which it is communicated) and are based upon linguistic phenomena through which ambiguity types are manifested. Application of these definitions should now allow the researcher to be sure of linguistic phenomena being tested at any given time and facilitate comparison and contextualisation of findings across future studies</p>
2021-03-26T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/20061Creativity and Register2021-05-12T10:34:24+00:00Locky Law
<p>The discussion on how creativity can be described in terms of register, field, tenor, and mode has been established in Law’s (2019b) creativity-in-register cube framework (CIRCF). This article is a sequel to that discussion by demonstrating how the CIRCF can be used in the quantitative analysis of Carter’s (2004) pattern-forming creativity, using the dialogues of TV drama House, M.D. (Shore, 2005) as examples. This article begins with an introductory review of background information and relevant literature on linguistic creativity and systemic functional linguistics, before focusing on verbal repetition as a resource for pattern-forming creativity. The methodology section includes a brief description of the CIRCF and the procedures for the computer-assisted extraction of pattern-forming creativity. The analysis section provides a walk-through of the CIRCF in the multidimensional semiotic analysis of pattern-forming creativity, both numerically and graphically, involving different registers, and variables under field, tenor and mode. Possible future research topics are included in the conclusion section.</p>
2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/19983Quantifying Systemic Coupling and Syndrome Using Multivariate Statistical Methods2021-05-12T10:40:18+00:00Bandar Alhumaidi A. Almutairi
<p>One of the fundamental underpinnings of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is that the relationship between language-as-system and language-as-text is modelled probabilistically in relation to the cline of instantiation. This offers a spectrum of new ways to approach several SFL concepts quantitatively. This paper falls within that spectrum as it proposes that the relatively recent concepts of coupling and syndrome can be redefined quantitatively in relation to instantiation through two statistical methods – namely log-linear analysis and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) The application of these two methods is illustrated through an analysis of a corpus of twelve online voting-based online debate texts (ODTs) The results and discussion sections of this paper show that the methods can identify and quantify significant couplings and syndromes from both probabilistic and statistical perspectives. Both methods illustratively highlight eleven couplings and four syndromes associated with the more persuasive and less persuasive ODTs writers.</p>
2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/12943Where is the hard news?2019-09-24T13:39:03+00:00Fiona Rossette
<p>This article examines the French press in light of the news/commentary distinction, both in terms of discourse structure and variation in authorial voice. It is demonstrated that while news is the genre “by default” in press-reporting in the Anglo-Saxon world, elements generally reserved in English for commentary appear in French news. Main examples are taken from the French dailies Le Monde, Libération and Le Figaro, and are compared with articles from The Times, The Guardian and The Independent. Structurally, French news diverges from the nucleus-satellite model and contains more logical conjunction. Explicit structuring is also carried out through extensive layers of paratext. In terms of authorial voice, French news contains more instances of inscribed appraisal, and can also promote greater proximity between writer and reader. This study provides a glimpse of the very distinctive tone of the French press, and raises the question of whether subjectivity is perceived in the same way in different languages.</p>
2011-12-16T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2011 Equinox Publishing Ltd.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/LHS/article/view/12942The Genre of Foyers in the Contemporary Highrise2019-09-24T13:38:59+00:00Robert McMurtrie
<p>The term genre is usually associated with literary and filmic texts; however, this article also considers other communicative events such as foyers as text types. While it might seem quite obvious to note that the fundamental purpose of foyers is to shuttle users back and forth between the entrance and the elevator, it is more intriguing to discern the ways in which this function is achieved. By using the theoretical framework developed within the discipline of systemic functional linguistics and by employing the analytical tool of intertextuality, this article undertakes a comparative semiotic reading of the foyers of Harry Seidler’s corporate and residential highrises in Sydney, Australia, in order to explicate the generic structure of foyers, to elucidate the similarities and differences between his foyers and to foreground the ideological stance that Seidler has consistently taken throughout his oeuvre.L</p>
2011-12-16T00:00:00+00:00Copyright (c) 2011 Equinox Publishing Ltd.