scholarly journals Printed t-shirts in the linguistic landscape

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Caldwell

Abstract While the printed t-shirt remains a prominent form of communication in our contemporary linguistic landscape, little research to date has examined the semiotics of this unique mode of communication. In response to the interdisciplinary ‘invitation’ from Shohamy and Ben-Rafael (2015), this paper draws on principles and methods from social semiotics (van Leeuwen, 2005) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1989) to explore the meaning-making potential of English words on printed t-shirts. The paper begins by applying Halliday’s concept of mode to the printed t-shirt and then presents a linguistically motivated taxonomy of words on printed t-shirts. In addition to foregrounding the printed t-shirt as a site for future exploration, this paper aims to present a close textual discourse analysis – an examination of the ‘perceived space’ (Malinowski, 2015) – to complement, inform and engage with current trends and methods in linguistic landscape research and pedagogy.

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akiko Nagao

This study examined the progress of English as a foreign language (EFL) writers using the instructional framework of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and the communities of practice (CoPs) model. The study participants comprised 11 first-year undergraduate students in Japan with intermediate-level English proficiency who were exposed to SFL in a single EFL classroom (CoP). The participants’ genre understanding and meaning-making decisions when writing discussion essays were studied over two semester-long courses. To do so, their developmental changes were analyzed using pre- and post-instructional writing tasks. In particular, their ability to convey interpersonal meaning, such as through the use of modal verbs, was examined and compared between the pre- and post-tasks. To triangulate the findings, participants’ genre awareness in relation to discussion essays was also examined using in-depth qualitative analysis of their self-reflective texts and peer assessments, based on a grounded theory approach. In the pre-writing task, it was apparent that the learners lacked understanding of the components of discussion essay writing. However, analysis of their post-instructional tasks revealed that most had begun to apply the language components required to convey interpersonal meaning in their discussion genre texts. These results suggest that the changes in learner’s genre awareness and knowledge affected the lexicogrammatical features they used when writing discussion essays. Thus, this study concludes that applying the SFL framework to writing instruction enhanced EFL learners’ awareness of textual meaning and their understanding of the function of discussion essay texts.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy L. Bowcher

Abstract ‘Role’ is typically defined according to the part and/or function that something or someone contributes to a situation. This two-fold perspective is also inherent in discussions of the role of language: the ‘amount’ of language that is involved in a situation and the ‘function’ of language in a situation, with both perspectives relating to the non-linguistic systems that may be involved in the conduct of the situation relative to language. It is the latter of these perspectives, however, that has typically received most attention in discourse analysis, with the former (the ‘amount’) being left implicit and unproblematised. This paper considers the role of language from various discourse analytical perspectives before critically examining the concept within Systemic Functional Linguistics. Using system networks as the representational and analytical platform, the paper redefines ‘role of language’ in contextual Mode as comprised of two sub-systems: degree of involvement and type of involvement. degree of involvement accounts for the compositional contribution that language makes in a situation; type of involvement accounts for the way in which language may function in a situation. Using an illustrative dataset, the paper also demonstrates the effectiveness of the systemic approach in accounting for overlapping and differing contextual configurations by showing how features within the role of language configure and how these in turn configure with options in the Field system-network of action. These configurations are essentially hypotheses that can be more comprehensively tested through empirical research.


Author(s):  
Caroline Coffin

AbstractOver the last decade, technological innovation has led to new pedagogic sites, such as online discussion forums and virtual 3D worlds. In these sites students and teachers use language and other meaning-making resources to engage in educational argumentation. However, there have been few studies which have systematically explored the role of lexicogrammatical and other semiotic resources in the making of meaning in these contexts. This is because the main body of research underpinning claims around the affordances and limits of online argumentation is located within sociocognitive paradigms. By drawing on the tools of systemic functional linguistics and, where relevant, systemic functional-multimodal analysis, this article therefore offers a fresh perspective. I show how such tools can illuminate both the overarching textual shape and structure of online discussion forums and the ways in which meanings are made through language and other semiotic resources.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 94-105
Author(s):  
Edna Cristina S. Santos

Adolescents all over the world have communicated with one another through the Internet by means of personal sites called Blogs, in which they say what they think and feel about life, and interact electronically with people from different places. This is a new mode of literacy which is leading adolescents to writing spontaneously about diverse topics. They use multimodal texts in which they integrate different types of semiosis. In this paper, we will examine the language of this new genre according to critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992), genre analysis (Bakhtin, 1992) and systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1985).


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 851
Author(s):  
Hecong Wang ◽  
Rui Zhai ◽  
Xinyu Zhao

Ecological discourse analysis could reflect the relationship between language and environmental issues and awake people’s consciousness to protect our earth. According to Systemic-Functional linguistics, language is not only a means of action but also a means of reflection. This study aims to use Systemic-Functional linguistics to analyze the United Nation’s general-secretary’s remarks on climate change and reveal the ecological ideologies from the perspective of Ecolinguistics, appealing for people’s ecological values, and lead them to act ecologically and think ecologically (Huang Guowen, 2016) in their daily life.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Miriam P. Germani ◽  
Lucia Rivas

This paper is a reflection on praxis which addresses the phonological stratum as an integral part of the language system. As EFL teachertrainers, we often find that students isolate the different meaning-creating components of language as a natural result of the way courses areorganized at university level. It is in the spirit of helping students integrate the various aspects of language and context that we have set outto compare David Brazil, Malcolm Coulthard and Catherine Johns’s Discourse Intonation model –which we have been working with for morethan ten years– with the intonation approach in Systemic Functional Linguistics, by M.A.K. Halliday and William Greaves. We observe thetheoretical similarities between the two approaches in order to see how they may supplement one another. Then, we analyse a conversationtaken from a film following both theoretical approaches, and draw conclusions in the light of the comparison. Our preliminary results show thatthe two approaches explain the meanings conveyed with reference to different meaning-making resources. Brazil et al. explain the meaningsat risk in the interaction according to the phonological systems they describe (prominence, tone, key and termination). Halliday and Greavesdo so by referring to the phonological and lexico-grammatical strata in combination.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renáta Tomášková

Abstract The paper focuses on the institutional website as a complex genre with a relatively discontinuous inner structure, which is, however, coherent and cohesive, and unified by a common communication goal(s). The website is viewed as a discourse colony consisting of independent but related components realized in an array of subgenres, some of which are typical of the academic/institutional environment while others come from different discourse domains and are employed as embedded genres. The paper focuses on the blog as an embedded genre, its forms and functions within university websites, and particularly on its potentially multimodal character, i.e. the interplay of the verbal content of the blog and the non-verbal elements, esp. photographs, which co-create the producer’s message to the addressee. Drawing upon the recently developed field of multimodal discourse analysis within Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics, particularly Martinec and Salway’s model, the paper explores the level to which the modes are integrated and the ways they contribute to meaningmaking in the genre.


ETNOLINGUAL ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Feny Anggeria

Gender is the study of women and men among their roles in society. Since the year of emancipation occurs in all the country, the term gender becomes popular. Talking about gender, of course, is same as talking about feminism. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of the most influential woman in Africa. Her speech and essay, ‘We Should All Be Feminists’, which serves the idea of feminism have changed the term feminism with a high balance discussion. The study of gender, in Africa, has too often taboo because there is no equality insight between women and men. By implementing the transitivity in Halliday’s SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics), it is necessary to know the language used by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The type of the data in this research is quantitative and qualitative data. This study also uses Critical Discourse Analysis as the approach. Hence, the library research supports the understanding of the material which is applicable and accurate to obtain the source of the data.


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