28.1389, Review: Discourse Analysis; Ling Theories: Bayley, Miller (2016)

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Subject: 28.1389, Review: Discourse Analysis; Ling Theories: Bayley, Miller (2016)

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Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2017 10:53:32
From: Rong Wei [83964083 at qq.com]
Subject: Hybridity in Systemic Functional Linguistics

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-1357.html

EDITOR: Donna R. Miller
EDITOR: Paul  Bayley
TITLE: Hybridity in Systemic Functional Linguistics
SUBTITLE: Grammar, Text and Discursive Context
PUBLISHER: Equinox Publishing Ltd
YEAR: 2016

REVIEWER: Rong Wei,  

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

INTRODUCTION

Hybridity in Systemic Functional Linguistics: Grammar, Text and Discursive
Context is edited by Donna R. Miller and Paul Bayley. It focuses on diverse
domains of observation, analysis, description, and theory at the different
phases of instantiation and levels of the hierarchy of stratification. And the
volume is likely to reveal the richly multifaceted complexity of the notion of
hybridity as well as its potential as a theoretical construct in Systemic
Functional Linguistics (hereafter SFL)(p.5). 

Structurally, this volume is composed of five parts with a total of 15
chapters. The first part is Chapter 1, which contains preliminaries from the
editors Donna R. Miller and Paul Bayley. The main body of the book includes
four parts: the first part is about grammatical hybridity, hybridity within
the stratum of lexicogrammar itself (Chapters 2 through 4); the second part
concerns hybridity- implications for pedagogy and professional practice
(Chapters 5 through 8); the third part focuses on registerial and/or generic
hybridity (Chapters 9 through 14); and the fourth part is the closing
statement (Chapter 15). 

SUMMARY

Preliminaries: Hybridity & Systemic Functional Linguistics
The first chapter, “Preliminaries: hybridity and systemic functional
linguistics”, is the introductory chapter. Donna R. Miller and Paul Bayley
briefly review previous studies on hybridity, introduce the relation between
hybridity and SFL, and summarize each of the following chapters. They also
highlight Miller’s argument that the major attraction of M.A.K. Halliday’s
model for us is its very intricacy, its very courage to be complex (Miller,
1985:44). 

Grammatical Hybridity 

Chapter 2, entitled “On the (non) necessity of the hybrid category behavioural
process”, is authored by David Banks. He firstly offers a brief introduction
to the historical development of the notion of behavioural process in the
system of transitivity. The transitivity system construes the world of
experience into a manageable set of process types: three major process types-
material, mental and relational, and three minor types- verbal, behavioural
and existential (Halliday, 1994:106-107). But behavioural processes have no
clearly defined characteristics of their own (Halliday & Matthiessen,
2004:248-251). David argues that there are three main factors indicating that
the behavioural process is the ‘least distinct’ category: (i) in the case of
involuntary or semi–voluntary acts, behavioural processes are said to be
between material and mental process; (ii) in the case of voluntary and
involuntary perception, involuntary processes are said to be mental processes
and the voluntary processes are treated as behavioural; (iii) in the case of
processes of communication which do not project, they are said to between
behavioural and verbal process. By analyzing the potential behavioural verbs
presented by eight books based on various editions of Halliday’s Introduction,
the author finds out there is little agreement between various authors as to
what constitutes a potential behavioural verb (pp.27-34). Hence, he suggests a
system with five process types, excluding behavioural process that is not
clearly defined. 

In Chapter 3, “Hybridity in transitivity: phraseological and metaphorically
derived processes in the system network for transitivity”, Gordon Tucker aims
to explore the analysis of metaphorically (and metonymically) derived
Processes that exhibit hybridity. He argues that there are two modes of
analyzing transitivity: Halliday and Matthiessen’s descriptive model
(henceforth IFG), and Fawcett’s ‘re-expression test’ (hereafter CaG) (p. 43).
The problem in identifying Process Types is that Systemic Functional Grammar
(SFG) descriptions are based on prototypical cases, on examples that would
appear to fit the identification criteria extremely well. This is true of IFG
and CaG. And the two main reasons for the potential analytical difficulty are:
linguistic categories are hybrid in nature, and linguistic expressions are
phraseological in nature. To explain the two reasons, the author explores
several expressions with the lexical verb ‘give’, considering aspects of the
lexicogrammatical analysis that indicate departure from a prototypical
analysis of the Process. He also examines a ‘straightforward’ example that
involves metaphor and metonymy–breaking (some) one’s heart–trying to provide
solutions for its analysis and its location in the system network. In these
explorations, the CaG analysis is adopted. Tucker concludes that descriptions
and procedures set up for prototypical cases may strain under the weight of
hybridity, which requires the introduction of new or modified descriptive
resources, such as the Main Verb Extension element or some procedure whereby
metaphor and metonymy, such as ‘my heart’’s standing in for the person, can be
explicated (p.60). 

Chapter 4, “Hybridity and process types”, by Jorge Arus Hita deals with
grammatics at clause level as a way to account for hybrid processes, in which
typically non-metaphorical lexical verbs are used metaphorically. He splits 
the chapter into 6 sections in his introduction. In section one, Arus Hita
introduces hybrid processes, suggesting that hybrid processes are  the
intended product of literal plus metaphorical senses. Section 2 centers around
the distinction between Lexical Metaphor (hereafter LM) and Grammatical
Metaphor (hereafter GM): whereas in LM a signifier(e.g. spoonfeed) can be
congruent(S-d1) or metaphorical(S-d2), in GM a signifier is only
congruent(e.g. the brakes failed) or only metaphorical(e.g. brake failure)
(p.68). This distinction attests to the complexity of metaphorical meaning, or
Lexicogrammatical Metaphor (hereafter LGM), which is the crux of Section 3. In
this section, the author argues that the literal or congruent meanings (which
we will call A) and the intended meanings (B) are hybridized to create the
metaphorical meanings (C). He then in Section 4 investigates three different
levels of hybridity in LGM. Section 5 concerns LGM in use. In this section
Arus Hita offers multiple analyses of examples from two journalistic texts for
each of these degrees of hybridity. Finally, he concludes that future
quantitative analysis may help solve the problems in the current study of
hybrid metaphorical processes.  

Hybridity: Implications for pedagogy and professional practices

Caroline Coffin’s Chapter 5, “Re-orienting semantic dispositions: the role of
hybrid forms of language use in university learning”, shows how one’s
‘semantic disposition’ may be re-oriented (or not) through the process of
institutionalized learning. The chapter begins by introducing the research
context from which the author draws her data and evidence. Then it sets out
the related concepts of semantic disposition and knowledge orientation that
have come to inform the research into teaching and learning. Caroline proposes
that making the transition into new ways of meaning and establishing new
knowledge orientations can be facilitated by hybrid forms of language that
combine speech and writing. By providing examples of hybrid forms of language
use taken from online discussion forums, she finds that online discussion
forums (particularly in applied fields of study) can drive the orientations to
knowledge needed in tertiary learning environments (p.105). Therefore, hybrid
forms of language use should be exploited by teachers and students for
learning purposes. 

In Chapter 6, “Teaching through English: maximal input in meaning making,”
John Polias and Gail Forey focus on language education and pedagogy, proposing
a pedagogic model ‘teaching and learning cycle’ (TLC) in which the teacher
uses various hybrid modes and resources. TLC involves four main parts: Setting
the Context, Modeling and Deconstruction, Guided Construction and Independent
Construction. More specifically, following TLC, the teacher and the learner
are involved in setting the context; the teacher is responsible for modeling
and deconstructing the meanings for the students and handing them over to the
student through Guided Construction; the student, when ready, is then given
the opportunity for Independent Construction (p.112). John and Gail
demonstrate the application of TLC by using Hong Kong data. The data,
collected from different key learning areas (KLA’s) of physical education,
information technology and music, show that different KLA’s demand different
approaches to the construction of knowledge. They conclude the chapter with
the argument that the TLC is a model that allows for the flexible and repeated
patterning of meaning and matter in KLA across the curriculum (p.128). 

Chapter 7 is Anne Isaac’s “The multilayeredness of hybridity in the written
stylistic analysis argument”. The author offers a study of multiple dimensions
of hybridity in the stylistic analysis genre, which is frequently used in
developing second language (L2) undergraduate’ writing skills. With a view to
raising the awareness of teachers of stylistic-based English for Academic
Purposes (EAP)  to the presence of hybrid factors in the stylistic analysis,
she tries to relate these features to permeable dimensions in the social
context and to distinguish between hybridity that enhances a text and that
which detracts from its effectiveness (p.134). Data analysis probes
multi-layered hybridity in the discursive organization of the genre, revealing
four dimensions of hybridity in the stylistic analysis genre that possibly
enable students to write more effectively. Here are the four dimensions:
Evaluation, Thesis, Argument/s and Evidence, Reaffirmation of Thesis and
Evaluation. Importantly, Anne summarizes in her study three pedagogical
implications: the study reminds teachers of how best to teach genres, of
devising teaching activities that foreground functional and organizational
differences between these genres, and of providing students with opportunities
to explore and discuss differences in the ways they approach literary texts
(pp.149-150).

Srikant Sarangi is the author of Chapter 8, “Activity types, discourse types
and role types: interactional hybridity in professional-client encounters”. He
centers on hybridity at the interactional level that is manifest through
discourse types and role types. In terms of hybridity, Sarangi not only
proposes the notion of ‘Kitkat hybridity’, encompassing internal and external
dimensions, but also regards hybridity as an interdisciplinary project,
involving ontological and epistemological considerations. He also asserts that
activity types are formed in discourse types and it is the latter that account
for ‘interactional hybridity’, because the same discourse types can feature in
different activity types and may serve different functions. Furthermore, the
interactional hybridity within a given activity type is strengthened by the
corresponding role types available to participants. The author in his
conclusion stresses that activity types are composed of discourse types and
role types and that it is the interplay between discourse types and role types
that renders activity types interactionally hybrid (p.173).

Registerial and generic hybridity

Chapter 9 is Geoff Thompson’s “Hybridisation: How language users graft new
discourses on old root stock”, which offers a ‘snapshot’ of one stage in the
development of particular internet registers: football and newspaper blogs.
Thompson uses corpus-based methods to explore the lexico-grammatical
characteristics of texts which result when non-expert writers go about
mastering unfamiliar discourse types (p.181). The analysis of football blogs
and newspaper blogs displays the study result: although there is a clear
variation across the sets of blogs, there are fundamental similarities in
their features and hybridity is one of their principal features. Similarly,
the analysis shows that casual conversation remains the root stock onto which
other types of discourse are grafted. 

Registerial hybridity is the topic of Chapter 10, “Registerial hybridity:
indeterminacy among fields of activity”. The authors, Christian M.I.M.
Matthiessen and Kazuhiro Teruya, illustrate the mixture of functional
varieties of language operating in different institutional domains. They start
by introducing the context-based register typology and then focus on field,
more specifically, on the field of activity. There are eight fields of
activity that can be divided into three groups: semiotic processes
(expounding, reporting, recreating, sharing, exploring), semiotic processes
(recommending, enabling), social processes (doing). Viewing these fields of
activity as ‘prototypes’, the authors then present an interpretation of
‘hybridity’ based on the concept of indeterminacy. Halliday and Matthiessen
(1999:547-562) propose a typology of indeterminacy, which can characterize as
follows in terms of texts: ambiguities, blends, overlaps, neutralizations,
complementaries. Matthiessen and Kazuhiro in this chapter distinguish, discuss
and exemplify the first four types of indeterminacy. 

Chapter 11 is Carol Taylor Torsello’s Woolf’s lecture/novel/essay: “A Room of
One’s Own”. Taylor Torsello’s analysis firstly displays textual indications of
following three genres in A Room: lecture, novel and essay. She then focuses
on generic structure, comparing the structure of “A Room” with structures
proposed for an academic lecture, a novel and an essay. To clarify the genre
type of A Room, the author adapts Ruqaiya Hasan’s (1978:230-244) contextual
configuration (CC) for Woolf’s text and for each of the three genres, and
makes comparisons. She finally suggests that the metaphor of hybridity fits
the generic complexity of “A Room” in which Woolf mixes the three genres. 

In Chapter 12, “Genre and register hybridization in an historical text”,
Michael Cummings deals with a historical literary text, “Sermo Lupi ad Anglos
quando Dani maxime persecute sunt eos”. He has his two purposes in discussing
the text: first, approaches and categories from Systemic and Functional
Linguistics (SFL) can be very applicable to remote historical dialects and
remote historical texts; second, in particular Hasan’s discussion of the
‘permeability’ of register and genre categories is very illuminating for the
genre analysis of such a historical text (p.268). While analyzing the genre
and subgenre in the Sermon Lupi, Cummings utilizes a particular approach to
genre and register, combining Hasan’s description of generic permeability and
Martin’s description of genre agnation to analyze the opening, body and
concluding section of the text. He ends the chapter with the remark that the
prevalent multifunctionality of its hybridized subgenres demonstrates both the
usefulness and the necessity of the concept of generic permeability. 

Chapter 13, “Hybrid contexts and lexicogrammatical choices: interpersonal uses
of language in peer review reports in linguistics and mathematics”, is written
by Akila Sellami-Baklouti, whose concern is with the functional significance
of hybridity for text analysis. By employing Hasan’s(2009:170)
‘activation-construal dialectic’ between context, meaning and wording,
Baklouti attempts to show that the text displays lexicogrammatical choices
‘activated’ by semantic choices, which are in turn activated by hybrid
discursive contexts. She uses a comparative approach to investigate semantic
and lexicogrammatical choices realizing the interpersonal uses of language in
a corpus of 30 Peer Review Reports (PPR) related to two disciplines:
Mathematics and Linguistics. The investigation shows that the two sub-corpora
display both common features and substantial differences. And the findings
lead to two conclusions: theoretically, each sub-corpus is to some degree a
hybrid outcome of the interaction of different genres; methodologically, the
dialectical relationship between text and context is essential to show this
hybridity at work (p.303). 

Chapter 14 by Sabrina Fusari, “The permeable context of institutional and
newspaper discourse: a corpus-based functional case study of the European
sovereign debt crisis” investigates the interface between SFL and Corpus
Linguistics (CL) for the analysis of newspaper and institutional discourse
(p.306). This study first briefly introduces the theoretical background of the
interaction between SFL and CL, whose importance is testified by the claim
made by Halliday and Matthiessen that the corpus is fundamental to the
enterprise of theorizing language (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004:34). It then
presents and compares the layout of the corpora for case study, demonstrating
the main keywords and recurrent keyword clusters identified in the corpora.
Some of the keywords are exclusive to each corpus, and these keywords, like
‘Eurozone’, ‘debt’, ‘banks’, ‘growth’, are discussed in terms of their degree
of register specificity. Finally, the synergy between SFL and CL proves a
valuable instrument for analyzing register hybridity, potentially increasing
its efficiency as more complicated SFL-aware corpus annotation tools become
available. 

A closing statement: hybridity or permeability? 
Chapter 15, In the nature of language: reflections on permeability and
hybridity””, is the last chapter of the volume. The author, Ruqaiya Hasan,
tries to show that permeability is a feature of certain categories recognized
in language on the basis of principled descriptions (p.338). She offers a
discussion of permeability in two grammatical categories: at the
lexicogrammatical stratum and semantic stratum, suggesting that permeability
is operative not only at the lexicogrammatical stratum but also on the strata
of semantics and context. While permeability works across categories, Hasan
argues, it has a systemic basis. Moreover, the instance of ‘give’ in a tightly
held system can display that permeability is predicated by the probabilistic
nature of language. Indeed, it is likely that the patterns of permeability are
inherent in language (p.338). The author concludes her chapter by stating that
the relation between permeability and hybridity depends on how the term
‘hybridity’ is used in linguistics.  

EVALUATION

Hybridity in Systemic Functional Linguistics: Grammar, Text and Discursive
Context” is of great value for the following four reasons. Firstly, it covers
various categories of hybridity-grammar, text and context, and provides a
comparatively systematic study of hybridity from the perspective of Systemic
Functional Linguistics, thus refuting Norman Fairclough’s statement that SFL
cannot have anything valid to say about hybridity since it lacks a system
corresponding to the ‘order of discourse’. Secondly, the volume is
characterized by interdisciplinary study, which is not only testified by the
interface between SFL and cognitive linguistics, and the synergy between SFL
and CL, but is also proved by the selection of corpora from different areas,
like linguistics, mathematics, and literature. Moreover, since many
contributors have exemplified the status of SFL as an appliable linguistics
(e.g. Caroline on the applicability of SFL in dealing with university
learning, Cummings on a historical text, and Sabrina on institutional and
newspaper discourse), it is believed that the appliability of SFL should be
one of its future directions. Last but not least, each chapter is well
organized with clear logic and structure, which makes the book easy to follow
and accessible to readers. 

However, there are a few minor shortcomings. Firstly, although the volume is
entitled “Hybridity in Systemic Functional Linguistics”, most of the chapters
focus on Sydney Grammar and ignore other dialects of SFG. Chapter 3 is the
sole paper in the volume representing the alternative Cardiff Grammar (CaG) of
Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) developed by Robin Fawcett and Gordon Tucker
himself. In addition, the data for all chapters in the book is English, with
no other languages, which is not compatible with the study of hybridity. 

Despite these minor shortcomings, Donna R. Miller and Paul Bayley must be
congratulated on their impressive editorial work. The book is much to be
recommended to any student, lecturer, or researcher interested in hybridity.

REFERENCES 

Halliday, M. A. K., 2nd edn. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar.
London: Arnold. 

Halliday, M. A. K. & Matthiessen, Christian M. I. M. 1999. Construing
Experience Through Meaning: A Language-Based Approach to Cognition. London:
Cassell.

Halliday, M. A. K. & Matthiessen, Christian M. I. M., 3rd edn. 2004. An
Introduction to Functional Grammar . London: Arnold.

Hasan, R. 1978. Text in the systemic-functional model. In W.U. Dressler (ed.),
Current Trends in Textlinguistics, 228-246. Berlin: de Gruyter. 

Hasan, R. 2009. The place of context in a systemic functional model. In M.A.K.
Halliday & J.J. Webster (eds.), Continuum Companion to Systemic Functional
Linguistics, 166-189. London and New York: Continuum. 

Miller, D. R. 1985.Language, image, myth: preliminary considerations. In G.
Ragazzini, D.R. Miller, & P. Bayley, Campaign Language: Language, Image, Myth
in the US Presidential Election 1984, 35-73. Bologna: CLUEB.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ruby Rong Wei is a PhD student in Linguistics at University of Science and
Technology Beijing. My research interests include Systemic and Functional
Linguistics, Text Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Translation Study,
Typology, Syntax.





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