Volume 37, Issue 6 -

Theme, the building block for the Textual Metafunction in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), is itself an element at the clause rank. Its function and application, however, can only be fully recognized in the unfolding discourse. This article extends multiple Theme to the discourse level and proposes the notion of multiple hyperTheme that exists beyond the clause, with a view to developing the system of Theme in SFL and strengthening its role in discourse analysis. The article begins with an overview of the historical development of Theme, primarily reflecting on hyperTheme initiated by Daneš (1974, Functional sentence perspective and the organization of the text. In Daneš František (ed.), Papers on functional sentence perspective , 106–128. The Hague: Mouton) and developed by Martin (1992a, English text: System and structure . Philadelphia: John Benjamins) and Martin and Rose (2003, Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause . London: Continuum). By redefining hyperTheme and suggesting that it should not just be confined to the ideational dimension, this article introduces multiple hyperTheme which may cover the three strands of meaning (ideational, interpersonal and textual), offering a more delicate system of hyperTheme in SFL. The complexities and delicacies of different elements within the category of multiple hyperTheme are illustrated in its various patterns such as Interpersonal ^ Ideational, Textual ^ Ideational, Textual ^ Interpersonal ^ Ideational, Textual ^ Textual/Interpersonal ^ Ideational and Interpersonal/Textual ^ Ideational. Furthermore, the subtle configuration of the interpersonal and the ideational meanings in one grammatical sentence may blur the distinction between multiple hyperTheme and simple hyperTheme, especially when there is no obvious textual element involved.

Lifeguards stationed opposite their swimzone on a beach in southwest France huddle around a diagram in the sand; the Head Lifeguard points to the sun then looks at the swimzone. What is going on here? Our paper examines two excerpts from this interaction to explore how lifeguards manage an instruction activity that arises in addition to the task of monitoring the swimzone. Building on frame analysis and multiactivity in social interaction, we focus on the role of gaze behavior in maintaining a sustained orientation to the swimzone as a distinct activity in this setting. Multimodal, sequential analyses of extracts from the video data show that orientation to the lifeguarding task is sustained primarily by body orientation and gaze patterns that routinely return to the swimzone. This is supported when sustained orientation away from the swimzone leads to the momentary suspension of the instruction activity and consequent re-organization of the interaction, illustrating the normative and visible nature of managing multiactivity. These gaze behaviors and interactive patterns constitute practices of professional vision among beach lifeguards.

This article investigates and -prefacing and its environments in student essays. Specifically, the focus is on those instances when a writer uses the Finnish ja ‘and’ as an opening element (“preface”) to the sentence. While and -prefacing is most commonly a single-usage feature employed by a small minority of writers in the essay genre analyzed here, the detailed functional-rhetorical analysis reveals a rich picture of these usages and the respective discourse norm that emerges and evolves in practice. This paper identifies eight micro-level discourse functions for and -prefacing in the essays: (i) rhetorical, accumulative listing ; (ii) emphasizing continuity of argument ; (iii) dialogical aligning ; (iv) unconventional intertextual linking ; (v) evaluating a narrative turn ; (vi) resolution ; (vii) fantasy as coda ; and (viii) plain cohesive linking . Significantly, and -prefacing is not limited to the failed essays, nor to the low-graded essays more generally. The differences found in high- and low-graded (failed) essays may, however, suggest that some discourse functions and rhetorical patterns are associated with a higher institutional value than others. Methodologically, this study highlights the benefits of Rich Feature Analysis and dialogically oriented linguistic discourse analysis for exploring a relatively infrequent and yet distinctive rhetorical resource that has a complex form-function relationship in student essays.

Research into citation and reported speech has identified a number of functions, such as measures of influence, solidarity and distancing, demonstration, and construction of knowledge. This study brings citation analysis to knowledge mobilization – a situation in which research informs public policy. In the present case, it was a Canadian public inquiry on a wrongful murder conviction that prompted many police departments across the country to adopt new procedures that were informed by psychology research to minimize the chances of wrongful conviction. This article focuses on the result of a quantitative analysis that goes beyond simple counting to provide a citation profile of the inquiry report and discusses what such systematic description can reveal. The findings include a particular attribution practice of privileging expert statements but only when they are attributed to the speakers rather than to their writing or to the transcripts of their speech. In addition, the quantitative data revealed no correlation between rhetorical framing and formal citation or direct quotes. These findings lead to discussions on functions of citation and reported speech in this document, as well as the relationship between linguistic form and knowledge mobilization.

Memory and time are the two fundamental components of personal experience narrative. For a sole narrator with no competing claims for reliability, time distance from the narrated events is more or less irrelevant, and storytelling can proceed smoothly. However, what happens when more than one participant seems to have an equal claim to telling rights? We report a detailed micro-analysis of co-narrated stories of two brothers’ experiences as refugees over 35 years ago to understand how rights are negotiated when both participants have an apparently equal claim to narrative reliability. Our analysis demonstrates that while under normal circumstances the two speakers perform in “duet” – whereby they take the floor in fluid turns – when discrepancies are detected by either party, a round of negotiation following a predictable pattern is triggered before the narrative can continue. The “winner” of the negotiation – typically the speaker with the greatest recall of chronological detail – claims the rights to tell the story solo. The ability to convincingly demonstrate the reliability of one’s memories is therefore a crucial determinant in who can claim telling rights – the authority to be able to tell a story. Our findings support the role of remembered detail in underpinning this authority.