Volume 8, Issue 1

The distinction of systemic linguistics and generative linguistics has led to more problems for systemicists than for generativists: Halliday’s theory has been widely applied but has not been adequately valued as an influential strand of functional grammars in discussions on functionalism and formalism in linguistics; Halliday recognizes Chomsky’s theoretical importance but fails to get Chomsky to respond to his questioning. By focusing on the complementarity and reconcilability of functionalist and formalist approaches to language, this paper discusses the common concerns and dialogues along with discursive differences and rhetorical conflicts between Halliday and Chomsky, and proposes that what stands between them is a difference of discourses of argumentation rather than an opposition of functionalism and formalism. It suggests a few things that at least some systemic linguists need to do in order to further interact with generative linguists who may not be interested in the systemic enterprise. It concludes that since Halliday’s social semiotic theory aims at everyday problems of living and learning, it should not be difficult for systemic linguists to solve the problem of communicating with Chomsky and his followers.

“Climate change” and “global warming” are two popular terms that may be often used interchangeably in news media. This study proposes to give a corpus-assisted discourse study of the representations of climate change and global warming in The New York Times (2000–2019) in order to examine how they are actually used in the newspaper. The findings show both similarities and differences in their representations in terms of the associated topics/themes, the particular ways of framing, and the perspectivization strategy employed. It is argued that a corpus-assisted discourse study of a large sample of news articles presents a more accurate picture of the actual use of the two terms in news media.

This paper examines the use of English in Greek fashion magazines. It assesses the frequency of the use of English in these media, uncovers its discourse forms and functions, and illustrates why English is being used in the first place. As it is shown, English mainly takes the form of naming and headings and what characterizes its use is creativity and innovation. Through language play, intertextual references, clips, deliberate spelling mistakes, and alternations of the intended meaning of idiomatic phrases, English has a variety of functions such as creating emphasis and attracting the reader’s attention. Like other settings where English bears a non-official status, the use of English features capitalizes on the symbolic and indexical value of this language. English is used because it symbolizes progression, innovation, and success and because it indexes knowledge of and association with globalized fashion and beauty discourses and styles circulating worldwide in fashion magazines, on social networking sites, and platforms. The findings of this study can be used to examine the extent of the homogenization of the fashion discourse worldwide while similar studies can be conducted with different types of media to compare the way that English is used in a variety of contexts in Greece and elsewhere.

The main purpose of this paper is to contrast the Chinese and Japanese mood type systems and their realizations following the network developed within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. It is found that: Chinese and Japanese show similarity in the delicacy of the mood type systems, but Chinese has established a more prominent status for unbiased polarity seeker and the choice of content than Japanese does; the two languages display shared features in the use of Mood particles, qualitative and quantitative groups, the alternation of word orders, and the use of certain structures for Mood realization, and they differ in basic word orders, the preferences for certain grammatical patterns, and the prominence in depending on vocabularies and morphological changes. The findings are rooted in the functional and typological prominences of the two languages, which may further shed light on interpersonal communication patterns in the two societies.

Interpersonal modality, bifurcating modalization and modulation, is an important construct of interpersonal meaning in the architecture of Systemic Functional Linguistics. By meticulously reviewing relevant studies from the perspectives of traditional modality and modality’s semantic map, three respects with respect to the system of interpersonal modality have been supplemented. Firstly, modalization, being subcategorized into possibility and usuality, is suggested to entertain evidentiality from the traditional sense. Secondly, considering the delicacy of the system of interpersonal modality, possibility in modalization should be further categorized into epistemic and root possibility; necessity as one subtype of modulation, superseding the original obligation in modulation, is subclassified into obligation and permission; inclination, being the other subtype of modulation, should be specified as the superordinate of volition and ability. Thirdly, the shifting of modal meanings from root possibility to epistemic possibility in modalization and from inclination to necessity in modulation should be clearly specified as far as language evolvement is concerned.

The year 2021 saw significant developments in ecolinguistic studies. Valuable theoretical additions to the position, aim, and scope of ecolinguistics have evinced the continuous evolution of the field beyond its provenance in linguistic studies. Publications on extended ecolinguistic methods drawing on various fields of knowledge have signified the field’s ongoing diversification as an increasingly nuanced (sub)discipline. This article reviews the research areas, communities, events, and publications representative of the year 2021 to demonstrate how ecological issues instigate ecolinguistic scholarship and activism and, conversely, how ecolinguistics contributes to understanding ecological issues. By looking back at the state-of-the-art, the review looks into the future and suggests promising trajectories for the unity and diversity of ecolinguistics.

This article is a summary of Professor Arran Stibbe’s ten online lectures on ecolinguistics at Beijing Foreign Studies University. The lecture series begins by asking: Why, from an ecolinguistic perspective, do we need new stories to live by? With theoretical insights and practical analyses of a wide range of discourses, it then illustrates how eight types of stories, including ideology, evaluation, erasure, salience, identity, narrative, framing, and metaphor can work cognitively to influence the way people construe reality, in the hope of encouraging people to use language that can inspire them to protect the planet instead of destroying it.

This article is a summary of the newly published book New Developments of Ecological Discourse Analysis . On the premise of reviewing the overall development of ecolinguistics, this book firstly develops the Hallidayan approach and defines Ecological Discourse Analysis as an independent paradigm. Based on the guiding principle of the ecosophy, “Diversity and Harmony, Interaction and Co-existence”, it then expands and extends the experiential, interpersonal, textual, and logical metafunctions within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Consequently, it constructs the theoretical systems of Ecological Discourse Analysis from the perspective of ecolinguistics: the transitivity system, mood system, appraisal system, Theme system, cohesion and coherence system, and logical system. This book presents readers with a comprehensive and applicable theoretical framework for Ecological Discourse Analysis, that is, “ecological grammar”.