Volume 29, Issue 1

In this paper we explore the use of predicated Themes in the novel Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) by Alan Paton, using the systemic functional framework of analysis. We show how this noncanonical structure helps to build the novel's semantic textual design. The analysis of the structural component of predicated Themes (Theme–Rheme and Given–New structures and their interactions) will be essential to an understanding of the functions these structures and other grammatical resources play in the novel. This is complemented by a paradigmatic view on the use of predicated Themes: that is, we view these structures as the realization of systemic options in the grammar of English, functioning as resources for the creation of text. One proposal for theorizing the novel's semantic organization in particular is explored, that of hyper/macro-Theme/-New, as developed by Martin (1992), based upon work by Fries (1981). By employing these concepts, as features in the semantic systems of “method of development” and “point”, we show how the use of predicated Themes may be related to the discourse functions they serve and thus, ultimately, to the context of the novel.

On 1 May 2004, the European Union (EU) expanded to twenty-five countries, eight of the ten new countries being from Eastern Europe. Around six weeks prior to this date, the popular British tabloid, The Sun , began to conduct a quasi-campaign which highlighted the detrimental effects of probable immigration from Eastern European countries to the United Kingdom. This article investigates a 26,000-word corpus of quasi-campaign texts from The Sun . I employ Wordsmith Tools 5.0, and a British National Corpus reference corpus, BNC-baby (four million words), to help locate regular “strategies” in The Sun corpus which promote this quasi-campaign, and which position regular target readers into acceptance of them. In turn, I show how cultural reproduction of ideas about projected Eastern European immigration to the United Kingdom can take place in reading a text from The Sun on May 1 which announces the EU expansion. The main focus of this paper is at the “interpretation” stage of CDA (Fairclough 2001). In other words, I make an interpretation of how cultural reproduction can take place over the six weeks indicated. Finally, I use corpus evidence to enhance a CDA “explanation” of the May 1 text in highlighting it as a barometer of social change.

This paper capitalizes on the types of portrayal of the event in recommendations of prime drinking time using data from wine tasting notes. It argues that the weakly deontic nature of recommendation fosters semantic middles; not only the middle construction proper such as This beauty should drink well for 10–12 years , but recommendation as such is characterized by a mid-degree of transfer of action in the utterances. In spite of the fact that the event expressed in recommendations involves highly transitive structures, i.e., an actor , an undergoer , and a dynamic event, the actual staging of the recommendations at the time of use is similar to the staging of the middle construction. The various formal differences between the recommendations are examined in terms of the relative salience of the roles played by the semantic participants and the dynamicity of the event. The upshot of the study is that the middle quality is directly derived from the discourse function of recommendation.

This paper examines the way making complaints about the neighbors and denying responsibility for disputes systematically bring into play categorizations of those involved. It draws on a corpus of British conversational materials including telephone calls to neighbor mediation centers and police interrogations of suspects. The analytic approach was conversation analytic: sequences of talk in which membership categories (e.g., “old man,” “kids”) and category-implicative descriptions (e.g., “she's eighty three,” “Mum's elderly”) appeared were analyzed for their sequential placement, design, and action orientation. Two sections of analysis examine the use of categories in (i) formulating and affiliating with complaints, and (ii) denying alleged complainables. The paper presents a challenge to those who argue that “identity” topics are not systematically “capturable” outside of research interviews or as regularly occurring phenomena of talk-in-interaction, by showing how the same categories and categorial descriptions crop up in the same conversational turns, accomplishing the same social action.

Using naturally occurring conversation data, this paper investigates preverbal ah in Shishan, a dialect of Lingao of the Tai-Kadai language family. On the surface, Shishan ah displays broad parallels to English also, too , and Mandarin ye in the marking of “sameness” and “additivity,” as well as concessive relations and a variety of speaker stances. This paper proposes a unified analysis of Shishan ah through the central meaning of [addition + reassessment]. Specifically, in direct interaction, ah -marked utterances primarily constitute misaligning responses, signaling a piece of information as capable of engendering a shift in the interlocutor's prior evaluative stance. In narratives, ah highlights aspects of the narratives where re-evaluation occurs, which ultimately leads to a more elaborate, thorough understanding of the situation of concern. Overall, this paper contributes to particle research, particularly research of the interactive basis of the meanings and functions of particles.