Text Linguistics: The How and Why of Meaning

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Text Linguistics

The How and Why of Meaning

MAK Halliday and Jonathan J Webster

HB 9781904768470   £65

PB 9781904768487   £25

436pp

Sysfling members may order the book at a special discount of 25% off the retail price from the book page of the website. Please quote the code LINGUISTICS14when prompted (valid to the end of December 2014):

http://www.equinoxpub.com/home/text-linguistics-meaning-m-k-hallliday-jonathan-j-webster/

Description:

Whether prose or poetry, how does a text come to mean what it does? A functional-semantic approach to text analysis, such as is illustrated in this book, offers a revealing look at the resources of language at work in the creation of meaning, and a unique perspective on the text as object of study.

This collaborative work between M.A.K. Halliday, the founder of Systemic Functional Linguistics, and Jonathan Webster, the editor of Halliday’s eleven volume collected works, draws on a considerable body of Halliday’s previously unpublished work, including lectures on fundamental concepts in Systemic-Functional Theory, to present a foundational overview suitable to those who are new to the theory and methodology of Systemic Functional Grammar and Rhetorical Structure Theory. Building on this foundation, section two presents the findings from several case studies in text analysis, demonstrating how to conduct detailed functional-semantic analysis of the speeches of Billy Graham, Barack Obama, Richard Nixon, Steve Jobs and Susan Rice. This second section will benefit both beginners and those who have already had some background in the study of linguistics.

Contents:

Acknowledgement

Preface

Part One: a Functional Approach

1.         Functions and Components of Language

2.         Experiential systems

3.         Material and mental processes

4.         Verbal and relational processes

5.         Participants and circumstances

6.         Things and “meta-things”

7.         Modality in English: modals and “pseudo-modals”

Part Two: Text and Texture

8.         Textual meaning

9.         Rhetorical structure of texts

Part Three: Case Studies in Text Linguistics

10.       Stepping into meaning: a case study of Billy Graham’s address at the National Prayer and Memorial Service at the Episcopal National Cathedral on 14 September 2001

11.       Visualizing the architeXture of a text: analyzing Obama’s first inaugural address and Nixon’s second inaugural address

12.       Arriving at a theory of the text: a case study of the commencement addresses delivered by Steve Jobs and Susan Rice

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