Synopsis
Systemic-functional linguistics is becoming an increasingly popular approach to language, given the range and thoroughness of the analytical techniques it offers, and the variety of applications it has been demonstrated to have. This text draws on the seminal work of Halliday, Martin and others, to give students from a variety of backgrounds an accessible introduction to the theory and techniques of the systemic approach. This includes language as a semiotic system, levels of context (register and genre) discourse-semantics, and the analysis of cohesion, and the meaning of systemic choice. The volume arises from the author's extensive experience of lecturing on systemic linguistics at the introductory level to a variety of audiences. The materials currently available and used as set texts for such courses, include Halliday's "Introduction for Functional Grammar" or Martin's "English Text: System and Structure". However, these texts assume some familiarity either with the systemic approach, or with basic linguistic concepts, and prove extremely difficult for students to penetrate. "Language as Content" is an introduction for all students of systemic linguistics, English, linguistics and communications, at both undergraduate and masters level.
Présentation de l'éditeur
New edition of a best-selling introduction to systemic functional linguistics explores the social semiotic approach to language most closely associated with the work of Michael Halliday and his colleagues. An approach which views language as a strategic, meaning-making resource, systemic linguistics focuses on the analysis of authentic, everyday texts, and asks both how people use language to make meanings, and how language itself is organised to enable those meanings to be made.
The book offers both an overview of systemic theory and illustrations of how systemic techniques can be applied in the analysis of everyday texts. Written for students who may have little or no formal knowledge of linguistics, it covers most of the major concepts in systemic linguistics. In addition, it introduces readers to Halliday's functional grammatical analysis of English clauses, and presents the essentials of the systemic analysis of cohesive patterns in text.
With its systemic theory of the relationship between language and context, systemic linguistics has applications in many fields where an understanding of how language functions to transmit social structure is important, in , for example, language education, cultural studies, stylistics, and women's studies. The book provides an accessible first step into systemics for those who wish to equip themselves with the conceptual and practical tools to analyse and explain how people make meanings with each other in everyday contexts.
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