Abstract Ways of meaning link ecosystemic destruction with social and linguistic interdependencies. By freeing the entangled roots of these phenomena, we can find a way to rewilding ecolinguistic territory. Turning from focus on analysis of languages, texts, or practices, one unleashes the epistemic power of languaging. As we come to know and understand, languaging permeates perception and action. The perspective solves what I call “Haugen’s problem”, or how languages can interact with environments. Playing down the mind, semogenesis uses practices to graft the cultural on to the biotic. Saying things, like all natural innovation, connects history with cascading situated contingencies. With culture, artifacts, and voices, practical action enables discovery of techniques. These use natural evoneering as personal know-how draws on an evolving social semiotic (or cultural second order). Meanings link emplacement to practices that serve people who engage in organized action. The results shape realities which, along with languages, transform the bioecologies that make up the changing ecosphere. Pursuing the epistemic power of languaging brings new awareness that can ground practical theories. Once we focus on consequences of languaging and languages, ecolinguistics gains maturity. To become a discipline, however, theorists need to use historically effective work to build a clear vision of how, as ecolinguists, we can contribute to the future of evolution.
{"title":"Ecolinguistics reunited: Rewilding the territory","authors":"S. Cowley","doi":"10.1515/jwl-2021-0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2021-0025","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Ways of meaning link ecosystemic destruction with social and linguistic interdependencies. By freeing the entangled roots of these phenomena, we can find a way to rewilding ecolinguistic territory. Turning from focus on analysis of languages, texts, or practices, one unleashes the epistemic power of languaging. As we come to know and understand, languaging permeates perception and action. The perspective solves what I call “Haugen’s problem”, or how languages can interact with environments. Playing down the mind, semogenesis uses practices to graft the cultural on to the biotic. Saying things, like all natural innovation, connects history with cascading situated contingencies. With culture, artifacts, and voices, practical action enables discovery of techniques. These use natural evoneering as personal know-how draws on an evolving social semiotic (or cultural second order). Meanings link emplacement to practices that serve people who engage in organized action. The results shape realities which, along with languages, transform the bioecologies that make up the changing ecosphere. Pursuing the epistemic power of languaging brings new awareness that can ground practical theories. Once we focus on consequences of languaging and languages, ecolinguistics gains maturity. To become a discipline, however, theorists need to use historically effective work to build a clear vision of how, as ecolinguists, we can contribute to the future of evolution.","PeriodicalId":93793,"journal":{"name":"Journal of world languages","volume":"5 1","pages":"405 - 427"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75641364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Widely studied in fields like education, psychology, and linguistics, readability can be defined as (a) reader’s understanding of a reading text, (b) features of a text, or (c) the matching of a text to its reader. The existing research has been focused on the formulaic and multilevel discourse approaches, relatively neglecting others such as systemic functional linguistics oriented one. Moreover, contemporary reading materials pose a challenge for average children in many ways. This study examines readability and adaptation of children’s literary works from the perspective of ideational grammatical metaphor inspired by systemic functional linguistics. Through case studies of metaphorical transferences involving zero, one, two, and three ideational grammatical metaphors used in the parallel excerpts in the original version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its eight adapted ones published in China, it is concluded that addition, maintenance, revision, unpacking, and demetaphorization are five major strategies which are found to decrease, maintain, or increase readability of some parts in the adapted versions.
{"title":"Readability and adaptation of children’s literary works from the perspective of ideational grammatical metaphor","authors":"Yan Liu","doi":"10.1515/jwl-2021-0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2021-0020","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Widely studied in fields like education, psychology, and linguistics, readability can be defined as (a) reader’s understanding of a reading text, (b) features of a text, or (c) the matching of a text to its reader. The existing research has been focused on the formulaic and multilevel discourse approaches, relatively neglecting others such as systemic functional linguistics oriented one. Moreover, contemporary reading materials pose a challenge for average children in many ways. This study examines readability and adaptation of children’s literary works from the perspective of ideational grammatical metaphor inspired by systemic functional linguistics. Through case studies of metaphorical transferences involving zero, one, two, and three ideational grammatical metaphors used in the parallel excerpts in the original version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its eight adapted ones published in China, it is concluded that addition, maintenance, revision, unpacking, and demetaphorization are five major strategies which are found to decrease, maintain, or increase readability of some parts in the adapted versions.","PeriodicalId":93793,"journal":{"name":"Journal of world languages","volume":"42 1","pages":"334 - 354"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77906220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article, based on the Appraisal System, investigates British journalists’ different attitudes toward China and Vietnam in British news reports about the Dover migrant tragedy in 2000 and the Essex migrant tragedy in 2019. By analyzing affect resources in a newly built corpus with the help of UAM Corpus Tool 3.3, this study finds that more negative affect resources are used to portray China than those depicting Vietnam. British journalists manipulated emotions to emphasize that China, whether in 2000 or 2019, was a backward and underdeveloped country where citizens tried all means to escape to Britain. However, when British journalists found that the victims were Vietnamese instead of Chinese, they shifted attention to the pitiful Vietnamese families of the victims and tended to arouse readers’ sympathy. The corpus findings highlight the ideological contradiction between Britain and China, reveal Britain’s distrust of China’s system, and suggest that the different comprehensive national powers of China and Vietnam have different impacts on Britain’s international status, verifying that news discourse is permeated by ideology, politics, and economy.
{"title":"Emotional positioning in British news reports about Dover and Essex migrant tragedies: A corpus-based study","authors":"Qinyi Yang","doi":"10.1515/jwl-2020-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2020-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article, based on the Appraisal System, investigates British journalists’ different attitudes toward China and Vietnam in British news reports about the Dover migrant tragedy in 2000 and the Essex migrant tragedy in 2019. By analyzing affect resources in a newly built corpus with the help of UAM Corpus Tool 3.3, this study finds that more negative affect resources are used to portray China than those depicting Vietnam. British journalists manipulated emotions to emphasize that China, whether in 2000 or 2019, was a backward and underdeveloped country where citizens tried all means to escape to Britain. However, when British journalists found that the victims were Vietnamese instead of Chinese, they shifted attention to the pitiful Vietnamese families of the victims and tended to arouse readers’ sympathy. The corpus findings highlight the ideological contradiction between Britain and China, reveal Britain’s distrust of China’s system, and suggest that the different comprehensive national powers of China and Vietnam have different impacts on Britain’s international status, verifying that news discourse is permeated by ideology, politics, and economy.","PeriodicalId":93793,"journal":{"name":"Journal of world languages","volume":"2011 1","pages":"375 - 397"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86320528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The literature to date features two very different approaches to the study of syntax, the formal or structure-based approach and the functional or semantics-based approach, both of which have advantages and disadvantages. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the “ngp1 + vgp + ngp2 + ngp3” construction in English by identifying the relationship between the clausal elements in terms of clause types. The theoretical support is Systemic Functional Linguistics which is semantics-based and which regards form/structure as the realization of meaning/semantics. Specifically, the paper discusses the issue by keeping in mind questions such as “What kind of process is it?”, “How many participants can/must be involved in the process?”, and “What roles can/must those participants play?”. By analyzing three pairs of clauses that share the same “ngp1 + vgp + ngp2 + ngp3” structure, it is found that the clause types SVOO, SOVA, SVOC, and SVO all exhibit the same “ngp1 + vgp + ngp2 + ngp3” structure. The identification of the clause types is conducted by examining the Process in the Transitivity system of the clause. The implication of the present study is that a functional-syntactic analysis should start from meaning and consider how the meaning is realized and that although syntactic analysis at the level of form is necessary, the focus of a good functional-syntactic analysis should be based on semantic analysis at the level of meaning.
{"title":"A systemic functional analysis of the “ngp1 + vgp + ngp2 + ngp3” construction in English","authors":"Guowen Huang, Ruihua Zhao","doi":"10.1515/jwl-2021-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2021-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The literature to date features two very different approaches to the study of syntax, the formal or structure-based approach and the functional or semantics-based approach, both of which have advantages and disadvantages. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the “ngp1 + vgp + ngp2 + ngp3” construction in English by identifying the relationship between the clausal elements in terms of clause types. The theoretical support is Systemic Functional Linguistics which is semantics-based and which regards form/structure as the realization of meaning/semantics. Specifically, the paper discusses the issue by keeping in mind questions such as “What kind of process is it?”, “How many participants can/must be involved in the process?”, and “What roles can/must those participants play?”. By analyzing three pairs of clauses that share the same “ngp1 + vgp + ngp2 + ngp3” structure, it is found that the clause types SVOO, SOVA, SVOC, and SVO all exhibit the same “ngp1 + vgp + ngp2 + ngp3” structure. The identification of the clause types is conducted by examining the Process in the Transitivity system of the clause. The implication of the present study is that a functional-syntactic analysis should start from meaning and consider how the meaning is realized and that although syntactic analysis at the level of form is necessary, the focus of a good functional-syntactic analysis should be based on semantic analysis at the level of meaning.","PeriodicalId":93793,"journal":{"name":"Journal of world languages","volume":"18 1","pages":"223 - 246"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75072795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract A positive discourse analysis is conducted on the collective discursive representation of the Chinese Dream by the discourse of the sovereign state and the national media, with the aim to show how discourses at different levels could collaborate to promote the power of the Chinese Dream discourse in the domestic communication. Borrowing the dialectical-relational framework of critical discourse analysis, the present research carries out structural analysis and interactional analysis of President Xi Jinping’s speech at the closing meeting of the 12th National People’s Congress and the subsequent media discourse produced by official news outlets. The structural analysis reveals Xi’s speech on the Chinese Dream forms a genre chain with related news reports, editorials, and features within a couple of days, in which the appeal to the public is repeatedly made. The interactional analysis indicates the news discourses facilitate concreteness and enrichment of the Chinese Dream by recontextualizing various components of the original speech and adopting specific represented processes and modality to echo and promote the constructed Chinese Dream by the speech. The findings reveal the inspiring Chinese Dream discourse is produced and consumed among different official discourses, collaboratively representing a bright future for the public.
{"title":"Collective discursive representation of the Chinese Dream by public speech and media discourse from the perspective of positive discourse analysis","authors":"Lei Zhang","doi":"10.1515/jwl-2021-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2021-0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A positive discourse analysis is conducted on the collective discursive representation of the Chinese Dream by the discourse of the sovereign state and the national media, with the aim to show how discourses at different levels could collaborate to promote the power of the Chinese Dream discourse in the domestic communication. Borrowing the dialectical-relational framework of critical discourse analysis, the present research carries out structural analysis and interactional analysis of President Xi Jinping’s speech at the closing meeting of the 12th National People’s Congress and the subsequent media discourse produced by official news outlets. The structural analysis reveals Xi’s speech on the Chinese Dream forms a genre chain with related news reports, editorials, and features within a couple of days, in which the appeal to the public is repeatedly made. The interactional analysis indicates the news discourses facilitate concreteness and enrichment of the Chinese Dream by recontextualizing various components of the original speech and adopting specific represented processes and modality to echo and promote the constructed Chinese Dream by the speech. The findings reveal the inspiring Chinese Dream discourse is produced and consumed among different official discourses, collaboratively representing a bright future for the public.","PeriodicalId":93793,"journal":{"name":"Journal of world languages","volume":"25 1","pages":"283 - 304"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89630253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In Systemic Functional Linguistics, meanings in semantic stratum could be realized by congruent/premetaphorical, metaphorical, or demetaphorical/post-metaphorical expressions in lexico-grammatical stratum. This paper, evidenced from the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), explores the specific pathway from metaphorical expressions to post-metaphorical ones guided by principles of Context-first and AS IF and the principle of double functionality. The findings show that grammatical postmetaphorization is mainly realized by post-metaphor of ideation and that of modality. The former finds its expressions from common nouns to proper nouns (e.g. from security to Security), or from uncountable nouns to countable nouns (e.g. from security to securities), and the latter is evidenced by expressions shifting from explicit objective orientation to its explicit subjective counterpart (e.g. from it is possible that to it might be possible that), or by modal probability of I think type shifting from clausal initial position to clausal medial or final position (e.g. I think in the medial or final position of the clause).
在系统功能语言学中,语义层的意义可以通过词汇语法层的一致/前隐喻、隐喻或去隐喻/后隐喻表达来实现。本文以美国历史英语语料库为例,在语境优先原则、AS - IF原则和双重功能原则的指导下,探讨了隐喻表达向后隐喻表达转变的具体途径。研究结果表明,语法后隐喻主要通过概念后隐喻和情态后隐喻来实现。前者从普通名词到专有名词(例如从security到security),或者从不可数名词到可数名词(例如从security到securities),后者的表达方式从明确的客观指向转向明确的主观指向(例如从it is possible that到it might be possible that)。或者我认为类型从小句的起始位置转移到小句的中间位置或最后位置的模态概率(例如,我认为在小句的中间位置或最后位置)。
{"title":"A corpus-based study of grammatical post-metaphorical expressions","authors":"Jiangping Zhou, Yanmei Gao","doi":"10.1515/jwl-2020-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2020-0018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In Systemic Functional Linguistics, meanings in semantic stratum could be realized by congruent/premetaphorical, metaphorical, or demetaphorical/post-metaphorical expressions in lexico-grammatical stratum. This paper, evidenced from the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), explores the specific pathway from metaphorical expressions to post-metaphorical ones guided by principles of Context-first and AS IF and the principle of double functionality. The findings show that grammatical postmetaphorization is mainly realized by post-metaphor of ideation and that of modality. The former finds its expressions from common nouns to proper nouns (e.g. from security to Security), or from uncountable nouns to countable nouns (e.g. from security to securities), and the latter is evidenced by expressions shifting from explicit objective orientation to its explicit subjective counterpart (e.g. from it is possible that to it might be possible that), or by modal probability of I think type shifting from clausal initial position to clausal medial or final position (e.g. I think in the medial or final position of the clause).","PeriodicalId":93793,"journal":{"name":"Journal of world languages","volume":"71 1","pages":"247 - 282"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77006855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper aims to outline the language politics in Nepal by focusing on the influences and expansions shifted from Global North to the Global South. Based on a small-scale case study of interviews and various political movements and legislative documents, this paper discusses linguistic diversity and multilingualism, globalization, and their impacts on Nepal’s linguistic landscapes. It finds that the language politics in Nepal has been shifted and changed throughout history because of different governmental and political changes. Different ideas have emerged because of globalization and neoliberal impacts which are responsible for language contact, shift, and change in Nepalese society. It concludes that the diversified politics and multilingualism in Nepal have been functioning as a double-edged sword, which on the one hand promotes and preserves linguistic and cultural diversity and on the other hand squeezes the size of diversity by vitalizing the Nepali and English languages through contact and globalization.
{"title":"Language politics in Nepal: A socio-historical overview","authors":"B. Gautam","doi":"10.1515/jwl-2021-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2021-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper aims to outline the language politics in Nepal by focusing on the influences and expansions shifted from Global North to the Global South. Based on a small-scale case study of interviews and various political movements and legislative documents, this paper discusses linguistic diversity and multilingualism, globalization, and their impacts on Nepal’s linguistic landscapes. It finds that the language politics in Nepal has been shifted and changed throughout history because of different governmental and political changes. Different ideas have emerged because of globalization and neoliberal impacts which are responsible for language contact, shift, and change in Nepalese society. It concludes that the diversified politics and multilingualism in Nepal have been functioning as a double-edged sword, which on the one hand promotes and preserves linguistic and cultural diversity and on the other hand squeezes the size of diversity by vitalizing the Nepali and English languages through contact and globalization.","PeriodicalId":93793,"journal":{"name":"Journal of world languages","volume":"2 1","pages":"355 - 374"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75393556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"James R. Martin, Yaegan J. Doran & Giacomo Figueredo: Systemic functional language description: Making meaning matter","authors":"Meizi Li","doi":"10.1515/jwl-2021-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2021-0012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":93793,"journal":{"name":"Journal of world languages","volume":"48 1","pages":"398 - 404"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78885645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper explores an interpersonal framework for international ecological discourse analysis using systemic functional linguistics. It shows that the sub-categories of the functional interpersonal framework need to be extended in terms of delicacy along the ecological cline to construe the ecological features in the context under investigation. The extension can be achieved through an integration of the following ecological parameters into a functional framework: a system of international ecological factors, a system of international ecological environment, and the international ecosophy “多元和谐, 交互共生” (duoyuan hexie, jiaohu gongsheng, ‘diversity and harmony, interaction and co-existence’). This integration builds an “ecological” interpersonal framework for international ecological discourse analysis, which is composed of an “ecological” Mood system, an “ecological” Modality system, and an “ecological” Appraisal system. The construction of an ecological interpersonal framework is accompanied by specific case analysis.
{"title":"An interpersonal framework of international ecological discourse","authors":"R. Wei","doi":"10.1515/jwl-2020-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2020-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper explores an interpersonal framework for international ecological discourse analysis using systemic functional linguistics. It shows that the sub-categories of the functional interpersonal framework need to be extended in terms of delicacy along the ecological cline to construe the ecological features in the context under investigation. The extension can be achieved through an integration of the following ecological parameters into a functional framework: a system of international ecological factors, a system of international ecological environment, and the international ecosophy “多元和谐, 交互共生” (duoyuan hexie, jiaohu gongsheng, ‘diversity and harmony, interaction and co-existence’). This integration builds an “ecological” interpersonal framework for international ecological discourse analysis, which is composed of an “ecological” Mood system, an “ecological” Modality system, and an “ecological” Appraisal system. The construction of an ecological interpersonal framework is accompanied by specific case analysis.","PeriodicalId":93793,"journal":{"name":"Journal of world languages","volume":"7 1","pages":"305 - 333"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80143693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}