The interpersonal and experiential grammar of Chilean Spanish : Towards a principled Systemic-Functional description based on axial argumentation.
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Date
2013
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Abstract
This thesis provides a description of the experiential and interpersonal lexicogrammar of Spanish based on system-structure relations. The theoretical dimension of axis is used to bring together relevant semiotic dimensions, including metafunction, stratification and rank. Importantly, axial relations are used to systematically relate the SFL theoretical architecture and the description of Spanishspecific patterns. This study examines key clause systems of MOOD and POLARITY within the interpersonal metafunction, and PROCESS TYPE within the experiential component of the ideational metafunction. The account of the interpersonal grammar of Spanish concerns clause contrasts used by speakers for the enactment of speech roles and the negotiation of semiotic commodities. The trinocular approach, ‘from above’, ‘from around’ and ‘from below’, shows that the main structural function at stake in interpersonal clause types is the Predicator, realised by the verbal group alone. The centrality of the verbal group leads to an exploration of relevant systems at group rank, including those systems organising selections in temporal, modal and personal deixis. The description of experiential grammar of Spanish deals with resources for the linguistic construal of the internal and external experience of the world. The review of material, mental and relational clauses types reveals specific and complex configurational patterns that need to be addressed systematically. Therefore, orbital relations in clause structure are first explored in depth, with the verbal group emerging as a key resource for the identification of cryptogrammatical patterns. The description then sharpens the focus on the grammar of Spanish mental processes, with special attention to the nature of inherent participant roles, their relations with kinds of phenomenality and the configurational relations they enter into. Perception, reaction and cognition mental subtypes are accounted for, along with their specific potential for additional participants. The key contribution of the study is the articulation of an explicit system-structure heuristic that allows the exploration of Spanish grammar in its own terms. Descriptive work developed in this way frees argumentation from appeals to authority, such as ‘canonical’ texts centred in the organisation of English, as well as from notional definitions of systemic and structural categories. Crucially, it offers promising perspectives for the development of a rich and integrated description of Spanish that reveals its specific forms of organisation and can be systematically connected to the study of patterns in texts.
Description
Tesis (Doctor of Philosophy)--University of Sidney, 2013