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Thematic Equative
In systemic functional grammar, a thematic equative is a thematic resource in which two or more separate elements in a clause are grouped together to form a single constituent of the theme-plus-rheme structure. An example of this is: :What the guests need for breakfast is an omelette. Here, the theme—the grammatical point of departure—is in bold text; it announces at the start to the listener or reader what the message will be about—the writer's or speaker's angle ("I'm going to tell you what they need for breakfast"). The rheme (the rest of the clause) is in regular text. This type of clause sets up the theme-plus-rheme structure in the form of an equation, where theme = rheme. The equation is always expressed by some form of the verb ''be''. A thematic equative allows for all possible parts of a clause to be shifted to the start, to be the theme, so that the message can be structured in whatever way the speaker or writer wants. For example: :An omelette is what the guest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Omelette With Butter And Tomatoes
In cuisine, an omelette (also spelled omelet) is a dish made from beaten eggs, fried with butter or oil in a frying pan (without stirring as in scrambled egg). It is quite common for the omelette to be folded around fillings such as chives, vegetables, mushrooms, meat (often ham or bacon), cheese, onions or some combination of the above. Whole eggs or egg whites are often beaten with a small amount of milk, cream, or water. History The earliest omelettes are believed to have originated in ancient Persia. According to ''Breakfast: A History'', they were "nearly indistinguishable" from the Iranian dish kookoo sabzi. According to Alan Davidson, the French word ''omelette'' () came into use during the mid-16th century, but the versions ''alumelle'' and ''alumete'' are employed by the Ménagier de Paris (II, 4 and II, 5) in 1393. Rabelais (''Gargantua and Pantagruel'', IV, 9) mentions an ''homelaicte d'oeufs'', Olivier de Serres an ''amelette'', François Pierre La Varenne's ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Systemic Functional Grammar
Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a form of grammatical description originated by Michael Halliday. It is part of a social semiotic approach to language called '' systemic functional linguistics''. In these two terms, ''systemic'' refers to the view of language as "a network of systems, or interrelated sets of options for making meaning"; ''functional'' refers to Halliday's view that language is as it is because of what it has evolved to do (see Metafunction). Thus, what he refers to as the ''multidimensional architecture of language'' "reflects the multidimensional nature of human experience and interpersonal relations." Influences Halliday describes his grammar as built on the work of Saussure, Louis Hjelmslev, Malinowski, J.R. Firth, and the Prague school linguists. In addition, he drew on the work of the American anthropological linguists Boas, Sapir and Whorf. His "main inspiration" was Firth, to whom he owes, among other things, the notion of language as system ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topic–comment
In linguistics, the topic, or theme, of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic. This division into old vs. new content is called information structure. It is generally agreed that clauses are divided into topic vs. comment, but in certain cases the boundary between them depends on which specific grammatical theory is being used to analyze the sentence. Topic, which is defined by pragmatic considerations, is a distinct concept from grammatical subject, which is defined by syntax. In any given sentence these may be the same, but they need not be. For example, in the sentence "As for the little girl, the dog bit her", the subject is "the dog" but the topic is "the little girl". Topic and subject are also distinct concepts from agent (or actor)—the "doer", which is defined by semantics. In English clauses with a verb in the passive voice, for instance, the topic is typically the subject, while the agen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Functional Theories Of Grammar
Functional linguistics is an approach to the study of language characterized by taking systematically into account the speaker's and the hearer's side, and the communicative needs of the speaker and of the given language community. Linguistic functionalism spawned in the 1920s to 1930s from Ferdinand de Saussure's systematic structuralist approach to language (1916). Functionalism sees functionality of language and its elements to be the key to understanding linguistic processes and structures. Functional theories of language propose that since language is fundamentally a tool, it is reasonable to assume that its structures are best analyzed and understood with reference to the functions they carry out. These include the tasks of conveying meaning and contextual information. Functional theories of grammar belong to structural and humanistic linguistics, considering language as a rational human construction. They take into account the context where linguistic elements are use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Halliday
Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (often M. A. K. Halliday; 13 April 1925 – 15 April 2018) was a British linguist who developed the internationally influential systemic functional linguistics (SFL) model of language. His grammatical descriptions go by the name of systemic functional grammar. Halliday described language as a semiotic system, "not in the sense of a system of signs, but a systemic resource for meaning". For Halliday, language was a "meaning potential"; by extension, he defined linguistics as the study of "how people exchange meanings by 'languaging'". Halliday described himself as a ''generalist'', meaning that he tried "to look at language from every possible vantage point", and has described his work as "wander ngthe highways and byways of language". But he said that "to the extent that I favoured any one angle, it was the social: language as the creature and creator of human society". Halliday's grammar differs markedly from traditional accounts that emp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nominal Group (language)
In systemic functional grammar (SFG), a nominal group is a group of words that represents or describes an entity, for example ''The nice old English police inspector who was sitting at the table with Mr Morse''. Grammatically, the wording "The nice old English police inspector who was sitting at the table with Mr Morse" can be understood as a nominal group (a description of someone), which functions as the subject of the information exchange and as the person being identified as "Mr Morse". A nominal group is widely regarded as synonymous with noun phrase in other grammatical models. However, there are two major differences between the functional notion of a ''nominal group'' and the formal notion of a ''noun phrase'' that must be taken into account. Firstly, the coiner of the term, Halliday, and some of his followers draw a theoretical distinction between the terms ''group'' and ''phrase''. Halliday argues that "A phrase is different from a group in that, whereas a group is an ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Systemic Functional Linguistics
# * Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is an approach to linguistics, among functional linguistics, that considers language as a social semiotic system. It was devised by Michael Halliday, who took the notion of system from J. R. Firth, his teacher (Halliday, 1961). Firth proposed that systems refer to possibilities subordinated to structure; Halliday "liberated" choice from structure and made it the central organising dimension of SFL. In more technical terms, while many approaches to linguistic description place structure and the syntagmatic axis foremost, SFL adopts the paradigmatic axis as its point of departure. ''Systemic'' foregrounds Saussure's "paradigmatic axis" in understanding how language works.Halliday, M.A.K. 2004. Introduction: How Big is a Language? On the Power of Language. In The Language of Science: Volume 5 in the Collected Works of M.A.K. Edited by J.J.Webster. London and New York: Continuum. p. xi. For Halliday, a central theoretical principle is th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
