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F
Figure 2.2 Model of Language
2.2 Metafunctions of Language
Language in social context recognizes three general social functions when we use language. We use language i to represent our experience to each other; ii to enact our
social relationships; and iii to organize our enactments and representations as meaningful text. These are known as the metafunctions of language in social activity Martin and Rose,
2003: 6. The first metafunction represents the ideational meaning that is used to construe our experience to negotiate with others in social interactions. The second metafunction
TEXT
CULTURE GENRE
PURPOSE
SITUATION Who is involved?
Tenor The subject-
matter Field
The channel Mode
REGISTER
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represents the interpersonal meaning that is used to enact the social relationships between participants or between writer and audience or readers. The third represents the textual
meaning that is used to organize texts. The three functions are interwoven with each other, so that we can achieve all three
social functions simultaneously. We can look at any piece of discourse from any of these perspectives, and identify different functions realized by different patterns of meaning.
Further, Martin and Rose 2003: 7 develop these three metafunctions in the discourse systems into five systems: Appraisal, Ideation, Conjunction, Identification, and Periodicity.
Appraisal is concerned with evaluation: the kinds of attitudes that are negotiated in a text, the strength of the feelings involved and the way in which values are sourced and
readers aligned. Appraisals are interpersonal kinds of meaning, which realize variations in the tenor of social interactions enacted in a text. Appraisals focus on the interactive nature
of discourse, including written discourse. Ideation focuses on the content of a discourse: what kinds of activities are
undertaken, and how participants undertaking these activities are described and classified. These are ideational kinds of meaning, which realize the field of a text.
Conjunction looks at inter-connections between activities: reformulating them, adding to them, sequencing them, explaining them and so on. These are also ideational types of
meanings, but of the subtype ‘logical’. Logical meanings are used to form temporal, causal and other kinds of connectivity.
Identifications is concerned with tracking participants: with introducing people, places and things into a discourse and keeping track of them once there. These are textual
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resource, concerned with how discourse makes sense to the reader by keeping track of identities.
Periodicity considers the rhythm of discourse: the layers of prediction that flag for readers what’s to come, and the layers of consolidation that accumulate the meanings made.
These are also textual kinds of meanings, concerned with organizing discourse as pulses of information
2.3 Realization of Interpersonal Meaning in Discourse
Kategori