Representing the World.ppt

Representing the World: the Experiential/Ideational Metafunction 5.1 Introduction When we look at how language works from this perspective, we are focusing primarily on the ‘content’ of a message rather than the purpose for which the speaker has uttered it. At the simplest level, language reflects our view of the world as consisting of “going-on” (verbs) involving things (nouns) which may have attributes (adjectives) and which go on against background details of place, time, manner, etc. (adverbials). If we use functinal labels, we can express what we have said about the “content” of clauses in term of processes involving participants in certaincircumstances. Patterns of Experience in the Clause 5.2 Transitivity It refers to a system for describing the whole clause, rather than just a way of distinguishing between verbs according to whether they have an object or not. However, it does share with the traditional use a focus on the verbal group, since it is the type of process which determines how the participants are labeled. There are there basic questions that can be asked about any process and the clause of which it forms the nucleus: 1. What kind of process is it? 2. How many participants can/must be involved in the process? 3. What role can/must those participants play? Thompson, p 79: In deciding what types of process to recognize, we resort to a combination of sense and grammar. We also need to set up categories to capture the meaning and grammar. (1)material process (2)mental process (3)relational process (4)verbal process (5)behavioural process (6)existential process 5.2.1 Material Processes The processes involving physical actions, such as running, throwing, scratching, cooking, are called material processes. The participant represented as a ‘doer’ is called the Actor, and the second participant represented as affecting or ‘bein