Sentence Functions

9 Key excerpts on "Sentence Functions"

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  eBook - ePub

  Teaching English

  A Linguistic Approach

  • John Keen(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  5 Frameworks for language function

           

  Language functions and social rules

  Every sentence in every language is multi-functional. Thus the English sentence, ‘John isn’t very happy’ could be used to assert an opinion, to suggest a course of action (implying, ‘So why don’t you go and talk to him?’) or to start off a conversation. But before we can start looking at functions of language we must be clear what it is in language that can have a function. If we want to say, as we shall, ‘The function of this is …’ then we cannot be talking about sentences or words. Suppose the function we had in mind were that of referring to something, and that we had in mind the word ‘John’. So ‘The function of the word “John” is to refer to John’. If in a crossword someone writes the word ‘John’ then that is just an occurrence of the word in the abstract. But if someone says, ‘John’s the one with black hair and glasses’ in the course of a conversation then ‘John’ does refer to somebody. The difference is in the use. The word itself does not refer to anything, any more than the nonsense word ‘binks’ refers to anything. But somebody could use the word ‘binks’ to refer to somebody, perhaps as a nickname or a trade name. Words themselves do not have functions; to have a function a word must be used. The same goes for sentences; ‘John is daft’ as I have just written it – as an example of an English sentence illustrating the structure ‘subject + “is” + subject complement’ – does not say anything about anybody. But it could be used to say that John is daft if somebody wanted to say that.

  This is an important preliminary distinction because it means that we must approach the problem by looking at particular uses of language in their whole context, not at artificial, abstract examples of language. In chapter 4

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  On Language and Linguistics

  Volume 3

  • M.A.K. Halliday, Jonathan J. Webster(Authors)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  The intention here is simply to bring out the fact that a linguistic structure — of which the clause is the best example — serves as a means for the integrated expression of all the functionally distinct components of meaning in language. Some simple clauses are analysed along these lines in Figure 5. What we know as grammar is the linguistic device for hooking up together the selections in meaning which are derived from the various functions of language, and realizing them in a unified structural form. Whereas with the child, in the first beginnings of the system, the functions remain unintegrated, being in effect functional varieties of speech act, with one utterance having just one function, the linguistic units of the adult language serve all (macro-) functions at once. A clause in English is the simultaneous realization of ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings. But these components are not put together in discrete fashion such that we can point to one segment of the clause as expressing one type of meaning and another segment as expressing another. The choice of a word may express one type of meaning, its morphology another, and its position in sequence another; and any element is likely to have more than one structural role, like a chord in a polyphonic structure which participates simultaneously in a number of melodic lines. This last point is illustrated by the analyses in Figure 5. We hope to have made it clear in what sense it is being said that the concept of the social function of language is central to the interpretation of language as a system. The internal organization of language is not accidental; it embodies the functions that language has evolved to serve in the life of social man. This essentially was Malinowski's claim; and, as Malinowski suggested, we can see it most clearly in the linguistic system of the young child.

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  Syntax in Functional Grammar

  An Introduction to Lexicogrammar in Systemic Linguistics

  • G. David Morley(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  The context of situation handles the dimensions of the situation which have a bearing on the language used and is studied under register. Related to the contextual dimensions, language is interpreted as fulfilling a number of different functions: ideational, interpersonal and textual, in that it enables people to express different types of meanings. The ideational function provides for the expression of our experiences of the world as the 'factual' or 'content' element of what we say. The interpersonal function enables us to develop social relationships, to interact with others and to get things done. The textual function allows us to organize what we say or write into a coherent and cohesive piece of text which will both relate to what has already been said and take account of relevant aspects of the context. (See Section 1.3, Language functions and the semantic stratum.) In systemic linguistics the grammar or linguistic system of a language itself is seen as comprising three levels or strata: the semantic stratum, the lexicogrammatical stratum and the phonological (or graphological) stratum. The semantics account for the structure and pattern-ing of the different components of linguistic meaning of a text and, reflecting the different functions which language fulfils, are normally seen as constituting the grammar's generative base. The lexicogrammar accounts through syntax, morphology and lexis for the wording structure and patterning of a text, and the phonology accounts for its sound structure and patterning (or the graphology accounts for the written/printed form structure and patterning). Together the lexicogrammatical and phonological/graphological strata realize the output from the semantic stratum, that is to say they translate the meaning of each of the semantic components into discrete lexicogrammatical and phonological/graphological structures which are then mapped onto one another.

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  The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology

  • N. J. Enfield, Paul Kockelman, Jack Sidnell(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  That is, since language is fundamentally an instrumental tool, it is reasonable to assume that its structures are informed by the structure of our experience and our cultural models of experience. Functionalists take the internal organization of language to be a complex adaptive response to the ecological settings in which language is found, the interactional functions which it serves, and the full cognitive, social, and physiological properties of the human user. Functional linguistic research is aimed at clarifying the relationship between linguistic form and function, and at determining the nature of the functions which appear to shape linguistic structure, foremost among which are facilitating effective communication and assisting cognition. Functional linguistics has always included both scholars who are working on description (what languages are like) and those working on explanation (why languages are the way they are). In this chapter, we will offer a brief overview of scholarship in func- tional linguistics, and then focus on constituency, a specific problem which has attracted significant attention from functionalists. In the second part of the chapter, we will examine constituency from the per- spective of a natural outgrowth of functionalism in linguistics, namely a concern with the function of grammar in its ecological habitat, conversa- tional interaction. Prominent early proponents of a functionalist perspective include Bolinger (e.g., 1952, 1965), Firbas (e.g., 1964, 1992), Halliday (e.g., 1967– 68), and Sapir (e.g., 1921, 1949), inter alia. A community of functionalist linguists, however, didn’t begin to form until the 1970s, focused around the work of such scholars as Comrie, Dixon, and Givo ´ n.

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  Where Lexicon and Syntax meet

  • Doris Schönefeld(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  Functional approaches 99 predications are transferred into expressions of a certain form, sequence, and intonation, i.e., a surface form. This works by applying a system of language-specific expression rules. (For the description of the total procedure see Dik 1980: 4-24, 1989: 45-65, 1991: 247-258.) The whole procedure can be illustrated as shown in figure six below (source: Dik 1989: 53). For illustration, let us consider what this implies, once the speaker has decided to say something about where he put his keys after entering his office. He will probably choose the predicate put , which provides the slots for three terms, namely one for an agent, one for a goal and one for a location. Term assignment to the slots would result in something like 28 : agent: I goal: my keys location: on my desk Grammatical functions could be assigned in the following way: agent: Subject goal: Object location: Loc. Object Pragmatic functions may be assigned as follows: agent: topic residual part: focus According to the expression rules specific to English, the predication is then transferred into the expression: (23) Iput my keys on my desk. Thus, for the two components under discussion, one can specify: The lexicon in this model is the central core of the fund and contains the basic predicates and terms, by which Dik understands those which cannot be constructed in the sense of exploiting synchronically productive patterns and which, therefore, must be assumed to have been acquired as such. As regards syntax, it enters the scene with the predication frames just mentioned, though in an indirect way: The frames are stored in the lexicon as part of the respective predicate and specify its semantic features. The semantic information is linked to syntactic information by a universal mechanism, which Dik describes as the Semantic Function Hierarchy and by which he means the (universally observable) 2 8 1 will use the terms as they are to be found in Dik 1989.

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  Communicative Functions and Linguistic Forms in Speech Interaction: Volume 156

  • Klaus J. Kohler(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  267 6 Linguistic Form of Communicative Functions in Language Comparison The framework of core communicative functions developed in this mono- graph is a theoretical construct of human interaction, based on observation in European languages and on the a priori postulate that there are functions of speech communication as part of human behaviour that are common to all language communities but have language-specific formal exponents. The con- stant inter-language communicative functions determine the transmission of meaning between speakers and listeners and trigger the variable intra-language forms. In this sense, function precedes form. This postulate offers a powerful methodological frame for the comparative study of formal across-language manifestations. Among such postulated interlanguage communicative func- tions are the following: Argumentation, Question versus Statement, Information Selection and Weighting, High-Key Intensification. It is the speech scientist’s task to investigate how the functions are formally mani- fested in the languages of the world, thus giving comparative prosodic research new direction. 6.1 Application to Mandarin Chinese In a first step, some preliminary Mandarin Chinese data have been collected and analysed within this communicative framework. The discussion will focus on Argumentation in 6.1.1, and on Question/Statement in 6.1.2. In both cases, manifestations are set against those in German and English. Since tonal features are tied up in the lexical tones of a tone language, it is a prime question how speakers implement the categories of the functional framework as over- lays of the lexical tone distinctions. 6.1.1 ARGUMENTATION Watching Stephen Frears’s film The Queen, with Helen Mirren in the role of Queen Elizabeth II, shortly after its release in 2006 I became aware of the actors’ control of prosody in communicative Argumentation. In the opening

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  Linguistics for Everyone

  An Introduction

  • Kristin Denham, Anne Lobeck(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  The study of the meaning of language in context (utterance meaning) is called pragmatics . Pragmatics overlaps semantics (and utterance meaning overlaps sentence meaning) to provide us with a bigger picture of how we construct meaning out of language. We close the chapter with a discussion of the influence of language on how we think. Do the meanings we con-struct out of language reflect our view of the world? Does language reflect how we think? And if so, what does this mean about different languages and different cultures? How much does language influence our view of the world and vice versa? Sentence Semantics: The Linguistic Meaning of Sentences The first thing we have to do before pursuing sentence meaning in any detail is to briefly consider once again what we mean by sentence . And how does a sentence differ from an utterance ? Do we need to make a distinction between the two? Recall from Chapter 7 that a sentence is not the same thing as a clause; a sentence can contain many clauses, as in the following example: I think that Louise told me that someone said that a train is coming. A sentence can also be made up of a single clause: A train is coming! This sentence is not an utterance; you are reading it rather than saying it out loud or hearing someone say it to you. Its meaning, then, is based not on context but on the meaning encoded in the sentence itself. But if some-one uttered or, even more specifically, yelled into your ear, “A train is com-ing!” your reaction might be very different from what it is here as you read the sentence on the page. You may take the meaning of this sentence to be a warning. So, in this case, the meaning of what we might call an utterance is determined in part by the context, by the speaker, and by the hearer. So the distinction between sentence and utterance is rather fuzzy, and we will not attempt to pursue a precise definition here. But we will distinguish between sentence meaning and utterance meaning .

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  Foundations in Sociolinguistics

  An ethnographic approach

  • Dell Hymes(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In speaking of “functions,” I do not intend to raise here the many issues that attach to the notion of “functionalism” in the social sciences, and, more generally, in the philosophy of the sciences and humanistic disciplines. I use the term first of all because its use by the Prague School has associated it with the perspective developed here, and because it does seem the appropriate general term for a necessary idea. In their methodological, reflections on worlds of human knowledge, scholars such as Ernst Cassirer and Kenneth Burke have found the question of function, and, in human action, the question of the function known as purpose, indispensable. That the burden of proof lies with the advocate of the relevance of concern with such questions in linguistics today, does not reflect the nature of language, but the limitations of current linguistics. The burden of proof ought to be, and I believe will come to be, on those who think that linguistics can proceed successfully without explicit attention to its functional foundations.

  I do not try to say here what functions speech has overall or in particular communities. I try only to show that, whereas linguists usually treat language in terms of just one broad type of elementary function, called here “referential,”44 language is in fact constituted in terms of a second broad type of elementary function as well, called here “stylistic.” Languages have conventional features, elements, and relations serving referential (“propositional,” “ideational,” etc.) meaning, and they have conventional features, elements and relations that are stylistic, serving social meaning. Substantive functions, in the sense of human purposes in the use of speech, employ, require, and indeed give rise to characteristics of both kinds. A general study of language comprises both, and even a study seeking to limit itself to what is referentially based cannot escape involvement with what is not. Involvement with stylistic function, and social meaning, reveals that the foundations of language, if partly in the human mind, are equally in social life, and that the foundations of linguistics, if partly in logic and psychology, are equally in ethnography (cf. Hymes 1964a: 6, 41).

  The term “function” is so readily misunderstood in linguistics today that I should explain something I do not

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  Inductive Semantics and Syntax

  Foundations of Empirical Linguistics

  • Leo Zawadowski(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  What is true is that through understanding the text, i.e. through acquiring knowledge of what is communicated by the text, the hearer only comes into possession of the MEANS to observe the first terminal of the relation, viz., the treatment of the contents by the author. But the observation of that treatment, and the process of taking advantage of its relation to some features of the author (i.e. of making inferences about the author), do not require making use of the relations T: R that hold in the language in question. 9. THE LINGUISTIC FUNCTION 9.1. When it comes to establishing a hierarchy between the various functions that have a more or less remote relation to texts, two questions should be distinguished: (1) which is the most important function? (2) which is the characteristic ('essential', 'the') function? The first question is linguistically less important, but easy to answer: the representa-tive and communicative function is undoubtedly the most important, because it helps people to satisfy the most important needs of the society and of the individual. The sphere of the expressive and of the impressive function of text is very limited. The expressive function of the treatment of the contents of the text is constantly and ex-tensively used, and not only with regard to literary works, but to the discourses produced currently by all speakers. Nevertheless it is clearly far less important than FUNCTIONS OF TEXT 45 the possibility of communicating everything directly, instead of guessing. Reflexive communication and the stimulative effect of communicated facts are just particular cases of application of simple communicative function.

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