Full Description
This book, a tribute to Angela Downing, consists of twenty papers taking a broadly functional perspective on language, with topics ranging from the general (grammar as an evolutionary product, text comprehension, integrative linguistics) to particular aspects of the grammars of languages (Bulgarian, English, Icelandic, Spanish, Swedish). The more specific papers are sequenced according to Halliday's division into ideational, textual and interpersonal aspects of the grammar, and cover a wide range of areas, including aspect, argument structure, noun phrase/nominal group structure and nominalisations, pronominal clitics, theme in relation to writing skills, discourse structures and markers, the role of attention in conversation, the functions of topic, phatic communion, subjectification, formulaic language and modality. A recurrent theme in the volume is the use of corpus materials in order to base functional descriptions on authentic productions. Overall, the volume constitutes a panoramic but nevertheless detailed view of some important current trends in functional linguistics.
Contents
1. Contributors; 2. Editorial introduction (by Butler, Christopher S.); 3. Publications of Angela Downing; 4. Grammar as an adaptive evolutionary product (by Givon, T.); 5. Towards a cognitive-functional model of text comprehension (by Butler, Christopher S.); 6. Towards an integrational approach in linguistics (by Stoevsky, Andrei); 7. Expressing past habit in English and Swedish: A corpus-based contrastive study (by Altenberg, Bengt); 8. Do cognate and circumstantial complements of intransitive verbs form one 'Range'?: A corpus-based discussion (by Rymen, Kathleen); 9. The unconscious, irresponsible construction in Modern Icelandic (by Bernardez, Enrique); 10. Modelling 'selection' between referents in the English nominal group: An essay in scientific inquiry in linguistics (by Fawcett, Robin P.); 11. Problems in NP structure: An example from British tabloid journalism (by Davies, Eirian C.); 12. Double-possessive nominalizations in English (by Mackenzie, J. Lachlan); 13. Pragmatics, word order and cross-reference: Some issues with pronominal clitics in Bulgarian (by Stanchev, Svilen B.); 14. Patterns of multiple theme and their role in developing English writing skills (by Hannay, Mike); 15. Interactive solution-problems: A set of structures in general and scientific writing (by Jordan, Michael P.); 16. The English Contrastive Discourse Marker instead (by Fraser, Bruce); 17. Global and local attention in task-oriented conversation: An empirical investigation (by Lavid, Julia); 18. Metadiscursive and interpersonal values of pronominal topics in spoken Spanish (by Hidalgo Downing, Raquel); 19. Phatic communion and small talk in fictional dialogues (by Urbanova, Ludmila); 20. Mister so-called X: Discourse functions and subjectification of so-called (by Vandelanotte, Lieven); 21. 'Sorry to muddy the waters': Accounting for speech act formulae and formulaic variation in a systemic functional model of language (by Tucker, Gordon H.); 22. The discourse functionality of adjectival and adverbial epistemic expressions: Evidence from present-day English (by Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie); 23. Modality across World Englishes: The modals and semi-modals of prediction and volition (by Collins, Peter); 24. Name index; 25. Subject index; 26. Language index
