"Subclassing and Composition – A Pythonic Tour of Trade-Offs", Hynek Schlawack
Mood
1. Unit 3 MOOD From “AnIntroductiontoSystemicFunctionalLinguistics”, by Suzanne Eggins (2004)
2. Mood is a system through which interpersonal meanings are realized within the conversation. It consists of two parts: (1) the subject, which is a nominal group, and (2) the finite operator, which is part of a verbal group, and the remainder of those parts are called residue.
3. The Interpersonal Metafunction Language involves interactions where we initiate or respond to the act of giving or demanding for goods-and-services or information. Thus, Halliday and Mathiessen (2004) regard this function as one of exchange. The principle grammatical system here is the MOOD network, within which is a choice between imperative and indicative. If indicative is chosen, there is a choice between declarative and interrogative. These choices arerealised by manipulating the Mood element.
4. The Mood carries the interpersonal functions of the clause and consists of Subject+Finite. The Subject is realised by a nominal group that the speaker gives responsibility to for the validity of the clause (ibid), while the Finite is realised by the first of the verbal group. The rest of the verbal group is the Predicator, which forms part of the Residue. A clause thusconsists of Mood+Residue. The Mood element can be identified in Mood tags (pedagogically, question tags), and is also used in short answers, the Finite being the core that is bandied about in exchanges because it carries the validity of the proposition (Thompson, 2004).
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6. The giving of goods-and-services is labelled an offer, usually realised by Finite^Subjectsignalling an interrogative, but can also be non-linguistic (I present you biscuits). A command demanding goods-and-services takes the imperative, where the Mood is non-existent, although the assumed Subject ‘you’ appears in a marked imperative (see below). Goods-and-services are tangible commodities or activities, and responses to proposals (offers and commands) can be non-linguistic and limited to either accepting orrefusing. Language merely facilitates the success of the exchange.
7. The exchange of information involves an intangible, verbal commodity and language is the end in itself. The giving of information often takes the form of a statement, a declarative denoted by Subject^Finite. The demanding of information is expressed by a question realised by an interrogative. Statements and questions (propositions) can be argued with, denied, adjusted, etc., and the response is varied and has to be linguistic, unlike proposals. The position and existence of both Subject and Finite therefore indicates whether a clause is declarative (statement), interrogative (question, offer) or imperative (command) However, declaratives and interrogatives could also be polite requests for goods-and-services since basic commands might be considered Face Threatening Acts, and thus highly impolite (Brown and Levinson, 1987).
8. Halliday (1994: 179) pointsoutthatthereisrealization of threemetafunctionalcomponents of meaning, i.e.ideational, interpersonal and textual, throughoutthegrammar of a language. The three metafunctions are realized simultaneously. The structure of a clause, for example, integrates its functions at the same time in its MOOD system (interpersonal), its TRANSITIVITY system (ideational) and its THEME system (textual). The system provides systemic options in wording and its grammatical feature has a function in construing systemic options in meaning.
9. The two important roles played by the lexico-grammar: to allow us to mean anything we like, and to allow us to make more than one meaning at a time.
10. Semantic of interaction Halliday (1984, 1985a) approaches the grammar of interaction from a semantic perspective. He points out that whenever we use language to interact, one of the things we are doing with it is establishing a relationship between us: between the person speaking now and the person who will probably speak next. To establish this relationship we take turns at speaking, we take on different roles in the exchange. The basic speech roles we can take on are: giving and demanding. We also choose “commodity”. The choice is between exchanging information, goods or services. The 4 basic move types of statement, question, offer and command are speech functions. (Halliday).
13. Exchanging information – The grammatical structure of propositions Mood Residue Polarity (either yes or no) Finite: a verbal-type element Subject: a nominal-type element
20. Interrogatives English offers two main structures for asking questions: Polar interrogatives (yes/no questions) or wh- interrogatives. Polar interrogatives (yes/no questions) E.g. Are you the man? Finite subject complement Mood Residue Wh-interrogative WH element is always conflated another element of clause structure. E.g. Who wrote “Bostonians”? Wh-subject finite predicator complement Mood Residue
21. Exclamatives They are used to express emotions such as surprise, disgust, worry, etc. are a blend of interrogative and declarative patterns. E.g. What a great writer Henry James was! WH/complement subject finite
22. Modality Proposition: is something that can be argued, but argued in a particular way. When we exchange information we are arguing about whether something is or is not. Information is something that can be affirmed or denied.In between these two extremes are a number of choices of degree of certainty, or of usuality: sometimes is perhaps, something isn’t for sure.. Something is sometimes or something isn’t always. These intermediate positions are what we refer to as modalization. Modalization: When modality is used to argue about the probability of frequency of propositions, it is referred to modalization. It involves the expression of two kinds of meanings: probability (likelihood) and usuality (the frequency). Modalization is the expression of the speaker’s attitude towards what s/he’s saying. It is the way the speaker gets into the text: expressing a judgement about the certainty, likelihood, or frequency of something happening or being. Both modal operators and mood adjuncts can be classified according to the degree of certainty or usuality they express: i.e. low (night, possibly, sometimes), median (may, probably, usually), high (must, certainly, always). Modulation: when modality is used to argue about the obligation or inclination of proposals, it is referred to as modulation.
