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involves examining a text’s cohesive tendencies. It is glaring therefore that in the analysis of textual meta-functions, a clause is categorised into theme and rhyme.

Locke (2004), in support of the above claims, substantiates that field is expressed through the experiential – an ideational mode, and tenor, through the interpersonal function, while mode is expressed through the textual function. Locke (2004) submits further that proponents of CDA like Fairclough, for instance, adopted these three Hallidayan meta-functions of language though split them into two: the interpersonal mode of ‘identity and subjectivity’, and the relationships between participants. This inclination has strengthened considerations of how texts are analysed as instances full of social features.

Systemic Functional Linguistics richness in semantic dispositions in analysis of text in context has rent itself to be visited regularly by critical discourse analysts in search of means of analysis where close systematic reading of texts is required for total understanding of its textual network (Fowler, 1979; Martin and Rose, 1991 and Chouliaruki and Fairclough, 1999).

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(1992: 236) present this argument in a diagram form to illustrate how language and context relate:

Figure 2.5: Language and social context

The above diagram of Register and Genre theory illustrates how language is a miniature of the social context. In the above demonstration, language is seen as a sphere that hydrates within the social context. Invariably, texts are therefore regarded as realisations resulting from the interaction of finite and very limited number of contextual variables (Halliday, 1973, 1985; Eggins and Martin, 1992; Martin, 1992; Paltridge, 2006).

The emphasis on genre, on the other hand, attempts to account for the realisation of interactive utterances on the basis of their functions and the purposes they serve (Eggins and Martin, 1992). The concern of this concept, therefore, is on the various speech patterns realised in texts (Bakhtin, 1986). Consideration of the various speech patterns in texts which are also contextually determined, have further strengthened the idea that discourses are a product of socio-cultural realities, and that the interactive utterances within texts are determined by the context in which the transactions occurred (Paltridge, 2006). Texts are therefore said to emerge differently, and to be performing different functions in the various contexts that enhanced their existence.

Eggins and Martin (1992) are however of the opinion that the relationship between the context and the text is simply a matter of probabilities and not deterministic.

They are of the opinion that an interactant who is out to attain a particular cultural goal is most likely to initiate a text in a particular way inherent in the dialogic relationship between language and context. This argument has not in any way tampered with considerations that contextual variables determine choice of linguistic items but rather seem to suggest that, linguistic variables might emerge in different ways given the participants involved in the discourse.

The concept of Register and Genre theory hinges on the fact that both textual and contextual variables are important in the prediction and deductions of series of

social context

language

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information from texts. Apparently, it implies that textual meanings are easily predictable given the context from which they sprout; from the context is easily deciphered given the textual variables. Linguistic features found in texts encode both features of its immediate context of production and those of its generic identity; for instance, what task the text is set to achieve in the culture of its production (Halliday, 1985). Apparently, attempts to unravel the possible predictions and deductions from discourse strategies, thus, incorporate efforts to relate the various categories of register variables to the vivid specifications of contextual variables.

2.7.1 Register variables

This segment discusses the register variables which are used as analytical tools in SFL. Systemic Functional Linguists (Gregory, 1967; Ellis and Ure, 1969; Halliday, 1985;

Eggins and Martin, 1992; Ogunsiji, 2001; Locke, 2004) categorise the register variables in relation to analysis of functional components of language into: field, tenor and mode.

2.7.1.1 Field

The concept of field in Systemic Functional Linguistics (Locke, 2004; Ogunsiji, 2001; Eggins and Martin, 1992) is used in reference to the constitutive variables that the participants are engaged in, and language is depicted as its essential component in the interactive event. In other words, it could be looked at as a set of sequence of activities that are oriented to achieve some purposes within the institutions of the society. The activity sequence, according to Martin and Rose (2004), figures in each step in sequences of interaction and their taxonomies of participants to create expectations for the unfolding field of discourse. The point of emphasis, as a result, is what the text is about, and refers to what is happening to the nature of the social action that is taking place in the text (Locke, 2004).

2.7.1.2 Tenor

The emphasis on the tenor variable in communicative events is an emphasis on the participants (Locke, 2004); the role-relationships existing among the participants (Eggins and Martin, 1992). Ogunsiji (2001) observes that tenor considers the various types of speech patterns that these participants are taking on in the dialogue, and the whole cluster of socially significant relationships in which they are involved. These are

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indices that underline the discourse strategy of perspectivation; the point of view of participants in the discourse.

2.7.1.3 Mode

The mode variable focuses on the part played by language in the discourse. This in other words refers to the symbolic organisation of the text (Ogunsiji, 2001; Eggins and Martin, 1992), which might extend to include the status and functions of the language in the context.

An important aspect of this variable is its codification of the amount of work language is doing in relation to what is going on in the text. Apparently, texts of this kind, Martin and Rose (2004) contend are dependent on the context, such that we cannot process the participants identification without obtaining information from the context of situation. And as submitted by Halliday (1978), Halliday and Martin (1993), and intensively examined by van Dijk (1992), this model of analysis of language employed in the discourse relates language, naturally, to the organisation of context, with field hydrated by ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning employed to negotiate tenor, and the textual meaning to develop the mode (Paltridge, 2006).This variable is outlined by Eggins and Martin (1992: 239) in the table below:

Table 2.1: Functional organisation of language

Table 2.1 illustrates Halliday’s concept of functional organisation of language in relation to categories for analysing context which is divided into meta-functions and register categories. The interpersonal meaning; the resources for interacting, correspond to tenor (the role structure), ideational meta-function or the resources for building content is equivalent to field, the social action. While textual meaning, considered as the resources for organising texts is comparable with mode, the symbolic organisation.

Meta-functions ( organisation of language)

Register (organisation of context) Interpersonal meaning

( resources for interacting)

Tenor

(role structure) Ideational

(resources for building content)

Field

(social action) Textual meaning

(resources for organising texts)

Mode

(symbolic organisation)

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The emphasis of this categorisation is an illustration of a systematic linkage between the constructs of language resources with the contextual resources. This relationship is expressed in terms of ‘realisation’. Realisation, as a systemic functional construct, is viewed from the interactional angle between context and language. As a contextual variable, deductions are that the perspective is achieved due largely to the interaction of different types of fields, tenor and mode, that condition ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings in the discourse. And from the perspective of language, this variable is said to connote the ways in which different ideational, interpersonal, and textual choices are determined by different types of field, tenor, and mode. This relationship is represented in diagram form by Eggins and Martin (1992):

Figure 2.6: The relationship between context and language

Figure 2.6 illustrates the relationship between context and language in the systemic functional model description of how meta-functions relate in discursive situations.

Another argument which has attempted to explain this relationship is provided by Hasan et al., (1987). These discourse analysts consider the interaction of system and structure as operating in an axial relationship. This implies that, the obligatory elements of the genre structure are determined by field, and the presence of optional ones established by tenor and mode (Martin and Rose, 2004: 254). The interest of this consideration is that the relationship among genres is, thus, a question of field, tenor and mode selections. Martin and Rose (2004: 254) provide an illustration of these relationships as presented in figure 2.7 below, for an explanation of the above view:

Interpersonal Tenor

Field Context organised by

meta-function

Language organised by meta-function Mode

Textual Ideational

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Figure 2.7: Obligatory elements of genre structure

Figure 2.7 demonstrates how obligatory elements in the genre structure are determined by field, and the presence of optional ones for tenor and mode, and genre, register and language are realised in discourses.

However, despite the existence of diversified approach in the analysis of these relationships, one thing that remains apparent, and which is the concern of our analysis, is the fact that critical discourse analysis, in its adoptions and applications of theories from the Systemic Functional Linguistics, is more interested in those theories that cater for analysis of the discourse not only on the basis of its grammatical features but on the presence of the various social contexts which determine the choice and use of linguistic items in the various discursive instances.