Item Details

Subliminal construal of world order clause by clause: Hierarchy of control in Noah’s Ark

Issue: Vol 11 No. 2-3 (2015) SPECIAL ISSUE:

Journal: Linguistics and the Human Sciences

Subject Areas: Writing and Composition Linguistics

DOI: 10.1558/lhs.34710

Abstract:

In this paper, I will present a text analysis showing the world order that is construed subliminally in a retelling for children, Noah's Ark, of the 'flood story' of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible (Genesis 6-9). I will focus on that aspect of world order that is concerned with who or what can act on whom or what - i.e. on the hierarchy of control that is part of the order of the world. The analysis is based on the system of transitivity of the experiential grammar of the clause; this system is the resource for construing quanta of change in our experience of the flow of events as a configuration of a process, participants directly involved in this process and less directly involved, attendant circumstances.

Author: Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

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