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Book: Systemic Functional Linguistics, Part 2

Chapter: Metafunctional Complementarity and Resonance in Syntagmatic Organization

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.45282

Blurb:

Chapter 5 sheds new light on the monomodal treatment of constituency in linguistic theorizing as the default mode of syntagmatic organization by bringing out complementarity and resonance of different modes of organization in interpreting language. To this rule-based thesis of constituency, it presents an antithesis that there are different modes of meaning and each of these modes of meaning engenders different mode of expressions. This contrast between the thesis and its antithesis expands the conception of grammatical organization to the point where grammatical structure is no longer insulated from its semiotic environment. It thus synthesizes in harmony metafunctional modes of meaning into simultaneous constituency structures of their complementary modes of expression such as simulated waves and prosodies.

Chapter Contributors

  • Christian Matthiessen ([email protected] - cmatthiessen) 'University of International Business and Economics” (UIBE), Beijing '