ABSTRACT. Toys, in their myriad versions, have been historically considered as objects of investigation insofar as their educational use, play and effects are concerned. Nevertheless, it must be said that academic research in the direction of toys’ multimodal configurations and meaning-making potential has been quite scant, despite a few relevant studies in the area (Caldas-Coulthard & van Leeuwen, 2001, 2002, 2003; Machin & Van Leeuwen, 2009; Almeida, 2006; 2008; 2009; 2014; 2017; 2018). This presentation offers an overview of the findings and methodological developments in toy semiotics research through the projects Toys on Focus (2015-2018) and Multimodality & Childhood (2018-) aimed at expanding the agenda of academic investigation on children’s narratives in different discursive domains. Both projects have focused on the verbal and visual configurations of childhood representations such as toy packages, fashion and baby dolls, nursery rhymes, inclusive toys, birthday scenarios, Disney characters, etc., by combining a linguistic approach to toy semiotics with debates from interrelated fields, to account for a more accurate analysis of the contextual dimension of these visual semiotic structures.

Methodologically, I will attempt at demonstrating how systems of signification derived from the Grammar of Visual Design (VG) by Kress & van Leeuwen (1996; 2006) – such as the subsystem of modality (reality value) – have been proved effective as a theoretical tool to toy semiotics by allowing to go beyond the investigation of the two-dimensional perspective of their advertisements to check on material configurations such as texture, smell, kinetic possibilities and the degree of realism of these three-dimensional childhood representations. By means of primarily linguistic lens, I believe to contribute to social semiotic research through the articulation of the analysis of linguistic aspects of data with the discussion of social issues such as gender roles, diversity, representation and inclusion. All in all, my main intention is to propose an innovative, exploratory look into toys as texts as well as ideologically-loaded cultural artefacts.

(1) Sociology of Childhood & Children Studies (Pinto & Sarmento, 1997); (2) Cultural and Media Studies (Heljakka, 2013; Peers, 2004; Fleming, 1996; Seiter, 1993; Kline, 1993); (3) Anthropology and Education (Brougère, 2014); (4) Toy semiotics (Brian Sutton-Smith, 1984; Caldas-Coulthard & Van Leeuwen, 2001, 2002, 2003; Machin & Van Leeuwen, 2009; Thibault 2016).

References

Almeida, D. B. L.; Moreira Junior, M. (2018) Letrar Brincando: Cantigas de Roda como Textos Multimodais e Ferramentas Culturais no Contexto Escolar. In: Zaira Santos, Clarice Gualberto, Sônia Pimenta. (Org.). Multimodalidade e ensino: múltiplas perspectivas. 1ed.São Paulo: Editora Pimenta Cultural, v. 1.

Almeida, D.B.L.; Soares, L.  (2018).  Brinquedos como Representação Social e de Gênero na Infância: A Resignificação do Conceito de Família. Discursos Contemporâneos em Estudo. v. v. 3 (2), p. 19, 2018.

Almeida, D.B.L (2017). On Diversity, Representation and Inclusion: New Perspectives on Toys’ Discourse. Revista Linguagem em Discurso. (ISSN 1982-4017). Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina. Santa Catarina.

Almeida, D. B. L. (2014). The political values embedded in a child s toy: The case of Girl Power in the Brazilian doll Susi. In: David Machin. (Org.). Visual Communication. Series: Handbooks of Communication Science [HoCS] Vol. 4. Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton. v. 1, p. 539-564.

Almeida, D. B. L. (2009) Where have all the children gone? A visual semiotic account of advertisements for fashion dolls. Visual Communication. SAGE, v. 8, 481-501.

Almeida, D. B. L. (2008).  Beyond the Playground: The Representation of Reality in Fashion Dolls' Advertisements. Linguagem em (Dis)curso, v. 8. 203-228.

Almeida, D. B. L. (2006). Icons of Contemporary Childhood: A Visual and Lexicogrammatical Investigation of Toy Advertisements. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Florianópolis: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. 

Brian Sutton-Smith (1984). A Toy Semiotics. In: Children's Environments Quarterly. Vol. 1, No. 1, Toys: History, Theory and Ethnography, pp. 19-21.

Brougère, G. (2014) Toys or the Rhetoric of Children’s Goods. In: Machin, D. (ed.). Visual Communication Series: Handbooks of Communication Science [HoCS] Vol. 4. Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton.

Caldas-Coulthard, C. R., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Baby’s first toys and the discursive construction of childhood. Critical Discourse Analysis in Post Modern Societies, Special Edition of Folia Linguistica, XXXV (1–2), 157–182.

Caldas-Coulthard, C. R., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2002). Stunning, shimmering, iridescent: Toys as the representation of gendered social actors. In L. Litosseleti & J. Sunderland (Eds.). Gender identity and discourse analysis (pp. 91–110). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Caldas-Coulthard, C. R., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2003). Teddy bear stories. Social Semiotics, 13(1), 5–27.

Fleming, D. (1996) Powerplay: toys as popular culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 

Heljakka, K. (2013). Principles of Adult Play (fulness) in Contemporary Toy Cultures. Helsinki: Aalto University.

Kline, S. (1993). Out of the Garden: Toys and Children’s Culture in the Age of Marketing. London: Verso Press.

Kress, G. & Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge

Machin, D & Van Leeuwen, T. (2009). Toy as discourse: children's war toys and the war on terror. Critical Discourse Studies, 6 (1), pp. 51 – 64. Routledge.

Peers, J. (2004). The Fashion Doll: from Bébé Jumeau to Barbie. Oxford: Berg.

Pinto, M. & Sarmento, M. J.  (1997). As crianças e a infância: definindo conceitos, delimitando o campo. In: As Crianças – Contextos e Identidades. Centro de Estudos da Criança: Universidade do Minho.

Seiter, E. (1993). Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Thibault, M, (2016). Towards a Semiotic Analysis of Toys. In New Semiotics. Between Tradition and Innovation: proceedings of the 12. World Congress of Semiotics, ed. K. Bankov, IASS Publications & NBU Publishing House. ISSN 2414- 6862.

ABSTRACT. This study explores the translation commensurability of the evaluative meanings in English-Chinese translation from the perspective of GRADUATION. GRADUATION, as one of the three sub-systems of the APPRAISAL system proposed by Martin and White (2005), is mainly concerned with the up/down-grading nature of evaluation in language (i.e. FORCE), and the sharpening and softening of the boundaries of semantic categories (i.e. FOCUS). This paper focuses on “GRADUATION: FORCE” and more specifically on the feature of “intensification” which concentrates on the grading of intensity of an evaluative meaning. For this purpose, a small dataset is built with the Apple Company’s advertisements for electronic products (such as iPhone, iMac and iMac Pro), collected from the official website of the manufacturer. On the website, each English advertisement has three corresponding Chinese translations for the mainland China market, the Hong Kong market and the Taiwan market respectively, all in Mandarin. UAM Corpus Tool is used to annotate the instances of “intensification” in both English texts and Chinese texts. According to the annotation, not only the raw count number of instances is different among the English source text and three Chinese target texts, but their gradings are also varied. This study aims to discuss to what extent these instances are commensurate with each other and in what way, rather than judging which Chinese target text is the best translation. Moreover, as the whole APPRAISAL system is designed based on the English language, this study is also an attempt to investigate the language-specific systems and features of GRADUATION resources in Chinese via comparisons between source texts and target texts.

ABSTRACT. Conventional analysis of student assessment results, referred to as rubric-based assessments (RBA), has placed the focus on scores as the defining way of communicating information to teachers about their students’ learning. Further, these assessment scores are subsequently used as the centerpiece of teacher accountability and control (Alzen, Fahle & Domingue, 2017). In this light, rethinking and reflecting on not only how scores are generated but also what analyses are done with them is of utmost importance. The aim of this study is to explore what can be learned from multiple approaches to the analysis of student responses on constructed-response assessments which were administered as part of a large scale National Science Foundation-funded project. Assessment analysis was informed by a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach (e.g. Halliday 1978, 1996, 2005; Schleppegrell, 2004) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) analysis which has been explored in previous research (Authors, 2014; Authors, 2017; Grimmer & Stewart, 2013).This current study reports on a multilayered analysis of student responses on these assessments to a) explore multiple ways for looking at students’ performance through their written assessments, and b) provide insights into the variability of student responses and some possible reasons for it. Because SFL sees language as a “set of options available for construing different kinds of meanings” (Schleppegrell, 2004, p. 7), our aim was to look for specific linguistic features that are essential for science writing within school contexts. More specifically we looked at three linguistic features in students’ writing: technical vocabulary usage, lexical density and nominalization or grammatical drift. The corpus used for the LDA and SFL analysis consisted of a total sample of over 800 of the project assessments that were administered during the 2015-2016 academic year. Preliminary findings from this study suggest that capturing more information from students’ answers beyond a score can provide both teachers and students with valuable insights, such as showing emergent understandings that have instructional implications. That is, our analysis suggests the value of a model which deploys complementary ways of interpreting student performance on assessments.

ABSTRACT. The mediation (Vygotsky, 1978) of educational technology (ET) can play a major role in helping second language learners, who struggle to simultaneously learn target language and content through target language, engage socially with members of their communities and achieve academic and professional success. Research indicates some of the influences upon ET use in second and foreign language (L2) teaching/learning contexts are the ET-related dispositions of teachers (Hismanoglu, 2012). In this ongoing descriptive and exploratory case study (Hancock & Algozzine, 2011), we explore the ET-related dispositions of academics who may influence L2 teachers’ ET-related perceptions, knowledge, and self-efficacy — doctoral students in a second language acquisition and educational technology program who are likely to become teacher educators and researchers in related fields. In particular, we investigate how 16 doctoral students employ the multimodal affordances of a promotional video project to explore, negotiate, and express beliefs regarding the use of ET in L2 learning/teaching contexts. The doctoral students, from countries around the world, collaboratively created videos in which they promoted the use of a type of educational technology of their choosing. In order to triangulate the findings, we collected the following other data: online discussion threads; results of an online survey; and semi-structured interviews. To explore the data inductively, we employ the constant comparative method (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). However, to develop a deeper understanding of the data, we also employ concepts from multimodal theory (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Unsworth, 2006) and Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005). Preliminary findings indicate the course’s projects enabled the participants to develop and express newly created and deeper understandings of the potential impact ET can have on L2 education. Furthermore, while they faced challenges creating their video projects, they expressed appreciation that they had the opportunity to learn from and collaboratively construct knowledge with classmates. The implications of the study include the potential roles Appraisal Theory and multimodal concepts can play in exploring the perceptions, related to educational technology as well as other subjects, of teachers and teacher educators who develop and implement curriculum and learning experiences in the field of L2 education.

ABSTRACT. This study draws on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (HALLIDAY and MATTHIESSEN, 2014) oriented towards Translation Studies (HOLMES, 1972). Considering the potential circumstances have of augmenting processes and participants and the lack of research focused on this particular transitivity aspect in Brazilian Portuguese, this study is aimed at characterizing circumstances in translated clauses selected from eight different text categories (Research Article, Political Speech, Popular Science, Fiction, Instructions Manual, Tourism Leaflet, Review, and Educational Website). The corpus of the research was an English/Brazilian Portuguese bidirectional parallel and comparable corpus retrieved from Klapt! (Corpus de Língua Portuguesa em Tradução), an English/Brazilian Portuguese bidirectional parallel and comparable corpus compiled at LETRA (Laboratory of Experimentation in Translation of Federal University of Minas Gerais) and based on CroCo Project (NEUMANN, HANSEN-SCHIRRA,STEINER, 2012). The clauses extracted from the texts were manually annotated in spreadsheets according to type of circumstance, realization of circumstance, process type, and thematic/non-thematic position of circumstance, in order to observe patterns in each of the text categories and identify shifts in translation equivalents (CATFORD, 1965; MATTHIESSEN, 2001). The results allowed to differentiate some patterns of circumstances and also correlate their usage in both languages, contributing to Translation Studies. The results may also contribute to a future description of circumstances in Brazilian Portuguese.

ABSTRACT. En el presente trabajo se desarrolla un análisis de los discursos de la agesic (Agencia para el Desarrollo del Gobierno de Gestión Electrónica y la Sociedad de la Información y del Conocimiento) —desde una perspectiva socio-semiótica multimodal, en relación con las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación—, manifestados en su sitio web institucional.

El análisis discursivo de enfoque sociosemiótico es instrumentado en esta investigación, dado que permite conocer posicionamientos ideológicos de quienes enuncian discursos, respecto a diferentes temáticas, a partir del hallazgo de evidencias que surgen de la selección e interpretación de un corpus compuesto por textos escritos e imágenes.

Se utilizaron para el análisis las categorías discursivas propuestas por Gunther Kress y Theo van Leeuwen (2001), principalmente a partir del análisis de las meta-funciones linguisticas adaptadas al esquema de la multimodalidad.

Del desarrollo analítico se deduce que en los documentos públicos producidos por la agesic son recurrentes las alusiones a la tecnología como determinante de los procesos sociales, excluyendo o «pasivizando» a las personas y a las determinantes económicas y socioculturales.

Asimismo, se desprende de los textos expuestos que hay un discurso mayoritario, en donde se representa al ciudadano como un beneficiario de las políticas y de la gestión pública. Este trabajo muestra también que en los discursos de la agesic hay un componente preponderante de alocuciones «globalizantes», en donde las temáticas y las expresiones son compatibles con asuntos de agenda transnacional, se priorizan los acuerdos internacionales y la acreditación en estándares internacionales.

En definitiva, la sociedad de la información es representada por la agesic como una realidad de interconexión mundial entre personas sin acción. En el discurso se representa recurrentemente como un grupo de técnicos, políticos, decisores expertos (representados generalmente por la propia agesic) que trabajan en examinar logros y desafíos de esta red global. No hay una representación de la sociedad de la información y el conocimiento en donde sea protagonista la acción del ciudadano o de las personas en su cotidianeidad, sino que los atributos que prevalecen son los de los artefactos, las redes y los humanos sintetizados, como partes de esas redes de interconexión.

ABSTRACT. When analysing Appraisal, it is important to examine how evaluation is achieved and negotiated within an interaction. To some extent, interactive aspects have been explored in spoken language in both casual (e.g. Eggins & Slade 1997, Martin 2000, Knight 2010) and formal (e.g. Martin, Zappavigna & Dwyer 2010) contexts. In this paper, I examine written dialogue using a dataset of advice columns from the Australian magazine Dolly which are made up of question-answer dyads. This specialised corpus allows the identification of a number of interesting interactive phenomena. The paper examines how interpersonal meanings are negotiated through dialogue, for example which evaluations are reproduced and which are modified. Since the identified patterns of interaction may be found in other forms of dialogue, these results have implications for Appraisal research beyond the specific data analysed here. The advice columns used in this study are from the field sexuality education. These data are a prime context in which to study the negotiation of values through Appraisal, but in addition the advice columns are an important site for maintaining or challenging the status quo on gender and sexuality inequality. This has implications for a more human and egalitarian society, in keeping with ISFC 2019’s theme ‘Emergent and alternative perspectives for social change’.

ABSTRACT. This paper uses the concepts of presence (Martin & Matruglio, 2013, 2014) and mass (Martin, 2017) to investigate the knowledge structures of Community and Family Studies, a subject for study in the Australian senior secondary curriculum which has a reputation for catering to less academically capable students oriented towards vocational educational pathways. While syllabus documents present this subject as ‘interdisciplinary’ and grounded in theories from sociology and psychology (Board of Studies NSW, 2013, p. 6), previous analyses of student writing and of textbook material has suggested that this subject has the potential to trap students in the everyday (Matruglio, 2012, 2014, 2015). In this paper, classroom discourse is analysed using the recently developed metafunctional approach to contextual dependency (presence) and condensation of meaning (mass) to investigate to what extent common sense knowledge is a focus of the pedagogy. The data are transcriptions of four one-hour lessons in the final school year which focus on preparing students to write for their final end-of school centralised examination in the subject. Analysis indicates an apparent delineation between the way the teacher talks about the subject matter and the way she talks about writing. On the one hand, much of the classroom talk about syllabus content serves to focus students on a here-and-now between-you-and-me context as an ‘anchor’ for more technical and abstract concepts in the syllabus, while writing is construed as more technical in the teacher’s talk. This tension between what the students are expected to write about and the type of writing they are expected to do may contribute to the perception that this subject is less academically rigorous and that the students who study it are less academically capable. The findings have important social justice implications considering the gender profile of over 90% female candidates and overall lower performance of students studying the course. While the subject claims to orient towards social change and equity its enactment in schools may unintentionally hinder the very change it is calling for amongst the students who choose it.

ABSTRACT. Esta investigación se centra en estudiar el fenómeno de la traducción de textos legales producidos desde el portugués de Brasil al español de Chile desde la perspectiva de la Lingüística Sistémico Funcional (en adelante, LSF). Para esto se proponen dos objetivos: (i) determinar de qué manera la sentencia de divorcio producida en el sistema jurídico brasileño construye el campo legal en portugués como lengua origen y (ii) determinar de qué manera los textos traducidos reconstruyen el campo legal de la sentencia de divorcio del texto origen en español de Chile. En cumplimiento de estos objetivos, se emplea la noción de reinstanciación interlingüística (Souza, 2010) para analizar la variable contextual de campo y su manifestación en recursos semántico-discursivos dentro de la metafunción ideacional. Metodológicamente, el corpus corresponde a una sentencia de divorcio en portugués y tres traducciones al español producidas por estudiantes avanzados de traducción. El análisis del texto origen y sus traducciones se aborda trinocularmente (por arriba, por alrededor y por debajo) mediante el análisis de figuras semántico-discursivas (Hao, 2015), lo que permite sistematizar los patrones ideacionales que evidencian las características del campo legal en los textos mencionados. Esta propuesta contribuye de cuatro maneras a la traducción legal desde la LSF. Primero, se propone un análisis lingüístico que sistematiza la relación entre el campo y los textos legales. Segundo, el reconocimiento de un sistema semiótico estratificado permite estudiar cada sentencia de divorcio en relación con el campo del Derecho y su traducción. Igualmente, se releva que cada instancia textual tiene sus propias características contextuales. Tercero, se introduce una herramienta de análisis lingüístico del campo legal y su traducción. Así, por medio del reconocimiento de patrones lingüísticos en el texto origen se reconocen diferentes grados de interrelaciones (campo-lengua) con sus traducciones. Finalmente, se releva la traducción como un proceso y producto textual y no gramatical. Es decir, el texto no se considera una suma de cláusulas estudiadas desde su estructura formal (categorías gramaticales), sino una instancia del potencial semiótico de cada lengua en relación de traducción.

ABSTRACT. Following the view of social constructivism, identity can be constructed by individuals or groups in the interaction in certain social and cultural contexts. It is variant, multiple and mixed (Barletta et al. 2014). The present paper attempts to explore how Jack Ma and Bill Gates construct their identities in the public speeches. They are business magnates, investors, and philanthropists in their cultures and regarded as role models as revolutionary figures in their respective businesses. The analyzed data cover 6 speeches given by Jack Ma and 4 speeches by Bill Gates that have online accessibility and were delivered at commencements of domestic universities from 2007 to 2017. Two small-sized corpora were finally set up for the comparative analysis, with 20755 Chinese characters and 6339 English words respectively. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods with descriptive-explanatory one as the focus, the paper examines their discursive strategies on the basis of the analytical framework of critical discourse analysis (Reisigl and Wodak 2001) with the integration of mood and modality systems that realize interpersonal function (Halliday and Mattiessen 2004: 106-157), considering the direct communication of public speeches as a genre. The different values of modality realized by modal verbs and modal auxiliaries and the different illocutionary forces of mood in their incongruent usage with speech types enrich the discursive strategies of intensification and mitigation, simultaneously enhancing the identities constructed by other strategies through the choices of proper names, pronouns, predicative adjectives, contrastive structures, different topoi and reported speeches. The analysis reveals both similarities and differences in their constructed identities. Both of them have constructed themselves as life tutors to guide students to set up correct life values, and exhorted students to do something beneficial to the society. The difference lies in that Jack Ma has constructed himself more as a business leader to promote his company while Bill Gates has constructed himself more as a humanist to call on students to care for the weak in the society. These reveal the impact of cultural background and economic situation on the process of identity construction in the discourse as a social practice.

ABSTRACT. En esta ponencia proponemos, describimos e ilustramos un modelo de dominio léxico-gramatical de aplicación en Lexicografía que se basa en el concepto de “base ideacional” presentado y desarrollado por Halliday y Matthiessen, para la lengua en general y para dos dominios específicos (pronóstico del tiempo y recetas de cocina), en su libro Construing experience through meaning (1999). Los dominios que modelamos en base a Halliday y Matthiessen 1999 representan una alternativa a los dominios léxicos que hemos esbozado en un diccionario ya compilado y próximo a su publicación. Las diferencias entre los dominios en el mencionado diccionario y los que proponemos en esta ponencia radica en que los primeros son de carácter léxico-semántico, pero están agrupados en el diccionario por categoría gramatical (dominios nominales, dominios verbales, dominios adjetivales, otros), lo que dificulta la tarea del usuario de integrar los recursos léxicos relacionados con un determinado motivo semántico registrados en dominios de distintas categorías de manera de poder producir configuraciones de significados en torno a procesos o figuras que permitan comunicar mensajes. La referencia a los componentes de la “base ideacional” - elementos (especialmente procesos, participantes, circunstancias y nexos), figuras y secuencias en los dominios que proponemos en esta ponencia, por otra parte, nos permitirá definir dominios semánticos realizados léxico-gramaticalmente que permitan a los usuarios combinar elementos en figuras y figuras en secuencias, y comunicar así mensajes que hagan fundamentalmente significados experienciales. Los motivos en torno a los cuales desarrollamos los mencionados dominios son dos topológicamente muy próximos en el espacio semántico: el motivo de los estados fisiológicos y el motivo del afecto. El estudio se basa en un corpus en español conformado por textos extraídos de páginas médicas como Medline Plus y Medes, así como páginas en español destinadas a hispanohablantes de hospitales en Estados Unidos. La implementación lexicográfica de este tipo de dominios será motivo de consideración y discusión en la ponencia.

ABSTRACT. Reflective essay is one of the key genres that are required in higher education. It plays an essential role in facilitating students to monitor their learning process and become independent learners. Reflective essay typically includes the following stages: Description ^Feelings^Evaluation^Analysis^Conclusion^Action (Gibbs, 1988). Numerous studies have been conducted with reflective essays in the context of higher education in the past few decades (Chen and Forbes, 2014; Roger, 2011). However, few of them are from a linguistic perspective. The present study aims to bring insights from a linguistic perspective, namely from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The data used for analysis are from a class of 25 students in an academic English course from a local college in Hong Kong. The study focuses in particular on students’ interpersonal meaning-making abilities (along with ideational and textual meaning-making as they are proposed in SFL) in their reflective essays. The key interpersonal lexicogrammatical resources under investigation are modality type (e.g. obligation (should), usuality (can)), orientation (e.g. implicit (should) or explicit (I think), subjective (I think) or objective (it’s necessary); value, such as high (must), medium (should) and low (might), and polarity, such as positive (can) or negative (can’t) .Findings show that college students in Hong Kong are not proficient users of modality in their reflective essays writing. We found that they predominantly use certain kinds of modal auxiliaries, which influence their accurate expression of certain modalized or modulated meanings. This in return hinders their interpersonal meaning-making performance in their reflection. Relevant discussion and pedagogical implications are provided for facilitating this group of learners to use modality to be better at interpersonal meaning-making.

References Chen, I., & Forbes, C. (2014). Reflective writing and its impact on empathy in medical education: systematic review. Journal of educational evaluation for health professions, 11. Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Rogers, R. 2001. Reflection in higher education: A concept analysis. Innovative Higher Education 26, no. 1: 37-57.

ABSTRACT. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) offers a theory of language which informs language descriptions that are based on actual usage of language, and that can be used to solve practical problems (Halliday 2008). However, when it comes to working in language comparison and language typology challenges remain as to how to provide descriptions that reveal linguistic systems that are indeed ‘comparable’. Not all descriptions in SFL assume the same underlying theoretical and methodological principles. Descriptions may privilege meanings at different levels for their specific purposes. They may not be based on texts of comparable register or genre. In this colloquium, we discuss the basic theoretical and methodological principles in SFL for providing comparable descriptions that are useful for language typology and practical applications in multilingual contexts such as translation studies.

The colloquium revisits some of the SFL theoretical parameters – axis, strata, rank and instantiation – that inform comparable descriptions. These (re)considerations raise methodological issues we need to explore. First, we explore what levels of meaning we need to privilege (e.g. higher or lower strata, higher or lower ranks) so that the descriptions are appliable to the problems at stake. Second, we explore the way we can provide sufficient descriptions that offer comparisons at both the system pole and the instance pole. The colloquium considers descriptions of several languages including Spanish, Tagalog, English, German, Portuguese, Korean, and Chinese. Practical issues of how the descriptions can answer questions raised in translation studies will also be addressed.

Coordinators:

Jing Hao, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, hao_lele@hotmail.com,

Dongbing Zhang, University of Sydney, dongbing.zhang@sydney.edu.au

(on behalf of SLaM - Systemic Language Modelling Network)

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Paper 1: Defeasible typology: an SFL perspective

J R Martin, University of Sydney; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, james.martin@sydney.edu.au

Beatriz, Quiroz, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, bquiroz@uc.cl

This paper discusses the challenge of language typology for functional models of language, especially models such as SFL which foreground paradigmatic relations over syntagmatic ones and thus highlight distinctive valeur. The idea that languages are more different from the perspective of structure than of system, from the perspective of more delicate systems than less delicate ones, from the perspective of lower ranks than of higher ones, from the perspective of lexicogrammar than of discourse semantics and from the perspective of discourse semantics rather than of context (register and genre) will be illustrated using examples from English, Spanish and Tagalog. The comparison of just these three languages suggests that language comparison is inevitably a defeasible enterprise, in which every statement of similarity and difference is treated as provisional, pending reconsideration from the 'higher order' perspectives of system (over structure), more general systems (over more delicate ones), higher ranks (over lower ones) and more abstract strata (over less abstract ones). The implications of this defeasibility for functional language typology are then briefly reviewed.

Paper 2: A ‘top-down’ approach to describing Mandarin Chinese: an exemplification in describing temporal relations

Jing Hao, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, hao_lele@hotmail.com

The paper reports on an ongoing research on applying systemic functional linguistic theory, particularly the stratification dimension, to describing Mandarin Chinese. The paper shows that a ‘top-down’ approach can provide a useful and productive way of understanding language use across context, discourse semantics and lexicogrammar. Drawing on the recent description of field (Doran & Martin forthcoming) and discourse semantics (Hao in press), this paper exemplifies the top-down approach by considering how activity series in academic scientific field are realised through temporal sequencing in the patterns of discourse, and then how temporal sequencing are realised through similar and/or different grammatical resources, focusing particularly on downranking and complexing of clauses. The description untangles the ambiguity of embedding and complexing of clauses. The paper provides implications for comparing languages from a multi-stratal perspective.

Paper 3: Language typology as text typology as language typology

Giacomo Figueredo, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, giacomojakob@gmail.com

In this paper, we explore functional language typology from a dynamic perspective. We use subpotentialization as our main resource in comparing languages. As SFL moves typology from apparent structures to the paradigm, it foregrounds systems (including their realizing function structures), metafunctions and stratification. It unlocks the whole language potential for typology, since any systems at any level can be compared. Having this scenario in mind, we can begin to ask new questions about typology. We are particularly interested in the dynamics of comparison when features are selected in actual texts. When texts are considered, then typology becomes a dynamic process and systems are compared in terms of their behavior along the process of subpotentialization. Comparable subpotentialization processes may lead to the description of similarities and differences in the behavior of comparable systems. In this paper, we discuss examples of two possibilities for this type of typological work: (1) comparable systems operating in comparable texts - focusing on their relative variation - and (2) comparable texts deploying different systems - focusing on subpotentialization variation.

Paper 4. Translation as re-instantiation: redrawing the map of translation studies

Mira Kim, University of New South Wales, mira.kim@unsw.edu.au

Long Li, University of New South Wales, long.li@unsw.edu.au

De Souza’s (2010) proposal of translation as ‘interlingual re-instantiation’ is highly compatible with the concept of translation as a process of choices, which is widely accepted in translation studies (TS) (c.f. Munday 2012). In addition, there is a natural affinity shared by TS and typology scholars within SFL in their pursuits of a better understanding of languages other than English. This has begun to lead to constructive dialogues between the two disciplines (e.g. Kim et al. [in preparation]). In this talk, we aim to explore the critical role of SFL in modelling translation and the potential further contribution of continuing dialogues between SFL and TS. In the first part, Kim will propose a revised map of TS, which draws on concepts from SFL and positions TS in relation to other disciplines including SFL. In the second part, Li will present a two-part case study: first, the need for modifications of the English APPRAISAL (Martin and White 2005) framework to suit the Chinese language, arising out of analysing Chinese social media texts; second, an attempt to apply the modified framework to investigate the extent to which the translator’s choices in altering the ideological stance are “motivated” (Butt 1988) in the Chinese translation of a politically volatile English autobiography (Chang 2016).

ABSTRACT. Este coloquio presenta tres ponencias enmarcadas en el proyecto XXX que estudia las prácticas de resemiotización de distintas voces (oficiales y no oficiales) con diferentes posicionamientos en torno a la educación inclusiva. En primer lugar, Malhue, Alonzo y Bastías analizan el abordaje de la educación no sexista en Chile desde la perspectiva de voces oficiales (MINEDUC, Superintendencia de Educación y Agencia de Calidad) y desde el posicionamiento de voces no oficiales (Educación 2020, ACES y Colegio de Profesores). En segundo lugar, Vásquez, Alonzo y Rojas dan cuenta del proceso de Crossposting (Adami, 2014) de textos multimodales que se resemiotizan en cuatro plataformas digitales de la Superintendencia de Educación. En tercer lugar, Ceroni y Manghi realizan un análisis multimodal del discurso desde la voz oficial (Agencia de Calidad) y no oficial (TVN y liceo) sobre el significado de “ser el mejor liceo de Chile”. Las tres presentaciones muestran un análisis cualitativo realizado desde una perspectiva teórico-metodológica multimodal basada fundamentalmente en herramientas de la Gramática del Diseño Visual y en una mirada semiótico-social de la realidad. El corpus de las tres ponencias está conformado por textos multimodales de diferentes plataformas digitales (Sitio Web, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram) de las voces oficiales y no oficiales consideradas en cada presentación. Los resultados preliminares muestran, por un lado, que las voces oficiales utilizan diferentes estrategias comunicativas en las distintas plataformas (Twitter, Sitio Web, Facebook), en las que evidencian contradicciones en sus posicionamientos frente a las diversas temáticas abordadas. Por otro lado, las voces no oficiales analizadas aprovechan el espacio virtual para proponer otras maneras de acercarse al fenómeno educativo y para presentar otros agentes no contemplados por las voces oficiales.

Coordinadora: Patricia Baeza, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Centro de Investigación para la Educación Inclusiva

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Paper 1: La educación No sexista en Chile: ¿Qué significados construyen multimodalmente las voces oficiales en las plataformas digitales?

Katherine Malhue, Teresa Alonzo, Alfredo Bastías, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.

La demanda estudiantil que irrumpió la agenda nacional del año 2018 se vinculó con la revitalización de la educación pública, tanto a nivel de financiamiento como de las prácticas pedagógicas. Una de dichas prácticas que los estudiantes desean erradicar es la educación sexista; esta exige la transformación de las conductas y los modelos pedagógicos que históricamente han naturalizado el sexismo en el sistema educacional chileno. Por lo anterior, el objetivo de esta investigación es explorar las diferentes formas de abordar esta problemática en las voces oficiales: Mineduc, Agencia de Calidad y Superintendencia de Educación-. Este estudio utiliza una metodología cualitativa que incorpora un abordaje multimodal desde la perspectiva Semiótica Social enmarcada en la Lingüística Sistémica Funcional (Halliday, 1994, 2014). Se recolecta un corpus desde distintas plataformas digitales (Sitio Web, Facebook), el corpus multimodal está conformado por videos, afiches, noticias y posteos. Los textos son analizados manualmente con las categorías de la Gramática Visual (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001; 2006) con la finalidad de identificar los distintos recursos semióticos con los cuales cada institución de la voz oficial construye significado. Entre los resultados destacan tres aspectos: primero, se evidencian escasas publicaciones relativas a la problemática de la educación no sexista, recurriendo al reposteo de noticias de medios de comunicación que mezclan escritura y recursos visuales; segundo, se observa que las tres voces utilizan el Sitio Web para abordar esta problemática; la única que utiliza otra plataforma es la Agencia de Calidad (Facebook) siendo la que tiene un mayor número de publicaciones; y tercero, en cuanto a las temáticas, las voces presentan un rol como agentes normalizadores y propositivos de actividades reflexivas tanto para estudiantes como docentes, a través de publicaciones que abordan los temas de brecha de género, modificación y propuestas de protocolos y reglamentos.

Palabras claves: Educación sexista; análisis multimodal; plataformas digitales; formas de difusión

Paper 2: Crossposting de textos multimodales en plataformas digitales de la Superintendencia de Educación

Liliana Vásquez-Rocca, Universidad Andrés Bello

En el marco del proyecto XXX que estudia las prácticas de resemiotización de diversas voces en torno a la educación inclusiva, este estudio se centra en el crossposting (Adami, 2014) de instancias textuales publicadas por la Superintendencia de Educación en sus diversas plataformas. Crossposting puede ser entendido como un proceso de resemiotización (Iedema, 2003) en que una voz produce y distribuye sus textos a través de múltiples espacios en línea por medio de la inserción y el intercambio de publicaciones. El estudio se sitúa desde la perspectiva de la semiótica social (Hodge & Kress, 1988) para explorar los signos y comprender el rol de los diversos recursos que interactúan para significar en cada plataforma. Además se parte de la premisa de que la convergencia mediática no sólo se considera como un cambio tecnológico en la confluencia de múltiples plataformas sino también cultural (Jenkins, 2006); este hecho implica pensar en una nueva socialidad conectada (van Dijck, 2016). En este sentido, esta ponencia busca describir el proceso de crossposting en 10 cadenas semióticas que fueron publicadas entre el 10 de agosto y el 31 de octubre de 2018 por la Superintendencia de Educación a través de cuatro plataformas digitales: Sitio web, Facebook, Twitter e Instagram. La metodología tiene un enfoque cualitativo (Angouri, 2010) y el análisis considera tres niveles: Interconexiones entre plataformas, Mapeo de la direccionalidad de las publicaciones recolectadas y Análisis integrado (Adami, 2014; Newfield, 2015). Tras el análisis, los resultados preliminares muestran que el proceso de crossposting de la Superintendencia de Educación permite explorar un fenómeno que incide en la manera en que esta voz oficial quiere vincularse con sus diferentes públicos por medio de diversas estrategias tales como: 1) el intercambio de instancias textuales entre plataformas es más recurrente entre Twitter y Facebook; 2) la variedad en la direccionalidad en la conformación de las distintas cadenas semióticas analizadas; 3) la estabilidad en los modos utilizados en las cuatro plataformas, no así en los géneros y audiencia a las que se dirigen.

Palabras clave: Crossposting; resemiotización; plataformas digitales

Paper 3: Ser el mejor liceo de Chile: Un análisis multimodal del discurso de la Agencia de Calidad y de voces no oficiales

Dominique Manghi, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Centro de Investigación para la Educación Inclusiva

Patricia Ceroni, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

La inclusión educativa como mandato desde las políticas internacionales y nacionales ha instalado el discurso de educación de calidad para todos y todas, tanto en la voz oficial como en las voces no oficiales. La calidad y la inclusión se definen en el marco de la educación pública en Chile que, junto con la rendición de cuentas y mediciones, las enmarcan conceptualmente. La voz oficial declara la idea de calidad en distintas publicaciones en su Sitio Web, en videos de YouTube y en posteos de Facebook. Así también lo hacen voces no oficiales poniendo diferentes énfasis. Desde la Semiótica Social este trabajo se enfoca en un caso: un liceo destacado por su puntaje en la prueba estandarizada nacional: SIMCE. El objetivo es contrastar la voz de la Agencia de Calidad como organismo oficial con las voces no oficiales: canal de televisión TVN y el propio liceo. El corpus de la voz oficial está constituido por posteos de Facebook, una publicación en el Sitio Web y un video de YouTube; y el de las otras voces está conformado por dos reportajes de TVN además del Sitio Web del liceo destacado. Se lleva a cabo un análisis multimodal del discurso con herramientas de la Gramática del Diseño Visual y de la Sistémico-Funcional. Los resultados preliminares señalan que la voz oficial destaca los procesos materiales tanto en sus posteos escritos como en sus videos: estudiantes cocinando o tocando instrumentos. Si bien el sitio web de la Agencia recalca el SIMCE como herramienta de medición de calidad en la educación, las resemiotizaciones invisibilizan su papel. En tanto, TVN y el propio liceo construyen la educación integral como resistencia a las normativas oficiales. Lingüísticamente los estudiantes, apoderados y líderes político-administrativo locales son agentes mientras que los profesores y directivos son quienes los escuchan; visualmente los estudiantes son los agentes de procesos materiales. De manera intersemiótica, las voces no oficiales destacan estudiantes en acciones artísticas y la idea de un currículum centrado en ellos.

Palabras claves: multimodalidad; voz oficial; calidad educativa; Semiótica Social

ABSTRACT. This paper explores the role of dialogic resources in the creation of humour by analysing a five-minute excerpt of a stand-up comedy text (Gervais, 2008). Employing discourse analysis of the interaction of evaluative and ideational meanings (‘couplings, as per (Martin, 2000)), together with affiliation theory (Knight, 2010), humorous responses are explained as instances of tension between unshared value bonds tabled by the comedian and implicated value bonds shared by the audience, with laughter functioning to discharge tension. Refining how the affiliation model accommodates dialogism, dialogic resources are shown to play an important role in construing a number of projected voices in the text, which are associated to value positions. By negotiating value positions among authorial and dialogic voices, the comedian gains greater control in positioning the audience’s own alignment to value positions and is thus able to augment laughter resulting from bonds in tension.

Gervais, R. (2008). Out of England, performed at Madison Square Garden, New York. Written by R. Gervais. Moffitt-Lee Productions, UK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7XBaK7I2X8 Knight, N. K. (2010). Laughing our bonds off: conversational humour in relation to affiliation. (Dissertation/Thesis), University of Sydney, Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2123/6656 Martin, J. R. (2000). Factoring Out Exchange: Types of Structure. In M. Coulthard, F. Rock, & J. Cotterill (Eds.), Working with Dialogue (Vol. Bd. 22, pp. 19-40). Tübingen: Niemeyer.

ABSTRACT. As students move beyond the elementary years, the focus of instruction shifts from generic to disciplinary literacies. Middle school teachers have strong preparation in specific disciplines but only superficial knowledge about the language of their discipline. Literacy development is seen as the task of English teachers. Even in this case, instruction is around literature and not literacy. However, researchers argue that the middle school years (ages 11 to 14) lay the foundation for making meaning through writing in academic contexts with strong impact on the successful functioning in high school and tertiary education. This paper presents a study of middle school teachers’ understanding of English writing instruction informed by SFL. In particular what they consider teaching writing and language, how writing instruction is distinguished from content instruction, and at the same time aligned with content instruction. Fifteen teachers, who took online courses on genre-based pedagogy informed by SFL to teach academic writing, participated in the study. The data included a variety of assignments (a genre unit, analysis of student work, fully developed lesson), the instructor’s comments on the assignments, and participant interviews.

Lessons on the content of the discipline, lessons on the content of writing, specifically the purpose and stages of specific genres, and lessons on language, specifically language to express the metafunctions (ideational, logical, interpersonal, and textual) were analyzed. In addition, the nature of the metalanguage used in lesson descriptions was analyzed. Results show that these teachers struggled to distinguish between disciplinary and writing content. They had difficulty finding texts that represented the genres. They did not have the metalanguage to express the genre, stages, and specific language features they were demanding of their students. Over time, and assisted by the course materials and instructor’s comments, they began to see and name the features of genres and language. They included them in their unit plans as separate but related to the disciplinary content. They also began to use metalanguage consistent with the SFL informed genre-based pedagogy. Understanding the difference between the content of writing and language from disciplinary context allowed for more targeted writing instruction.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a systemic analysis of process types in academic texts from the perspective of the discourse-semantic framework of Appraisal. This work forms part of an on-going research study developed at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, whose goal is to explore how process types in Spanish are related to the expression of appraisal in academic writing.

Our study draws on Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) and, in particular, on the APPRAISAL system (Martin & White, 2005). In this study we considered only one of its subsystems, ATTITUDE, and its inscribed realizations.

We analyzed student texts collected at the Faculty of Arts, belonging to three disciplines (literature, history and geography) but to only one genre (essay). The method used in this study includes quantifying process types in the clauses that contain them and observing if these clauses express attitudinal meanings. The latter are then classified in three groups according to the ATTITUDE subsystem, that is to say, AFFECT, JUDGMENT and APPRECIATION.

The preliminary results show certain similarities between the three corpora: the prevalence of clauses without evaluation as compared to clauses that inscribe attitudinal semantics, and—within the structure of the latter—the dominance of relational processes among other types of processes. However, some differences were also found, e.g. the percentage of clauses without appraisal differs considerably in the three corpora. These and other findings will be presented within a small discussion about the interaction of the lexicogrammatical and semantic-discursive aspects of academic writing.

ABSTRACT. This presentation seeks to contribute to the scholarship which is interested in the value systems of speakers indicated via their linguistic choices. The value systems are realised by axiological orientations – patterns in the attitudes being advanced, activated or implied –as presented in the speech. The purpose of the presentation is to provide insights into the linguistic mechanisms by which speakers reveal their axiological orientations, respond to each other in terms of these axiological orientations, and thereby negotiate alignment/dis-alignment around these orientations.

This presentation will take three marriage mediation episodes in Mandarin reality TV shows as the data source. All these episodes feature real couples and mediators, and the latter ones are usually legal advisors, psychiatrists, and social workers. This study will focus on the axiological orientations of these speakers towards marriage related issues. Drawing on the Appraisal framework (Martin and White, 2005; White, 2012), this presentation will investigate the evaluative language deployed by each speaker in the show in terms of the attitudinal workings and dialogistic positionings of their speech. The discussion will focus on the underlying value systems involved when the speakers discuss/argue about/negotiate relationship problems, and on the linguistic means by which these values systems are advanced and negotiated. The presentation will also explore what values the speakers present as contestable and what value the speakers treat as uncontestable. The findings suggest that the axiological orientations in these shows tend to form identifiable value system clusters, for example, values concerning fidelity, gender roles in the family, happiness and conception of money in marriage. Also, the findings reveal that speakers have different degree of communality by reference to their axiological orientations. They align based on the shared beliefs, and dis-align if they favour different axiological positions. The presentation will conclude that it is possible to examine real people’s underlying value systems, at least as they are indicated via the linguistic choices they make as they speak through a fine-grained appraisal analysis.

ABSTRACT. Construir conocimientos disciplinares robustos requiere desarrollar las habilidades para participar legítimamente en las prácticas de las comunidades de especialistas de una o varias áreas de conocimiento; es decir, desarrollar las habilidades para problematizar las situaciones de interés, para simbolizarlas y comunicarlas de acuerdo con los principios y las convenciones propias de cada comunidad de estudio. Para dar cuenta del progresivo desarrollo de esas habilidades es conveniente rastrear las estrategias y los mecanismos a través de los cuales los aprendices interactúan con los conceptos, los modelos y los procedimientos analíticos diseñados por investigadores con experiencia, los procedimientos a través de los cuales los aprendices ajustan, amplían o modifican esos artefactos conceptuales y procedimentales para problematizar y abordar el estudio de la situación a investigar, así como los recursos de modulación implementados para ponerlos a disposición de la comunidad de práctica pretendida. Para ello, nos apoyamos en la propuesta teórica de la Teoría de Legitimación de Códigos. De acuerdo con este marco, identificamos y caracterizamos los recursos lingüístico-discursivos empleados en función de su contribución al plano semántico, al de especialización y al de autonomía (Maton 2013, 2014). De manera particular centramos la atención en la implementación de los procesos de ‘metaforización gramatical’ en tanto que indicadores de los diferentes grados de ‘especialización’ a los que se recurre para construir una investigación. Esta investigación aborda el estudio de 78 textos de 26 estudiantes de la 20ª Generación de la Maestría en Ciencias del Lenguaje, de la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, México. Los textos fueron recopilados a partir de tres actividades solicitadas en el Seminario de Análisis Lingüístico de Discursos que forma parte del 2º semestre del plan de estudios. En esta ocasión se expondrá los resultados del estudio comparativo de los procedimientos empleados por tres estudiantes a lo largo de las tres actividades. Es de esperar que una aproximación de esta naturaleza a la escritura de los alumnos pueda transformarse en una herramienta de diagnóstico significativa para apoyar la formación de estudiosos de los discursos.

ABSTRACT. Halliday (2009) contended that “language can be characterized as a complex dynamic system, one that persists through constant change in interaction with its (eco-social) environment. It belongs to the class of semiotic systems (systems of meaning), in contrast with systems of other kinds, physical, biological and social.” The ∞2 Influence Model of SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics) is constructed based on the complex dynamic systems theory, which synthesizes theory of information, cybernetics, general systems theory, dissipative structures theory, chaos theory and systems evolution theory etc. By revealing nature’s particles, waves and fields enduring patterns in systems of language under context of culture, it instances the stratal dimensions of semiotic systems. Ultimately, it is expected to explore the essence of complexity theory to maximize linguistic meaning potential, such as system networks and structures, which could be represented through a four-dimensional visual model. This image/text diagram by structural iconicity also synthesizes the eco-social influence perspective on episodic, progression and exchange behaviors patterns in semantics; gesturing in gestural system, and field, mode and tenor in context of situation. In terms of lexicogrammar, the ∞2 Influence Model of SFL could cover all possible syntagmatic and paradigmatic patterns in the hidden valence connections with actor (logical subject), theme (psychological subject), and subject (grammatical subject) within, below, above, around and beyond the clause. In regard with semantics, the ∞2 Influence Model of SFL constructs multidimensional semantic metafunction (ideational, figure, quantum of flow of events; textual, message, quantum of information; and interpersonal, move, quantum of interaction) and encyclopedic semantics web (frames, scripts, scenarios, schemata) from the upper to the middle, the lower ontology, as a scale-free, multi-level networks of meaning. As to context, the ∞2 Influence Model of SFL represents the pragmatic universals top-down convergence and universals of multidimensional linguistic bottom-up emergence, of which influences schemata of evolutionary ideologies within context of culture and situation between utterer and interpreter. In summary, the ∞2 Influence Model of SFL visualize semiotic systems thinking as nature’s particles, waves and fields enduring patterns, which has a great potential in transforming our societies into a more human and egalitarian place to live in.

ABSTRACT. This study examines the bilingual range of high school students who are Spanish Heritage Language Learners in a northeastern city in the United States. It also emphasizes the potential uses of Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in an academic writing workshop for heritage students whose first language is English. Given that these students have developed their linguistic registers at home and in informal contexts, this study aims to explore the use of written Spanish to construct knowledge in an academic setting. This study was framed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as it takes a semantic perspective on writing and orality. From the perspective of SFL, grammar’s meaning and form are not separated but stand in a dialectical relationship to each other, and most importantly meaning is always construed in a social context (Colombi & Harrington, 2012, p. 248). In addition, written and spoken languages should not be treated as two different linguistic codes, but two different language resources that fulfill different functions in different social contexts. SFL could also take academic writing in Spanish as not only a different medium of expression than oral language, but also a means of constructing a semiotic system which adds to the everyday language that students already have (Schleppegrell & Colombi, 1997). The results of this study showed that students’ texts demonstrated how they moved from grammatical choices that replicate oral registers toward more academic written text. The results also showed how bilingual students moved in the direction of developing academic registers in their academic writing Spanish at the high school level.

ABSTRACT. Animation is widely acknowledged for dynamically visualizing information and has been increasingly used in educational context. However, the growing presence of animation used for educational purposes has not been accompanied by well-informed studies that focus on the semiotic features of animation (Berney & Bétrancourt, 2016; Ploetzner & Lowe, 2012). This study models animation as semiosis in the tradition of Social Semiotics and Systemic Functional Semiotics, drawing on the key concept of metafunction. Of great relevance are the modelling of language (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Hao, 2015; Martin, 1992) and image (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Painter, Martin, & Unsworth, 2012) as meaning-making systems. However, a danger for modelling a new semiosis is to completely follow the descriptions of those well-researched semiosis without capturing the different nature of the semiosis in question. This study illustrates how we can try to avoid this danger by integrating multidisciplinary knowledge, including animation design, physics and biology of perception and science education. Based on an examination of science animations collected from the website of TED-ed animation and study.com, the ideational meaning systems and textual meanings systems of animation are developed to explore the role of animation in construing science knowledge. This multidisciplinary perspective on modelling semiosis fosters a more in-depth understanding of the semiosis of animation and its relationship with other semiosis.

ABSTRACT. Ideology has been studied and analysed in all major linguistic paradigms, with a single notable exception. In this final presentation, I will consider what the problem of ideology means for the study of language, and, by extension, the demands that it puts on the discipline of linguistics. I will briefly set out the inconsistencies in the approach to ideology in both CDA and Cognitive Linguistics, before arguing that ideology is a function of the internal organisation of language, a product of the what I have called the “semiotic big bang” (Lukin 2019), when language emerged out of protolanguage and became characterised by multi-stratal, realisation and metafunctional complexity (Halliday 2002). This semiotic complexity is the basis for language having the ideological potential which underpins our ongoing reliance on organized violence as a political resource (Malešević, 2010).

ABSTRACT. El presente estudio, se enmarca dentro de la Red Leer para Aprender-Chile (LepA), que busca implementar y medir el impacto de las estrategias didácticas de lectura y escritura propuestas en el programa Leer para Aprender (Rose & Martin, 2013, 2018). El cual está basado en la pedagogía de género y en los géneros curriculares investigados en la década de los 80 por la “Escuela de Sydney”. Este programa busca integrar la enseñanza de la lecto-escritura en las asignaturas desde la perspectiva Sistémico-Funcional (Halliday,1994; Christie,1995; Bernstein,1996, 2004; Martin & Rose, 2007). Este trabajo busca dar a conocer el resultado de una investigación-acción cuyo objetivo es el desarrollo de la comprensión lectora y la evolución de la escritura de diferentes géneros discursivos (Exposición descriptiva, clasificatoria, compositiva y argumentación) en el aula de estudiantes que cursan octavo básico, en un colegio municipal de la comuna de Las Condes. Se desarrolló de manera colaborativa con docentes de las asignaturas de Lenguaje y Ciencias, para desarrollar tanto los conocimientos disciplinarios como las habilidades lingüísticas. Para evaluar los géneros redactados por los alumnos se utilizó el criterio de evaluación de la escritura de LepA, a través de una pauta que identifica cualitativamente los recursos lingüísticos utilizados por los estudiantes y los mide cuantitativamente según el estándar esperado para el nivel. Las intervenciones realizadas se aplicaron utilizando secuencias didácticas (Westhoff, 2017) que comprendieron las estrategias de: Preparación para la lectura, Lectura detallada, Reescritura, Construcción conjunta y Escritura independiente y que responden a las exigencias del currículum chileno. A partir de los resultados preliminares del estudio, se observó en las muestras del pretest: desconocimiento del propósito, etapas y fases del género argumentativo, bajo dominio léxico - gramatical para construir y mantener el campo, tenor y modo; escasa utilización de recursos de evaluación, conexión y referencia, además del desconocimiento de las normas ortográficas. Lo anterior, presentó mejoras de un 30% tras la primera intervención de LepA en la producción del género argumentación, en los aspectos discursivos como: propósito, etapas y fases; construcción y mantención del campo, tenor y modo.

ABSTRACT. Chinese is a language that is considered ‘difficult’ by a lot of non-speakers. Very often the difficulty is reflected in the fact that descriptions about certain aspects of Chinese grammar do not agree with each other. This presentation focuses on one such aspect – the interrogative mood in the interpersonal grammar of Chinese. There are a good number of ways to ask questions in Chinese; therefore, many accounts of the grammar about asking questions have been put forward, predictably with disagreements and even disparities. Previous descriptions have classified Chinese interrogatives into two, three, four, five, or more types, each based on different grounds. This presentation provides a study of the enactment of interpersonal meaning and its lexicogrammatical realisations in terms of soliciting knowledge in dialogic exchanges, with text-based, axis-oriented, trinocular perspectives. The description of Chinese interrogative mood takes the interpersonal discourse semantic system of NEGOTIATION (Berry, 1981; Martin, 1992; Martin & Rose, 2007) as point of departure, and in the meanwhile takes into consideration the highly relevant discourse semantic system of ENGAGEMENT (Martin & White, 2005), which is mainly realised through the grammatical system of MODAL ASSESSMENT and interacts in significant ways with the interrogative mood. Comparative analyses are also provided in this presentation, both intralingually between Mandarin the standardised modern Chinese and other varieties of Chinese, and interlingually with English and Spanish where applicable (Martin et al., in prep). This study highlights and makes explicit the principles and methodologies informed by SFL in describing, modelling, and comparing grammar in particular languages, giving privilege to paradigmatic relations and also motivating systemic choices from structural realisations.

References

Berry, M. (1981). Systemic linguistics and discourse analysis: a multi-layered approach to exchange structure. In M. Coulthard & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Studies in Discourse Analysis (pp. 120–145). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Martin, J. R. (1992). English Text: System and Structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Martin, J. R. & Rose, D. (2007). Working with Discourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause (2nd ed.). London: Continuum. Martin, J. R. & White, P. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London: Palgrave. Martin, J. R., Quiroz, B., Wang, P. & Zhu, Y. (in prep). Systemic Functional Grammar: Another Step into the Theory – Grammatical Description. Beijing: Higher Education Press.