Chapter 3 – Texts and interpersonal meaning
Activities and comments/projects
Download All (ZIP 362KB)(Activities that are asterisked are particularly useful for discussion in class, in which case multiple copies or PowerPoints of the text could be produced.)
Activity 25
It might be interesting for you to make a note of the individuals you interact with on any one day, and figure out:
- whether they are superior to/more powerful than you, and if so why;
- what degrees or kind of contact you have with them, and whether they are the sort of people to whom you would expect to express strong emotions.
*Activity 26.*
Rewrite the following text from a teachers’ handbook, replacing the imperatives with modals of obligation. To help you, the imperatives are underlined. What effect does the rewriting have on the interpersonal relationship between the writer and teacher? And what does the frequency of imperatives in the original suggest about the role or autonomy of the teacher in this particular education system and classroom?
GETTING STARTED
Discuss the concept of the four dimensions with your pupils. This will prepare them for the reading as well. According to Collier’s Encyclopaedia the four dimensions are length, width, height and time. The fourth dimension, which is time, also refers to any additional quality beyond what is ordinarily expected. Ask pupils to think about the fourth dimension in this less specific sense, and discuss the possibility of life on other planets.
The poem is provided as a stimulus. Check pupils’ comprehension of it.
Assign pupils to read on the topic ahead of the lesson, so that they can contribute to the discussion of aliens. You may choose to focus the topic as an oral book review session.
Alternatively, use the kit to introduce pupils to science fiction, in particular the work of H.G. Wells.
(Clue 2 Teachers’ Guide, p. 12)
One possible rewrite is as follows.
GETTING STARTED
You might discuss the concept of the four dimensions with your pupils. This will prepare them for the reading as well. According to Collier’s Encyclopaedia the four dimensions are length, width, height and time. The fourth dimension, which is time, also refers to any additional quality beyond what is ordinarily expected. You must ask pupils to think about the fourth dimension in this less specific sense, and should discuss the possibility of life on other planets. The poem is provided as a stimulus. You ought to check pupils’ comprehension of it.
It is suggested you assign pupils to read on the topic ahead of the lesson, so that they can contribute to the discussion of aliens. You may choose to focus the topic as an oral book review session.
Alternatively, you could use the kit to introduce pupils to science fiction, in particular the work of H.G. Wells.
*Activity 27.*
The following is a rather dogmatic and assertive text, as is often the case with D.H. Lawrence. What kind of interpersonal relationship does it convey between writer and reader? Rewrite it, making it less dogmatic by adding or changing modal features, frequency expressions and quantifiers.
As a matter of fact, till 1800 the English people were strictly a rural people – very rural. England has had towns for centuries, but they have never been real towns, only clusters of village streets. The English character has failed to develop the real urban side of man, the civic side. Siena is a bit of a place, but it is a real city, with citizens intimately concerned with the city. Nottingham is a vast place sprawling towards a million, and it is nothing more than an amorphous agglomeration. There is no Nottingham in the sense that there is a Siena.
One possibility is as follows:
As a matter of fact, till 1800 many English people were mainly a rural people – very rural. England might have had towns for centuries, but they have seldom been real towns, only clusters of village streets. The English character has usually failed to develop the real urban side of man, the civic side. Siena is a bit of a place, but it could be a real city, with citizens intimately concerned with the city. Nottingham is a vast place sprawling towards a million, and it sometimes seems to be little more than an amorphous agglomeration. There may be no Nottingham in the sense that there is a Siena.
(D.H. Lawrence (1950). ‘Nottingham and the Mining Country’, from Selected Essays, Harmondsworth: Penguin, p. 21).
Activity 28
Compare and contrast these two letters and replies which are rewrites of letters that appeared in Woman’s World (4 January 1997), with the essential interpersonal linguistic features preserved.
- What different relationships do the replies set up between the questioner and the expert who replies? How do these replies differ, if at all, in levels of assertiveness, i.e. in which are generalisations made or modal devices used? Which comes across as more dominant, for example in use of imperative commands or modals of obligation, the doctor in ‘Doc’s Corner’ or the psychotherapist in ‘Helping the Kids’?
- Can you suggest an explanation for any differences here, perhaps to do with the relative social status of doctors and psychotherapists?
- What modal devices and moods do the questioners use? What does this convey about their predicament?
Doc’s Corner |
Helping the Kids |
"Work gives me the runs"Q I get diarrhoea, but only on Sundays, the day before I go back to work. My job is more stressful recently, since I now have to work without an assistant. Could my work and my stomach be connected? A Certainly! One of the most common types of diarrhoea is stress-related, and known as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Those who suffer feel pain most intensely in the lower abdomen, and have a looseness of the bowels. Some people get relief by massage, taking long deep breaths and meditating. Strenuous exercise on weekends may help as well. Neurologist Algernon Rathbone M.D |
"He’s too devoted to his girlfriend"Q My son Paul, 16, calls his girlfriend Maggie a lot and dotes on her when she visits. But Maggie rarely calls Paul and doesn’t say much to him when she’s here. I think Paul puts too much in and gets too little out. She’s his first girlfriend and I’d hate this to become a pattern. What can I do? A Being sensitive to Paul’s feelings, get him to consider what he likes in a relationship. What is his idea of a good girlfriend? How does his relationship to Maggie compare with that? Let him realise that he has a right to have his needs met. Encourage him to talk about this with Maggie. Then stand back. Your first relationship with a girl is a learning experience. Experience is often a better teacher than a worrying parent. Adolescent psychotherapist Obadiah Merton C.S.W. |
The doctor in ‘Doc’s Corner’ is more measured in tone than the rather dominant psychotherapist in ‘Helping the Kids’. Most obviously the contrast is apparent in the psychotherapist’s many imperatives: ‘get’, ‘let’, ‘encourage’, ‘stand back’. The doctor uses declarative mood, and his statements are almost constantly modalised, whether with the high-probability ‘certainly’ or the lower-probability ‘may’, or the medium generality of ‘some’.
It may be that because doctors have a higher, more scientific status than psychotherapists, they can afford to be less dogmatic and assertive.
The diarrhoea questioner suggests that she finds her obligations restrictive by using the modal verb have to. The girlfriend questioner comes over as diffident, with her subjective verb ‘I think’, and as emotional with her strong expression of disinclination ‘I’d hate’. On the other hand, her modals of frequency ‘a lot’, ‘rarely’ suggest a reasonable mother – she doesn’t exaggerate with all the time or never. Both of them ask interrogative questions, of course, which reflect their position as seeking expert advice.
Activity 29
Look at the post ‘#IceBucketChallenge: why you’re not really helping’, given below, and analyse the use of first and second person pronouns.
- How do the pronouns change in the course of the blog post?
- Do they always refer to the same groups? For example, the ‘we’ and ‘you’ of all the paragraphs?
- When ‘you’ is used, who does it refer to? Is it used oddly, i.e. does it, as we would expect, always refer to the intended readers of the column? If not, what is the purpose of its unusual use?
- Is ‘we’/‘our’ used inclusively or exclusively? If it includes the reader, what kind of reader would that be? We would expect it to include the writer, but is there some doubt about this?
#IceBucketChallenge: Why you’re not really helping
(1) If you’ve been on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram in the last week, you’ve probably seen it: countless videos of people dumping ice on themselves to help raise awareness of ALS. It’s done a tremendous job at getting people to talk about a truly debilitating disease – but that’s mostly all it’s done – get people to talk. Let me explain.
(2) Slacktivism is a relatively new term with only negative connotations being associated with it as of recently. The whole thinking is that instead of actually donating money, you’re attributing your time and a social post in place of that donation. Basically, instead of donating $10 to Charity XYZ, slacktivism would have you create a Facebook post about how much you care about Charity XYZ – generating immediate and heightened awareness but lacking any actual donations and long-term impact. Previous examples of slacktivism are not hard to find – remember in 2012 when everyone, and I mean everyone, shared the Kony video? Very few people knew who Kony was, how they could donate or where they could get involved – but all of a sudden, these viewers (myself, included) could contribute! We could share the Kony video on our Facebook and Twitter – and while doing so, eliminating any chance we may have had at donating our time or money towards an actual prevention or cause directly related to the capture of Kony. You see, we valued our social posts at an incrementally higher cost than a donation – and by placing a subconscious value on our Facebook post or Tweet, we told ourselves that we had done our part in trying to find Kony and then were able to pleasantly shift our thinking back to what we were going to eat for lunch. We had helped. We had participated. We patted ourselves on the back. We had tweeted. We could now go back to tweeting about our lives.
(3) When the #IceBucketChallenge started, the person who was challenged to participate had 24 hours or else they had to donate $100. However, due to the viral nature of the videos, this major component has mostly evaded the majority of the videos. Instead, people buy the bags, set up a camera, grab a bucket and think of which friends they’re going to tag. You probably didn’t get the right angle the first go around and maybe the second time you fumbled your words – oops, more ice. By the end of it, you might have bought six bags and spent 30 minutes on creating this video. Boom, posted – and all of a sudden you’re a philanthropist, spreading your charitable touch across your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Due to all of this, you’ve internally placed a monetary value on the cost of goods, the time spent and for posting on your social channels. This monetary value has little long-term effect and next time you’re thinking of donating to a charity or for a cause, you might think back to that time you created a video. You’ve done your part, remember?
(4) And although the ALS Association has seen as much as four times as many donations during this time period than last year, just imagine with me for one second: What if the thousands of people who spent money on buying one or two bags of ice actually gave that money to ALS? It would be out of control. But that’s not how we think.
(5) Our online profiles have become a direct reflection of who we are online; our life experiences are no longer an experience if isn’t shared. We aren’t having a great time unless we stop, take a picture of it and share it with everyone. We have an internal value associated with each Facebook post, Tweet and Instagram. If you use that social action to help further a cause, that social action is taking the place of an actual donation. Instead of donating, we are posting. By creating such awareness, this awareness has a cap; a ceiling of sorts, that if reached can then become cannibalistic in nature. The viral nature of this almost hurts ALS due to the substitution of potential donations with a social post; internally, people think they have donated when in turn they’ve only posted.
(6) We’re social creatures. We’re using the #IceBucketChallenge to show off our summer bodies. We’re using it to tag old friends. We’re using it to show people we care. We’re using it to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. We’re using it to promote ourselves, in one way or another.
(7) The #IceBucketChallenge has done a tremendous job at generating awareness for a terrible disease. But next time somebody challenges you to participate, try to show your friends how crazy you really are and just donate to the cause.
The first- and second-person pronouns are used in all seven paragraphs. Paragraphs 1, 3 and 7 use the second-person pronoun exclusively, and paragraph 4 uses first-person pronouns exclusively.
In the first two paragraphs, the ‘you’ addresses the reader of the blog post, someone who is an active participant on social media.
In paragraph 3, the ‘you’ refers to and addresses people who have specifically taken up the ice bucket challenge for a charitable cause. Towards the end of the paragraph, the ‘you’ appears to address readers who intend taking up the challenge or those who are considering doing so. Thus, potential readers who have not yet taken up the challenge are also invited into the conversation. So, the use of ‘you’ blurs the distinction between people who have used social media for a charitable cause and the people considering it. Similarly, in paragraph 7 the ‘you’ refers to the reader of the blog post.
In paragraph 2 the ‘we’ is used to refer to people who used social media to further a cause without actually doing something substantial about the cause. It is, therefore, initially ambiguous between being inclusive or exclusive, as it refers to the specific group of people who place a higher value on the use of social media rather than the related cause itself. But, when we get to ‘everyone’ this surely claims the ‘we’ as inclusive. The writer might hope the article will shift readers from being included in the ‘we’ to being excluded from the ‘we’. The ‘we’, and ‘our’ in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6, appear to be inclusive. While ‘we’ may appear to only refer to people who use social media as a substitute to charity, it also refers to people using social media in general.
Activity 30
TACOMA
A whole NEW line of TRUCKS from TOYOTA.
STRONGER. FASTER. BETTER. That’s the GOAL of every competitor.
To OUTPERFORM the field. To be the BEST there is.
Introducing TACOMA. The new BREED of Toyota Truck.
With three totally NEW engines that deliver MORE power up and down the line than ever before. A 4-cylinder 2.4. litre POWERPLANT that outperforms the leading competition’s standard V6’s, even carrying a half-ton payload.
And a 3.4 liter V6 that OUTMUSCLES their biggest V6’s. RESPONSIVE handling. Braking power that stops shorter FASTER and more CONFIDENTLY. Even class-
leading 4×4 ground CLEARANCE.
Plus the added safety of a driver-side airbag.
Altogether it’s the heart and soul of a WINNER.
The new TACOMA has arrived. And it’s every inch a CHAMPION. Call 1800 GO-
TOYOTA for a BROCHURE and the location of your NEAREST DEALER.
TOYOTA TACOMA I love what you do for me
Which of the sentences in the above advert are complete sentences?
The only complete sentences are these:
- That’s the GOAL of every competitor.
- Altogether it’s the heart and soul of a WINNER.
- The new TACOMA has arrived.
- And it’s every inch a CHAMPION.
- Call 1800 GO-TOYOTA for a BROCHURE and the location of your NEAREST DEALER.
- I love what you do for me.
*Activity 31*
Find an advertisement in a magazine or newspaper. Bring it to class and discuss its use of commands (imperatives) pronouns and minor sentences. What interpersonal effects do their uses have? What other purposes might these features serve?
Activity 32
The following letter was printed in Newsweek of 1 June 1998. Comment on the use of emotional vocabulary. Are there any words that would appear emotionally neutral out of context but in this letter take on a negative spin? Are there any terms here that are used euphemistically?
Pol Pot was a genocidal monster but your article ‘Pol Pot’s Last Days’ (ASIA April 27) failed to say that the United States helped to create and support him. From 1969 to 1975 the United States repeatedly bombed Cambodia, continuing even in the face of a congressional ban. CIA figures show that 1.5 million people were displaced and 600,000 were killed. Pol Pot’s holocaust followed, lasting until Vietnam’s 1978 invasion, when China and the United States directly helped his Khmer Rouge reconstruct and continue terrorist killing.
I think that ‘genocidal’ has very strong negative emotions suggesting the deliberate attempt to wipe out a certain racial group, rather than the unplanned killing that takes place in a civil war. It is not a subjective adjective, however, and whether Pol Pot’s actions were genocidal or not could theoretically be verified or falsified. This is not true of ‘monster’, which is totally subjective in its negative affect. ‘Failed’ is a word with negative spin, compared with the more neutral omitted. ‘Holocaust’ is generally applied to the Nazi killings in the death camps in the Second World War, and therefore is a little metaphorical here, and so fairly subjective. ‘Displaced’ sounds like a positively spinning euphemism substituting for driven out or we could think of the phrase displaced person as a by now conventional euphemism for refugee. ‘Terrorist’ has plenty of negative spin, compared with the positive freedom fighter or the neutral guerrilla. ‘Invasion’ could be negative in other contexts, but seems more neutral or even positive here.
There are a group of words which would seem to have positive emotional spin elsewhere, but when connected to Pol Pot become tainted and negative: ‘helped’, ‘support’, ‘reconstruct’. They exemplify the fluidity of emotional meanings according to context.
Activity 33.
Use the beginning of the feature article on coffee from the teenage magazine Jump, below, to try to apply what you have learnt from the last three sections (3.5–3.7) on the imitation of speech, formality and emotional lexis.
- How is speech imitated in the article? Are there minor sentences? How is a sense of (mock) dialogue created? Can you detect any rhythmical patterns, for example in Section 2?
- This passage seems to almost exaggerate and celebrate the wide stylistic range of vocabulary from the formal to the informal. Can you illustrate this, using the labels from the COBUILD English Dictionary about different stylistic classes of words (see page 106).
- Do you find any words which have positive or negative emotional spin, for example in Sections 1–3 and Section 6? Can you provide words which convey the same idea but with neutral or opposite spin? Is there any use of euphemism, for instance in Section 4? Do you find any contested words, perhaps in Sections 5 or 6? Is the author conscious of their potential contestation? What evidence do you have?
You might also like to use this passage to revise work done on degrees of assertiveness: how are probability, universality and subjectivity expressed?
The Dish
(1) What’s all the buzz about?
(2) Whether you’re a quivering caffeine junkie or just a casual sipper, there’s more to that hair-raising jolt than meets the eye.
By Cindy Walker
(3) What would you say if someone offered you a steaming hot cup of 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine? ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Well, guess what. You just refused a cup of coffee. 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine is the fancy-schmancy name for caffeine, that go-go ingredient in everything from sodas to snickers. Yet, despite its overwhelming presence, there are many myths brewing about caffeine. So, before you declare yourself a mocha maven, test your caffeine chutzpah to see if you’re really full of (coffee) beans.
True or False?
(4) A cup of coffee will keep the love handles away. True or False?
False. Sure, we’ve all felt that first blast of energy after drinking a fat mug of coffee, but that doesn’t mean you’re blasting the pounds away. While a moderate dose of caffeine might temporarily jump start your metabolism, it’s not an appetite suppressant. In fact, in 1991 the FDA banned the use of caffeine in over-the-counter diet pills because, unlike proper nutrition and exercise, it has no proven long term affect [sic] on weight.
(5) Chemically, caffeine is in the same family as poisonous compounds such as strychnine, nicotine and morphine. True or False?
True. Caffeine is found in the leaves, seeds and fruits of more than 60 plants, including coffee, cacao beans, kola nuts and tea leaves. But, despite caffeine’s au naturel origins, its chemical make-up belongs to the same family of potentially lethal compounds as emetine. But fear not the hot black brew. A recent study suggests that women who drink two or more cups of coffee a day are less likely to commit suicide than those who don’t drink coffee at all.
(6) The road to an Olympic gold medal is paved with coffee beans. True or False?
Both. By revving up the central nervous system caffeine can temporarily enhance athletic performance. But while your Gym teacher might applaud you for your effortless sprint, the International Olympic committee could hand you your walking papers. Classified as a ‘doping agent’, caffeine intake is restricted by the committee. Some cardiologists also warn that caffeine before a workout can raise blood pressure.
(Jump August 1998, pp. 46, 48)
1.
The minor sentences are the replies to questions. ‘“Thanks, but no thanks.”’ (Section 3) ‘False’ (Section 4) ‘True’ (Section 5), ‘Both’ (Section 6) . There are also a number of sentences beginning with but (Section 5 and 6), which might give the impression of incomplete sentences.
A sense of (mock) dialogue is created by
- the (expository) questions and answers of the True or False segment (Sections 4-6)
- the title, which is a question
- the question (Section 3) which imagines an offer of 1, 3, 7 trimethylxanthine to the reader, with the reader’s reply
- the follow up to this reply-- ‘Well, guess what’--in imperative mood.
The rhythm of Section 2 could be diagrammed thus, with each line constituting a repeated rhythm.
/ x / x / x / x / x
Whether you’re a quivering caffeine junkie
or
/ x / x / x
just a casual sipper,
x / x x / x x /
there’s more to that hair-raising jolt
x / x /
than meets the eye.
2.
By deliberately substituting the technical scientific (chemical) term for coffee in the imagined dialogue, the whole passage seems to foreground/make fun of technicality.
But it also seems to delight in mixing these technical scientific words with slang:
‘fancy-schmancy’ and ‘go-go’ come hard on the heels of ‘trimethylxanthine’. ‘Jump start’ (colloquial) and ‘metabolism’ (medical) and ‘revving up’ (slang) and ‘central nervous system’ (medical) are similarly placed together in contrasting pairs.
The level of formality also veers wildly from one sentence to the next: ‘But, despite caffeine’s au naturel origins, its chemical make-up belongs to the same family of potentially lethal compounds as emetine. But fear not the hot black brew.’ The first of these sentences has six words of three or more syllables, and a very technical word ‘emetine’. The next sentence is entirely one-syllable words. It is interesting that this archaic expression but fear not... has now become a quite fashionable colloquialism. Similarly, ‘maven’ and ‘chutzpah’ are markedly slang, and ‘full of beans’ is (rather dated) slang, but brought in for the sake of the pun.
3.
- Here are some examples we spotted of emotional vocabulary
Negative spin |
Positive spin |
Euphemism |
junkie (cf. addict, user) |
go-go (cf. active, hyper-active) |
love handles (cf. belly |
- ‘But fear not the hot black brew’ looks to me racially insensitive. It suggests that coffee could be feared because it is black, thus preying on stereotypical metaphors of darkness as evil, which might be transferred to ‘people of colour’.
Table C1 Major markers of universality, subjectivity and probability
universality (frequency) |
subjectivity |
probability |
In everything from soda to |
A recent |
What would you say |
*Activity 34*
Imagine that you are working as an administrative assistant in the Road Safety Department of the Ministry of Communications. The fitting of baby seats in the rear of cars has become compulsory recently, and you receive two letters enquiring about how good the brand XXX car baby seats are. One of these letters is from an unknown member of the public. The other one happens to be from an old schoolfriend, who didn’t know you worked in this department. The letter you write to the member of the public goes as follows:
The Ministry of Communications
Land Transport Division
Road Safety Department
460 Alexandra Road
PSA Building #39
12th December 1999
Dear Mrs Jones
This is to acknowledge your letter of the 5th December and your request for advice on the efficacy and local availability of XXX baby seats.
The Road Safety Department of the Ministry of Communications is involved in research aimed at increasing safety on the roads through vehicle safety testing, effective road construction and traffic redirection. Details of some of the studies and tests conducted are to be found in the enclosed November/December issue of Safer Roads.
Officers of the Department are, however, not aware of XXX vehicle baby seats and are thus unable to comment on their efficacy and availability. The Road Safety Department does not usually test commercial products; this role is more often undertaken by the Automobile Association. You can contact the association at 336 River Valley Road to ascertain whether it has tested the product.
Yours sincerely
Jane Lee
Write a letter to your old schoolfriend, conveying the same information as the letter above. Your letter should be in a more personal and informal style. To achieve this:
- change passive constructions to active;
- change nominalisations back into verbs and adjectives;
- use the appropriate first- and second-person pronouns where necessary (sometimes you may have to change the modal structures to do this);
- substitute informal for formal lexis where you can: you may wish to consult a dictionary, as well as a thesaurus to achieve a more or less consistent level of informality;
- use contractions, and minor sentences in places;
- introduce emotive vocabulary and intensifiers where appropriate;
- think about whether or not to use fully blocked layout (everything set against the right hand margin) as in the formal version, and experiment with the salutation and valediction.
Activity 35.
Take a look at the image Unit 2 of the book showing a reactional process of a football player in (Image 2.7, p. 79). What kind of interpersonal meaning is realised with regard to perspective of the image?
The image uses a subjective perspective as it requires most of the viewer’s attention. The viewer’s attention with respect to degree of involvement is realised through the use of the visual horizontal frontal angle. This brings out a message of inclusion, where the football player is projected as part of the viewer’s world. Regarding degree of power, the player (represented participant) is at the same level or angle as the viewer (interactive participant). As a result, they share an equal relation, that of neutral power. Thus, the choice of the frontal angle at the same level is used to realise a higher degree of involvement as well as an equality of status to depict a ‘one of us’ kind of visual.
Project 1
Take a passage of about two paragraphs from an academic textbook, which explains an important concept. Re-write it for schoolchildren.
Try to
- make the text less formal – get rid of nominalisations, and passives, choose less formal vocabulary where possible, use contractions;
- make your text more personal – introduce first- and/or second-person pronouns;
- be more explicit, by stating clearly some of the assumptions that the original text makes, but which your pupil readers may not know;
- make your text more visually informative than the original: this will also give you the opportunity to introduce minor sentences, e.g. in bulleted lists or diagrams, and to consider whether to enhance involvement or show power by viewing angles;
- when you have finished the first draft, use one or more of the Microsoft Word readability indices to see whether it is suitable for the grade level you have in mind;
- refer to Chapter 4 to see how you might use explanatory metaphor to get your ideas across more effectively.
It’s useful to add footnotes or marginal notes to the text you create, indicating exactly what changes you have made and why you have made them. Include the original, unsimplified text.
Try the rewritten text out on some real pupils, and get some feedback through interviews or questionnaires to test their level of comprehension. How successful was your rewrite? Which parts still need improving?
Quiz
Further Reading
Further reading for Chapter 3
Poynton, in the last chapter of Language and gender, gives an excellent overview of the resources for constructing interpersonal relationships, as well as the model of social relationships from which we borrow the dimensions of Power, Contact and Emotion (Affect). Martin gives a more theoretical and dense account in English Text, pp. 523-536
- Martin, J. R. (1992). English text: System and structure. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
- Poynton, C. (1989). Language and gender: Making the difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The grammatical dimensions of mood and modality have authoritative treatments in Halliday and Matthiessen’s Introduction chapter 4, Downing and Locke chapter 5 and Eggins chapter 6. Equally useful is Fairclough’s treatment of modality and evaluation in Analysing Discourse, chapter 10.
- Downing, A., & Locke, P. (2006). English grammar: A university course (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
- Eggins, S. (2004). An introduction to systemic functional linguistics (2nd ed.). New York and London: Continuum.
- Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge.
- Halliday, M. A. K. & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar (3rd ed.). London: Hodder.
Simpson chapters 2 and 3 develop the Hallidayan analysis of mood and modality into a theory of narrative point of view in prose fiction.
- Simpson, P. (2003). Language, ideology and point of view. London: Routledge.
Halliday and Hasan’s Cohesion in English pp. 43-57 discusses the English pronoun system in some depth. Rob Pope in Textual Intervention pp. 51-3, 60-68 shows how complicated and ambiguous the reference of pronouns can become in lyrics. Montgomery (1986) does the same for DJ talk.
- Halliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
- Pope, R. (1995). Textual intervention: Critical and creative strategies for literary studies. London: Routledge.
- Montgomery, M. (1986). ‘DJ talk’. Media, Culture & Society, 8(4): 421–440.
Nash’s Designs in Prose has an interesting chapter 6 on the relationships of a writer to his [sic] reader. Pages 152-154 discuss levels of formality and emotion in vocabulary, as does Geoffrey Leech’s Semantics pp. 12-18.
- Leech, G. N. (1981). Semantics: The study of meaning (2nd ed.). London: Penguin.
- Nash, W. (1980). Designs in prose: A study of compositional problems and methods. Harlow: Longman.
The article by Monbiot is a very accessible account of current ideological euphemisms.
- Monbiot, G. (2014). ‘Cleansing the stock’. www.monbiot.com/2014/10/21/cleansing-the-stock, retrieved 18 October 2015.