Thursday 3 December 2015

Three Minor Clarifications

Martin (1992: 376-7):
Carter also reports on Francis's (1985) study of what she terms anaphoric nouns (A-nouns).  These are used in conjunction with anaphoric reference items to refer to preceding discourse. … Carter (1987: 80) lists the following examples of Francis's A-nouns.  All, it can be noted, are grammatical metaphors, reflecting the fact that congruent English reconstructs discourse as a rhetorical process, not as a product or thing.
retrospective



Examples from Francis (A-nouns)






accusation
consideration
interpretation
report
admission
criticism
judgement
repudiation
allegation
declaration
observation
retort
answer
definition
point
revelation
argument
denial
prediction
statement
assumption
description
proposal
stipulation
belief
diagnosis
proposition
suggestion
challenge
estimate
reading
threat
complaint
evidence
reasoning
theory
conclusion
examination
reference
viewpoint
confession
hypothesis
refusal



Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, these 'anaphoric nouns' are nominalisations that name types of verbal and mental projections.  Any anaphoric function is realised by the reference item that marks its identity as recoverable in the preceding discourse. 

[2] The congruent construes experience; the metaphorical reconstrues experience.

[3] In SFL theory, 'discourse as process' is theorised as logogenesis: the unfolding of text through the instantiation of potential.