Tuesday 30 August 2016

Misconstruing Semantics (Activity Sequence) As Context (Field)

Martin (1992: 564, 565, 566, 568):
These "stories" are alike in that they are built up around a set of narrative clauses (an activity sequence in terms of the field theory developed here); …
For Plum, as in Martin and Rothery's work, the recount is a relatively iconic rendering of an activity sequence (the Record stage); … Expectancies about how an activity sequence will unfold are countered, with ensuing events departing from the norm in some significant way. …
Texts 7.1-4 have been constructed below to illustrate these genres as interpersonal manipulations of the same activity sequence
The ways in which interpersonal meaning inflects activity sequences to construct these four story genres is summarised in Table 7.20.

Table 7.20 Interpersonal meaning across story genres

interpersonal:
modalisation

modulation

attitude
recount
usuality

prosodic affect
anecdote
unusuality;

varied affect
exemplum
unusuality;
obligation
negative affect
narrative
unusuality;
inclination
negative to positive affect


Blogger Comment:

This continues the misconstrual of semantics (activity sequence) as context (field).  As can be seen from these excerpts, an activity sequence here refers to events in a narrative.  They are the linguistic construals of experience of an author.