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.