Analysing British sign language through the lens of systemic functional linguistics
Approaches to understanding language via Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) have resulted in a compendium of literature focussing on language as a âsocial semiotic.â One such area of this literature comprises systemic functional grammars: descriptions of various languages and the way in which they create meaning. Despite the application of SFL to numerous languages and the creation of systemic functional grammars, a common thread is that of modality: SFL has been applied to numerous languages in the spoken and written modalities, but not in any detail to languages in the visual-spatial modality. My thesis presents an initial attempt at analysing British Sign Language (BSL) through the systemic functional lens. Calling on various theories and methods found in sign linguistics and SFL, I perform an analysis on a sample of BSL clauses (N = 1,375) from three perspectives: how BSL manages exchanges of communication (the interpersonal metafunction); how BSL encodes aspects of experience and reality (the experiential metafunction); and how BSL may be organised to produce a coherent text with variance in information prominence (the textual metafunction). As a result, I present three sets of system networks
Rudge, Luke A.
British Sign Language ; Systemic Functional Linguistics ; Visual-spatial modality
Analysing British sign language through the lens of systemic functional linguistics. Approaches to understanding language via Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) have resulted in a compendium of literature focussing on language as a âsocial semiotic.â One such area of this literature comprises systemic functional grammars: descriptions of various languages and the way in which they create meaning. Despite the application of SFL to numerous languages and the creation of systemic functional grammars, a common thread is that of modality: SFL has been applied to numerous languages in the spoken and written modalities, but not in any detail to languages in the visual-spatial modality. My thesis presents an initial attempt at analysing British Sign Language (BSL) through the systemic functional lens. Calling on various theories and methods found in sign linguistics and SFL, I perform an analysis on a sample of BSL clauses (N = 1,375) from three perspectives: how BSL manages exchanges of communication (the interpersonal metafunction); how BSL encodes aspects of experience and reality (the experiential metafunction); and how BSL may be organised to produce a coherent text with variance in information prominence (the textual metafunction). As a result, I present three sets of system networks
analysing british_sign language lens systemic_functional_linguistics approaches language via systemic_functional_linguistics sfl result compendium literature focus language social_semiotic area literature comprise systemic_functional grammar description various language way create meaning despite application sfl numerous language creation systemic_functional grammar common_thread modality sfl apply numerous language_speak write modality detail language visual spatial modality present initial_attempt analyse british_sign_language_bsl systemic_functional lens various theory_method find sign linguistics sfl perform analysis sample bsl clause perspective bsl manage exchange communication interpersonal bsl encode aspect experience reality experiential bsl may organise produce_coherent text variance information prominence textual present set system network