| M.A.K Halliday's Functional Grammar plays a vital role in the development of linguistic theories and application. In Functional Grammar, Halliday states that there are three metafunctions (ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function) on the semantic level of language and these functions equal to the semantic system of language. The functions are abstract in nature and they are realized in concrete language expressions. The varieties of language expressions in use are referred to as "register". Generally speaking, register regulates the relation between language and context. The systematic rules that are used to regulate the relation between language and context are considered as the register theory. The rules in the register theory are in form of "contextual varieties". Halliday also established a model to illustrate the relation between language and context, which is the "Context-Language Relation Model" (Halliday, 1978). This model has been applied to analyzing various linguistic materials and proved to be quite effective. The paper is also based on the register theory and applies it to analyzing the linguistic features of news headlines. The headlines for analysis are selected from two types of news stories: hard news and columns (the headlines of hard news are taken as "Category A", and those of columns are taken as "Category B" in the paper). The objective of the study is to find what linguistic features of the two categories of headlines are and how these features are realized in the framework of the register theory.In addition to the introduction and the conclusion, the paper consists of three chapters.Chapter one explores the nature of metafunctions and elaborates some key issues in the register theory. Studies in this field have been influenced by previous works done by a well-known anthropologist Malinoswski and an influential British linguist Firth, The latest theoretical development of the register theory provides a framework for analyzing linguistic features of news style. In the register theory, the key issues to be elaborated are context, register and etc. Context is the environment in which language is used; it is specified by the contextual varieties that are composed of three parts: field, tenor and mode. Field refers to what is being talked about; Tenor refers to the people involved in communication and the relationship between them; Mode refers to how language is functioning in interaction, i.e. whether it is written or spoken in form. The contextual varieties to some extent are the same with "register". Register (Halliday&Hasan, 1985:41) is defined as "variations of language according to use". Field, tenor and mode are also considered as the three main dimensions of variations which characterize register (in the paper, the terms "varieties" and "variations" are used to define the same notion, that is, the changes of language forms according to context). The notion of register indicates the interactive relation between language and context. Therefore the register theory intends to find how different contextual varieties are arranged, and how the arrangement may help discover the linguistic features of certain styles.According to the register theory, contextual varieties which mainly include field, tenor and mode determine the three metafunctions. To be specific, field determines the ideational function and this function is mainly explained by "transitivity", in which three elements are important: "participant", "process" and "circumstance". Process is classified into material process, mental process, relational process, behavior process, verbal process and existential process. There are corresponding participants involved in each process. For example, the participants involved in the material process is " actor" and " goal" ; while the participants involved in the mental process is " senser" and " phenomenon" . And some processes concern circumstances such as time, location and etc..Tenor determines the int... |
PDF Full Text Request