The Analysis Of Interpersonal Meaning Of Personal Pronouns System In English Texts

Based on one of the three metafunctions of Halliday's theoretical framework-interpersonal metafunction, the thesis tries to analyze how personal pronouns carry the interpersonal meaning in English texts. Halliday believes that language's function is not only embodied in different usage, but also embodied in the system of language, especially the internal structure of semantic system. Halliday also generalized three metafunctions: ideational function, concerned with the meaning of the clause as representation or the clause in its experiential function and the clause complex in its logic function; the interpersonal function presents the relations between the writer and the reader or the speaker and the listener; and the textual deals with the process enabling the speaker or writer to construct texts as a logical sequences of units, which is realized by Theme and the Thematic structure. The three functions are taken as a whole.According to the views of Halliday and other scholars, the interpersonal meaning refers to the function that the speaker uses language to participate in social activities, which is a discussing problem of linguists. People use language to communicate with other people, to establish and maintain interpersonal relationship with other people, and use language to influence the behavior of other people and to express the views towards the world. According to systemic functional grammar, interpersonal function includes two basic contents: one is the attitude of the speaker to the listener and one is the certainty degree of the speaker to the contents. Halliday and other linguists believe that the main ways to carry interpersonal meaning are mood system, modality system and key, but discuss little about personal pronoun system. The study of personal pronouns system is limited in the cohesion theory. Personal pronouns are one of the research project for studying coherence. Halliday & Hasan (1976)'s study of personal pronouns system focuses on the coherence of context. But we believe that the study on personal pronouns from the approach of social linguistics is the study of the interpersonal meaning of them. Li Zhanzi ever said that "personal pronouns have the interpersonal function in discourse". The interpersonal function of personal pronouns has not been fully studied in functional linguistics presented by Halliday.As a grammatical category, in traditional grammar, personal pronoun system indicates the quantity and quality of participators in a specific situation, and is concerned by grammarians. It is a closed system. Any grammar book will discuss the form and syntactic function of personal pronouns. Muhlhausler & Harre (1990: 47) call this kind of research the grammatical approach of personal pronouns.Hallday & Hasan (1976) proposed personal reference in the book "Cohesion in English".