The Investigation Of English Middle Construction From The Perspective Of Two-model Of Transitivity

The choice of the study is for the following reasons: firstly,studies on the English middle construction abroad and at home mainly focus on the following aspects:(1)the cross-linguistic study of middle construction;(2)the definition,classification,syntactic generation and semantic features of English middle construction;(3)Comparison between Middle construction and other construction.There are few research on the form and meaning of English middle construction.As for the study on the form and meaning of English middle construction predecessors studied it mostly from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and generative grammar.However,in systemic functional linguistics,there are few studies on English middle construction,and even fewer scholars have conducted comprehensive and systematic studies on the form and meaning of English middle construction.Secondly,since Halliday put forward the transitive analysis model and the ergative analysis model,researchers have done some researches and discussion on the two analysis methods in the study of text or discourse analysis,but seldom pay attention to the ontological analysis in the language construction.Finally,the integration of the two ways of analysis is rare at home.Most researches focused only on single analysis model(transitive analysis model or ergative analysis model)for text analysis,Therefore,based on the above findings,this paper attempts to explore the description and analysis of English middle construction by using the Two-Model of transitivity(transitive analysis model and ergative analysis model),and tries to figure out the functional semantic features of different types of English middle construction that represent the generality and individuality.This paper concludes that:(1)from the perspective of transitive analysis,English middle construction is a compound structure of meaning,with at least two types of meaning: material process and attributive relational process.Therefore,English middle construction is a hybrid process of material process and attributive relational process.(2)From the perspective of the ergative analysis,there is no agent semantic component except for the agent-adjunct English middle construction,so agent can be regarded as the defining attribute of the English middle construction.(3)According to the standard of form and meaning,the differences between instrument-subject English middle construction,location-subject English middle construction,accomplishment-predicate English middle construction,activity-predicate English middle construction,comparison-adjunct English middle construction and the other types of EMC are that the scope of subject points to the circumstance-oriented semantic component.The contributions of this study are summarized as follows: Firstly,this study makes a new exploration in the study of the form and meaning of the English middle construction in systemic functional linguistics.Secondly,this study combines transitive analysis model and ergative analysis model to reveal the generality and individuality of English middle construction,providing an operable research path for the study of English middle construction.Thirdly,this study would promote the development of systemic functional linguistics as applied linguistics advocated by Halliday towards its applicability,and also provide enlightenment for the study of linguistic typology.