Friday 23 August 2013

The Textual Resources Of The Lexicogrammar Of English

Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 579):
(A) structural:
  1. thematic structure: Theme and Rheme
  2. information structure and focus: Given and New
(B) cohesive:
  1. conjunction
  2. reference
  3. ellipsis (ie ellipsis and substitution)
  4. lexical cohesion
Looked at 'from below', these textual resources fall into two categories — those that engender grammatical structure (theme and information) and those that do not (conjunction, reference, ellipsis, lexical cohesion).  Looked at 'from above', these textual resources are concerned either with textual transitions between messages or with textual statuses of components (elements) of these messages.

structural
cohesive
textual transitions [‘organic’]
(clause complex => logical)
conjunction
textual statuses [‘componential’]
theme; information
reference; ellipsis