This book is the first dedicated collection of systemic functional descriptions of Japanese. It represents the most recent, international work describing the system and structure of Japanese and how applications of the descriptions have been used in the fields of computer science and education. The book is divided into two sections: descriptions and applications. The descriptions section is organised into the three metafunctions: textual, interpersonal and ideational. The applications section explores education and computing. The contributions on education present work on the application of systemic functional theory to teaching Japanese as a second or foreign language. The contributions on computing present the application of systemic functional theory to the development of a Japanese language based computer operating system. Systemic Functional Perspectives of Japanese is suitable for undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers of descriptive linguistics and applied linguistics and also for Japanese language teachers. It includes a foreword by Professor Noboru Yamaguchi, Tohoku University, one of the first linguists to explore systemic functional perspectives of Japanese.

This book is a cross-linguistic and interdisciplinary exploration of modality within systemic functional linguistics (SFL). Drawing upon the broad SFL notion of modality that refers to the intermediate degrees between the positive and negative poles, the individual papers probe into the modality systems in English and Japanese. The papers cover issues such as the conceptual nature of modality in both languages, the characterization of modulation in Japanese, the trans-grammatical aspects of modality in relation to mood and grammatical metaphor in both languages, and the modality uses and pragmatic impairment by individuals with a developmental disorder from a neurocognitive perspective. The book demonstrates a functional account of Japanese within an SFL model of language with a fresh perspective to Japanese linguistics. It also refers to cross-linguistic issues concerning how the principles and theories of SFL serve to empirically elaborate descriptions of individual languages, which will lead to the enrichment of the theory and practice of linguistics and beyond.

This innovative collection brings together contributions from established and emerging scholars highlighting the "appliability" of Systemic Functional Linguistics and the ways in which theoretical and analytical conclusions drawn from its applications can inform and advance the study of language. The book discusses SFL’s theoretical foundations and development in recent years to demonstrate its evolution into a more effective analytical tool. Building on this theoretical framework, the volume showcases the theory’s applications in case studies exploring four sub-disciplines of language study: multilingual studies; translation studies; language learning and language teaching; and genre analysis. This all-inclusive volume demonstrates both Systemic Functional Linguistics’ efficacy as a means of theoretical analysis, but also its value as a unique approach to the study of language and meaning, making this an indispensable resource for researchers and scholars in applied linguistics, discourse analysis, genre studies, translation studies, and multilingualism.

The purpose of this book is to contribute to our understanding of genre and genre variation in the Japanese language in order to bring to consciousness the nature of Japanese culture and the presuppositions, norms and values found within Japanese society. This type of knowledge enables interventions and agency, as knowing how language works within a culture makes it possible to consciously accept it or to influence and shape it into the future. The various chapters seek to explore social contexts and the norms, values and practices of Japanese culture through the language choices in analysed texts in literature, education, the workplace and in print-based media. These genres collectively form part of the cultural fabric of Japan. The book represents a first step in documenting a selected set of Japanese genres from a social semiotic perspective. It will be of interest to students and scholars in a wide range of linguistic fields, such as Japanese descriptive linguistics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics and applied linguistics. It should also appeal to teachers and learners of Japanese and to media commentators, students of literature, cultural studies and journalism.

This book is intended as a systemic functional contribution to language typology both for those who would like to understand and describe particular languages against the background of generalizations about a wide range of languages and also for those who would like to develop typological accounts that are based on and embody descriptions of the systems of particular languages (rather than isolated constructions). The book is a unique contribution in at least two respects. On the one hand, it is the first book based on systemic functional theory that is specifically concerned with language typology. On the other hand, the book combines the particular with the general in the description of languages: it presents comparable sketches of particular languages while at the same time identifying generalizations based on the languages described here as well as on other languages. The volume explores eight languages, covering seven language families: French, German, Pitjantjatjara, Tagalog, Telugu, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese.

This book presents an analysis of Chinese grammar from a systemic functional perspective. Its main focus is the clausal grammar of Chinese, and Dr Li provides a thorough analysis of Chinese clauses according to their constituent parts. However, uniquely, the second half of the book extends this examination into an analysis of Chinese discourse and text analysis. Professor Halliday's foreword praises Eden Li's thorough analysis, and shows its relevance to the field of systemic functional linguistics in general. Systemic Functional Grammar of Chinese provides the reader with a general theoretical framework of grammar and discourse analysis from a systemic functional perspective.

Text generation is the processing of information that is stored at a higher level than grammatical structures and lexical items (such as sentences and words), organizing and re-expressing it so that it can appear as a worded text. Of course it interests those working on artificial intelligence, but it should also interest linguists as a linguistic research task.

The ten papers in this volume focus on Subject and Theme. Theme began its life as a semantic notion in the work of Vilém Mathesius, while Subject has traditionally been seen as just a syntactic entity. More recently two related perspectives on these concepts have attracted linguists' attention: the formal criteria for their recognition and the relations between the two concepts. Using the systemic functional model as their point of departure, the papers in the present volume consider the two notions in a wider context by relating them to the interpersonal and textual metafunctions of language. By contrast with the current linguistic approaches, the primary focus here is neither simply on formal recognition criteria nor on the relation of these elements to each other; instead, the notions of Subject and Theme are examined from the point of view of their function in the economy of discourse, with studies of their significance in English and French, as well as in a range of non-Indo-European languages. Definitions of the concepts are offered on the basis of their discourse functions, which are also important in selecting the formal recognition criteria and in understanding their mutually supportive role vis à vis each other. Most of the papers in the volume are a selection from presentations made at the 19th International Systemic Functional Congress at Macquarie University.