Linguistics调整后Lecture07Syntax幻灯片.pptVIP

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (ii) Interpersonal function Language serves to set up and maintain social and personal relations, including communication roles such as questioner and respondent, and to express the language user’s own attitudes and comments on the content of an utterance. This function of language is called interpersonal function. Verbal communication involves an interactive event between two or more people in which we take on certain roles—the most fundamental being speaker/writer vs. hearer/reader or, put more simply, addresser vs. addressee—and attempt to influence or understand others. Traditionally, sentences are classified as declarative, interrogative, and imperative. Declaratives are used to give information, and perform the function of statements; interrogatives are used to request something, and perform the function of questions; imperatives are used to give instructions and perform the function of commands. However, exact correlation between form and function only occurs in idealized sentences. We frequently use declaratives to ask questions, and on occasions, to issue instructions. The declarative utterance You’re going out, could function as a question or an order depending on the intonation pattern. What we are essentially talking about here is the subject of mood in language structure. One obvious way in which mood is characteristically signaled in English is by the inclusion of specific words such as please, possibly, kindly, and frankly. But mood is also signaled through the syntax of sentences. Halliday identifies two sorts of exchanges which he argues all utterances can be divided into. The first consists of demands for, and offers of, goods and services of some kind, for example Give me a biscuit, and Would you like a biscuit? In these cases what is at issue is a literal, or actual exc