Advertisements are multimodal texts created to get attention from potential customers in order to sell products. Previous research has shown how advertisements’ visual and verbal features make up ideological codes that are used to affect readers. To interpret these codes and gain an understanding of advertisements as communicative artifacts, a linguistic approach needs to be merged with a multimodal approach. In this study systemic functional grammar and multimodal semiotics are applied to ten skin care advertisements by Elizabeth Arden from 1920-2013. The aim is to investigate how the relationship between skin care companies and their potential customers is constructed through the use of language and images in skin care advertisements. Furthermore, the study aims to analyze whether and how the relationship between skin care companies and customers change over time. The findings indicate that the reader is constructed as unequal to Elizabeth Arden. The results also show a longitudinal difference in that the reader and the writer are constructed as closer in earlier advertisements and more distant in later advertisements. The language is also less demanding in recent years. Furthermore, the findings show that later skin care advertisements, unlike earlier advertisements, refer to science. The change might be an indication that societal and consumer values are evolving. Hence, the result might reflect societal changes.

This study explores the impact of a pedagogic intervention grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) designed to support language learners’ development of their English argumentative writing skills. The predominance of argumentative writing in school curricula and language assessment reflects the importance of helping language learners master this text-type in order for them to succeed in academic settings. This pedagogic intervention drew specifically on the Appraisal system of SFL to make explicit to students the interpersonal and evaluative language resources they can use to establish authoritative and intersubjective positioning as key means of achieving the overall purpose of argumentative texts. The study documents the impact of explicating to students appraisal resources during class instruction and helping them make more informed language choices as they engage with the information presented in their texts, and shape the interaction with their readers. The study drew on quantitative data stemming from students’ writing tasks and qualitative data in the form of reflection tasks and a research journal to explore the extent to which students’ understanding and use of different appraisal resources could be positively affected by the pedagogic intervention at the heart of this study. The analysis of the findings suggests that the intervention was successful in helping students familiarize themselves with and incorporate appraisal language to effectively convey their intended meaning in the composition of their argumentative texts. The findings also suggest that the teaching intervention contributed to students’ increased awareness of the range of lexicogrammatical choices available to them when they write as reflected in students’ skillful use of these resources in genre-specific ways. This included using appraisal resources to develop well-supported claims, in addition to establishing a critical authoritative position. Discussion of these findings focuses on the value of this type research on the pedagogic applications of the SFL framework as a way of advancing our understanding of how to better scaffold language learners and help them gain greater explicit control of the language resources necessary to successfully construct academic texts. As such, this study argues for the potential affordances of teaching pedagogies grounded in SFL theory in supporting language learners’ academic writing development. This study presents a case for the ability of SFL-informed pedagogies to empower students as writers by offering them new ways of looking at the writing process and using language to engage in advanced acts of meaning-making.

The series You (2018) challenges the traditional characteristics of a protagonist and introducesthe audience to a psychopathic protagonist with traits which are typically recognised in thetraditional villain. This study investigates the portrayal of the fictional character JoeGoldberg’s psychopathic characteristics by analysing the language used in his external andinternal dialogues. More specifically, drawing on the tools of transitivity analysis (Halliday1985), the study focuses on the process types and corresponding semantic roles assigned tothe pronouns I and you used by the protagonist over the course of three strategically selectedepisodes of the series. The results of the qualitative and quantitative transitivity analysis ofinternal and external dialogues throughout three chosen episodes shows that in the internaldialogues Joe appears analytical and assigns attributes and actions to you which correspond tothe mental representation of the object of his desire, Beck. While Joe’s internal dialoguesascribe some appealing attributes to Beck, the transitivity analysis also shows that he identifiestraits of vulnerability, such as lack of confidence and being indolent in reaching her goals. Incontrast, Joe’s approach in the external dialogues continuously appears to project him as ahumble person who puts the needs of others before his own, expressing deep considerationand understanding of the needs and emotions of others. The audience is introduced to hismanipulative behaviour by this contrast between his external and internal dialogues, which ishighlighted by the transitivity analysis in the present study.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / As an official and second language in Ghana, English is used as a medium of instruction in the Ghanaian educational setting, especially at the university level. Therefore, for Ghanaian students to go through their university education successfully, they should be able to demonstrate competence in the usage of English. However, time and again, there have been series of complaints from most English language teachers about the Ghanaian students’ lack of dexterity in writing cohesive and coherent texts. The present study, therefore, has as its aim to explore texture in first-year Ghanaian undergraduate students' essays (GUSEs). This focus is achieved through four main specific objectives. Thus, the study accounts for (1) the types of cohesive devices (2) the cohesive errors (3) the disciplinary variation in the type of cohesive devices and cohesive errors and (4) the thematic progression patterns in the essays of these first-year Ghanaian undergraduate students. To achieve these objectives, I use the Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective to text analysis, specifically the metafunction of texture as projected by Halliday (1967, 1970, 1985, 1994, and 2004), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Martin and Rose (2003) and Martin (2015). / 2023

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the potential of Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) pedagogy to support English language learners (ELLs) in enhancing their meaning making potential as they engage in persuasive writing practices within academic contexts. The dissertation results from a teacher action research project in which the teacher researcher (the author) constructed qualitative case studies focusing on the teaching practice of a veteran ESL teacher (the researcher) and the persuasive writing practices of three middle school beginning level ELLs. Through data analysis methods drawing on SFL and intertextuality, the study illuminates connections between the SFL based teaching practice and the expanding linguistic repertoire of ELLs as they enact the genre of persuasive argument in the context of producing persuasive music reviews. Research methods are qualitative in nature and designed to attend to both the sociocultural context of teaching and learning as well as a linguistic analysis of written texts. Through a qualitative case study approach focusing on the literacy practices of three emergent bilingual middle school students and the reflective teaching practices of their veteran ESL teacher, the teacher researcher highlights how SFL pedagogy created space for urban middle school ELLs to participate in high interest language learning activities designed to increase their control over the semiotic resources needed to construct persuasive texts. The subsequent SFL and genre analysis of students' texts analyzes changes in the schematic structure and register variables of student texts aims to explore the intertextual connections between these changes and the SFL pedagogical practices described in the study. Data derive from multiple sources including student texts, videotaped interactions among classroom community members, field notes, lesson plans and instructional materials. The study offers important new directions in language teaching and learning as it demonstrates how SFL-based pedagogy can draw on the cultural and linguistic resources of ELLs to create a culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and permeable curriculum (Dyson, 2003) that both challenges the conceptualization of ELLs as students with a "deficit" and repositions them as skillful language users and text analysts.

Since the Greek phrase ἐγώ εἰµι has been used as a form of the divine name by God to reveal himself in the Septuagint, biblical scholars generally acknowledge that the appropriate interpretation of this phrase is important for understanding John’s unique presentation of Jesus. However, scholars have not reached a consensus on the interpretation of Johannine “I am” and there are several problems with contemporary interpretive works. First, the extant studies rely heavily on the background of the “I am” phrase and draw their conclusions almost on the basis of diachronic data only. Consequently, the significance of this phrase in the Gospel of John itself has not been fully understood. Second, the linguistic features that are actually essential for the appropriate interpretation of this particular linguistic structure have not been fully assessed in current biblical scholarship. Third, the existing research normally interprets the “I am” phrases individually but fails to explore the relationship between these uses. In the Gospel of John, the Greek phrase ἐγώ εἰµι and its variants occur in Jesus’ utterances in thirty-one verses, namely John 4:26; 6:20, 35, 41, 48, 51; 7:34, 36; 8:12, 18, 23, 24, 28, 58; 10:7, 9, 11, 14; 11:25; 12:26; 13:19; 14:3, 6; 15:1, 5; 17:14, 16, 24; 18:5, 6, 8. This study conducts a discourse analysis based on the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to interpret these thirty-one occurrences of “I am” in Jesus’ utterances, concentrating on their interpretation and significance within the Johannine context. This new methodological framework can analyze the linguistic features of the New Testament text and may offer new insights into the current research of Johannine “I am” in most regards. Examining the function of this phrase through a functional-semantic analysis and a rhetorical-relational analysis, this study argues that the thirty-one occurrences of “I am” in Jesus’ utterances throughout the Gospel of John reinforce John’s portrayal of Jesus’ divinity. According to John’s construing of Jesus’ divinity, this study demonstrates how Johannine Christology is expressed through the narrative of John’s Gospel with various textual characteristics.

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This thesis examines the scientific language in different subjects by analysing all grade 8 science items from TIMSS 2011, using four characteristic meaning dimensions of scientific language – Packing, Precision and Presentation of information, and the level of Personification in a text. The results, as well as results from established readability measures, are correlated with test performances of different student groups. The TIMSS vocabulary is compared with three Swedish corpora where low frequency words are identified and further analysed. The thesis challenges the notion that there is a single scientific language, as results show that the language use varies between subjects. Physics uses more words, biology shows higher Packing and lower Precision, while physics shows the opposite pattern. Items are generally low in Personification but physics has higher levels, earth science lower. Chemistry often presents information in more complex ways. The use of meaning dimensions manages to connect the language use in science items to student performance, while established measures do not. For each subject, one or more of the meaning dimensions shows significant correlations with small to medium effect sizes. Higher Packing is positively correlated with students’ results in earth science, negatively correlated in physics, and has no significant correlations in biology or chemistry. Students’ performances decrease when placing items in everyday contexts, and skilled readers are aided by higher precision, while less-skilled seem unaffected. Many meaning dimensions that influence low performers’ results do not influence those of high performers, and vice versa. The vocabulary of TIMSS and school textbooks are closely matched, but compared with more general written Swedish and a more limited vocabulary, the coverage drops significantly. Of the low frequency words 78% are nouns, where also most compound–, extra long– and made-up words are found. These categories and nominalisations are more common in biology and, except for made-up words, rare in chemistry. Abstract and generalizing nouns are frequent in biology and earth science, concrete nouns in chemistry and physics.

O Movimento Estudantil, principalmente a partir da década de 1960, passou a ocupar um espaço relevante na esfera política brasileira, tendo em vista o estabelecimento de suas organizações representativas, tais como a União Nacional dos Estudantes e a União Estadual dos Estudantes, e de seus posicionamentos ideológicos que, muitas vezes, confrontavam a ordem política dominante. Assim, diversas ações protagonizadas pelo Movimento Estudantil, ao longo de sua trajetória, se tornaram objeto de destaque na mídia nacional, sobretudo no que concerne à imprensa paulista, na medida em que a maior parte de seus atos mais impactantes e abrangentes se deu na região sudeste. Dentre as inúmeras ações de autoria do Movimento Estudantil, em São Paulo, destacam-se duas manifestações de resistência sócio-política ocorridas durante o regime militar: a Batalha da Maria Antonia (1968) e a Invasão da PUC-SP (1977); de forma paralela, considerando a notabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo no cenário nacional acadêmico na atualidade, destacamos uma manifestação estudantil que obteve grande repercussão midiática já no início desta década: A reintegração de posse da Reitoria dessa instituição (2011), após uma ocupação estudantil. Isso posto, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar a representação dos principais atores sociais envolvidos nos protestos estudantis destacados, nesses períodos históricos distintos. Para tal, esse estudo parte de um corpus composto por reportagens publicadas nos periódicos de macro-circulação Estado de S. Paulo e Folha de S. Paulo, datadas do dia posterior aos acontecimentos selecionados. A metodologia deste estudo se apresenta, inicialmente, por uma análise quantitativa e qualitativa sincrônica comparativa entre os dois periódicos e, posteriormente, procura, por meio da correlação entre padrões linguísticos e fatores histórico-contextuais, traçar aspectos de evolução discursiva no que tange à representação da atuação do Movimento Estudantil segundo o olhar do jornalismo paulista. Com essa finalidade, como arcabouço teórico, foram considerados aportes da História Social para dar conta da contextualização do objeto , da Semiolinguística para compreender o funcionamento do Ato de Linguagem e da discursividade e da Linguística Sistêmico- Funcional (para empreender a análise linguística por meio do sistema de TRANSITIVIDADE. Através desse diálogo, conseguiu-se depreender continuidades e descontinuidades na representação dos atores sociais envolvidos em termo de seus papéis como Ator, Meta, Dizente e Experienciador ao longo do tempo e entre periódicos. / The Student Movement, from the 1960s onwards, started to play a prominent role in Brazil\'s political sphere since its representative organizations, such as the União Nacional dos Estudantes and the União Estadual dos Estudantes, were established and their ideological positions very often confronted the dominant political order. Thus, several actions led by the Student Movement throughout its history were highlighted in the national media, in particular in São Paulo\'s press, as its most influential and widespread acts have predominantly taken place in the southeast region of the country. Among the numerous actions of the Movement in São Paulo, two demonstrations stand out as resistance to the socio-political changes that occurred during the military regime: the Batalha da Maria Antonia (1968) and the PUC-SP Invasion (1997); in parallel, considering the University of São Paulo\'s relevancein the Brazilian academic scenery at the present time, we highlight a Student act that had a big impact in the media in the beginning of this decade: the Reintegração de posse da Reitoria of this institution (2011), after a Student Occupation. That said, this research aims to analyze the representation of the main social factors involved in the aforementioned student protests, in these two distinct historical periods. To this end, this study takes a corpus composed of articles published in thelarge-circulation newspapers Estado de S. Paulo and Folha de S. Paulo, dating from the subsequent day from the selected events. The methodology of this study is presented, initially, by a synchronic quantitative and comparative analysis between the two newspapers and, later on, seeks to trace aspects of discursive trends regarding the representation of the acts of the Student Movement according to the look of journalism through the correlation between linguistic patterns and historical contextual factors. For this purpose, the theoretical framework of Social History was taken into account to give an account of the contextualization of the object , Semiolinguistic to understand the functioning of the language act and discourse and of Systemic-Functional Linguistics (to undertake the linguistic analysis through the system of TRANSITIVITY. Through this discussion, it was possible to establish continuities and discontinuities in the representation of the relevant social actors in terms of their role as Actors, Goal, Sayer and Senser throughout time and between newspapers.