Abstracts of Major Papers in This Issue

A Review on James R. Martin’s Discourse Studies, by CHEN Yumin and HUANG Guowen, p. 19

This paper provides a review on James R. Martin’s major studies in the field of discourse analysis over the last three decades, covering the research on genre, interpersonal meaning, and multimodal discourse analysis.

Ideology in Discourse and Linguists’ Social Accountability: On James R. Martin’s Theory and Its Implication, by ZHU Yongsheng, p. 25

In the past three decades and more, James R. Martin has made great contributions to the development of systemic-functional linguistics, especially in discourse semantics by proposing new theories about generic structures, discourse appraisal, contratextuality, individuation, positive discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis. This paper attempts to make a survey of Martin’s theories about the ideology in discourse by looking at where discourse meaning lies, whether the same type of discourse can realize different ideologies, how the relationship between discourse and ideology should be analyzed, and whether linguists should develop a sense of social responsibility and accountability. And then it will examine how these theories are applied in discourse analysis.

James R. Martin’s Studies on Genre, by ZHANG Delu, p. 29

The article mainly gives a brief survey of and comment on the study of genre by James R. Martin. First, it presents the history and the present state of the art in genre study, and then, it briefly introduces Martin’s own studies on genre and his achievements in genre study. Finally, it shows the motivation and the three stages of Martin’s genre study. The motivation is summarized as “one source and two motives”. The one source is the influence and effect of Micheal Gregory’s contextual theory on him in his undergraduate and graduate study in Canada, and his own understanding and knowledge of language and context. The two motives are the theoretical motive, i.e, developing systemic functional linguistics, and the practical motive, perfecting writing teaching. His three stages of genre study are preliminary understanding, modelization of genre, and in-depth study.

James R. Martin’s Contribution to Systemic Functional Linguistics, by ZHAO Li, CHEN Gangni and ZHANG Jun, p. 34

As one of the key figures in the international field of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), Professor Martin has made significant contributions to the development of SFL. This paper gives a generalized description of part of Martin’s research achievements from the 1980s up to the present. It covers a comprehensive range of SFL, with both theoretical frameworks and discourse analysis, in which the evolution of Martin’s approximate 30 years’ study of SFL has been recorded. The development Professor Martin has made to the SFL theories is concluded from six aspects.

James R. Martin’s Development and Application of Register Theory, by YANG Xinzhang, p. 39

As a systemicist, James R. Martin has done a great deal of research in the field of register, and attracted wide attention. He regards register as a semiotic system, and context as a semiotic system and a system of social process. To him, field is the most important variable of register, and the relationship between register and genre is one of stratification. Register realizes genre. This paper attempts to comment on Martin’s thinking on register, his analysis of different registers, his studies of register development and literacy, and his contributions to the development of register theory. Martin widens the scope of register and develops theories of genre and appraisal. He attaches great importance to the study of literacy and register development from the systemic perspective.

James R. Martin’s Perspective on Discourse Semantics, by WANG Zhenhua, ZHANG Daqun and ZHANG Xiangang, p. 43

James R. Martin’s achievements in discourse semantics have won considerable attention. In this paper, we select 14 seminal discourse semantics papers published from 1977 through 2008. These papers mainly concern reference, conjunction, theme and periodicity, and appraisal systems. We review the papers and sum up his main contributions to discourse semantics, concluding that Martin’s contribution to the discipline is unparalleled in the SFL world, especially his achievements in the study of systems of meaning beyond the clause.

James R. Martin’s Framework of Genre -based Writing: A Systemic -Functional Linguistic Perspective, by MA Yulei, p. 50

This paper introduces James R. Martin’s Genre-based literacy pedagogy theory, which is a part of SFL’s model of language and social context where genre is defined as a staged, goal-oriented social process. Martin’s genre-based literacy pedagogy is manifested in class by four parts: Negotiating the Field, Deconstruction, Joint-construction and Indepedent Construction. This teaching scaffold emphasizes the interaction between teacher and students in class, and their knowledge about genre and genre relations. Adopting a top-down model which is quite subversive, this teaching scaffold is quite different from that of the traditional and contrast to that of the progressive pedagogy. Knowledge about language in literacy pedagogy is emphasized, too. We believe that this teaching pedagogy can be conducive to the current college English teaching in China.

Engagement and Graduation Phenomena in Chinese, by PENG Xuanwei, p. 55

This paper initiates a preliminary account of Chinese Engagement and Graduation under Appraisal Theory, in particular the respective systems and the graduation model of attitude. The data are mostly drawn from the Appraisal Corpus under investigation. The attempt opens up a new area in Chinese study.