1 Glossary of Technical Terms from Systemic Functional Linguistics

[Affect]

An appraisal system feature describing the construal of emotions and emotional states.

Affiliation

A framework for describing how social bonds are construed as values in language.

Affordances

The particular properties of a semiotic mode in terms of how its attendant resources can make meaning in light of constraints such as the nature of the medium. Affordance is a term also used to describe the capacities of particular kinds of semiotic technologies in terms of how they enable and constrain particular kinds of meaning-making.

AMBIENT AFFILIATION

An extended for describing how social bonds are construed as values in language that account for both dialogic interaction and communing without direct interaction.

APPRAISAL

The discourse semantic system describing how evaluative meanings are construed in language.

[Appreciation]

An appraisal system feature describing the construal of social and aesthetic valuations of objects and things.

ATTITUDE

An appraisal system describing the construal of feelings, and opinions.

Bonding icon

An emblem that takes on interpersonal significance for a community such that its ideational meaning is backgrounded, and its interpersonal meaning is foregrounded and shared among the community.

Bond

A social relation that can be realised in discourse through couplings, e.g. ideation-attitude couplings.

Bond network

A set of relations between different bonds (e.g. those shared by a particular sub-community).

Co-text

The written text that accompanies other kinds of semiotic resources in a social media post. Also referred to as written text and verbiage.

COMMUNING AFFILIATION

A form of affiliation involving bonding without direct interaction between interlocutors (e.g. in online and broadcast contexts).

CONCURRENCE

Convergence in the form of a relation between ideational meanings made in language and paralanguage.

CONVERGENCE

The relation between meanings made in language and paralanguage.

Coupling

An association between two semiotic variables (e.g. an instance of attitude and an instance of ideation).

DIALOGIC AFFILIATION

A form of affiliation where values are negotiated interactively.

Discourse semantics

One of the linguistic strata in Systemic Functional Linguistics, defined as a pattern of patterns of the strata beneath (i.e. a pattern of lexicogrammatical patterns). See Figure 3.1 in Chapter 3.

ENGAGEMENT

An appraisal system describing the how voices are managed in discourse.

[Element]

Part of a figure in terms of the discourse semantic system of ideation. There are three main types of [elements]: [entities] (items participating in an activity), [occurrences] (happenings), and [qualities] (properties).

[Entity]

A type of [element] in the discourse semantic system of ideation. [Entities] include [thing entities] (e.g. a cup of coffee) and [semiotic entities] (e.g. a discussion).

Field

A register variable about how language construes a domain of experience (e.g. the processes, events, and activities in which participants are involved).

[Figure]

A change or a state (involving one or more elements) in terms of the discourse semantic system of ideation.

GRADUATION

An appraisal system describing how attitudes are scaled up and down in terms of intensity or typicality.

IDEATION

The discourse semantic system modelling how [sequences], [figures], and [elements] represent experience as activities and states.

IDEATION-ATTITUDE coupling

An association between attitudinal meaning (e.g. an evaluation) and ideation (e.g. the target of an evaluation). One or more couplings form the discursive realisation of a social bond.

Ideational metafunction

How language meanings involved in construing experience.

Instantiation

The process by which a discursive feature is construed in a text.

Intermodal coupling

An interaction between two semiotic variables in different modalities (e.g. image and language).

Interpersonal metafunction

How language construes meanings involved in enacting relationships (e.g. evaluative meanings).

Intersemiotic complementarity

How meanings across different modalities (e.g. image and verbiage) coordinate to make coherent meaning within a single text.

[Judgement]

An appraisal system feature describing the construal of social and ethical judgements of people and their behaviour.

Lexicogrammar

The stratum above phonology/graphology and below discourse semantics in the SFL model of language. See Figure 3.1 in Chapter 3.

Metafunctions

The high-level functions that Halliday ascribes to language (see ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions).

Minimum mapping principle

A principle for assessing emoji–text convergence that considers whether the emoji and the language can be said to construe a cohesive dimension of field or tenor.

Mode

A register variable about the role language is playing in a text (e.g. the organisation of information flow).

[Occurrence]

An [element] that construes an event or activity.

[Occurrence figure]

A [figure] that includes an [occurrence] construing an event or activity.

Paralanguage

Semiotic resources that are dependent on language for making meaning (e.g. gesture).

Prosodic correspondence

A principle for assessing emoji–text convergence that considers where emoji coordinate together prosodically, for instance, shifting together with changes in attitudinal meaning across the text.

Proximity principle

A principle for assessing emoji–text convergence that considers the adjacency of an emoji to particular language features in the unfolding text.

[Quality]

An [element] that construes a description or assessment.

Realisation

A hierarchy of abstraction through which each stratum of language is realised as patterns of patterns of the stratum below.

Register

A stratum of context in terms of the SFL model of language.

RESONANCE

Convergence in the form of a relation between interpersonal meanings made in language and paralanguage.

[Sequence]

One or more [figures] realised by a clause or clause complex.

[State figure]

A [figure] that does not include an [occurrence] and instead features relational or existential processes describing a state of affairs.

SYNCHRONICITY

Convergence in the form of a relation between textual meanings made in language and paralanguage.

System network

A formalism developed within Systemic Functional Linguistics in the form of a graphical notation format, wherein a ‘system’ is a particular region of meaning realised through particular linguistic choices. An ‘or’ choice is represented through square brackets and an ‘and’ relation through curly brackets (a brace).

Tenor

A register variable about how language enact social relationships (e.g. the degree of contact and solidarity among participants).

Textual metafunction

How language organises ideational and interpersonal meanings to forge cohesive and coherent texts.

2 Convergence System Network with Feature Glossary