Date of Award

5-2010

Thesis Type

Masters

Document Type

Dissertation

Divisions

Faculty of Languages and Linguistics

Department

Department of English Language

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

This study is grounded in the Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) school of thought. It explores the Interpersonal Metaphor in text by investigating how Interpersonal meaning is expressed by features of lexicogrammar. The study also focuses on how Interpersonal meaning affects the interactiveness of text. Since limited research has been carried out in the genre of Computer Science texts especially on Interpersonal Metaphors, the study attempts to address this research gap. The data examined consists of two chapters each from two different genres. The first is a chapter from a Computer Science textbook used in the University of Malaya and the second is a chapter from a popular textbook. Both chapters are on the topic of Loops. The chapter is divided into sentences which are then analysed within a Systemic Functional Linguistic framework. The analysis involves two systems: The Metaphor of Mood and the Metaphor of Modality. It was found that the Interpersonal Metaphor is present when sentences have the potential of having additional layers of meaning. Compared to the textbook chapter, the popular text chapter shows a higher percentage in the use of the Metaphor of Mood in all semantic expansion of Mood types except for Declarative clauses (24.47 percent less than textbook). The analysis for the Metaphor of Modality shows that the popular text chapter utilizes 10.44 percent more Mental projection clauses compared to the textbook chapter; however the textbook chapter has 8.29 percent more Relational projection clauses than the popular text chapter. A higher percentage of Mental projection clauses makes a text more interactive with a higher communicative content. A higher percentage of Relational projection clauses makes a text less interactive with no feelings or attitude involved. The predominant use of the Metaphor of Modality (15.03 percent) in the popular text chapter indicates a higher level of interactiveness in the data as a whole. The less frequent use of the Metaphor of Modality (5.79 percent) in the textbook chapter points to the reason why it is a less popular choice for Computer Science students. This study also attempts to show that the distribution of the Interpersonal Metaphor and the level of interactiveness of the text may be linked to the reason why Computer Science students prefer the popular text material in comparison with other types of reading material in their course of studies. The Interpersonal Metaphor influences the reader-writer relationship through linguistic choices made by writer to make the text more accessible for the readers. The findings of this investigation may be useful to curriculum planners, textbook materials writers and practitioners in the Systemic Linguistic field.

Initial

khm

Additional Information

Dissertation (M.A.) – Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, 2010.

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