Ideation And Identification

As a further development of the theory of systemic functional linguistics, the theory of discourse semantics emphasizes that, in discourse analysis, meaning in clause should be reconsidered from the perspective of meaning in texts. Based on this argument, this thesis attempts to approach participants, one nuclear semantic element of clauses or figures, from the perspective of discourse semantics. With regard to the fact that participant is a core phenomenon in ideation and identification, the thesis develops an analytic framework focusing on a thorough discussion on the participant for its contribution to the making of meaning as a text. The six dimensions of participation are participant taxonomy, participant configuration (internal semantic structure), plurifunctionality (degree of participanthood), textual individuation, textual continuity and discontinuity. We model this framework of participants with the expectation that, in discourse analysis, it can serve as an analytic tool to address the following questions:How is the system potential of participation instantiated in contextualized text? How does its logogenetic pattern contribute to the meaning and value of a text?In order to testify the efficiency and applicability of this framework, we apply it to one specific discourse analysis—texts selected from Salinger's much-applauded novel The catcher in the Rye and explore the first-person narrator's distinctive patterns in construing different participants—his way of classifying and describing, as well as his way of tracking these participants in the process of narration. From our analysis of the syndromes of choices within the six dimensions of participation, we have found that the systems of participant ideation and identification indeed co-articulate the motifs of meaning that are critical to a text, and such an analysis contributes to a better understanding of the narrator's construction of his inner and outer experiential worlds within social contexts.This framework that was developed and testified in the analysis of texts taken from The Catcher in the Rye could serve as an analytic tool for future text analysis and facilitate the shift from clausal grammatical view of participants to the discourse semantics of participants, or the discourse profile of participation.