A Metafunctional Study Of English Punctuation

Punctuation is an important part of the written language. In the beginning, punctuation was invented to facilitate oral reading and with the development of the written language, it no longer has the singular function intended by its inventors. Yet for a long time, it is regarded as conventions and thus "being outside the domain of pure linguistics" (Bilge Say 1990). Works on punctuation are limited to grammar handbooks, writing guides and style guides in the printing industry, which aim to prescribe rules for the usage of individual punctuation marks.However, with the development of linguistics and especially that of computational linguistics, several researchers began to observe the need for a linguistic study of punctuation, and the study of punctuation has broken the scope of the previous prescriptive study. The most notable researcher in this area is Geoffrey Nunberg, an American linguist. He hypothesized that punctuated sentences form a text-grammar of their own as opposed to a lexical-functional grammar and also described the role of punctuation within this grammar. Nunberg's work bridged the gap between the earlier prescriptive studies and descriptive studies and inspired the interest in punctuation of other linguists, in particular, those in the computational linguistic field. Studies on punctuation have been carried out regarding its syntax, semantics and it role in NLP. In China, research on punctuation has also begun to attract attention. Mr. Lin Suifang probed into the definition, scope and taxonomy of the Chinese punctuation in his book Learning and Using Punctuation Marks. In one word, the study on punctuation is now in the ascendant, yet, there hasn't been much study which subjects the punctuation system to a systemic functional analysis.The current study is based on the research of Nunberg and other researchers. Applying the theories of Systemic Functional Grammar, and especially the theories of the three metafunctions of languageproposed by Halliday and the Rhetoric Structure Theory (RST), it analyses a great number of examples and exposes the ideational, interpersonal and textual functions of punctuation. The ideational function of punctuation is mainly embodied through its effects on the transitivity system. Its reflection of prosodic features helps the written language better fulfil its interpersonal function. The textual function was analysed at different levels: at the group/phrasal level, punctuation has the function of conjoining and aggregating;at the clause level punctuation can indicate discourse structures and at the text level, punctuation cues for text-organization.Apart from the Introduction and the Conclusion, the thesis consists of five chapters. The introduction part tells the motivation of the study. Chapter 1 defines punctuation and gives an account of the history of punctuation.In Chapter 2, we introduce the current situation of the studies on punctuation and the theories of SFL, in particular, Halliday's theories about the three metafunctions of language and the Rhetorical Structure Theory, thus providing a sound theoretical background of the study.Chapter 3 and 4 discuss the role of punctuation in the realization of ideational and interpersonal functions of language.Chapter 5 probes into the textual functions of punctuation at different levels of the language on the basis of RST.The thesis ends with a conclusion of the role of punctuation in the ideational, interpersonal and textual functions. As punctuation seems to play such an important role in language, we hope to inspire more interest in the linguistic study of punctuation. At the same time, the conclusion part points out the limitation of the study as well as directions for further studies.