A Systemic Functional Study Of The Direct And Indirect Speech In English

In the mid-1960s, Halliday proposed the concepts of "parataxis" and "hypotaxis" as a new way of modeling a number of grammatical phenomena that had traditionally been handled in grammars of English under the headings of "co-ordination" and "subordination"-where "subordination" was usually modeled as the "embedding" of a unit inside a unit of the same or a lower rank (e.g. a clause functioning as an element of another clause, or of a nominal group). Since then, the analysis of clause complex has become an important element of English grammar. The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on two models of Systemic Functional Grammar (which is short for the SFG hereafter)——the Sydney Grammar (which is short for the SG hereafter) and the Cardiff Grammar (which is short for the CG hereafter). The SFG has been widely developed into many models, among which the SG and CG take significant places. To some extent, these two versions of the SFG operate in the same way, but they also own differences.The central topic of this thesis is clause complex. The SG regards "Direct and indirect speech" as the "projection" in logico-semantic relations. The relationship between the two clauses in direct speech is paratactic, and the relationship between the two clauses in indirect speech is hypotactic. In the CG, the reported clause in "Direct and indirect speech" is regarded as the "embedded clause". The centre example of this thesis is John said "I’m running away." and John said (that) he was running away. From the analysis and contrast between the SG and the CG, the main argument is the discussion about whether the reporting clause John said can be regarded as a clause which can be in the same rank with the reported clause I’m running away. If not, then whether the clause complex can be named parataxis will need further discussion.