SOCIAL ACTORS

Question 1

IDEATIONAL MEANING

Answer 1

using language to convey ideas and experience: clause as representation, variable field, grammar system=transitivity

Question 2

INTERPERSONAL MEANING

Answer 2

using language to enact social relationships: clause as exchange, variable tenor, grammar system=modality

Question 3

TEXTUAL MEANING

Answer 3

using language by building up cohesive sequences in discourse: clause as message, variable mode, grammar system=theme/cohesion

Question 4

TRANSITIVITY

Answer 4

In functional grammar: the construction of one particular domain of our experience, divided into processes, the participants involved in it, and its circumstances

Question 5

SUPPRESSION

Answer 5

Avoiding social actor reference:
No mention of the social actor anywhere in the text
- Passive agent deletion
- Nonfinite clauses which function as a grammatical participant
- Beneficiary deletion
- Nominalisations

Question 6

IMPERSONALISATION

Answer 6

Avoiding social actor reference
Impersonalisation works through metonymy, e.g. a part or aspect of the whole stands for the whole à objectivation
- e.g. country for inhabitants
- e.g. utterance for speaker
- e.g. place for people

Question 7

INDIVIDUALISATION AND ASSIMILATION

Answer 7

Social actors can be referred to as individuals or as groups
Elite persons tend to be individualised, whereas ‘ordinary people’ tend to be assimilated ─ or vice versa.
Assimilation can be further divided intocollectivisationandaggregation
Collectivisation is realised in plural forms, but also in mass nouns or a noun denoting a group of people: foreigners, immigrant community.
In aggregation, groups of participants are quantified.

Question 8

NOMINATION AND CATEGORISATION

Answer 8

Social actors can be represented either in terms of their unique identity, by being nominated, or in terms of identities and functions they share with others (categorisation).
Nomination is typically realised by proper nouns which can be combined with categorisations.
Two particular types of categorisation: functionalisation (social actors are referred to in terms of something they do) and identification (social actors are defined in terms of something they more or less permanently are)