Dear colleagues,
Our USYD Department of Linguistics Research Seminar continues with a presentation by:
Adjunct Professor Giacomo Figueredo, Federal University of Ouro Preto /
The University of Sydney
On register dynamics: from systemic variation to text typology
Fri, 20 May 2016, 12.30-2.00pm
Rogers Room, John Woolley Bldg A20, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006
You’re welcome to bring your lunch to the talk. After the talk we’ll have our Linguistics Afternoon Tea.
You will find the abstract below.
Best,
Sebastian
Abstract
Functional Language Typology explores multilingual relations from different functional perspectives, which share principles concerning the functional organization of language, and interests in integrating explanation with description. Functionally, typology needs to account for text variation (i.e., register), since register lies at the core of the explanation-description integration. Taking Systemic Functional Linguistics as theoretical underpinning, this talk will show how to model register deploying methods of systems dynamics to inform Functional Language Typology. It will take instantiation as point of departure (Halliday, 1992) and compare registers in terms of variation in specialization by (i) creating texts profiles, (ii) modeling text-as-process types, (iii) accounting for register variation dynamically and (iv) comparing dynamic register variation in different languages. Register will be modeled dynamically, thus using description and stratification as crucial steps to the development of instantiation as well as language typology is crucial to the development of instantiation relations (such as those among registers). It also illustrates how register modeling contributes to explaining instantiation, thus, making register variation understanding inform socio-culturally oriented studies within Functional Language Typology.
Dr Sebastian Fedden | Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Literature, Art and Media | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences