Themes and Grammatical Cohesion, based on Textual Metafunction, in “the Account Discrepancy” Short Story

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Linguistics Department, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran

2 MA. in Linguistics, Linguistics Department, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran

Abstract

The present study examines the types of themes and their distribution, as well as the types of grammatical cohesion elements in the story “the Account Discrepancy” written by Jalal Al-Ahmad, within the framework of the textual metafunction of Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar theory. Since in this theory, the clause is the main unit of meaning study, all the clauses of the story were examined and the types of themes and grammatical cohesion devices in them were identified and classified. The results of the study show that the frequency of using simple and complex themes in the corpus under study is almost equal, which indicates the author's skill in using a variety of simple and complex themes. The examination of 1127 simple and complex clauses in the research corpus shows that, in general, the divisions in Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar regarding the themes are applicable to Persian and narrative texts. The study of grammatical cohesion in the story shows that 81% of the anaphoric references are personal pronouns and 19% are impersonal pronouns. Also, 52% of the anaphoric references of personal pronouns are bound pronouns and 29% are free pronouns. More than half of the deletions are subject deletions due to the sign of the identifier. According to the statistics of the present study, the elliptical subject theme is the most frequent theme in statement clauses, which is quite consistent with the pro-dropping nature of the Persian language.

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References

 
منابع فارسی
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Linguistic Studies: Theory and Practice
Volume 3, Issue 1 - Serial Number 5
Spring 2024
June 2024
Pages 1-23

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History

  • Receive Date: 09 March 2024
  • Revise Date: 19 April 2024
  • Accept Date: 09 May 2024

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