Part V SFL Approach to Local Grammar 14. Local grammar 14. 1 Definition of local grammar A local grammar, compared with a general grammar, is seen as a better way to describe language use, as it describes the resources for only one set of meanings in a language, rather than for the language as a whole'(Hunston 2002: 90). When a local grammar is employed in language description, it is not necessary to squeeze the description into ill-adapted general categories but uses a categorisation and terminology that is developed specifically for each area, the specificity of which is characterized by accuracy, transparency, and cumulative coverage'(Hunston and Sinclair 2000: 74) The study of the local grammar of a subset of normal language, the sublanguage (Barnbrook 2002: 94) has examined various types of language use and communicative functions, includ ing expressions of time(Gross 1993), evaluation (Hunston and Sinclair 2000; Bednarek 2007), sameness and difference(Hunston 2002), cause and effect(Allen 2006), emotion(Bednarek 2008), and proper names (Nam and Choi 1997) 14.2 Development of Local grammar The first study of local grammar(Gross 1993)examined the limited features shared among synonymous idiomatic expressions and phrases referring to time(e.g on May 2nd, on Tuesday May the 2nd, on tuesday the 2nd of may) Examining the Bank of English at COBUILD, Hunston and Sinclair(2000: 89) described a local grammar of evaluation that is made up of a limited number of elements. Examples are 'he(evaluator) is(hinge) adamant(evaluating response) that he does not want to enter politics(thing evaluated )and they(evaluation carrier) were(hinge) lucky (evaluative category) that we scored when we did(thing evaluated) Bednarek(2007) compared British English broadsheets and tabloid newspapers and identified eight patterns of evaluative adjectives, includ ing most of the patterns in Hunston and Sinclair (2000), some new real izations of those patterns, as well as new patterns. In another study, Hunston(2002: 90-1)described a local grammar of ameness and difference, by identifying the words that indicate these meanings(e.g quate,'match, contrast,differentiate)and the patterns in which they are used (e.g. verb+ plural noun group as in equate two things, verb between+ plural noun group as in ' differentiate between two things), then identifying elements in the loca grammar, such as comparer, comparison, "item 1,, and item 2, and lastly mapping these elements onto the patterns The local grammar of a particular language use can be employed to automatically retrieve all such instances of language use from a corpus. Barnbrook and Sinclair (2001), for instance, showed how a computer program based on the features of the local grammar can be used to search for definitions in corpora that comprised non-dictionary texts, arguing that the structures used in dictionary def initions are in
1 Part V SFL Approach to Local Grammar 14. Local Grammar 14.1 Definition of Local Grammar A local grammar, compared with a general grammar, is seen as a better way to describe language use, as it describes ‘the resources for only one set of meanings in a language, rather than for the language as a whole’ (Hunston 2002: 90). When a local grammar is employed in language description, it is not necessary ‘to squeeze the description into ill-adapted general categories but uses a categorisation and terminology that is developed specifically for each area’, the specificity of which is characterized by ‘accuracy, transparency, and cumulative coverage’ (Hunston and Sinclair 2000: 74). The study of the local grammar of ‘a subset of normal language, the sublanguage’ (Barnbrook 2002: 94) has examined various types of language use and communicative functions, including expressions of time (Gross 1993), evaluation (Hunston and Sinclair 2000; Bednarek 2007), sameness and difference (Hunston 2002), cause and effect (Allen 2006), emotion (Bednarek 2008), and proper names (Nam and Choi 1997). 14.2 Development of Local Grammar The first study of local grammar (Gross 1993) examined the limited features shared among synonymous idiomatic expressions and phrases referring to time (e.g. on May 2nd, on Tuesday May the 2nd, on Tuesday the 2nd of May). Examining the Bank of English at COBUILD, Hunston and Sinclair (2000: 89) described a local grammar of evaluation that is made up of a limited number of elements. Examples are ‘he (evaluator) is (hinge) adamant (evaluating response) that he does not want to enter politics (thing evaluated)’ and ‘they (evaluation carrier) were (hinge) lucky (evaluative category) that we scored when we did (thing evaluated)’. Bednarek (2007) compared British English broadsheets and tabloid newspapers and identified eight patterns of evaluative adjectives, including most of the patterns in Hunston and Sinclair (2000), some new realizations of those patterns, as well as new patterns. In another study, Hunston (2002: 90–1) described a local grammar of sameness and difference, by identifying the words that indicate these meanings (e.g. ‘equate’, ‘match’, ‘contrast’, ‘differentiate’) and the patterns in which they are used (e.g. verb + plural noun group as in ‘equate two things’, verb + between + plural noun group as in ‘differentiate between two things’), then identifying elements in the local grammar, such as ‘comparer’, ‘comparison’, ‘item 1’, and ‘item 2’, and lastly mapping these elements onto the patterns. The local grammar of a particular language use can be employed to automatically retrieve all such instances of language use from a corpus. Barnbrook and Sinclair (2001), for instance, showed how a computer program based on the features of the local grammar can be used to search for definitions in corpora that comprised non-dictionary texts, arguing that the structures used in dictionary definitions are in
fact not specific to dictionaries but are frequently used for definitions generally. In Barnbrook's(2002)study of a local grammar of definition sentences, the functional components of the sentences were extracted by parsing software. Inspired by the previous research outlined above, the present study adopted a local grammar approach to examine a specific discourse in finance services 14.3 Key Notions of Local grammar Functional categories and discourse functions Local grammar patterns Canonical patterns and variants REFERENCES Allen, C M. 2006. "A Local Grammar of Cause and Effect: A Corpus-Driven Study Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, University of Birmingham Barnbrook, G. 2002. Defining Language: A Local Grammar of Definition Sentences John benjamins Barnbrook, G. and J. McH. Sinclair. 2001. "Specialised corpus, local and functional grammars, in M. Ghadessy, A. Henry, and R L Roseberry(eds): Small Corpus Studies and ELT: Theory and Practice. John Benjamins, pp. 237-76 Bednarek, M. 2007. Local grammar and register variation: Explorations in broadsheet and tabloid newspaper discourse, Empirical Language Research Journal2:1-23,availableathttp://ejournals.orguk/elr/arTicLe/2007/1.accessed 10 December 2014 Bednarek, M. 2008. Emotion Talk across Corpora. Palgrave Macmillan Bhatia, V.K. 2014. Analysing discourse variation in professional contexts'in V Bhatia and S. Bremner (eds The Routledge handbook of language and Professional Communication. Routed ge, pp 3-12 Bhatia, VK.2010. Interdiscursivity in professional communication. Discourse and mication 4/1: 32-50 Cheng, W, C. Greaves, J. McH. Sinclair and M. Warren. 2009. Uncovering the extent of the phraseological tendency: Towards a systematic analysis of concgrams Applied Linguistics 30(2): 236-52 Flowerdew, J and A. Wan. 2010. The linguistic and the contextual in applied genre analysis: The case of the company aud it report. English for Specific Purposes 29/2:78-93 Gross, M. 1993. Local grammars and their representation by finite automata,, in M Hoey(ed ) Data, Description, Discourse. HarperCollins, pp 26-38 Hunston, S. 2002. Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambrid ge University Press Hunston, S. and J. McH. Sinclair. 2000. 'A local grammar of evaluation'in S Hunston and G. Thompson(eds ) Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford University Press, pp. 74-101 Nam, J. and K. Choi. 1997. 'A local grammar-based approach to recognizing of proper names 38 THE LOCAL GRAMMAR OF DISCLAIMERS. Downloaded fromhttp:/applij.oxfordjournals.org/atPaoYue-kongLibraryonMarch22 2016 orean texts available
2 fact not specific to dictionaries but are frequently used for definitions generally. In Barnbrook’s (2002) study of a local grammar of definition sentences, the functional components of the sentences were extracted by parsing software. Inspired by the previous research outlined above, the present study adopted a local grammar approach to examine a specific discourse in finance services. 14.3 Key Notions of Local Grammar Functional categories and discourse functions Local grammar patterns Canonical patterns and variants REFERENCES Allen, C. M. 2006. ‘A Local Grammar of Cause and Effect: A Corpus-Driven Study,’ Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Birmingham. Barnbrook, G. 2002. Defining Language: A Local Grammar of Definition Sentences. John Benjamins. Barnbrook, G. and J. McH. Sinclair. 2001. ‘Specialised corpus, local and functional grammars’, in M. Ghadessy, A. Henry, and R. L. Roseberry (eds): Small Corpus Studies and ELT: Theory and Practice. John Benjamins, pp.237–76. Bednarek, M. 2007. ‘Local grammar and register variation: Explorations in broadsheet and tabloid newspaper discourse,’ Empirical Language Research Journal 2: 1–23, available at http://ejournals.org.uk/ELR/article/2007/1. Accessed 10 December 2014. Bednarek, M. 2008. Emotion Talk across Corpora. Palgrave Macmillan. Bhatia, V. K. 2014. ‘Analysing discourse variation in professional contexts’ in V. Bhatia and S. Bremner (eds.): The Routledge Handbook of Language and Professional Communication. Routledge, pp. 3–12. Bhatia, V. K. 2010. ‘Interdiscursivity in professional communication.’ Discourse and Communication 4/1: 32–50. Cheng, W., C. Greaves, J. McH. Sinclair and M. Warren. 2009. Uncovering the extent of the phraseological tendency: Towards a systematic analysis of concgrams. Applied Linguistics 30(2): 236–52. Flowerdew, J. and A. Wan. 2010. ‘The linguistic and the contextual in applied genre analysis: The case of the company audit report.’ English for Specific Purposes 29/2: 78–93. Gross, M. 1993. ‘Local grammars and their representation by finite automata’, in M. Hoey (ed.): Data, Description, Discourse. HarperCollins, pp. 26–38. Hunston, S. 2002. Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. Hunston, S. and J. McH. Sinclair. 2000. ‘A local grammar of evaluation’ in S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds): Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford University Press, pp. 74–101. Nam, J. and K. Choi. 1997. ‘A local grammar-based approach to recognizing of proper names 38 THE LOCAL GRAMMAR OF DISCLAIMERS. Downloaded from http://applij.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pao Yue-Kong Library on March 22, 2016 in Korean texts,’ available at
http://clair.eecsumich.edw/aan/paper.php?paperid=w97-0125#pdf.Accessed10 December 2014 Sinclair, J. McH. 2004. How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching. John Benjamins Sinclair, J. McH, S. Jones, R. Daley, and R. Krishnamurthy. 2004. English Collocation Studies: The OSTI Report. Continuum
3 http://clair.eecs.umich.edu/aan/paper.php?paper_id=W97-0125#pdf. Accessed 10 December 2014. Sinclair, J. McH. 2004. How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching. John Benjamins. Sinclair, J. McH., S. Jones, R. Daley, and R. Krishnamurthy. 2004. English Collocation Studies: The OSTI Report. Continuum
