Semantic Variation
Meaning in Society and in Sociolinguistics
The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Volume 2
Contributing Author
Ruqaiya Hasan† [+–]
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
Edited by
Jonathan J. Webster [+–]
City University of Hong Kong
Professor Jonathan Webster is Honorary Professor at Macquarie University, and Professor at the City University of Hong Kong (retired). He was the Director of The Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies (2005-2021), and Head of the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong (2005-2011). Professor Jonathan Webster is the Founding Editor for Linguistics and the Human Sciences published by Equinox, and Managing Editor for WORD. Professor Jonathan Webster is also the Editor of 36 books on topics in Systemic Functional Linguistics.
The sociolinguistic turn of the 60’s has been remarkably successful: variability of language is no longer an issue open to debate. But studies of variation have by and large been restricted to the level of expression. This volume offers a critique of present day sociolinguistics, arguing that since meaning is critical to all contexts of life in society, ignoring it has led to a number of serious problems, foremost among them a mis-conception of the nature of sociolinguistics itself. By examining the possibility of systematic variation at the level of meaning, the volume makes a positive contribution to opening up a debate about the possibility of the neglected/ misrepresented notion of semantic variation. Most chapters of the volume present an account of certain aspects of an empirical research which strongly supports the view that systematic variation in the choice of semantic features occurs across different social groups. Mothers and their young children less than four years old showed in their naturally occurring conversation a highly systematic, statistically significant, orientation to distinct styles of meaning, which correlated with their social positioning, and/or with the gender of the children. The comparison of kindergarten teachers’ ways of meaning with those of mothers’ provides empirical proof that teacher talk is an exaggerated version of middle class mothers’ talk. The volume is relevant on the one hand to theoretical issues in linguistics and sociolinguistics and on the other, to any serious discourse about equitable education.
This volume is accompanied by supplementary material which may be downloaded for personal use only.
A Brief Summary of the Research on Semantic Variation
Conventions for Dialogue Transcription in the Included Sample
Sample of Mother-child Dialogues
Sample of Analysis
Identifying Patterns in Linguistic Behaviour by Carmel Cloran
Semantic Networks: the Description of Linguistic Meaning in SFL by Ruqaiya Hasan, Carmel Cloran, Geoffrey Williams, and Annabelle Lukin (2007)
Series: Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan
Table of Contents
Prelims
Acknowledgements [+–] ix
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
City University of Hong Kong
Professor Jonathan Webster is Honorary Professor at Macquarie University, and Professor at the City University of Hong Kong (retired). He was the Director of The Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies (2005-2021), and Head of the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong (2005-2011). Professor Jonathan Webster is the Founding Editor for Linguistics and the Human Sciences published by Equinox, and Managing Editor for WORD. Professor Jonathan Webster is also the Editor of 36 books on topics in Systemic Functional Linguistics.
The sociolinguistic turn of the 60’s has been remarkably successful: variability of language is no longer an issue open to debate. But studies of variation have by and large been restricted to the level of expression. This volume offers a critique of present day sociolinguistics, arguing that since meaning is critical to all contexts of life in society, ignoring it has led to a number of serious problems, foremost among them a mis-conception of the nature of sociolinguistics itself. By examining the possibility of systematic variation at the level of meaning, the volume makes a positive contribution to opening up a debate about the possibility of the neglected/ misrepresented notion of semantic variation. Most chapters of the volume present an account of certain aspects of an empirical research which strongly supports the view that systematic variation in the choice of semantic features occurs across different social groups. Mothers and their young children less than four years old showed in their naturally occurring conversation a highly systematic, statistically significant, orientation to distinct styles of meaning, which correlated with their social positioning, and/or with the gender of the children. The comparison of kindergarten teachers’ ways of meaning with those of mothers’ provides empirical proof that teacher talk is an exaggerated version of middle class mothers’ talk. The volume is relevant on the one hand to theoretical issues in linguistics and sociolinguistics and on the other, to any serious discourse about equitable education. This volume is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing A Brief Summary of the Research on Semantic Variation Conventions for Dialogue Transcription in the Included Sample Sample of Mother-child Dialogues Sample of Analysis Identifying Patterns in Linguistic Behaviour by Carmel Cloran Semantic Networks: the Description of Linguistic Meaning in SFL by Ruqaiya Hasan, Carmel Cloran, Geoffrey Williams, and Annabelle Lukin (2007)
Author’s preface [+–] xi-xiii
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
The sociolinguistic turn of the 60’s has been remarkably successful: variability of language is no longer an issue open to debate. But studies of variation have by and large been restricted to the level of expression. This volume offers a critique of present day sociolinguistics, arguing that since meaning is critical to all contexts of life in society, ignoring it has led to a number of serious problems, foremost among them a mis-conception of the nature of sociolinguistics itself. By examining the possibility of systematic variation at the level of meaning, the volume makes a positive contribution to opening up a debate about the possibility of the neglected/ misrepresented notion of semantic variation. Most chapters of the volume present an account of certain aspects of an empirical research which strongly supports the view that systematic variation in the choice of semantic features occurs across different social groups. Mothers and their young children less than four years old showed in their naturally occurring conversation a highly systematic, statistically significant, orientation to distinct styles of meaning, which correlated with their social positioning, and/or with the gender of the children. The comparison of kindergarten teachers’ ways of meaning with those of mothers’ provides empirical proof that teacher talk is an exaggerated version of middle class mothers’ talk. The volume is relevant on the one hand to theoretical issues in linguistics and sociolinguistics and on the other, to any serious discourse about equitable education. This volume is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing A Brief Summary of the Research on Semantic Variation Conventions for Dialogue Transcription in the Included Sample Sample of Mother-child Dialogues Sample of Analysis Identifying Patterns in Linguistic Behaviour by Carmel Cloran Semantic Networks: the Description of Linguistic Meaning in SFL by Ruqaiya Hasan, Carmel Cloran, Geoffrey Williams, and Annabelle Lukin (2007)
Editor’s introduction [+–] 1-2
City University of Hong Kong
Professor Jonathan Webster is Honorary Professor at Macquarie University, and Professor at the City University of Hong Kong (retired). He was the Director of The Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies (2005-2021), and Head of the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong (2005-2011). Professor Jonathan Webster is the Founding Editor for Linguistics and the Human Sciences published by Equinox, and Managing Editor for WORD. Professor Jonathan Webster is also the Editor of 36 books on topics in Systemic Functional Linguistics.
The sociolinguistic turn of the 60’s has been remarkably successful: variability of language is no longer an issue open to debate. But studies of variation have by and large been restricted to the level of expression. This volume offers a critique of present day sociolinguistics, arguing that since meaning is critical to all contexts of life in society, ignoring it has led to a number of serious problems, foremost among them a mis-conception of the nature of sociolinguistics itself. By examining the possibility of systematic variation at the level of meaning, the volume makes a positive contribution to opening up a debate about the possibility of the neglected/ misrepresented notion of semantic variation. Most chapters of the volume present an account of certain aspects of an empirical research which strongly supports the view that systematic variation in the choice of semantic features occurs across different social groups. Mothers and their young children less than four years old showed in their naturally occurring conversation a highly systematic, statistically significant, orientation to distinct styles of meaning, which correlated with their social positioning, and/or with the gender of the children. The comparison of kindergarten teachers’ ways of meaning with those of mothers’ provides empirical proof that teacher talk is an exaggerated version of middle class mothers’ talk. The volume is relevant on the one hand to theoretical issues in linguistics and sociolinguistics and on the other, to any serious discourse about equitable education. This volume is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing A Brief Summary of the Research on Semantic Variation Conventions for Dialogue Transcription in the Included Sample Sample of Mother-child Dialogues Sample of Analysis Identifying Patterns in Linguistic Behaviour by Carmel Cloran Semantic Networks: the Description of Linguistic Meaning in SFL by Ruqaiya Hasan, Carmel Cloran, Geoffrey Williams, and Annabelle Lukin (2007)
I Introducing meaning in sociolinguistics
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 Rethinking the relationship between language and society; 3 An integrated sociolinguistics; 4 Concluding remarks: optimal theories for integrated sociolinguistics
2 On semantic variation [+–] 41-72
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 Variable and variant in sociolinguistics; 3 Sociolinguistic variation; 4 Variation and sociolinguistic variety; 5 emantic variation; 6 Semantic variation: its contributions to sociolinguistics
II Questions and answers in sociolinguistic studies
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 Meaning and the concept of ‘semantic variation’; 3 Semantic variation and systemic-functional linguistics; 4 The research subjects; 5 Recording mothers and children; 6 The collected data and its contexts; 7 Analytic categories: an example; 8 Answer: the point of a question; 9 Asking and telling: some results from an empirical investigation; 10 The discussion of results: PC1-A1;11 The discussion of results: PC1-A2; 12 Conclusion
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 Socialisation; 3 Language; 4 Language and socialisation; 5 Some results: on teachers’ and mothers’ semantic orientation; 6 Concluding remarks
5 Semantic variation and sociolinguistics [1989] [+–] 180-230
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 The research; 3 Semantic variation: conceptual foundations; 4 Socio-semantic variation: an empirical study; 5 Semantic variation and sociolinguistic theory
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 Subjects in dialogue: the speakers and the data; 3 A model for the analysis of meaning in dialogue; 4 Some semantic attributes of questions; 5 Questions and answers: two profiles; 6 Conclusion
III Social hierarchies and the concept of rationality
7 Meaning in sociolinguistic theory [1992] [+–] 271-308
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 Part one: empirical foundations; 3 Part two: theory from practice; 4 Coda: the subject-matter of sociolinguistics
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 Reasoning and rationality; 3 Reasoning in everyday talk; 4 Reasoning, rationality and humanity
IV The world and the world of meanings
9 Contexts for meaning [1993] [+–] 355-379
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 Language and communication: the dominant perspective; 3 Communication and language: a functional perspective; 4 Functionalism and social meaning; 5 Semantic variation: the ideological power of worded meaning; 6 Synopsis
10 Social factors in semantic variation [+–] 380-402
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 Gendered talk: an ethnographic description; 3 Visible and invisible gender discrimination; 4 Young children and socio-semantic variation; 5 Semantic variation: gender and class
11 The ontogenesis of decontextualised language: some achievements of classification and framing [2001] [+–] 403-432
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Conjectures about decontextualised language; 2 Where, when and how do they learn it?; 3 Decontextualised language and the classroom
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
1 Introduction; 2 On learning through language: the meaning of semiotic mediation; 3 Naturally occurring discourse and semiotic mediation; 4 The potential of everyday talk: indications from mother-child dialogues; 5 Tenor and the mediation of mental disposition: concluding remarks
End Matter
References [+–] 455-478
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
The sociolinguistic turn of the 60’s has been remarkably successful: variability of language is no longer an issue open to debate. But studies of variation have by and large been restricted to the level of expression. This volume offers a critique of present day sociolinguistics, arguing that since meaning is critical to all contexts of life in society, ignoring it has led to a number of serious problems, foremost among them a mis-conception of the nature of sociolinguistics itself. By examining the possibility of systematic variation at the level of meaning, the volume makes a positive contribution to opening up a debate about the possibility of the neglected/ misrepresented notion of semantic variation. Most chapters of the volume present an account of certain aspects of an empirical research which strongly supports the view that systematic variation in the choice of semantic features occurs across different social groups. Mothers and their young children less than four years old showed in their naturally occurring conversation a highly systematic, statistically significant, orientation to distinct styles of meaning, which correlated with their social positioning, and/or with the gender of the children. The comparison of kindergarten teachers’ ways of meaning with those of mothers’ provides empirical proof that teacher talk is an exaggerated version of middle class mothers’ talk. The volume is relevant on the one hand to theoretical issues in linguistics and sociolinguistics and on the other, to any serious discourse about equitable education. This volume is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing A Brief Summary of the Research on Semantic Variation Conventions for Dialogue Transcription in the Included Sample Sample of Mother-child Dialogues Sample of Analysis Identifying Patterns in Linguistic Behaviour by Carmel Cloran Semantic Networks: the Description of Linguistic Meaning in SFL by Ruqaiya Hasan, Carmel Cloran, Geoffrey Williams, and Annabelle Lukin (2007)
Index [+–] 479-484
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
The sociolinguistic turn of the 60’s has been remarkably successful: variability of language is no longer an issue open to debate. But studies of variation have by and large been restricted to the level of expression. This volume offers a critique of present day sociolinguistics, arguing that since meaning is critical to all contexts of life in society, ignoring it has led to a number of serious problems, foremost among them a mis-conception of the nature of sociolinguistics itself. By examining the possibility of systematic variation at the level of meaning, the volume makes a positive contribution to opening up a debate about the possibility of the neglected/ misrepresented notion of semantic variation. Most chapters of the volume present an account of certain aspects of an empirical research which strongly supports the view that systematic variation in the choice of semantic features occurs across different social groups. Mothers and their young children less than four years old showed in their naturally occurring conversation a highly systematic, statistically significant, orientation to distinct styles of meaning, which correlated with their social positioning, and/or with the gender of the children. The comparison of kindergarten teachers’ ways of meaning with those of mothers’ provides empirical proof that teacher talk is an exaggerated version of middle class mothers’ talk. The volume is relevant on the one hand to theoretical issues in linguistics and sociolinguistics and on the other, to any serious discourse about equitable education. This volume is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing A Brief Summary of the Research on Semantic Variation Conventions for Dialogue Transcription in the Included Sample Sample of Mother-child Dialogues Sample of Analysis Identifying Patterns in Linguistic Behaviour by Carmel Cloran Semantic Networks: the Description of Linguistic Meaning in SFL by Ruqaiya Hasan, Carmel Cloran, Geoffrey Williams, and Annabelle Lukin (2007)
ISBN-13 (Hardback)
9781904768357
Price (Hardback)
£75.00 / $95.00
ISBN-13 (Paperback)
9781904768364
Price (Paperback)
£35.00 / $50.00
ISBN (eBook)
9781845536039
Price (eBook)
Individual
£35.00 / $50.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $95.00
£35.00 / $50.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $95.00
Publication
01/07/2009
Pages
498
Size
234 x 156mm
Readership
academics, researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students
Illustration
25 figures
