Verbal Art
A Social Semiotic Perspective
The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, Volume 7
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.
David Butt [+–]
Macquarie University
View Website
David Butt is associate Professor in linguistics at Macquarie University and for more than a decade has been the Director of the University Research Centre for Language in Social Life (CLSL: now a Research Network). This Centre has conducted projects across communities and institutions for which functional linguistics provided significant evidence about the management of change.
Through the Centre, he has been actively engaged with professionals in medicine (surgery and psychiatry), counselling, care for people with disabilities, intelligent systems design and brain sciences, cultural analysis (literature, theatre, world Englishes), complexity theory and ‘smart spaces’, Vygotskian approaches to education and training, financial reporting, courtroom
explanations and forensic evidence, media and journalism, and child language development (in the traditions of Trevarthen and Halliday). The Centre has also investigated the interrelations between linguistics, verbal art (especially poetry), philosophy and the arguments of natural sciences (viz biology; genetics; and physics). The Centre has actively promoted educational developments in various cultures beyond Australia – Singapore, India, and especially with Timor and in Indonesia. David has published extensively on verbal art and has conducted many research projects and classes
on the subject.
Through the Centre, he has been actively engaged with professionals in medicine (surgery and psychiatry), counselling, care for people with disabilities, intelligent systems design and brain sciences, cultural analysis (literature, theatre, world Englishes), complexity theory and ‘smart spaces’, Vygotskian approaches to education and training, financial reporting, courtroom
explanations and forensic evidence, media and journalism, and child language development (in the traditions of Trevarthen and Halliday). The Centre has also investigated the interrelations between linguistics, verbal art (especially poetry), philosophy and the arguments of natural sciences (viz biology; genetics; and physics). The Centre has actively promoted educational developments in various cultures beyond Australia – Singapore, India, and especially with Timor and in Indonesia. David has published extensively on verbal art and has conducted many research projects and classes
on the subject.
Language, as Whorf said, is the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Series: Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Chapter 2
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Chapter 3
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Chapter 4
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Chapter 5
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Chapter 6
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Chapter 7
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Chapter 8
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Chapter 9
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
Chapter 10
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
Language, as Whorf said, the the best show man puts on. And perhaps the most amazing performance in this repertory is verbal art, which thanks to the power of ordinary language, peoples the world with beings who although they do not exist hold a many-angled mirror to human life. They live, creating histories which possess deeper reality than our own real existence in society: through these histories is distilled human experience, made potent as an extended metaphor for the essential human condition. The deepest level of meaning, the themes in verbal art, relate to human social existence – its dilemmas and its delights, thus bearing witness to its socio-semiotic origins. All of this is achieved through a patterning of the patterns of language. Through the linguistic analysis of the various genres of literature, the chapters of this volume offer a social semiotic theory for engaging meaningfully with literature. The book should interest lovers and teachers of literature.
