Systemic Phonology - Recent Studies in English - Wendy L. Bowcher
Chapter 12: Locating the limerick ‘Wall Street Irene’ and the sonnet ‘On his blindness’ in the semiotic space between the body as signal generator/receiver and the body as social interactant
Systemic Phonology - Recent Studies in English - Wendy L. Bowcher
William Southworth Greaves [+]
Glendon College, York University, Toronto.
William Southworth Greaves is Emeritus Professor in the Graduate Programme in English in the Department of English at Glendon College, York University, Toronto, Canada. His research interests include language education, language and primates, and English intonation. He has authored and edited 15 books and manuscripts, including the co-edited volume (with James Benson) Functional Dimensions of Ape-Human Discourse (Equinox) and the co-authored volume (with M. A. K. Halliday) Intonation in the Grammar of English (Equinox). He has played an active role in the International Systemic Functional Linguistics Association, and in 1982 co-convened in Canada the 9th International Systemic Congress, the first held outside of the UK. He regularly delivers seminars and workshops on English intonation within the systemic functional framework to international audiences.
Description
This chapter defines the semogenic (meaning-making) space between the body as ears and tongue, which handle sound, and as hands and feet, which carry out social activities such as recreational dancing or, more technically, performing a medical procedure on a patient. It introduces Praat software for dealing with sound, discusses the particular Praat TextGrids used in literary/linguistic analysis, and then explains rhythm of discourse, as these are used to examine the sound and wording of very different literary performances: readings of the limerick ‘Wall Street Irene’, and of John Milton’s sonnet ‘On his blindness’.