The conversation is understood well by considering the angle of representation, agency, and affectedness.
These grammatical constructions are used in discovering the type of participants in a communication process. Some participants can be active by taking an active part in communication. They can also be passive or most acted upon in a conversation. In answering such questions, it’s essential to discuss grammatical constructions and their communicative effects by providing relevant examples.
Concept of angle representation
Examining the angle of representation involves a precise examination of processes, participants, and circumstances surrounding conversation. It helps to understand the choices of speakers and writers to use grammar in an interview. In constructing angle of representation, its ideal to focus on metafunctions that form concrete forms of language. Grammar is constructed through three different ways, namely: semantics, phonology, and lexicogrammar. Metafunctions are divided into three segments, namely: ideation, interpersonal, and textual.
Ideation metafunction
Ideation is divided into two categories, namely experimental and logical metafunctions. scruggs scruggs organizes a practical part of the grammar, such as pictures in a comical movie. Logical aspects comprise the cognitive reasoning of the speaker. It creates a continuous flow of events in literature. For example, how one event leads to another. It involves a close analysis of the subject matter, text, and contextual use of language. Ideation is also divided into three sections, namely: semantic domain, specialization, and angle of representation. The semantic field analyzes the subject matter of content by organizing its nominal groups, adverbs, and adjectives. Specialty is related to technical vocabulary items. Constructing an angle of representation examines types of processes, participants, and circumstances.
Interpersonal metafunction
Interpersonal metafunction defines the aspect of tenor or interactivity in grammar. Tensor consists of three components, namely speaker or persona, social distance, and relative social status. Spoken texts apply social range and relative social status. We examine how individual speakers present themselves to the audience . for example, in the literature that consists of one author, its easier to determine the social distance and the relative social status in a text.
The speaker is concerned with the stance, standing, and personalization of the speaker. It involves examining the speaker’s choice of words in a conversation, for example, determining whether the speaker uses negative or positive language during conservation. Social distance shows the intimacy of the speaker and the audience. For example, speaker can use a nickname to a person that is in a close relationship. Relative social status defines the equality of the participants in a conversation. For example, the relationship between teachers and students can be considered as an unequal relationship. Teachers play an active part during teaching while students take a passive side. Evaluating speech acts such as asking and answering questions, it’s possible to determine the equality of participants in a speech.
Textual metafunction
It relates to the intimate and communicative nature of a text. It involves textual interactivity, spontaneity, and communicative distance of the participants. Textual interactivity defined by repetition, pauses, and hesitators. Spontaneity is analyzed by a close evaluation of coordination, lexical density, and grammatical complexity. Besides, the use of nominal groups defines the textual metafunction. Communicative distance examines text cohesion and general usage of language. Coherence is understood better by examining intonational aspects and lexical chains. It also involves an analysis of tonicity, tonality, and speech register. Lexical elements emphasize sense relations, while grammatical aspects consider repetition, such as linking adverbials.
Aspect and concept of angle agency
The grammatical angle of the agency defines semantic concepts differently from the subject of a sentence. The subject is determined by the order if the words(syntax), while an agent is identified by denoting the relationship of the action and the verb. For example: “the dog bit the little girl.” In the sentence,” dog” represents the agent while the girl represents “subject.” An agent is a Latin word that describes an action.
In a sentence, the verb represents an action, while a noun phrase describes an agent. The aspect of agency in grammar is easier to understand intuitively but difficult to define. The grammatical agency has typical violation qualities. According to David Dowty, he described conditions of a proto-agent and proto-patient. He further explained that proto-agent has the most nominal elements, while proto-patient is treated as the agent in a sentence with fewer nominal components. It helps to help challenges experienced by semantics in deciding thematic roles. For example, in a sentence, “his energy surprised everyone,” his energy represents the agent of the sentence, although it does not contain most of the typical agent qualities. Such qualities include perception and volition.
However, confusion should not arise in differentiating agent and patient. Grammatical agent is different from the subject. The subject is explicitly related to the action or event expressed by the verb while the agent represents the flow of information. Its described by the word order in a sentence. However, the position of the agent may change depending on the structure of the sentence, such as passive and active voice. For example, “the girl ate the food” in the sentence “the girl” represents an agent while and “the food” is the subject. In the passive voice, “the food was eaten by the girl,” “the food” represents the grammatical subject while “the girl” remains the agent of the sentence. In many circumstances, English sentences and Indo-European express agent as the subject. Using transitive verbs in reciprocal events may lead to a conflation of an agent and subject. For example, “David kicked faith,” “faith,” is downgraded to a patient because it refers to a direct object while “David” defined as the co-agent.
Aspect and angle of affectedness
Affectedness is demoted in many linguistic domains. They include transitivity, syntax operation, verbal semantics, and alignment. It’s also applicable in genetically different languages such as Japanese. Affectedness can be described as an aspect of the property. In a grammatical sentence, it can be expressed by the time factor. It’s not a must for the time factor to be precise. According to Tenny (1987), he argued that the most crucial factor is the time expression in a sentence, and it does not necessarily have a definite period. For example, ” David ate the food” is delimited because the change of the object places a limit on the event. He further divided five classes of the verb in which the direct object denotes the event. Affectedness defines the property of a verb by describing happening delimited by a straightforward argument of the verb. Affectedness and transitivity describe an extent to which an action is transferred to a patient. According to Hopper(1918) distinguished two aspects of affectedness such that there is total and partial affectedness. For example:
- s/he kicked the ball and scored. The sentence is clear and shows total affectedness.
- S/he was kicking the ball (the result is unclear) and therefore denotes partial affectedness.
Affectedness and assignment. It denotes larger verb classes in many languages. Some construction of affectedness denotes perception and emotion. For example:
A person reads a book. “Person” is indicated as ABS while “child” is indicated as APU hence ABS_APU
Components of affectedness.
There are two dimensional of affectedness space, namely: quality and quantity affectedness. Effected objects do not portray grades of existence and, therefore, are created in a sentence. Affected objects are expressed as quality and quantity domains. Quality domain may express mental, existence, affection, non-attainment, and motion while quantity domain can be expressed as partial, total, and minimal. The two qualities are represented by Kaiser(2011:597).one dimension expresses a type of change while the other denotes a degree of change.
Affectedness, aspect and the notion of scale
The section will briefly examine the relationship between the direct object position and lexical aspect. Lexical aspects of a transitive verb depend on the property of a direct object. For example:
- James drinks for/*in years.
- James drank wine for/*in years.
Directs objects have a measuring out relation with the event.
Communicative effects of grammatical construction
Human language use is usually exquisitely on how we communicate. Communication depends on how grammar is constructed. In the above context, grammar construction in agency and affectedness has been discussed in detail with relevant examples. They affect cognitive and behavioral perspectives in communication. Linguistic framing differentiates how individuals interpret emotions, represent objects, and remember events. They determine correct choice of expressions within linguistic community. Also, it provides an understanding of how different speakers play words. Grammatical construction directs attention and offers guidelines for formal events through repetition.
Grammatical constructions influence how people communicate and interpret the word phrases in a linguistic world. It affects the construction of agency and remembers a series of events. For example, the influence of agency in a language may be used in denoting intentional actions and accidental actions. When two different verbs are used to indicate transitive and intransitive forms of the action, they usually share the same stem. Nominalization is words that are created from adjectives such as applicability, failure, reaction, and carelessness. Affectedness and agency influence the derivational morphology in forming nouns. However, some words can be used directly without changing the verb. They affect with zero-derivation. For example:
- I require a copy (a copy is a noun)
- I will copy(a copy is a verb)
In conclusion, grammatical construction influence the tenor of the speakers and the audience. Understanding grammatical construction and its effects help to improve in the language. Language is a vital organ in the community. Perception of the language during speaking influences its denotation.