Pattama Patpong
Research Institute for
Languages and Cultures of Asia,
<lcppa@mahidol.ac.th>,
<ppattama@yahoo.com>
An
Analysis of Generic Structure Potential of Some Selected Austroasiatic
Folktales: A Preliminary Report
This paper is concerned with a linguistic exploration
of some selected Austroasiatic folktales. It draws on Systemic Functional
Linguistics to investigate the discourse structure of some selected
Austroasiatic folktales. In this current
research, a Generic Structural Potential or text structure of some selected
Austroasiatic folktales is proposed. The Generic Structure Potential is a
generic (or schematic) structure of texts as they unfold through time (Hasan,
1984a/1996). In this paper, some linguistic features (i.e., lexicogrammatical
patterns) involved in constituting the selected Austroasiatic folktales’
Generic Structure Potential are discussed. The data for this study were drawn
from eight Austroasiatic folktales. They were taken from secondary sources
(e.g., theses’ appendices, field notes).
This paper opens with a brief of theoretical concepts of systemic
functional linguistics (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004; Matthiessen, 1995).
This is followed by the notion of Generic Structure Potential. A step by step
of analysis of the Generic Structural Potential is presented. The Generic
Structural Potential of the selected Austroasiatic folktales is discussed. A
brief discussion on semantic properties of Placement Event is introduced.
Finally, some lexicogrammatical patterns that constitute the semantic
properties of the Placement Event are discussed.
References
Halliday, M.
A. K. and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen. 2004. Third edition. An introduction to
functional grammar.
Hasan,
Ruquiya. 1984a/1996. “The nursery tales as a genre.”
Matthiessen,
Christian M.I.M. 1995. “Lexicogrammatical cartography: English systems.”