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Copyright Undertaking
This thesis is protected by copyright, with all rights reserved.
By reading and using the thesis, the reader understands and agrees to the following terms:
1. The reader will abide by the rules and legal ordinances governing copyright regarding the use of the thesis.
2. The reader will use the thesis for the purpose of research or private study only and not for distribution or further reproduction or any other purpose.
3. The reader agrees to indemnify and hold the University harmless from and against any loss, damage, cost, liability or expenses arising from copyright infringement or unauthorized usage.
IMPORTANT
If you have reasons to believe that any materials in this thesis are deemed not suitable to be distributed in this form, or a copyright owner having difficulty with the material being included in our database, please contact [email protected] providing details. The Library will look into your claim and consider taking remedial action upon receipt of the written requests.
Pao Yue-kong Library, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
http://www.lib.polyu.edu.hk
CONSTRUING PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH: A SOCIAL SEMIOTIC
PERSPECTIVE
ZHENG YAOFEI
PhD
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
2019
I
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Department of English
CONSTRUING PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH: A SOCIAL SEMIOTIC
PERSPECTIVE
ZHENG YAOFEI
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
August 2018
II
Certificate of originality
I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief,
it reproduces no material previously published or written, nor material that has been accepted for
the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due acknowledgement has been made in
the text.
(Signed)
Zheng Yaofei (Name of student)
III
Abstract
With the rising status of English as an academic lingua franca, research article abstract
(RAA) writing has become an emerging pedagogic need in English language education.
However, developing an appropriate English RAA poses great linguistic challenges on both the
tertiary students and language teachers in the EFL context. This research assumes that systemic
understanding of the genre/text type, register and the lexico-grammatical demands within a
specific discipline can enable language teachers to prepare the “what and how” of effective RAA
teaching. This assumption is demonstrated by a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-informed
analysis on the context and language of a specific text type—pharmaceutical RAA. The language
of pharmacy is chosen for investigation because it represents a typical scientific register in the
domain of ESP. Although RAA writing has been widely investigated for decades by the English
for Specific Purpose (ESP) genre school and the language of science has been explored by SFL
scholars, systemic linguistic understanding on the construal of research abstracts and the
language of pharmacy have rarely been explored.
The research is underpinned by a qualitative methodology supplemented with quantitative
examination on a corpus containing pharmaceutical RAAs from top international journals,
Chinese journals as well as student writings. The focus of the linguistic analysis is on ideational
meaning construed by field types, semantic elements and lexicogrammatical resources.
Following the trinocular vision described in Hallidayan linguistics, the approach to discourse
analysis is a tri-stratal one—centering around ideational semantic meanings in terms of rhetorical
relations, activity sequences and taxonomy; examining ideational meaning from ‘around’ in
terms of its relationship to the interpersonal and textual meanings, from ‘above’ in terms of field
IV
types in context, and from ‘below’ in terms of transitivity grammar and specific lexis used in
realizing the discipline and the activity. Aiming to provide a systemic ideational description of
the data, the present study bases the analysis on an overall analytical framework combining
elements from several existing theoretical frameworks within SFL tradition: registerial
cartography, Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), taxonomy and activity sequence in discourse
semantic systems and above all the grammatical theory from Halliday’s Introduction to
Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). A pedagogic design that combines
findings from the systemic analysis of the language and the theory of scaffolding evolved out of
Vygotsky’s learning theory is also provided for discussing ESP classroom practice informed by
SFL.
The findings demonstrated in this thesis are two-fold, i.e. theoretical and practical, echoing
the concept of ‘appliable linguistics’. Theoretically, three innovative aspects are explored: At the
context stratum, based on the ‘field of activity’ theorized by registerial cartography ( Matthiessen,
2015), the study extends field description to ‘field of experience’ by modelling two field types in
RAA—the ‘field of research (FR)’ and the ‘field of object of study (FO)’; At the semantic and
grammar strata, the resource of grammatical metaphor (GM) and its syndromes are closely
examined through identifying different figure types and their realizations; At
lexicogrammatical stratum, the categorization on process types is profiled into delicacy based on
the 6 process types specified in Halliday & Matthiessen (2014) and the lexis is analyzed relating
to the context and discipline. Pragmatically, the concept of ‘systemic linguistic scaffolding’ is
proposed that highlights explicit teaching and guidance through interaction. The linguistic
analysis on field types, GM and lexis is recontextualized into pedagogic metalanguage framed in
V
the ‘power trio’ (cf. Martin, 2013) and a three-tiered scaffolding scheme is designed connecting
linguistic theory to language classroom.
In conclusion, theoretical, analytical and pedagogical attempts are made towards the
understanding of the language of pharmaceutical RAA, the development of frameworks for
ideational linguistic analysis from a social semiotic perspective and the applicability of systemic
analysis in language teaching and learning.
VI
Publications arising from the thesis
Zheng, Y. F. (2018) A systemic ideational analysis on pharmaceutical research article abstract.
Asian ESP, 14 (1), pp. 246-271.
Zheng, Y. F. (2018) Clause complex in Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar 2014, in:
B. Zhu (eds.) Commentarieson the Studies of Complex Sentence Vol. 1. (Shantou
University Press), pp. 85-104. (Chinese)
Zheng, Y. F. and Liang, M.S. (2017) A Study of Nominalization in Pharmaceutical Research
Article. Journal of University of Science and Technology Beijing (Social Science
Edition), 33 (2), pp, No. 2, pp. 13-22. (Chinese)
Zheng, Y. F. (2017) Modeling Pharmaceutical Research Article Abstracts: Structural Patterns,
Semantic Relations and Linguistic Features. In: W. Feng, P. Lin, and D. Tay (eds.)
Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on English at Tertiary Level. pp.
180-198.
VII
Conference presentations
1. Enacting systemic linguistic scaffolding in ESP classroom for abstract writing,Faces of
English 2: Teaching and Researching Academic and Professional English, The University
of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1-3 June, 2017
2. Understanding Field in Pharmaceutical Research Article Abstract: A Systemic Ideational
Perspective, The 44th International Systemic Functional Congress, Univerisity of
Wollongong, Australia, 17-19 July, 2017
3. Systemic Linguistic Scaffolding in the Enactment of Eco-classes, The Second
International Symposium on Ecolinguistics, Beijing China, 22-25 Aug, 2017
4. Nominalization and Technicality in Pharmaceutical Research Article, International
Conference on ESP:new technologies and digital learning, The Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, Hong Kong, 7-9 December, 2017
VIII
Acknowledgments
Upon the accomplishment of this thesis, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my
professors, colleagues, friends and family members.
First and foremost, I am deeply indebted to my PhD supervisors. Unlike most other students,
I have been fortunate enough to work with and learn from two chief supervisors: Dr. Gail Forey
and Prof. Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen. I want to thank Dr. Forey for taking me as her PhD
student and encouraging me to probe into the applicability of Systemic Functional Linguistics in
the educational context. I would like to thank Prof. Matthiessen for all the enlightening courses,
seminars and talks he offered at PolyU throughout the years and above all his generous help and
careful supervision at the critical stage of my thesis writing and revision. I would like to express
my thanks to my co-supervisor, Dr William Feng who is always positive and supportive. I am
also indebted to other scholars at the Department of English, PolyU, especially Prof. Winnie
Cheng, Prof. David Qian, Dr. Li Lan, Dr. Francis Low, Dr. Marvin Lam, Dr. Jing Hao for their
lectures and advice. My special thanks go to my fellow research students and friends at the
department with whom I attend lectures, discuss academic issues and organize academic events
together. Life at PolyU would not have been so warm and sweet without your friendship and
kindness.
I would like to thank Prof. Jim Martin for his hands-on teaching at Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, where I received three sessions of systemic training. Thanks to Prof. Wang Zhenhua,
Dr. Wang Pin and Dr. Xing Junjun for organizing the intensive course programs in Shanghai.
My sincere thanks also go to scholars from other institutions with whom I have consulted during
the years concerning my PhD project, especially Prof. Huang Guowen, Prof. Wendy Bowcher,
IX
Prof. Chang Chenguang, Prof. Liz Hamp-Lyons, Dr. Sue Hood, Dr. David Rose, and Dr.
Suzanne Eggins.
I would also like to thank my colleagues, Ms. Zhang Jun and Ms. Chen Songjing for
offering help with data collection at Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, my home university
in China.
Finally, I am grateful to my family especially my husband Zhang Xuefeng and my daughter
Zhang Ming, who is already a university undergraduate. Without their endless love,
understanding and patience, this PhD project would not have been completed. Yes, I have finally
gone through the arduous journey, which seemed a never-ending process.
X
Table of Contents
Certificate of originality ..................................................................................................................................... II
Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................... VIII
Abstract .................................................................................................................................................................. III
Publication arising from the thesis………………………………………………………………………………VIII
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................. X
List of tables ........................................................................................................................................................ XIV
List of figures .................................................................................................................................................... XVII
2.2 Research on EAP ..................................................................................................................... 14
2.2.1 The notion of EAP .................................................................................................................................... 14
2.2.2 Genre studies in relation to EAP ........................................................................................................ 15
2.2.2.1 Three major educational genre traditions ................................................................................. 16
2.2.2.2 Genre studies and pedagogic exploration concerning RAA ................................................. 19
2.2.3 Current situation of writing pedagogies in Mainland China ................................................... 23
3.2 A Qualitative research design .................................................................................................. 53
3.2.1 Motivation for the study ........................................................................................................................ 53
3.2.2 Research paradigm ................................................................................................................................. 54
3.2.3 Research questions ................................................................................................................................. 56
3.3 Data collection ......................................................................................................................... 57
3.4 Data analysis ........................................................................................................................... 65
3.4.1 The trinocular vision .............................................................................................................................. 65
3.4.2.1.1 Transitivity in the clause ............................................................................................................... 68
3.4.2.1.2 Taxis and logico-semantic Relations in clause complex .................................................... 73
4.2 Systemic theorization on context .......................................................................................... 107
4.2.1 Halliday’s account on context and register ................................................................................. 107
4.2.2 Context in Hasan’s Generic Structure Potential (GSP) and texture analysis .................. 112
4.2.3 Context in Martin’s genre model..................................................................................................... 113
4.2.4 Context in Matthiessen’s registerial cartography .................................................................... 117
4.3 Context and the ordered typology of systems ....................................................................... 123
4.4 Contextual analysis for pharmaceutical RAA ....................................................................... 124
4.4.1 Analyzing text in context ................................................................................................................... 124
4.4.2 Pharmaceutical RAA as 4th order system .................................................................................... 126
4.4.3 Context of culture ................................................................................................................................. 128
4.4.4 Context of situation .............................................................................................................................. 130
4.5 Field construed in pharmaceutical RAA ............................................................................... 134
XII
4.5.1 The socio-semiotic process: field of activity .............................................................................. 134
4.5.2 The domain of experience: field of experience ......................................................................... 146
4.5.3 Summary of field types construed in pharmaceutical RAA.................................................. 153
Chapter 5 The language ................................................................................................................................ 156
& Pun, 2017), systemic linguistic understanding on the construal of research abstracts and the
language of pharmacy have rarely been explored. The basic assumption that initiates the present
study is: If we understand the text and the linguistic demands within a specific discipline, it is far
easier to enact scaffolding relevant for apprenticing EFL learners into writing appropriate
discipline-specific texts.
The focus of the linguistic analysis in this thesis is ideational meaning construed by field
types, semantic elements and lexicogrammatical resources. Following the trinocular vision
described in Hallidayan linguistics (Halliday, 1996; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014), the approach
to discourse analysis here is a tri-stratal one—centering around ideational semantic meanings in
terms of rhetorical relations, activity sequences and lexical cohesion; examining from ‘around’ in
terms of its relationship to the interpersonal and textual meanings,from ‘above’ in terms of field
52
types in context, from ‘below’ in terms of transitivity grammar and specific lexis used in
construing the discipline and the activity. Aiming to provide a systemic ideational description of
the data, the present study bases the analysis on an overall analytical framework combining
elements from several existed theoretical frameworks within SFL tradition: registerial
cartography, Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), taxonomy and activity sequence in discourse
semantic systems and above all the lexicogrammatical theory from Halliday’s Introduction to
Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). In the process of applying these theories,
theoretical contributions are anticipated towards understanding the language of science writing
and the development of frameworks for ideational linguistic analysis from a social semiotic
perspective.
Following the above introduction (3.1), this chapter is further organised into four sections.
Section 3.2 provides an overall research design: the research space is elaborated to facilitate
understanding the background that drives the present research; the theoretical paradigms and the
appropriateness of the research paradigms chosen to the present study are discussed; Section 3.3
presents an overview of the data by describing the procedure of data collection with regard to the
compiling procedure of (i) the model text corpus as basis for uncovering linguistic patterns in
expert writing; (ii) the comparison text data for the discussion of pedagogic implication. Section
3.4 outlines research tools for analysis. Examples of findings concerning linguistic patterns are
illustrated with specification on the procedure of analysis with the theoretical frameworks
informed by SFL analytical tools. The final section, Section 3.5, summarizes the key concerns
and procedures adopted in the present research and presents concluding remarks.
53
3.2 A Qualitative research design
3.2.1 Motivation for the study
The research motivation that drives the present study is presented in Chapter 1 and
summarized here again in order to associate ‘why’ to ‘how’ of the research.
Viewed from a practical perspective, the present research evolves out of needs anticipated
by both the ESAP teachers in Mainland China and EFL learners. With the growing popularity of
EAP as well as the doubts about the appropriateness of ESAP at the tertiary sector in Mainland
China(Cai, 2010), EFL teachers are constantly confused by the “what and how” of ESAP and
feel the urgent need to research ways of conducting discipline-based EAP teaching to achieve
better learner outcomes. EFL learners at university level especially research students in China are
strongly motivated to use English as an academic lingua franca for future career development but
are faced with the anxiety of the language demands in writing discipline-specific texts. The
reasons for choosing pharmaceutical RAA as a starting point for researching the language of
ESAP are twofold: the first is that an international standard of RAA writing is highly desired
among EAP teachers and learners who probably will become future academics; the second is the
scarcity of pedagogic implications drawn from deep linguistic discussions on ESAP concerning
the discipline of pharmacy. Therefore, the findings from the present study are of practical
significance to benefit both teachers and learners in EFL contexts such as Mainland China.
Viewed from a theoretical perspective, linguistic features in academic writing of
‘hard-science’ disciplines are an area that is worth exploring based on the powerful toolkits
offered by SFL, a school of linguistics dedicated to supporting application (Matthiessen, 2013d;
54
Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). One area of SFL application which has not yet widely known
among applied linguists from other traditions is the unveiling of the language of science register
(Halliday & Martin, 1993; Martin & Veel, 1998; Humphery & Hao, 2013; Hao, 2015). While
pioneering SFL work on science language is highly valued, this strand of study can be expanded
into uncovering language features of various scientific disciplines and ultimately bring benefits
to pedagogic practices. Furthermore, the attempt to connect theory to discourse analytical
practice relevant to pedagogic contexts is the best way to test theory and has the potential to
enrich theory and promote the availability of the powerful framework of SFL which is at present
still difficult for practitioners in the field of language education. Therefore, the present study is
of theoretical consideration.
In summary, the research area to be explored is motivated by the immediate pedagogic needs
of ESAP in EFL context and the value of exploring deep linguistic understanding through a
social semiotic perspective. Above all it is the linguistic construction of both disciplinarity and
field of activity that this thesis aims to reveal that may offer theoretical and pragmatic
contribution to the ongoing EAP-oriented reform on College English education in Mainland
China.
3.2.2 Research paradigm
In order to seek complete understanding into how linguistic resources pattern to form
meaningful discipline-specific academic writings, a qualitative approach is taken in this study to
focus on in-depth description of the texts rather than quantitative study of large data sets to draw
general patterns. The term ‘qualitative’ carries attributes such as ‘interpretive’, ‘soft’,
55
‘descriptive’, ‘holistic’ and many more (Freebody, 2003: 36-37). These attributes implicate
different orientations towards knowledge, i.e. ‘how we know what we claim to know’ (Lynch,
1996:13), and also in relation to language, varying conceptualisations of the relationship between
language use and context. These orientations or conceptualisations are sets of beliefs or
paradigms researchers bring to the research. Creswell (2007: 20-23) outlines several research
paradigms: Postpositivism, Social Constructivism, Advocacy, and Pragmatism. Postpositivism is
not relevant because it emphasises determinacy and is based on the ‘hard sciences’ model where
ontological features can be explained by means of observation and experimentation. Advocacy is
inappropriate because it addresses social issues and emphasises bringing change or reform to the
society to save individuals or groups (Creswell, 2007). Pragmatism is relevant to the present
inquiry in terms of the concern with application of theories. However, Pragmatism is more about
‘problem-solution’ type of inquiry which employs both quantitative and qualitative sources of
data collection to best answer research questions. Although the present study is developed out of
real needs of both teachers and students, we tend to address these needs by means of qualitative
investigation. Therefore, Social Constructivism which is typically seen as an approach to
qualitative research offers an ideal perspective for guiding the present study.
Social constructivists stress the social function of language as ‘central and necessary to
learning and not merely ancillary’ (Lemke, 2001: 296). Human beings construct meanings as
they engage with the world they are experiencing and human learning is ‘dynamic social activity
that is situated in physical and social contexts, and distributed across persons, tools and activities’
(Johnston, 2006: 237). This is in line with SFL as a social semiotic theory and a theory of
language in context (Halliday 1978; Halliday & Hasan, 1985). SFL views language as holistic
56
system operating in society and offers powerful analytical frameworks to enable thick
description of texts. Informed by Halliday’s ‘language-based theory of learning’ (Halliday, 1993),
a central guiding principle can be drawn for the present study that a thorough research into a
particular text type within a particular discipline furnishes both teachers and learners with
practical linguistic knowledge that can enhance the writing fundamentally. Starting with the task
of constructing a text like pharmaceutical research abstract, one needs to be clearly aware of the
social purpose of writing and the semiotic mechanism of language at different levels to realize
that social purpose. This can be facilitated by a systemic and functional analysis of the target
model texts and thus the designing trajectory of the present study.
3.2.3 Research questions
The specific research objectives that guide this study were presented in Chapter 1. They are
repeated here as reference and to help justifying choices made in formulating the research
questions. The study sets out to provide an applicable linguistic analysis that facilitates EAP
researchers to plan writing instruction curriculum particularly for non-native learners of
pharmaceutical disciplines. In order to meet this general goal, two overall research questions that
address the two stages of investigation are asked first. Furthermore, according to the principle of
tri-stratal analysis and the focus on semantics, three successive sub-questions are proposed to
assist organizing answers to research question 1) designed for the major enquiry: Question a & b
are designed for the purpose of relating semantics to context and question c is for the analysis on
the interaction between semantic and lexicogrammar.
1) How is meaning developed ideationally in the unfolding of RAA from top international
57
pharmaceutical journals?
a. What are the field types construed in the text and what is the relationship between the field
types identified?
b. How do ideational semantic systems pattern in realizing the field types identified?
c. What are the lexicogrammatical resources that realize the ideational meanings?
2) When comparing student texts with journal texts, what are the linguistic problems that need
to be addressed in planning future intervention in teaching? And how?
3.3 Data collection
The present study was carried out by analysing data from published pharmaceutical RAAs
collected as far as the PolyU e-database can offer from two sources: i) RAAs published in
English from international top journals and RAAs puplished in Chinese with English abstracts
from Chinese journals; and ii) EFL student RAA texts collected in a Chinese pharmaceutical
university. Texts from the first source comprise a model text corpus used as basis for uncovering
linguistic patterns in expert writing while data from the latter source serves the purpose of
revealing linguistic problems by text comparison with the model texts.
The model text corpus
The major part of this data set comprises a self-compiled corpus of 100 top pharmaceutical
RAAs with a total of 22,515 words and text length ranging from 119 words to 374 words. This
corpus serves as data for analysis in order to seek understanding of the language of
pharmaceutical RAA. The following procedures for the creation of the corpus were taken:
A. RAA format selection: After initial researching, two types of RAA formats were identified,
58
the structured abstract scaffolded by subtitles such as ‘Aim, Method, Result, Conclusion’
(SA, see Fig. 3.2) and the conventional one-paragraph abstract (CA, see Fig. 3.1). Although
the adoption of the SA has been advocated by scholars (Weisburd,2011), CA is believed to
be more ideal for discourse analysis in terms of meaning flow and linguistic realization.
Furthermore, as this analysis is pedagogy-oriented, CA writing skills with its challenging
nature of managing text coherence without the scaffolding of subtitles, are more fundamental
for writing instruction. Thus the decision was made to choose 100 CAs as model texts both
qualitative and quantitative linguistic analysis.
B. Journal identification and text extraction: Writings from top journals are commonly believed
to represent the latest trends and developments in the field and their writing styles are to be
followed by RAA writers. To this end, the impact ratios of journals with the discipline
‘Pharmacology & Pharmacy’ were derived, as far as practicable, from Journal Citation
Reports published by the Institute for Scientific Information in 2015. Among the first 32
impact factor ranking (indicated as IF in Table 3.1 & 3.2) journals, ten CA journals were
identified after eliminating review journals and SA journals (Table 3.1). Ten RAAs were
extracted from each of these ten journals thus making 100 RAAs. In selecting RAAs, only
articles marked ‘Original Research Article’ are chosen but not those belonging to ‘review’ or
other types of papers.
Table 3.1 Ten journals to extract conventional abstracts
IF Name of Journal IF Name of Journal 11 Journal of Controlled Release 25 Biochemical Pharmacology 14 Pharmacogenomics Journal 27 Antimicrobial
Agents and Chemotherapy 19 European Neuropsychopharmacology 29 International Journal of
Antimicrobial Agents 23 Neuropharmacology 30 European Journal of Pharmaceutics
and Biopharmaceutics 24 Molecularpharmaceutics 32 International Journal of Nanomedicine
59
Based on the 100 RAAs selected from the above ten top journals, 6 sample texts are
selected for in-depth qualitative analysis. In selecting these 6 sample text, the issue of
pharmaceutical sub-discipline is put into consideration to ensure to a certain degree a balance of
topics to be touched upon. Among the 10 journals selected (Table 3.1), two journals
(Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents)
share similar field of investigation, and the other two journals (European
Neuropsychopharmacology and Neuropsychopharmacology) are of similar topic. In this case, the
first decision was made that two journals (Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and
Neuropsychopharmacology) not be considered to extract the sample texts from. Among the
remaining 8 journals, two journals (European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics
and Pharmacogenomics Journal) were excluded because the research topics in these two
journals might appear in the remaining 6 journals. In this way, 6 journals were selected from
specific disciplines. However, the selecting of one text from each of the 6 journals was random
because texts in the same journal are generally of the same or similar field of investigation.
Sample text 1 (Fig. 3.1) is also used in this chapter for demonstrating the analysis. Sample text 1
& 2 were used in Chapter 4 where the analysis on context is presented and sample texts 1-6 were
used in Chapter 5 where the analysis on language is presented. The title of the RAs and the
journal of these 6 sample texts are listed in Table 3.2.
60
Table 3.2 Journals and RAs to extract sample RAA for qualitative analysis
IF Name of Journal and RA title
IF Name of Journal and RA title
11 Text 1
Journal of Controlled Release Self-healing of pores in PLGAs, 206 (2015)
25 Text 4
Biochemical Pharmacology The purine analog fludarabine acts as a cytosolic 50-nucleotidase inhibitor,94 (2015)
23 Text 3
Neuropharmacology Role of a5-containing nicotinic receptors in neuropathic pain and response to nicotine, 95(2015)
29 Text 5
International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents Inefficacy of vancomycin and teicoplanin in eradicating and killing Staphylococcus epidermidis biofilms in vitro, 45 (2015)
24 Text 2
Molecular pharmaceutics Molecular Modeling as a Predictive Tool for the Development of Solid Dispersions, March, 2015
32 Text 6
International Journal of Nanomedicine Self-assembled polymeric nanoparticles as new, smart contrast agents for cancer early detection using magnetic resonance imaging, 10 (2015)
C. Time span selection: Language and genre evolve and change and RAAs are no exceptions.
Several diachronic studies of RA genres have been carried out to trace developmental trends
of writing (Swales, 1987; Bazerman 1988; Li & Ge, 2009, Garzone et al., 2012) and research
indicate that aspects of RAA language have not changed dramatically. However, some
micro-linguistic features such as voices, metadiscourse, proposition-evaluating verbs phrases,
have been detected to have changed. In order to offer a description of RAAS that reflect the
most current writing trend, 10 samples of RAAs (mostly appear in years from 2014 to 2018
issues) from each journal were extracted. Fig. 3.1 provides an example of this kind of CA
text.
D. Corpus treatment for software examination: The 100 expert abstracts texts were saved as
word files and transformed into txt. format as well. The purpose of putting the data in txt.
format is to enable software examination, i.e. using AntConc3.2.1w to search for certain
linguistic features and generate examples of concordances.
61
Figure 3.1 A sample CA from an international journal (Sample text 1)
The EFL student text corpus and follow-up survey data
Student text data was collected for the purpose of discussing pedagogic needs generated by
linguistic problems demonstrated in authentic texts written by the EFL research students. I
consulted some pharmaceutical discipline teachers and research students through informal
interviews and was informed that English abstract as an extra version in Chinese-written RAs
represent the immediate target that the cohort of university students in China aim for.
Furthermore, the composing process of English abstracts in Chinese context is more like the
process the research students will be taken in doing their English abstracts for Master thesis or
Doctoral dissertation, i.e. they complete their RAs or thesis in Chinese and then translate or write
the corresponding English abstract based on the Chinese abstract. Under such conditions,a
second decision concerning data collection was made to survey the current situation of English
abstract writing through analyzing student text samples and conducting questionnaire.
This set of data was obtained in Guangdong Pharmaceutical University (GDPU), a
62
government-funded university in Guangdong province of Mainland China featuring pharmacy
education. Like other universities in China, GDPU offers English language education to both
undergraduate and postgraduate students. At postgraduate level, the university has no
authorization for Doctoral degree but enjoys 26 Master degree granting programs such as
Pharmaceutics, Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Analysis, Pharmacology and other
research programs for studies concerning Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and
Pharmacology. For Master students enrolled in GDPU, they received English teaching for 4
hours per week at the first semester (18 weeks) of the three-year program. The school curriculum
for these 72 teaching hours of postgraduate English is evenly divided into 4 parts taught by 4
different teachers: academic listening, reading, writing and speaking. As for the 18 hours of the
writing unit, the main reference book adopted is A Handbook of Writing edited by Ding et al. and
published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in Beijing in 2012. As time is not
sufficient to cover all the contents in this textbook, the teacher follows traditional way of writing
instruction and selects some major areas as topics for teaching: diction, sentence, paragraph, text
organization and some major text types such as summary writing, report, discussion, exposition.
Within the limited 18 hours of teaching and practicing, the students can only gain some ideas of
what writing is all about and some of these ideas have actually been taught in their senior high
school or undergraduate English learning. This is exactly a reflection of the problems faced by
the majority of university students and the current unsatisfactory situation of English education
in China.
However, postgraduate students have their distinct needs for EAP concerning their
disciplines in terms of future career development and the immediate task of composing an
63
English abstract for their Master thesis. The researcher herself was involved in Postgraduate
English teaching in this university in the year of 2016 and felt the same pedagogic needs with the
students. Like other ESAP teachers constantly confused by the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of ESAP, the
researcher is seeking ways of improving the situation and that is the research motivation for this
study. According to a questionnaire with all the postgraduate students enrolled in September
2016 surveying their needs and understanding of EAP, 70% (93 out of 132) students responded
that abstract writing skill was important for their future career. This result indicates that the
students in the present context need training on writing abstracts and this academic need is in
conformity with the overall academic needs of university students in China (See Chapter 2). The
first step into addressing this pedagogic need from a linguistic vantage point is getting to know
language problems existed in students’ writing of this text type. Hence the decision to collect
students’ writing was made.
The collection and treatment of this set of data was done in the following ways:
i) The curriculum teacher distributed the Chinese RA (Fig.3.2) to the students and required the
students to read the text and be prepared for relevant classroom task 2 weeks later. Title,
abstracts of English and Chinese and other information of the RA such as name of the authors,
references and additional notes were deleted. The purpose for this out-of-class assignment is
that students need time to understand the content of the RA.
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Figure 3.2 The Chinese RA used for collecting student writing
ii) Two weeks later, students were arranged 40 minutes class time to write an English abstract
based on the Chinese content of the RA and respond to 3 open-ended follow-up survey
questions: 1. Please describe the process you go through in translating and composing this
abstract. 2. Do you have any ideas on how disciplinary academic language differs from
general written language or everyday oral language? If yes, please illustrate. 3. Please list
some of the major difficulties you encounter when doing this task. (e.g. English language
problems in technical lexis and grammar, discourse organizing skills such as coherence)
iii) The whole cohort of the 2016 postgraduate enrolment (217 students in total) in GDPU
attended the survey (writing plus answering follow-up questions) and 48 texts from one of the
four classes were collected (see Fig. 3.3 for a sample student text) and scanned for permanent
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electronic storage. The texts were also typed and saved as word format for manual analysis
and txt. format for software examination when necessary.
Figure 3.3 A sample of collected student text
3.4 Data analysis
3.4.1 The trinocular vision
The written data collected in this study were examined with methods of discourse analysis
using toolkits introduced in SFL theoretical literature (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014; Martin,
1992; Martin & Rose, 2007b, 2008; Matthiessen & Teruya,2015). In this part, the analytical
tools of SFL are applied in the investigation of how pharmaceutical research is construed in RAA
texts. As the analysis is meaning-oriented by nature, I have to rely on manual analysis and
66
software examination is used as a supplement when necessary.
In the SFL tradition, reality is viewed as ‘unknowable; the only things that are known are our
construals of it – that is, meanings’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999:17). At the same time, the
construal was investigated from a roundabout perspective to look at how ideational meaning
interacts with the interpersonal enacting system and the textual organizing system.The analysis
is situated at the level of semantics and it is a tri-stratal one – looking from ‘above’ in relation to
context, from ‘below’ in relation to lexis and grammar. The trinocular vision outlined here can be
illustrated by Fig. 3.4.
Figure 3.4 A trinocular vision of analysis
3.4.2 Ideational analytical framework
This thesis focuses on understanding the linguistic mechanism in construing academic
science writing. An analytical framework (Table 3.3) entailing elements of ideational meanings
along the hierarchy of stratification was designed and applied in unveiling the language of
standard pharmaceutical RAA and diagnosing linguistic problems in EFL writings.
Another potential of NGs in meaning making is that it can contain Figures construed by GM as
head Noun (example a below) or modifiers of head Noun (example b below). This brings us to
the issue of understanding and identifying GMs in texts, which is illustrated in 3.4.2. 2.1.
e.g. a. the encapsulation of drugs from PLGA microparticles
b. the mechanics of deformation
3.4.2.1.2 Taxis and logico-semantic relations in clause complex
A clause complex is composed of two or more constitutive clause simplexes connected by
the two basic systems of TAXIS (degree of dependency) and the LOGICO-SEMANTIC TYPE (as
represented in Fig. 3.6 reproduced from Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014: 438). For taxis, the two
different degrees of interdependency are parataxis (equal status) and hypotaxis (unequal status).
Parataxis is the relation between an initiating element and its continuing element. Hypotaxis is
the relation between a dependent element and its dominant, the element on which it is dependent.
For logico-semantic relations, two major types are identifies as projection and expansion.
Projection involves either the projection of ideas or the projection of locution. Expansion can be
further categorized into three types: elaboration, extension and enhancement. In elaboration, one
clause elaborates on the meaning of another by further specifying or describing it. In extension,
one clause extends the meaning of another by adding something new to it. In enhancement one
clause (or subcomplex) enhances the meaning of another by qualifying it in one of a number of
possible ways: by reference to time, place, manner, cause or condition. (Halliday & Matthiessen,
2014: 451-549).
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Figure 3.6 The system of clause complexing
The notation for TAXIS is that each paratactic clause is numbered as 1, 2,… and ‘α’for the main
clause ‘β’ for the dependent clause in hypotactic structure. In terms of logico-semantic relations,
projection is marked as ‘ for idea and “ for locution (RAA writing basically has no locution) and
expansion is marked as “+ ”for extension, “=” for elaboration and “×” for enhancement . The 2
clause complexes in the sample text is analyzed below. The grammar of clause complexing plays
an important role as a key resource in organizing the logic of the whole text viewed semantically,
which is further discussed in Section 3.4.2.2.2.
(1) 1 α In this study, the material properties of PLGA have been characterized
×β using mechanical test
+2 α and a finite-element model has been developed
×β(α) to predict
×β(β) how pores heal.
(2) 1 However, annealing processes that occur over prolonged times increase the viscosity
+2 and slow the healing times of PLGA films at…
In analyzing clause complexes, attention should be paid to distinguish embedded clauses
from hypotacticcally dependent clauses. Embedding, also referred to as rankshift in SFL, is ‘a
clause or phrase comes to function as a constituent within the structure of a group, which itself is
a constituent of a clause’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014:491).
idea ’
locution ”
Clause
TAXIS
LOGICO-
SEMANTIC TYPE
hypotaxis α β
parataxis 1
projection
expansion
elaborating = extending + enhancing x
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e.g. Despite the importance of this phenomenon, neither the mechanics of the deformation nor the material
properties that control it have been fully studied.
In the above example, the embedded clause ‘that control it’ serves as the postmodifier of the
preceding NG ‘the material properties’. Hence there is no direct relationship between ‘that
control it’ and the whole clause, the former is simply embedded in the latter and has no status as
a clause simplex in constituting a clause complex. In addition to functioning as postmodifiers of
NGs, other functions of embedded clauses include: as Head of a NG; and as a postmodifier in an
Adverbial Group (see Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014:492 for types of embedding).
e.g. Head of a NG: It is well known that standard pharmaceutical operations may lead to structural
changes, crystal defects and amorphous regions.
Postmodifier in an Advervbial Group: Mean steady-state d4T-TP for 1.23 mg/kg b.i.d. was 27.9 (90% CI
27.0–28.9) fmol/106 cells, 25% higher than that achieved by the 40 mg adult dose.
Combining all the ideational elements in analyzing lexicogrammar introduced above, i.e.
transitivity and clause complexing, an overall annotation of the sample text is shown in Table 3.4,
which is a sample of the ideational lexicogrmmatical analysis for all the texts collected in this
study.
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Table 3.4 Ideational lexicogrammatical annotation of sample text 1
Clause Number Participant 1 Process Participant 2 Cir.
(1) Self-healing of pores in PLGA (Token)
plays (relational) an important role (Value)
in the encapsulation and controlled release of drugs from …
(2) neither…nor the material properties…(Phenomenon)
have been fully studied. (mental) Despite the importance of this phenomenon,
embedding 1 that (Token) control (relational) it (Value)
(3) 1α the material properties of PLGA (Goal)
have been characterized… (material) In this study,
(4) 1β using (material) mechanical tests…(Goal)
(5) +2α and a finite-element model (Goal)
has been developed… (material)
(6) +2×β
α to predict (verbal)
(7) +2×β
β pores (Actor) heal (material) how
(8) α This model (Token) assumes that…(mental)
(9) embedding 2 embedding 3
β the healing process (Token) occurs by
(relational) viscous flow (Value)
(which) (Token) (is) resulting from
(relational) the deviatoric stress field (Value)
(which) (Token) (is) induced by
(relational) the interaction between the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA. (Value)
(10) The simulations (Token) show (relational) good agreement (Value)
with experimental observations.
(11) Which (Carrier) incorporate (relational)
measured material properties (attribute)
(12) However, annealing processes…(Token)
increase (relational)
the viscosity (Value)
embedding 4 that (Actor) occu r (material) over prolonged times
(13) (annealing processes) (Token) and slow (relational) the healing times of PLGA films (Value)
at intermediate temperatures above the glass transition temperature.
(14) These findings (Goal) may be reasonably applied (material)
towards the prediction of healing processes in PLGA and in related biomaterials for important biomedical applications such as drug delivery. (Circumstance)
3.4.2. 2 Semantics
In this part, the analytical tools of SFL are applied in the examination of unfolding meanings
‘in the form of text’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999: 18) rather than clause-based analysis at the
lexicogrammatical stratum. While ‘Texts are units of meaning and are therefore organized as
such in terms of all metafunctional modes of meaning’ (Matthiessen & Teruya, 2015: 234), the
present study focuses on Ideational analysis and relates to the other two metafunctions when
necessary. The two aspects of the ideational meaning are explored in terms of taxonomy plus
activity sequence for experiential meaning and Rhetorical system for logical organization, and
the construal of meanings, i.e. how language construes the reality, is the centre of analysis.
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3.4.2.2.1 Taxonomy and activity sequence
When exploring field as a semiotic system, Martin identifies taxonomy and activity
sequences for a linguistic distinction among fields (Martin, 1992; Martin & Rose, 2007b; Hao,
2015). In this framework, knowledge of different disciplines (e.g. history, biology, physics,
geography) is associated with field and realized by ideational meanings of language – since field
is about ‘what is happening’ (Halliday, 1985:12). Taxonomy refers to entities organised based on
certain relations and activity sequence refers to the logical series of activities/figures that are
expected by a field (Martin, 1992:537; Martin & Rose, 207:101). These are two fundamental
elements when we attempt to describe ‘what is happening’ in the experiential world.
Entity and taxonomic relation
Entities are things, people, places, time, activities and other semiotic constructs organized by
certain relations to form field Taxonomies. Thus, analysing the system of Taxonomy in the text
goes in two successive steps: (i) identifying Entities types and their realizations; (ii) exploring
Taxonomic Relations that exist in different Entity types to reveal taxonomies in the text.
The identification of Entity types follows the Entity typology proposed by Hao (2015:135)
in which five types are included: Thing, Activity, Semiotic, Place, Time, and Source. These
Entity types are exemplified as follows.
Thing entity: names of people and thing functioning as actor, goal, senser, phenomenon etc. in
the processes.
e.g. In this study, the material properties of PLGA have been characterized.
In this sentence, “material properties” functions as Goal in the material process.
Activity entity: names of macrophenomena that symbolizes an act and can be interpreted by a
corresponding material process.
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e.g. A finite-element model was developed to predict how pores heal.
In this sentence, “model” can be interpreted as “we model the process of pore-healing”.
Semiotic entity: names of metaphenomena that symbolized a fact and the exact meanings of the
entity can be extracted from the co-text.
e.g. These findings may be reasonably applied towards the prediction of healing processes in PLGA.
In this sentence, “findings” refers to the mechanism of pore-healing explored by the modelling construed
in the text.
Source entity: names of the publication or people that report the research and in academic
writing it is always implicitly construed.
e.g. The mechanism of this phenomenon has rarely been reported (by people).
In this sentence, the “sayer” of the verbal process of “report” is implicitly-construed source
Place entity: names that construe place.
e.g. Long-lasting successful dissemination of resistance to oxazolidinones in MDR Staphylococcus
epidermidis clinical isolates in a tertiary care hospital in France.
In this sentence, “a tertiary care hospital in France” indicated the place where the study was conducted.
Time Entity: names that construe time.
e.g. The right middle cerebral artery of the rat was occluded for 90 min and then reperfused for 24 h.
In this sentence, “90 min” and “24 h” indicates the time duration of the events of “occlude” and “reperfused”.
In this way, all the entities in the sample text were identified and assigned to different types
shown in Table 3.7. Next, I will illustrate how to identify Entity realization.
At the level of lexicogrammar, Entities correspond to Participants in the Transitivity system
and are congruently realized by Nouns or NGs but metaphorically realized by the phenomenon
of ‘distilled metaphor’ (Martin, 1993 b: 191) also called ‘dead’ metaphor (Halliday,1998:222) or
‘faded’ metaphor (Derewianka, 1995). Martin (1993b) generalizes the process of turning a
Nominalisation into a technical term as a process of ‘distillation’. During the process of
distillation, providing a definition (See example below) of the technical terms in a particular
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field is a critical step to ‘distil’ it as a technicality. Once a nominalisation such as “diffusion” is
defined in this way, it is no longer necessary for it to be unpacked in the discourse; the phrase
becomes a ‘dead’ metaphor (Halliday, 1998:222). Importantly, it functions now as a ‘technical
entity’ in the text semantics and it can be further classified, described and measured. The
metaphoric realizations of semantic units are further shown in the next section about Figure
realization and will be summarized in 3.4.2.3 as well. However, the metaphoric sense of Entity
realized by ‘dead’ metaphor is different from that of metaphoric Figure in that the generation of
the former has undergone historical change while the latter is created out of more temporary
needs of packing information in the discourse.
Term Definition Diffusion Diffusion is the process whereby a substance in high concentration moves to a place of low
concentration (adapted from Martin, 1993b: 201)
In the sample text 1, verbs like ‘test’, ‘study’ and ‘deliver’ are nominalised and distilled into
technical terms. While some nominalization processes have involved morphological changes
such as ‘deliver’ turned into ‘delivery’, others has not such as ‘test’. Among these instances of
nominalization as distillation, some are further categorized by adding a classifier before the head
noun, for example, ‘controlled release’, ‘mechanical tests’, ‘finite-element model’, ‘healing
process’, and “drug delivery”.
After identifying all the Entities that fit into each type and their realizational modes, the next
step is exploring Taxonomic Relations that glue these Entities together to achieve lexical
cohesion in the text. Taxonomic Relations explains why and how entities are placed together in a
text and it is related to the cohesiveness of a text. According to the taxonomic relation system
demonstrated in Martin & Rose (2007b:81), Classification (class-member /hyponymy or
co-subclasses/cohyponymy) and Composition (part-whole or co-parts) are two major taxonomic
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relations. Other relations includes synonym, repetition, contrast (oppositions and series).
Table 3.5 Entity types and realizations in sample text 1
The implication sequence is generally perceived as the principal linguistic mechanism that
explains causality in disciplines (Wignell et al.,1989). The technicality of steps involved in
‘Self-healing of pores in PLGA’ construed in the text is an implication sequence. This can be
proved in the analysis of the 4th sentence of the sample text.
Expectanc
(temporal) Activity
sequence
if then Implication
(causal)
and
Expectancy
(temporal)
87 The projecting clause The projected clause
This model assumes that (Process: Mental)
The healing process occurs by viscous flow (Process: Relational)) 〔embedding〕resulting from the deviatoric stress field (Process: Relational, 1st layer
qualifier) 〔embedding〕induced by the interaction (Process: Relational, 2nd layer qualifier)
〔 circumstance 〕 between the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA (tension=becomes intense, 3rd layer qualifier)
In this clause complex, there is an implication sequence about ‘pore healing’. The projected
clause ‘…the healing process occurs by viscous flow…’ is an identifying Relational process
realizing a causal relation between Participant 1 (healing process) and Participant 2 (viscous
flow) realized by the VG ‘occurs by’. In this projected clause, the ‘effect’ indicated by the NG
‘healing process’ is placed before the ‘cause’ construed by a highly-elaborated NG (‘viscous
flow…’) that contains 3 layers of Qualifiers realized by 2 layers of embedding (‘resulting
from…’ and ‘induced by…’ ) and a circumstantial elements realized by a prepositional phrase
‘between…’ . This reversed arrangement of ‘effect before cause’ in the projected clause
generates an implication sequence. A strategy of tracing backward is needed to figure out the
implied relations hidden within this lengthy clause, and a normal ‘cause before effect’ order can
be unpacked with 5 congruent clauses as shown below.
a. (If/when PLGA is heated,) the surface then becomes intense; b. (If there is surface tension, then) this tension interacts with the surface curvature of the pores; c. (If there is interaction, then) this interaction induces deviatoric stress field d. (If there is deviatoric stress field, then) this field results in viscous flow; e. (If there is viscous flow, then) the viscous flow makes pore-healing happen.
According to the above unpacking, a flowchart (Fig. 3.8) can now be drawn to demonstrate
the implication sequence.
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Figure 3.8 Implication sequence in sample text
3.4.2.2.2 Rhetorical relations
While taxonomy and activity sequence examines how entities aggregate and activities
sequence to construe the field in terms of the experiential areas, Matthiessen’s systemic model of
RST offers a semantic perspective for exploring the functional account of logical meaning,
another aspect of the Ideational metafunction. The current system network of RST (Matthiessen,
2002; Matthiessen & Teruya, 2015; Matthiessen & Pun, 2017) adopted in the present study is
developed based on the ‘classical’ version of RST (Matthiessen & Thompson 1989; Mann, et al.,
1992). As shown in Fig. 3.8, the new version of RST consists of three simultaneous systems
(Nuclearity, Logico-semantic Type, Orientation) specifying different aspects of relations used to
link the rhetorical segments of a text and the system of Recursion for selecting the choices
between continue or terminate the discourse (Fig. 3.9, adapted from Matthiessen & Teruya, 2015:
240).
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Figure 3.9 The system of rhetorical relations in text
RST analyzes text segments ranging in size anywhere from the text as a whole down to each
individual constituent clause or even NGs that realize a figure in a metaphoric way. The systems
of nuclearity and logico-Semantic type are analogous to the ones in clause complex (Fig. 3.6).
However, the system of Logico-semantic types in RST been extended further into delicacy to
enable more detailed relation description (See Table 3.8 and refer to
http://www.sfu.ca/rst/01intro/definitions.html for definitions of all the ‘classical’ RST relations).
In the system of Nuclearity, each relation is defined in terms of constraints on a span’s
Nucleus and Satellites. The relation may be either asymmetrical (∩)or symmetrical (∧). In an
asymmetrical relation, one span is considered more peripheral to the overall meaning of the text
Causal Evidence, Motivation, Justify Cause, Result
Temporal Sequence (Mul)
Means Enablement, Background Means Note: ‘MUL’ stands for Multinuclearity.
At the level of lexicogrammar, the realization of each rhetorical relation in a text varies in
terms of congruency and directness in a number of ways. Table 3.9 generalize five possible ways
that has been illustrated in the literature of RST studies (cf. Matthiessen & Teruya, 2015) to
facilitate recognition of linguistic evidence for the interpretation of semantic Relations that exist
ecologically in the texts.
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Table 3.9 Lexicogrammatical realizations of rhetorical relations
Congruency Linguistic Evidence Directness
Congruent A: Within clause complex: i) structural conjunctions like ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘if’…indicating both the logico-semantic type and the tactic relations; ii) non-finite ranking clause indicating logico-semantic relations of Purpose or Means.
Metaphoric C: Verbs in relational process or other processes Direct
D: Prepositions in prepostitional phrase (PP) serving as Circumstance in the clause Direct
Both D: Thematic progression at clause level and text level Indirect
E: Lexical cohesion in taxonomy or activity sequence Indirect
Next, examples are drawn from the sample text or other sources to demonstrate how to
identify rhetorical relations along the continuum of local to global areas in the
naturally-occurring texts.
A. Direct realization by the grammar of clause complex.
The grammar of clause complex manifests rhetorical relations both explicitly and implicitly.
The explicit way concerns the Structural Conjunctions in linking Tactic and logico-semantic
relations between constituent clauses, which to a large degree matches the relations interpreted in
a semantic sense. These two types of intersecting relations are both shown within the following
clause complex (Figure 3.10). At the first level, the overall clause complex consists of two clause
complexes explicitly signalled by the structural conjunction ‘and’ denoting the relation of
‘Addition’ in a multinuclear way. At the second level, the first constituent clause complex
consists of two clauses connected by the implicit grammar of non-finiteness (v-ing) in construing
circumstance and, in this case, Means; the second constituent clause complex consists of one
clause and one clause complex connected by the ‘to do’ structure, another kind of non-finiteness
indicating the relation of Purpose. Finally, the second-level clause complex ‘to predict how pores
heal’ realized the relation of Projection in an implicit way by the grammar of the verbal process.
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In this study, the material properties using…, and a finite-element
of PLGA have been characterized model has been developed to predict how pores heal.
Figure 3.10 Realization of rhetorical relations in a clause complex.
B. Direct realization by cohesive conjunction
Cohesive conjunctions are textual resources of linkages that are ‘looser, more pliable’ in
forming relation between text components (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:321). Unlike Structural
Conjunctions, Cohesive Conjunctions usually specify Logico-semantic types of relations by
words like ‘also, however, consequently, subsequently’ appearing at the initial place of a
sentence.
e.g. 1. The simulations, which incorporate measured material properties, show good agreement with experimental observations.
2. However, annealing processes that occur over prolonged times increase the viscosity and slow the healing times of PLGA
films at intermediate temperatures above the glass transition temperature.
Addition
1 2
C. Metaphoric realization by verb in relational clause
In contrast to the Logical and Textual resources in realizing semantic relations congruently,
i.e. the natural way of joining congruently-construed Figures, the metaphoric realization of
Relations is managing experiential resources of grammar, i.e. connecting Metaphoric Figures by
way of relational clause instead of Conjunctions at the Rank of ‘Word’. As has been indicated in
Addition
a ß a ß
a ß [x]Means
[x]Purpose
[‘]Projection
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Table 3.x, there are 12 metaphoric Figures in the sample text. An intriguing question that might
be asked is: How are these 12 metaphoric figures related with other congruent and metaphoric
figures? The findings concerning this question are presented in Chapter 5. Here, an example is
demonstrated below to show how Metaphoric Figure causes the change of manifestation of
rhetorical relation in grammar.
Addition
Congruent: Pores in PLGA heal themselves. This is important in…
Metaphoric Self-healing of pores in PLGA plays an important role in...
Token Process Value
D. Indirect realization through thematic progression
Like the role of Cohesive Conjunctions played in organizing text, the fourth way described
in literature provides another case demonstrating the interaction between ideational meaning and
Textual meaning. ‘Indirect realizations provide listeners and readers with information from
which they can infer Rhetorical Relations.’ (Matthiessen & Pun, 2017:28). One distinct way to
find clues for this kind of inference is through the Periodicity system of the text. The two
fundamental elements of clausal textual resource is Theme, i.e. the first experiential element in
the clause, and Rheme/New, i.e. the remaining part of the clause. The system of PERIODICITY
includes Theme/New at clause level, Hypertheme/Hypernew at rhetorical paragraph level and
macro Theme/macro New at whole text level (Martin & Rose, 2007b). Figure 3.11 shows the
identification of Theme/New at clause level patterning throughout the whole text with each
Theme progressing either by “zig-zag” or “constant” pattern (Hasan & Fries, 1995) and relating
to meanings in the previous New. This kind of thematic progression offers clear evidence to track
the rhetorical relations even when there is no explicit Conjunctions. For example, the Theme
element ‘study’ in sentence 3 echoes with the verb ‘studied’ in clause 2 indicating a starting
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point of providing research evidence for the research gap construed in sentence 1 & sentence 2.
Theme Rheme
1. Self-healing of pores in PLGA plays an important role…
2. Despite the importance of …,
neither the mechanics of …nor… have been fully studied.
3. In this study,
the material properties…. have been ….
and a finite-element model has been developed…
4. This model assumes that…
the healing process occurs by….
5. The simulation show good agreement….
6. However, annealing… increased the viscosity
and slow the healing times of…
7. These findings may be reasonably…
Figure 3.11 The thematic development of sample text
At discourse semantic level, the higher level Periodicity can be viewed as Macrotheme at the
beginning and corresponding MacroNew at the end of the text as shown below, indicating a
central Nucleus-Satellite Internal Relation of Evidence, i.e. research aim construed by clause 1-6
being fulfilled by the rest of the text until the summative point at the last clause.
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Macrotheme: Self-healing of pores plays an important role in the encapsulation and controlled release of drugs
from PLGA microparticles. (predicting the content)
MacroNew: These findings may be reasonably applied towards the prediction of healing processes in PLGA
and in related biomaterials for important biomedical applications such as drug delivery.
(Summarizing the content)
E. Indirect realization through Lexical cohesion
Lexical cohesion refers to the cohesive effect achieved by the selection of vocabulary based on
certain relations such as repetition, hyponymy, meronymy, synonymy, antonymy. (Halliday &
Hasan, 1976: 274). As I have analyzed taxonomic relations in Section 3.4.2.2.1, the identification
of lexical relations in the text will not be repeated here. Inferring Rhetorical Relations through
Lexical cohesion/Taxonomy is exemplified below.
.g. 1. This model assumes that the healing process occurs by viscous flow resulting from the deviatoric stress
field induced by the interaction between the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA. 2. The
simulations, which incorporate measured material properties, show good agreement with experimental
observations.
Inferencing: The word ‘model’ as Theme in ‘1’ collocating with the verb ‘assume’ suggests a similar meaning
with the word ‘simulation’ as Theme in ‘2’ signaling that ‘1’ and ‘2’ concerns the same domain of
experience and in the context of pharmaceutical research abstract, the relation is ‘2’ being the Result of ‘1’.
Next, the overall RST pattern in the sample text is profiled that reveal global structure of
rhetorical segments down to the surface grammatical structure of clauses that constitute the
whole text (Fig. 3.12). GM is not included in this overall presentation because of the complexity
Result
1 2
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in unpacking metaphoric Figures at text level RST analysis. Instead, this invisible part of
metaphoricity analysis can be conducted at local level to facilitate understanding the hidden
grammar at stake, which has been shown in the preceding section.
Figure 3.12 RST analysis of sample text 1
10 11
Elaboration
12-13 10-11
Addition
Elaboration
Purpose Mean
Concession
3-4 5-6
justification
Evaluation Result
Evidence
14
Discussion
3 4 5 6-7
Procedure
1 2
3-6 8-13 1-2
14 8-9 10-13
13 12
Addition
Introductio
Addition
15. Self-healing of pores in PLGA plays an important role in the encapsulation and controlled release of drugs from PLGA microparticles.
16. Despite the importance of this phenomenon, neither the mechanics of the deformation nor the material properties that control it have been fully studied.
17. In this study, the material properties of PLGA have been characterized 18. using mechanical tests, 19. and a finite-element model has been developed 20. to predict 21. how pores heal. 22. This model assumes 23. that the healing process occurs by viscous flow resulting from the deviatoric stress field induced by the interaction
between the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA. 24. The simulations, …show good agreement with experimental observations. 25. …which incorporate measured material properties, 26. However, annealing processes that occur over prolonged times increase the viscosity 27. and slow the healing times of PLGA films at intermediate temperatures above the glass transition temperature. 28. These findings may be reasonably applied towards the prediction of healing processes in PLGA and in related
biomaterials for important biomedical applications such as drug delivery.
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3.4.2.3 Identifying congruent and metaphoric realizations of meaning
Of all the semiotic systems in human communication, language is considered to be the most
complex meaning-making potential. One of the important properties that human language
possesses is that the stratified system of language has inherent metaphoric power—the power of
generating meaning in alternative ways (See Chapter 2 for a review of the modeling of GM in
SFL). Meaning can be expressed in different ways by different grammatical structure because
the relationship between semantics and lexicogrammar is not a static one-to-one mapping but
travels along the continuum from congruency to incongruency. When it comes to analyze the
interaction between semantics and lexicogrammar in text, the phenomenon of GM, which is the
very most important feature of science writing, is crucial. When metaphoric transformation
happens in the grammar, the process tends to come in syndromes, i.e. the grammatical structure
is reconfigured as a whole (Halliday, 1998:214). In the light of the syndrome effect, all the
semantic elements as set in Table 3.x will encounter metaphoric realizational changes if one of
the semantic elements is realized metaphorically. Therefore, recognizing both congruent and
metaphoric realization of each ideational semantic elements is necessary. Table 3.10 outlines
some common mapping options of the two different realizational modes for each semantic
elements.
Table 3.10 Mappings of semantic and lexicogrammatical elements.
Semantic units Congruent realization Metaphoric realization
Rhetorical
relation
structural conjunction, cohesive conjunction,
Theme/New elements, verbs in non-finite
clause,
logical metaphor: verb mostly of relational process,
preposition
Figure transitivity in the clause nouns or NG element
Entity nouns or NGs noninalization (faded metaphor) and accompanying
element
The analysis of Semantic-Lexicogrammar interaction can begin by recognizing experiential
metaphor with nominalization being the most obvious manifestation. Experiential metaphor
concerns the interaction between Transitivity and the elemental semantic units of Entity and
Event. Process which realizes the nucleus of event at semantic level is congruently realized by
VG, and participant which realizes entity is congruently realized by NG. An example of this kind
of congruent mapping can be shown below.
98
A finite-element model has been developed. semantic: figure entity event grammar: clause participant process NG VG
However, the congruent mapping of NG to Entity or VG to Event can be broken as a result of
strata tension (refer to Chapter 2). The above clause can be changed into a NG by way of
Norminalization (a process of changing a verb or adjective into a noun) as shown below.
Semantic: Figure The development of a finite element model Grammar: NG event as head noun entity as postmodifier
Nominalization is the most productive and critical way of forming experiential metaphor
(Halliday, 1998; Heyvaert, 2003). In addition to nominalization, there are other ways of forming
both terms are viewed as ‘language for the creation of specialized texts’ (Martin, 1993 b:223).
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Although the linguistic distinctions between GM and the descriptive terms such as technicality
and abstraction is not precisely defined and it is beyond the scope of the present study to sort out
what technicality entails in systemic description, the term ‘technicality’ is appropriate in
describing the features in Mode as specialized written language like pharmaceutical RAA.
Technicality in pharmaceutical RAA can be viewed as Mode enabling the construal of field.
The term can be taken as the discursive technology in field building through technical language
about things and relations in actualize science/scientific reality. It is a technology of writing
because technicality is all about the ‘know how’ of doing things by experts. According to Oxford
English Dictionary and other dictionaries, technicality is generally used in plural forms meaning
‘the small details of how to do something or how something works’ or ‘something that is
understood by experts but usually not by other people’. Such dictionary definitions highlight
technicality as expert technology or technique in doing things. It is construing field because the
linguistic realizations of technicality, i.e. field specific things realized by nouns and relations
among things realized by verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and other forms of logical reasoning
in nominal structures and clauses. Finally, it is about doing science because writing is the
enabling technology for expressing the ‘doing’ of science (Halliday & Martin, 1993: xiii). In
analyzing field types in the data, two kinds of such discursive technology can be identified, i.e.
the technicality for construing the research behavior and the technicality for construing the
discipline. In other words, researchers/writers are manipulating two sets of techniques in using
relevant lexicogrammatical resources in the composing process of pharmaceutical RAA. Details
about the field are discussed below to further illustrate this point.
Field
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As the exploration on field is the core of contextual analysis in this study, the detailed
analysis will be presented next in a separate section based on the general description listed in
Table 4.4.
4.5 Field construed in pharmaceutical RAA
In Matthiessen’s registerial cartography, field is interpreted as field of activity
(socio-semiotic process) and field of experience (subject matter) and the former as ‘a more
important source of generalization’ (Matthiessen, 2006:45) in field categorization is further
developed as the registerial cartography represented topologically in a pie chart (Fig. 4.7) and
typologically in connection with the genre model outlined in Fig. 4.9. Taking the division of two
major field types as a departure point and based on the overall description of the context that
pharmaceutical RAA is situated in (see 4.4 of this chapter), this part of the analysis directly
answers the research question formulated in Chapter 3 and repeated at the beginning of this
chapter.
What are the field types construed in the text and what is the relationship between
the field types identified?
4.5.1 The socio-semiotic process: field of activity
The macro-text
The socio-semiotic process, also referred to as field of activity, is similar to the theorization
of genre in Martin’s linguistic model as ‘goal-oriented social process’ (Martin & Rose, 2008:6).
It is the kind of field going on in the text that is related to the tenor orientation, i.e. the social
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purpose that guides the composing of a text. In the case of pharmaceutical RAA, the social goal
is establishing academic identity through reporting research in public and this goal is realized by
the field activity of expounding knowledge through reporting research procedures and explaining
research results. In the book Genre Relations: Mapping Culture Martin & Rose (2008) list
‘research article’ as belonging to the elemental genre of ‘procedural recount’ with the staging of
IMRD (2008: 200) for ‘reporting on observations and experiments’ (2008:141). According to
Matthiessen’s comparison between text types and genres in Table 4.2, ‘procedural recounts’
corresponds to ‘Reporting’ context. However, the activity of ‘Reporting’ seems not to strengthen
the value of knowledge accumulation by research exchange activity through medium like
professional journals. The major goal of publishing a paper should be informing professionals in
the community of the knowledge obtained through researching. The element of knowledge
transmission weighs more than just recounting what researchers have done. Linguistically
speaking, the language of ‘expounding’ may be more metaphoric that that of the ‘Reporting’.
When Halliday observed the language of experimentation in Newton’s Treatise on Opticks
(1704), he made the following summary which reflects the difference in metaphoricity between
field of activities. (Halliday,1988: 170):
(i) Descriptions of experimentation: intricate clause complexes; very little grammatical
metaphor; abstract nouns as technical terms of physics;
(ii) Arguments and conclusions from these: less intricate clause complexes; some
nominalizations with grammatical metaphor; abstract nouns as non-technical terms
(typically processes or attributes);
…
The above early findings about ‘Scientific English’ can serve as a reference point when we
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examine field of activities occurring in the unfolding texts of research abstract which contains
not only descriptions of the experimentation but also conclusions drawn from the
experimentation.
The combined social semiotic processes reflected in research abstract can be positioned as
an ‘overlap’ (Matthiessen, 2013b) between the ‘expounding’ and ‘reporting’ sectors in the
registerial cartography (Fig. 4.13). The text that contains such overlapping rhetorical activities is
also called a ‘macro-text’ or ‘macrogenre’ (Martin & Rose, 2008: 218). The term ‘macrogenre’
is originally proposed for modeling longer text that made up of short elemental genres. For text
like abstract, although it is not at all long enough, it is highly condensed and concise message
summarizing elements (the canonical IMRD sections) in the corresponding long research article,
it is by nature macro in terms of meaning but short passage in terms of graphology. The
macro-text of pharmaceutical RAA can be modeled topologically in Fig. 4.13 below.
Figure 4.13 Modeling pharmaceutical RAA as macro-text topologically
Pharmaceutical RAA
macrotext
overlapping
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This register hybridity can be exemplified by the following text instance in Table 4.5. Seen
from the Semantics and lexicogrammatical perspective, the two sections of ‘expounding’ in
Table 4.5 are obviously more metaphoric than the ‘reporting’ section. The wordings in the
‘reporting’ section consists of 2 clause complexes with no metaphoric figures and only two
instance of metaphorically-realized entities: ‘oxidation’ and ‘activity’. Whereas in the two
‘expounding’ sections, metaphoric figures and entities like ‘variation’, ‘variability’,
‘metabolism’, ‘efficacy’, ‘study’, “activityies’, ‘oxidation’, ‘substitution’, ‘assessment’ can be
found. The difference in language use between the two fields of activity is in consistent with
Halliday’s observation on Newton’s language in writing science report, which is regarded as
‘registering the birth of scientific English’ (Halliday, 1988: 166).
Table 4.5 Text instance showing the register hybridity of expounding and reporting
Text source Functional characterization of 21 CYP2C19 allelic variants for clopidogrel 2-oxidation PHARMACOGENOMICS JOURNAL, Vol 15 (1), 2015
Expounding Genetic variations in cytochrome P450 2C19 (CYP2C19) contribute to interindividual variability in the metabolism of therapeutic agents such as clopidogrel. Polymorphisms in CYP2C19 are associated with large interindividual variations in the therapeutic efficacy of clopidogrel. This study evaluated the in vitro oxidation of clopidogrel by 21 CYP2C19 variants harboring amino acid substitutions.
Reporting These CYP2C19 variants were heterologously expressed in COS-7 cells, and the kinetic parameters of clopidogrel 2-oxidation were estimated. Among the 21 CYP2C19 variants, 12 (that is, CYP2C19.5A, CYP2C19.5B, CYP2C19.6, CYP2C19.8, CYP2C19.9, CYP2C19.10, CYP2C19.14, CYP2C19.16, CYP2C19.19, CYP2C19.22, CYP2C19.24 and CYP2C19.25) showed no or markedly low activity compared with the wild-type protein CYP2C19.1B.
Expounding This comprehensive in vitro assessment provided insights into the specific metabolic activities of CYP2C19 proteins encoded by variant alleles, and this may to be valuable when interpreting the results of in vivo studies.
The contextual structure
Typologically, the macro-text of pharmaceutical RAA can be modeled in system network
with realization statement shown in Fig. 4.14. Ideationally speaking, the rhetorical stages (IPD)
outlined in Fig. 4.14 mirrors the steps in conducting research in real life: Research space is first
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explored so that research aims can be set up and then methods are planned and implemented to
obtain desired results for discussing the research aims and draw conclusions. Hence is the
canonical IMRD generic structure in composing both RA and RAA. In examining the
self-compiled corpus of 100 top journal texts, similar pattern is found except that description of
Method might be embedded flexibly anywhere in the purpose description, process description or
result reporting section. This tendency might be explained by characteristics of the field, i.e.
pharmaceutical research are of empirical nature emphasizing disciplinary conventions such as
precise instrumentation as Method and Results yielded from strict experimentation.
Figure 4.14 Modeling pharmaceutical RAA as macro-text typologically
The contextual structure indicated as realization statement in Fig. 4.14 can be exemplified by the
following text instance in Table 4.6.
context
↘Introduction∧+Procedure∧+ Discussion
Pharmaceutical RAA
expounding
exploring
reporting
recreating
sharing
recommend
ing enabling
semiotic
social
Situation type
FIELD OF
ACTIVITY
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Table 4.6 Text instance showing the contextual structure
Text source Verbal episodic memory along the course of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder:A new perspective
EUROPEAN NEOROPHYCHOPHARMACOLOGY, Vol 25, 2015
Introduction
(I)
Impairment on episodic memory (EM) has been strongly correlated with psychiatric disorders, including
schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD). Morevover, the effects of course and progression of the
illness on cognitive functioning have not been well established. The aim of the present study is to assess
performance of episodic memory in BD and SZ according to their clinical stages.
Procedure
(P)
Subjects who met DSM-IV criteria for bipolar disorder (n=43) and schizophrenia (31), on euthymia or
clinical remission, were recruited from the outpatients facilities at Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre
(Brazil). They were classified into two clinical stages (early or late for BD, and recent onset or chronic
for SZ) and compared to 54 healthy controls. Episodic memory performance was assessed by means the
Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R) that measures verbal learning and episodic memory
in both disorders. Our results showed that patients in early stage of BD (EBD) performed better
performance on the total immediate free recall (p<0.0001, F=12.060) as well as in delayed free recall
(p<0.0001, F=13.914) compared to late stage (LBD) and SZ groups. In the ability to retain words
learned, LBD and chronic (CSZ) were more impaired than other groups. Furthermore, the variation of
learning (i.e, learning effects) along the 3 trials of immediate free recall was similar between groups.
Discussion
(D)
In conclusion, we found a cognitive decline alongside with the progression of BD whereas such
impairment was evident in the early of SZ. Despite this, both groups (BD and SZ) seem to maintain the
ability to learn. It emphasizes the relevance of studying new therapeutic strategies, in particular,
cognitive rehabilitation/remediation techniques as promissory treatment for psychiatric patients, even in
those with moderate disabilities.
Stages and phases in the contextual structure
In the ESP genre tradition, the constituent part of ‘step’ in ‘move’ is neglected in the body of
literature concerning RAA structural analysis. This might be explained by the fact that abstracts
are short condensed form of information which do not allow for lengthy illustration. Moreover,
the succinct nature of abstracts can even lead to the merging of moves and moves can sometimes
be realized by phrases, not complete sentences. However, in the present corpus, certain patterns
of phases (steps) constituting stage (move) can still be detected and generalized. While stages are
more stable in framing text, phases shows flexibility in building stages. Table 4.7 shows that
phases might be varied, but a generic stage often has a phase that is central to it, and tends to be
its nucleus (highlighted in bold in Table 4.7). While Method and Result have comparatively
stable phases, Introduction and Discussion display more variations of ideational meaning
realized. Another finding worth commenting on is the inclusion of Background elements in
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Introduction stage, which can be viewed as the increasing competitiveness in academic world
manifested in RAA writing, a point I illustrated in the Tenor description in 4.5.4.
Table 4.7 Stages and phases in the 100-text corpus
Stage Ideational phasal elements Introduction (99)
pharmaceutical nature of highlighting drug experiments (‘drug’ and ‘dose’) and the frequent use
of mouse experiments in pharmacy.
Hood (2010:121) identifies fields in Introductions to RA and finds that the taxonomies and
activity sequences in this genre are oriented to two types of field: ‘field of object of study’
(FO)-‘the set of phenomena (entities and/or activities) that constitute the object of study’ and
‘field of research’ (FR)- ‘the construction of the process of research itself, the entities and
activities to do with the process of enquiry and knowledge building’. To analyse the ways in
which one field relates to the other, Hood (2010:132-135) indicates that the relationship of
Projection in clause complex can be understood to function metaphorically at the level of the
discourse semantics and register to refer to ‘one field projecting another field’. In the context of
Introductions to academic research articles, the FR is seen to project the FO. The present data as
roughly indicated by the above two sources of examinations show similar pattern of fields
construed in the texts, i.e. the FR reflects the FO. Viewed from an ideational perspective, RAA
represents the knowledge construed in the corresponding RA and the knowledge construed in RA
is basically knowledge obtained through researching, i.e. research projects knowledge. The field
of Pharmaceutical RAA is reporting research to obtain knowledge about the disciplines and
sub-disciplines through specialized methods like nanotechnology. In order to capture the
goings-on in pharmaceutical RAA, the field of experience can be seen as being constituted by
both the FO as pharmaceutical phenomenon in science and FR as experimentation facilitated or
enhanced by technology (Table 4.9).
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Table 4.9 Two experiential field types in pharmaceutical RAA
FR projecting FO
key lexis in the corpus
study, effect, result, increase, high…
cell, drug, treatment, mouse, dose, patient…
Generalization simulation, model establishment, drug delivery, clinical testing and technology testing.
pharmacogenomics, neuropsychopharm, neuropharmacology, nanomedicine, etc. under the umbrella discipline pharmacy & pharmacology
Table 4.9 shows the overall pattern of the two experiential field types ( the FR and the FO
interacting with each other) based on quantitative linguistic evidence from the whole corpus
combining with information drawn from pharmaceutical researchers. These two field types are
all related to the world knowledge that the text is construing about the reality. The linguistic
realization of these two field types is directly linked to the taxonomy realized by nouns and
activity sequence realized by transitivity configurations, which can only be analyzed through
detailed individual text analysis. The result of such qualitative analysis is presented in Chapter 5
by analyzing 6 sample texts from the corpus. Here, I will demonstrate the pattern of interaction
between these two field types in the experiential domain by closely investigating two sample
texts from the corpus.
The FR/FO interplay in sample text 1
Sample Text 1
Self-healing of pores in Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)s (PLGA) plays an important role in the encapsulation and controlled release of drugs from PLGA microparticles. Despite the importance of this phenomenon, neither the mechanics of the deformation nor the material properties that control it have been fully studied. In this study, the material properties of PLGA have been characterized using mechanical tests, and a finite-element model has been developed to predict how pores heal. This model assumes that the healing process occurs by viscous flow resulting from the deviatoric stress field induced by the interaction between the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA. The simulations, which incorporate measured material properties, show good agreement with experimental observations. However, annealing processes that occur over prolonged times increase the viscosity and slow the healing times of PLGA films at intermediate temperatures above the glass transition temperature. These findings may be reasonably applied towards the prediction of healing processes in PLGA and in related biomaterials for important biomedical applications such as drug delivery. Source: Self-healing of pores in PLGAs, Journal of Controlled Release 206 (2015)
As the function of the ‘Research Purpose’ in an RAA’s Introduction section is informing the
readers about what the research is, the field in sample text 1 is:
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‘In this study, the material properties of the PLGA have been characterized using
mechanical tests and a finite-element model has been developed to predict how pores heal.’
This overall field comprises two distinct types: using mechanical tests and developing
finite-element model can be viewed as the FR indicating the major research behaviour; the
material properties of PLGA that relates to pore-healing can be viewed as the FO indicating the
central phenomenon being investigated. This distinction can also be found in other constituting
sentences of the RAA as shown in Table 4.10.
Table 4.10 The interplay of FR/FO in sample text 1
CS Field FR FO
I
1 plays an important role in 2 1 Self-healing of pores in PLGA ; 2 the encapsulation and controlled release of drugs from PLGA microparticles.
Despite the importance of this phenomenon, 3 have been fully studied.
3 neither the mechanics of the deformation nor the material properties that control it
In this study 4 using mechanical tests and a finite-element model has been developed to 5 .
4 the material properties of PLGA have been characterized;5 predict how pores heal.
P
This model assumes that 6 6 the healing process occurs by viscous flow resulting from the deviatoric stress field induced by the interaction between the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA.
The simulation 7 show 8
7 which incorporate measured material properties, 8 good agreement with experimental observations
However, 9 increase 10 and slow 11 9annealing processes that occur over prolonged times;10the viscosity;11the healing times of PLGA films at intermediate temperatures above the glass transition temperature.
D
These findings may be reasonably applied towards 12 applications 13
12the prediction of healing processes in PLGA and in related biomaterials for important biomedical;13such as drug delivery.
Note: CS refers to contextual structure
The FR/FO interplay in sample text 2
The same interaction between the FO and the FR was found in sample text 2 as shown in
Table 4.11. The interaction between two field types is manifested in other texts in the corpus as
well. Such linguistic pattern shows that the field of pharmaceutical study concerns the
development of devices and techniques for testing drugs with the relation being the former in the
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service of the latter. This finding about field types in the experiential domain is of significant
importance in pedagogic context. While the activity of researching remains relatively stable in
doing all kinds of empirical studies, the linguistic construal of the FR in RAA can be
contextualized as a scaffold or flexible template offered to novice writers in the classroom.
Furthermore, knowledge about the FR/FO interplay equips learners with powerful tools in
brainstorming what to write, i.e. the content of the composition. In other words, when composing
a pharmaceutical RAA, writers should be clear about what the research is and what the
phenomenon to be researched on is and the two aspects can be manifested within almost every
sentence that constitute the whole text.
Sample text 2
In this study molecular modeling is introduced as a novel approach for the development of pharmaceutical solid dispersions. A
computational model based on quantum mechanical (QM) calculations was used to predict the miscibility of various drugs in
various polymers by predicting the binding strength between the drug and dimeric form of the polymer. The drug/polymer
miscibility was also estimated by using traditional approaches such as Van Krevelen/Hoftyzer and Bagley solubility parameters
or Flory–Huggins interaction parameter in comparison to the molecular modeling approach. The molecular modeling studies
predicted successfully the drug–polymer binding energies and the preferable site of interaction between the functional groups.
The drug–polymer miscibility and the physical state of bulk materials, physical mixtures, and solid dispersions were determined
by thermal analysis (DSC/MTDSC) and X-ray diffraction. The produced solid dispersions were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron
spectroscopy (XPS), which confirmed not only the exact type of the intermolecular interactions between the drug–polymer
functional groups but also the binding strength by estimating the N coefficient values. The findings demonstrate that QM-based
molecular modeling is a powerful tool to predict the strength and type of intermolecular interactions in a range of drug/polymeric
systems for the development of solid dispersions.
Source: Molecular Modeling as a Predictive Tool for the Development of Solid Dispersions, Molecule Pharmacuetics March
2015
153
Table 4.11 The interplay of FR/FO in sample text 2
CS Field FR FO
I In this study 1 modeling is introduced as a novel approach for the development of 2.
1 molecular; 2 pharmaceutical solid dispersions
P
A computational model based on quantum mechanical (QM) calculations was used to predict
3 the miscibility of various drugs in various polymers by predicting the binding strength between the drug and dimeric form of the polymer.
The 4 was also estimated by using traditional approaches such as Van Krevelen/Hoftyzer and Bagley solubility parameters or Flory–Huggins interaction parameter in comparison to the molecular modeling approach.
4 drug/polymer miscibility
The molecular modeling studies predicted successfully 5
5 the drug–polymer binding energies and the preferable site of interaction between the functional groups.
6 were determined by thermal analysis (DSC/MTDSC) and X-ray diffraction.
6 The drug–polymer miscibility and the physical state of bulk materials, physical mixtures, and solid dispersions
7 were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), which confirmed 8
7 The produced solid dispersions 8 not only the exact type of the intermolecular interactions between the drug–polymer functional groups but also the binding strength by estimating the N coefficient values.
D
The findings demonstrate that QM-based molecular modeling is a powerful tool to 9
9 predict the strength and type of intermolecular interactions in a range of drug/polymeric systems for the development of solid dispersions.
4.5.3 Summary of field types construed in pharmaceutical RAA
Summarizing the analysis on field of activity (socio-semiotic process) associated with
tenor in 4.5.1 and field of experience (subject matter) related to mode in 4.5.2, an overview of
the field types construed in pharmaceutical RAA can be outlined (Fig. 4.16). Field of activity is
considered to be ‘more important source of generalization than is the domain of experience’
(Matthiessen, 2006:45), whereas field of experience is 2nd order in that it is often brought out by
the first order of socio-semiotic actions. In the case of pharmaceutical RAA, the field of
experience is made up by the interplay between the FR and the FO and this interplay of
researching on pharmaceutical phenomena is drawn out by the rhetorical activities of
‘expounding’ and ‘reporting’. It is ‘expounding’ in that the significance of publishing research
reports lies in the value of knowledge sharing and in the process of knowledge dissemination the
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researchers promotes their research innovations. The language of expounding knowledge
highlights the manipulation of GM, a critical discursive technology in constructing knowledge,
which shall be elaborated in Chapter 5. It is ‘reporting’ in that RAA is basically a recount on a
research story starting from finding research niche to finally finding solutions or explanation to
the research problems.
Figure 4.16 An overview of the field types construed in pharmaceutical RAA
4.6 Concluding Remarks
Text and context are basically the same process viewed from different vantage points. If we
consider text as a functional unit of information organized in order by language with certain
logics, con-text is all texts (not confined to linguistic text) coming together by relevance. A text
is not an isolated self but accompanied by other texts (Halliday & Hasan, 1985: 58). In this sense,
when facing with a task of analyzing a text like pharmaceutical RAA, the first sensible thing that
is advised to do is examining the context to understand ‘what is happening’ in the text both
rhetorically and experientially. Such is the top-down approach articulated in SFL-informed
linguistic analysis under the research paradigm of Social Constructivism.
This thesis focuses on the construal of pharmaceutical RAA analyzed in terms of field in
context and the linguistic realization by the stratified language system of semantics,
lexicogrammar and phonology/graphology (not included in this thesis). In this chapter, the
Field of research (FR)
Field of object of study (FO)
Field of activity: expounding and reporting
Field of experience
Field
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theorization of context in systemic literature is sorted and an analytical framework integrating
elements along the cline of instantiation (Fig. 4.11) is outlined that guides the analysis on context
systematically. Examples from the self-compiled corpus is drawn to demonstrate the context of
pharmaceutical RAA step by step and a clear picture of field types constructed has come out.
Next, I will move on to explore how these field types are realized by the linguistic system.
Specifically, research questions on how rhetorical relations that link the contextual structure both
internally and externally are realized by the conjunction system and other resources; how the two
distinct fields of experience is realized by different taxonomies and activity sequence; will be
investigated. And above all, the congruent and incongruent realization of meanings will be
unveiled.
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Chapter 5 The language
5.1 Introduction
Having investigated the context in which pharmaceutical RAA is situated in, an
understanding about this particular text type is gained: i) it is located at the highest ordered
typology of systems, i.e. the semiotic system that constructs meanings physically, biologically,
socially and semiotically; ii) it instantiates the institutional context in both epistemological and
educational aspects and operates as a variation of EAP macro register in the vast ocean of
linguistic potential; iii) it is a situation type that pharmaceutical researchers establish their
academic identity by expounding knowledge and information through recounting research stories
and interpreting research results. Under such contextual understanding, the field types construed
in the texts are further explored and the following interpretation is obtained: the ‘field of activity’
as ‘expounding through reporting’ brings out the ‘field of experience’ as research activities
happening in the discipline of pharmacy. The former concerns the
‘Introduction∧Procedure∧Discussion (IPD)’ contextual structure (‘generic structure’ or
‘schematic structure’) and the latter is distinguished by two field types: the FR (field of research)
projecting the FO (field of object of study).
In this chapter, the text that realizes the two aspects of field: ‘field of activity and ‘field of
experience’ is examined to answer the second and third sub-questions in research question 1)
formulated in Chapter 3 and repeated below.
1) How is meaning developed ideationally in the unfolding of RAA from top international
pharmaceutical journals?
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b. How do ideational semantic systems pattern in realizing the field types identified?
c. What are the lexicogrammatical resources that realize the ideational meanings?
In Chapter 3, three semantic systems are introduced to analyze ideational meaning
construed in the text that hooks up with field in the context: RST corresponding to contextual
structure in building the field of activity, activity sequence made up by figures and taxonomy
organized by entities in constructing the field of experience. While these three systems are
related more or less to tenor and mode, here, the focus of analysis in this study is on field, i.e.
how these three systems pattern to realize different field types. The general pattern of realization
can be roughly figured that the ‘field of activity’ is realized by the contextual structure which can
be recognized by identifying rhetorical relations that exert organizational function in the text (see
Chapter 4), and the ‘field of experience’ is realized by subject matter-specific taxonomy and
activity sequence. However, in actual linguistic realization, different analytical systems might
intersect with one another to bring out meanings metafunctionally. In this chapter, the specific
language in field building is examined by qualitatively analyzing 6 sample texts (see Chapter 3)
with certain quantifications on figure types, process types and modes of realizations. The
analytical framework presented and demonstrated in Table 3.3 of Chapter 3 is applied: text
semantic structure in terms of RST in construing logical meanings; activity sequence and
taxonomy in terms of how figures and entities pattern in construing experiential meanings;
lexicogrammatical patterns in terms of conjunction, transitivity, NG grammar, and lexis in
realizing figures and entities. In the process of analysis, both the congruent and incongruent
mode of realizations are explored to gain a clearer understanding of the linguistic mechanisms in
field building.
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The analysis on how rhetorical relations pattern to form contextual structure in realizing the
‘field of activity’, which answers question b, is presented in 5.2. The analysis on how entities
combine to form taxonomy and how figures pattern to form activity sequence in building the
‘field of experience’, which answers question c, is demonstrated in 5.3 and 5.4 respectively.
Throughout these three sections, the lexicogrammatical system in realizing RST, entities, and
figures and its larger unit ‘sequence’ are particularly examined to reveal the key linguistic
resource manipulated in these top journal writings in the register of EPAP. The issue of
disciplinarity, i.e. how specificity is construed linguistically, a highly concerned area in the field
of ESAP study is also explored. The final section 5.5 concludes the chapter by summarising
findings and pointing to the next stage of the study.
5.2 Rhetorical relations and field of activity
In Chapter 3, I introduce the system of rhetorical relation developed by Matthiessen
(2013a,b,c,d; 2015a, b) based on the classical RST. In this system, relations that connect text
segments ranging in size anywhere from the text as a whole down to each individual constituent
clause or even NGs that realize a figure in a metaphoric way can be analyzed. In terms of field
building, rhetorical relations play roles in organizing elements in all the three field types
identified, i.e. connecting rhetorical stages and phases in the ‘field of activity’ and constituting
the logic of activities in the interaction between the FR and the FO in the ‘field of experience’.
While in Chapter 4 I have presented identification of the 3 major relations and 5 additional
relations in organizing the contextual structure, in this section, the investigation on RST focuses
on the lexicogrammatical realizations of these 8 rhetorical relations in 6 sample texts. The
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lexicogrammatical realizations of rhetorical relations in organizing activities within ‘sequences’
in the unfolding texts are left to be discussed in Section 5.4 where analysis on activity sequences
in the sample texts are presented.
Rhetorical relations
The ‘field of activity’ as defined in the registerial cartography is more generalizable than
the field of experience (see Chapter 4 Section 4.5) so that it can be abstracted as the 1st order
field that locates at a nearer order towards the context and in comparison the ‘field of experience’
is 2nd order field with more varied linguistic realizations. The linguistic underpinning for this
phenomenon can also be traced. The rhetorical resources that organize generic stages and phases
to realized the ‘field of activity’ are constituted by a relatively finite set of relations, so they are
more generalizable compared with lexicogrammartical resources that realizes taxonomy and
activity sequence. In light of this difference in generalization ability, the IPD contextual structure
that realizes the ‘expounding and reporting’ field activities can actually be applied to other text
instances within the text type of RAA. In other words, the IPD organization is not confined with
pharmacy discipline as it is the general pattern with which researchers do experimentation and
other kinds of empirical research activities. In this sense, it is the language realizing the ‘field of
experience’ that reflects more about specificity of the discipline (See Section 5.2.2, 5.2.3,5.2.4).
As indicated in Figure 4.15 and Table 4.8 in Chapter 4, three kinds of rhetorical relations
can be identified in connecting the ‘IP(M+R)D’ contextual structure in pharmacetutical RAAs:
Elaboration, Evidence and Result. These three relations can be considered as ‘obligatory’
relations because they organize the stages or phases that are considered to be relatively stable in
the unfolding of the text. Certain exceptions do exist that some abstracts do not have one or two
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of these obligatory relations because some stages or phases are not included in the writings.
However, these three relations can be found in the majority of the texts contained in the corpus.
In addition to the three obligatory relations, other semantic relations among the stages and
phases within the contextual structure are: Preparation, Justification, Evaluation,
Solutionhood, and Summary. This set of relations shows variation in different texts because
they connect phasal elements that are mutable thus can be considered as ‘optional’ relations in
this text type. Fig. 5.1-1 to 5.1-6 shows the RST patterns in the 6 sample texts that include both
the obligatory and optional relations in organizing the IPD meaning flow. Table 5.1 summarizes
findings about the semantic relations in organizing the IPD contextual structure.
Table 5.1 Rhetorical relations in the IPD structure
At the stratum of lexicogrammar, the realizations of these rhetorical relations are
examined according to the five possible ways listed in Table 3.9 in Chapter 3: structural
conjunction, cohesive conjunction, verb, thematic progression, and lexical cohesion. These five
ways are generalized by two dimensions, i.e. congruency and directness. Congruency involves
the issue of identifying and unpacking GM to reveal relations and directness involves
recognizing relations through inference. As the contextual structure is profiled by recognizing
semantic relations at a global level, GM is not analyzed because of the complexity in unpacking
metaphoric figures at clause level. Basically, all the rhetorical relations that play connecting
roles within the contextual structure are realized congruently. As will be shown in the analysis
that follows Fig. 5.1-1 to Fig. 5.6, the three obligatory relations are usually realized indirectly
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by way of thematic progression in the text or lexical clues such as repetition, synonym,
antonymy, etc. For example, in sample text 1, ‘simulation’ in the Result phase is a synonym of
‘model’ in the Method phase. Elements in the thematic progression and lexical clues that display
cohesion are closely related to how taxonomy is formed in the text, this part of analysis will be
conducted in Section 5.2.2 thus are not elaborated here. As for the optional relations, the
specific situations in every sample text are generalized based on the 6 figures (Fig. 5.1-1 to 5.1-6)
and the results are presented in Table 5.2-1 and 5.2-2.
Table 5.2-1 Lexicogrammatical realization of relations that connects Background to Research Purpose in 6 sample texts
Relation Linguistic Evidence Text 1 Justification lexical cohesion; cohesive conjunction: ‘despite’; PP in marked Theme: ‘in this study’ Text 3 Preparation lexical cohesion; PP in marked Theme: ‘in the current study’ Text 4 Justification lexical cohesion; adverb in marked Theme: ‘indeed’; PP in marked Theme: ‘in this paper’ Text 5 Justification lexical cohesion; cohesive conjunction ‘therefore’; PP in marked Theme: ‘in this study’ Text 6 Preparation lexical cohesion; adverb in marked Theme: here
Table 5.2-2 Lexicogrammatical realization of relations that connects Result to Discussion in 6 sample texts
Relation Linguistic Evidence Text 1 Evaluation lexical cohesion; Theme element: ‘these findings’; lexis indicating evaluative meaning :
‘important application’
Text 2 Evaluation lexical cohesion; Theme element: ‘the findings’; lexis indicating evaluative meaning : ‘powerful tool’
Text 3 Summary lexical cohesion; Theme element: ‘our results’; sturctural conjunction responding to that in the Procedure stage: ‘but’
Text 4 Solutionhood lexical cohesion especially the repetition of the hypothesis ‘fludarabine acts as a cN-II inhibitor’; Theme element: ‘this’
Text 5 Solutionhood lexical cohesion; verb: ‘conclude’; structural conjunction: ‘but’ indicating eliminating alternatives and recommending solution
Text 6 Evaluation lexical cohesion; lexis indicating evaluative meaning : ‘ability’, ‘potential use’
The linguistic realization of rhetorical relations which in turn realize the contextual structure
is mostly congruent. Four possible congruent ways listed in Table 3.9 of Chapter 3, i.e. lexical
cohesion, thematic progression especially marked Themes, structural conjunctions, cohesive
conjunctions, play roles in connecting the rhetorical segment in these sample text. Three other
resources, i.e. adverbs, verbs and lexis indicating evaluative meaning, are also found to be
facilitative in identifying rhetorical relations indirectly. The indirect way of inferring rhetorical
relations from elements in the thematic progression involves the textual effect (or referred to as
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textual metaphor in Martin, 1992) brought by the meaning packing and summarizing function of
ideation metaphors.
Rhetorical structure and linguistic realizations in the sample texts
In this part, the analysis on each sample text is demonstrated with figures outlining the
RST patterns in realizing the IPD contextual structure and analysis on specific
lexicogrammatical realizations of the semantic relations.
(1) Self-healing of pores in PLGA plays an important role in the encapsulation and controlled release of drugs from PLGA microparticles.
(2) Despite the importance of this phenomenon, neither the mechanics of the deformation nor the material properties that control it have been fully studied.
(3) In this study, the material properties of PLGA have been characterized (4) using mechanical tests, (5) and a finite-element model has been developed (6) to predict (7) how pores heal. (8)This model assumes (9) that the healing process occurs by viscous flow resulting from the deviatoric stress field induced by the interaction between
the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA. (10) The simulations, …show good agreement with experimental observations. (11) …which incorporate measured material properties, (12) However, annealing processes that occur over prolonged times increase the viscosity (13) and slow the healing times of PLGA films at intermediate temperatures above the glass transition temperature. (14)These findings may be reasonably applied towards the prediction of healing processes in PLGA and in related biomaterials
for important biomedical applications such as drug delivery. Source: Self-healing of pores in PLGAs, Journal of Controlled Release, 206 (2015)
Figure 5.1-1 Rhetorical relations connecting stages and phases in sample text 1
In sample text 1, the stage-phase structure is organized by five relations (Fig. 5.1-1; Table
5.2) with two relations other than the three global rhetorical relations: Justification links the
14
14 3-7 8-13 1-2
8-9 10-13
Evaluation Result
Elaboration Justification
Evidence
Discussion Procedure Introduction
163
‘Background’ phase to the ‘Research Purpose’ phase in the ‘Introduction’ stage by the cohesive
conjunction ‘despite’ indicating a transition in the discourse that a research niche is going to be
identified; Evaluation connects ‘Result’ phase to ‘Discussion’ by the Theme element ‘these
findings’ referring back to the results reported in the previous section and the NG ‘important
application’ indicating the Discussion part is evaluating the results obtained.
(1)In this study molecular modeling is introduced as a novel approach for the development of pharmaceutical solid dispersions. (2)A computational model based on quantum mechanical (QM) calculations was used (3)to predict the miscibility of various drugs in various polymers (4) by predicting the binding strength between the drug and dimeric form of the polymer. (5) The drug/polymer miscibility was also estimated (6) by using traditional approaches such as Van Krevelen/Hoftyzer and Bagley solubility parameters or Flory–Huggins interaction parameter in comparison to the molecular modeling approach. (7)The molecular modeling studies predicted successfully the drug–polymer binding energies and the preferable site of interaction between the functional groups. (8)The drug–polymer miscibility and the physical state of bulk materials, physical mixtures, and solid dispersions were determined by thermal analysis (DSC/MTDSC) and X-ray diffraction. (9)The produced solid dispersions were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), (10)which confirmed not only the exact type of the intermolecular interactions between the drug–polymer functional groups but
also the binding strength (11) by estimating the N coefficient values. (12)The findings demonstrate that QM-based molecular modeling is a powerful tool to predict the strength and type of intermolecular interactions in a range of drug/polymeric systems for the development of solid dispersions. Source: Molecular Modeling as a Predictive Tool for the Development of Solid Dispersions, Molecular pharmaceutics, March, 2015
Figure 5.1-2 Rhetorical relations connecting stages and phases in sample text 2
Sample text 2 (Fig. 5.1-2; Table 5.2) has only one relation other than the obligatory
relations: Evaluation connects ‘Result’ phase to ‘Discussion’ by the Theme element ‘the findings’
referring back to the results reported in the previous section and the NG ‘a powerful tool to …’
indicating the Discussion part is evaluating the results obtained.
12 1 2-11
2-6 7-11
Evaluation Result
Elaboration
Evidence
Discussion Procedure Introduction
12
164
(1) Nicotinic receptors in the central nervous system (nAChRs) are known to play important roles in pain processing (2) and (are known to) modulate behavioral responses to analgesic drugs, including nicotine. (3)The presence of the a5-neuronal nicotinic accessory subunit in the nicotinic receptor complex is increasingly understood to
modulate reward and aversive states, addiction, and possibly pathological pain. (4)In the current study…we assess the role of a5-containing neuronal nicotinic receptors in neuropathic pain and in the analgesic
response to nicotine. (5)using a5-knockout (KO) mice and subunit-specific antibodies, (6)After chronic constriction injury (CCI) or partial sciatic nerve ligation (PSNL), no differences in mechanical, heat, or cold
hyperalgesia were found in wild-type (WT) versus a5-KO littermate mice. (7)The number of a5-containing nAChRs was decreased (rather than increased) after CCI in the spinal cord and in the thalamus. (8)Nevertheless, thermal analgesic response to nicotine was marginally reduced in CCI a5-KO mice at 4 days after CCI, but not at
later timepoints or after PSNL. (9)Interestingly, upon daily intermittent nicotine injections in unoperated mice, WT animals developed tolerance to
nicotine-induced analgesia to a larger extent than a5-KO mice. (10)Our results suggest that a5-containing nAChRs mediate analgesic tolerance to nicotine but do not play a major role in
neuropathic pain. Source: Role of a5-containing nicotinic receptors in neuropathic pain and response to nicotine, Neuropharmacology, 95(2015)37-49
Figure 5.1-3 Rhetorical relations connecting stages and phases in sample text 3
In sample text 3 (Fig. 5.1-3; Table 5.2), the Method is merged with both the Research
Purpose and the Result so that there are only two obligatory relations connecting the IPD
structure: Evidence and Elaboration. The other two relations connecting the phasal element
across stages are: Preparation and Summary. Preparation links the ‘Background’ to the
‘Research Purpose’ by repeating ‘nicotinic’ in the Themes of clause (1) & (2) in Background and
in the Rheme of clause (3) in the Research Purpose. Summary connects ‘Result’ phase to
‘Discussion’ by the Theme element ‘our results’ in clause (9) referring back to the 4 results
listed from clause (5) to (8) in the Result phase. The Structural Conjunction ‘but’ that joins
clause (9) and (10) corresponds to the cohesive conjunction ‘nevertheless’ at the initial place of
10 4-5 6-9 1-3
Summary Elaboration Preparatio
n
Evidence
Discussion Procedure Introduction
165
clause (7) denoting the same pattern of meaning shift. The meaning realized by the four clauses
in the Result phase is summarized into the meaning expressed by two clauses in the discussion
stage.
(1)For several years the IMP/GMP-preferring cytosolic 5’-nucleotidase II (cN-II) has been considered as a therapeutic target in
oncology. (2)Indeed, various reports have indicated associations between cN-II expression level and resistance to anticancer agents in
several cancer cell lines and in patients affected with neoplasia, mainly by hematologic malignancies. (3)In this paper we present evidence showing that, among the commonly used cytotoxic nucleoside analogs, fludarabine can act
as a cN-II inhibitor. (4)In vitro studies using the wild type recombinant cN-II demonstrated that fludarabine inhibited enzymatic activity in a mixed
manner (Ki 0.5 mM and Ki0 9 mM),
(5)whereas no inhibition was observed with clofarabine and cladribine. (6)Additional experiments with mutant recombinant proteins and an in silico molecular docking indicated that this inhibition is
due to an interaction with a regulatory site of cN-II known to interact with adenylic compounds. (7)Moreover, synergy experiments between fludarabine and 6-mercaptopurine in human follicular lymphoma (RL) and human
acute promyelocytic leukemia (HL-60) cells transfected with control or cN-II-targeting shRNA-encoding plasmids, showed synergy in control cells and antagonism in cells with decreased cN-II expression.
(8)This is in line with the hypothesis that fludarabine acts as a cN-II inhibitor (9)and supports the idea of using cN-II inhibitors in association with other drugs to increase their therapeutic effect and decrease
their resistance Source: The purine analog fludarabine acts as a cytosolic 5’-nucleotidase inhibitor, Biochemical Pharmacology, 94 (2015)
Figure 5.1-4 Rhetorical relations connecting stages and phases in sample text 4
Sample text 4 (Fig. 5.1-4; Table 5.1) is similar to sample text 3 in that there is no separate
Method phase but merged with the Result so that there is only two global relations connecting
the IPD structure: Evidence and Elaboration. In the Introduction stage, the researcher forms a
hypothesis that ‘fludarabine can act as a cN-II inhibitor’ based on the explanation provided in the
Background, so the rhetorical relation here is Preparation. And this hypothesis is echoed in the
Discussion stage in which the hypothesis ‘fludarabine acts as a cN-II inhibitor’ is repeated. Thus
Solutionhood
8-9 4-7 3 1-2
Elaboration Justification
Evidence
Discussion Procedure Introduction
166
the relation of Solutionhood indicates that the Discussion is affirming a solution to the
hypothesis set in the neucleus, i.e. the Research Purpose. Moreover, the marked Theme ‘indeed’
in clause (2) strengthens the grounds that the hypothesis is raised to tackle problems remained in
‘resistance to anticancer agents’, thus forming the relation of Justification.
(1)Biofilm-associated bacteria display a decreased susceptibility towards antibiotics. (2)Routine assessment of antibiotic susceptibility of planktonic bacteria therefore offers an insufficient prediction of the biofilm
response. (3)In this study, in vitro biofilms of eight clinical Staphylococcus epidermidis strains were sub-jected to treatment with
vancomycin, teicoplanin, oxacillin, rifampicin and gentamicin. (4)In addition, the biofilms were subjected to combinations of an antibiotic with rifampicin. (5)The effects on the biofilms were assessed by crystal violet staining (6) to determine the total biofilm biomass, (7) (by) staining with XTT to determine bacterial cell viability, and microscopy. (8)Combining these methods showed that treatment of S. epider-midis biofilms with glycopeptides increased the total biofilm
biomass and that these antibiotics were not effective in killing bacteria embedded in biofilms. (9)The decreased killing efficacy was more pronounced in biofilms produced by strains that were classified as ‘strong’ biofilm
producers. (10)Rifampicin, oxacillin and gentamicin effectively killed biofilm-associated bacteria of all tested strains. (11)Combining antibiotics with rifampicin increased the killing efficacy (12)without influencing the total biofilm biomass. (13)When vancomycin or teicoplanin were combined with rifampicin, (14)the increase in biofilm biomass was neutralised (15)and also the killing efficacy was influenced in a positive way. (16)We conclude (17)that the combined methodology used in this study showed that glycopeptides were not effective in eradicating S. epidermidis
biofilms but that combination with rifampicin improved the killing efficacy in vitro. Source: Inefficacy of vancomycin and teicoplanin in eradicating and killing Staphylococcus epidermidis biofilms in vitro, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, 45 (2015)
Figure 5.1-5 Rhetorical relations connecting stages and phases in sample text 5
In sample text 5, the stage-phase structure is organized by five relations (Fig. 5.1-5; Table
5.2) with two relations other than the three global rhetorical relations: Justification links the
‘Background’ phase to the ‘Research Purpose’ phase in the ‘Introduction’ stage by the cohesive
conjunction ‘therefore’ demonstrating the reasoning that there is insufficiency in biofilm
Solutionhood
8-15
16-17 5-14
5-7
1-2
16-17
Result
ElaboratiJustification
Evidence
Discussion Procedure Introduction
3-4
167
susceptibility towards antibiotics, a problem/niche that needs solving, thus the proposal of the
Research Purpose—testing the efficacy of using a combination of an antibiotic with rifampicin;
Solutionhood connects ‘Result’ phase to ‘Discussion’ by the Structural Conjunction ‘but’ in
Clause (16) indicating a process of eliminating some ineffective ways of tackling the problem
stated in the Introduction Stage and providing a solution of ‘combination with rifampicin’ as a
sufficient way.
(1)Early cancer detection is a major factor in the reduction of mortality and cancer management cost. (2)Here we developed a smart and targeted micelle-based contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), (3)able to turn on its imaging capability in the presence of acidic cancer tissues. (4)This smart contrast agent consists of pH-sensitive polymeric micelles formed by self-assembly of a diblock copolymer
(poly(ethyleneglycol-b-trimethylsilyl methacrylate)), (5)loaded with a gadolinium hydrophobic complex (6)and exploits the acidic pH in cancer tissues. (7)In vitro MRI experiments showed that tBuBipyGd-loaded micelles were pH-sensitive, (8)as they turned on their imaging capability only in an acidic microenviron-ment. (9)The micelle-targeting ability toward cancer cells was enhanced by conjugation with an antibody against the MUC1 protein. (10)The ability of our antibody/-decorated micelles to be switched on in acidic microenvironments and to target cancer cells
expressing specific antigens, together with its high Gd(III) content and its small size (35–40 nm) reveals their potential use for early cancer detection by MRI.
Source: Self-assembled polymeric nanoparticles as new, smart contrast agents for cancer early detection using magnetic resonance imaging, International Journal of Nanomedicine, 10 (2015)
Figure 5.1-6 Rhetorical relations connecting stages and phases in sample text 6
Sample text 6 (Fig. 5.1-6; Table 5.1) is similar to sample text 1 with the difference that the
relation connecting Background to Research Purpose is Preparation rather than Justification
because there is no mention about research niche in the Background but providing background
8-10 6-7 4-5
1 4-7
Result
Elaboration Preparation
Evidence
Discussion Procedure Introduction
Solutionhood
2-3 8-10
168
information about cancer detection. The initial word ‘here’ in clause 2 is a marked Theme
indicating the departure of meaning shifting from Background to Research Purpose. In the other
5 sample texts, this kind of marked Theme exerting the same function is realized by
prepositional phrases (PPs) like ‘in this study’, ‘in this paper’, ‘in the current study’. It can be
generalized that marked Theme realized by these prepositional phrases or adverb like ‘here’ are
linguistic evidence or discourse signals that facilitate judging the borderline between
Background phase and Research Purpose phase. For linguistic evidence that shows the relation
of Evaluation, the lexis ‘ability’ and ‘potential use’ in clause 8 is evaluating the proposed ‘smart
contrast agent’ described in both Introduction and Procedure stages.
The above RST analysis on the 6 sample texts shows the semantic and lexicogrammatical
patterns in connecting text segments in pharmaceutical RAAs. This kind of pattern is universal in
abstracts that construe original research because the ‘field of activity’ as ‘expounding knowledge
through reporting’ is the same regardless of the disciplines. Next, I will explore how the
language construes the ‘field of experience’ that is not as generalizable as the ‘field of activity’.
A first glimpse of the following sample shows the salient feature of expanded NGs taking up
most space of the text.
Sample Text 1
Self-healing of pores in Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)s (PLGA) plays an important role in the encapsulation
and controlled release of drugs from PLGA microparticles. Despite the importance of this phenomenon,
neither the mechanics of the deformation nor the material properties that control it have been fully studied.
In this study, the material properties of PLGA have been characterized using mechanical tests, and a
finite-element model has been developed to predict how pores heal. This model assumes that the healing
process occurs by viscous flow resulting from the deviatoric stress field induced by the interaction
between the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA. The simulations, which incorporate
measured material properties, show good agreement with experimental observations. However, annealing
processes that occur over prolonged times increase the viscosity and slow the healing times of PLGA films
at intermediate temperatures above the glass transition temperature. These findings may be reasonably
applied towards the prediction of healing processes in PLGA and in related biomaterials for important
biomedical applications such as drug delivery.
169
This obvious lexicogrammatical feature will be viewed through two semantic systems: taxonomy
and activity sequence. In other words, the language construing the ‘field of experience’ in
pharmaceutical RAA will be explored by qualitatively analyzing how lexis and grammar pattern
to form taxonomy and activity sequence in building the ‘subject matter’ of the text. The
mechanism of forming ideation metaphor is particularly investigated as it is the most important
discursive technology in science writing (Halliday & Martin, 1993).
As there are two types of ‘field of experience’ within the text type of RAA, i.e. the FR
projecting the FO, I will illustrate how the language pattern to construe these two field types
respectively, and in the process of analysis, aspects regarding the construction of disciplinarity or
specificity will be discussed. The discussion on the role of language in knowledge building
requires that the researcher consult relevant discipline background knowledge from various
sources. Wikipedia webpages, discipline textbook1 or teachers and postgraduate students in
GDPU constitute the major sources. Moreover, the information on word formation in relation to
meaning is referenced from dictionaries, root dictionaries, thesaurus or morphology books listed
in the Reference Section. These sources of information are indicated at some points in the
analysis.
5.3 Taxonomy and field of experience
Taxonomy refers to entities (things, people, places, time, activities and other semiotic
constructs) organised by relations. At the level of lexicogrammar, entities are congruently
realized by nouns or NGs and metaphorically realized by ‘distilled’ metaphors. Following the
two successive steps described in Chapter 3 (Section 3.4.2.2.1), the six sample texts are analyzed
1 Jia. H. T. Eds. (2015) Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Beijing: People’s Medicine Publishing House
170
and the results are discussed about entity and realization, taxonomic relation and taxonomy.
Categorizing entity types in the six sample texts (Table 5.3-1 and 5.3-2) highlights two
types of entities, i.e. thing entity and activity entity. This is in accordance with previous findings
from studies on discourses of various disciplines that science features precision by developing
technical terms to name things and activities while humanities are characterized with
abstractions to refer to concepts and ideas (Veel, 1997; Coffin, 1997; Matruglio, 2014). This
pattern is reflected in this text concerning the division of the FO taxonomy mainly construed by
thing entities and the FR taxonomy mainly construed by activity entities. Although certain
numbers of semiotic entities do exist in each text, which construe concepts and ideas (mostly
ideas about the doing of research) or play roles in rhetorical flow, the majority are thing and
activity entities that construe the field of experience. While technicality is an area of ESAP
features that remains a research challenge, the significance of exploring entity patterns in the text
in terms of entity types and their lexical realizations can be clearly seen here.
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Table 5.3-1 Entity types and realizations in sample text 1-3
Entity
Type
Realization
Congruent (47) Metaphoric (32)
Text
1
Thing (10)
pore2, PLGA6, drugs, microparticles,
material properties3, surface curvature,
films, intermediate temperature,
biomaterials
glass transition temperature
Activity
(9)
model2, process3, tests, study, drug
delivery, controlled release, viscous
flow, deviatoric stress field, pore
healing
Semiotic
(4)
phenomenon, role, mechanics findings
Time (2) annealing times, healing times
Text
2
Thing (10)
drug6, polymer6, dimeric form of the
polymer, physical state of bulk
material, druy/polymereric system,
functional groups2
solid dispersion4, mixtures,
miscibility3, binding
strength/energy3
Activity
(10)
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
(XPS), N coefficient value
study2, molecular modeling4,
computational model, QM
calculations, solubility parameters2,
interaction parameter, thermal
analysis (DSC/MTDSC), X-ray
diffraction
Semiotic
(4)
tool, approach3, type2 findings
Place (1) site
Text
3
Thing (18)
nicotinic receptors3, central nervous
system, analgesic drugs, nicotine4,
a5-neuronal nicotinic accessory
subunit2, mice5, antibodies, the number
of a5-containing nAChRs, spinal cord,
thalamus, animals, a5-containing
nAChRs3, reward and aversive state,
hyperalgesia, analgesia,
pathological/neuropathic pain3
nicotinic receptor complex,
tolerance2
Activity
(5)
behavioral/analgesic/responses3,
addiction, study, CCI4, PSNL2
Semiotic
(4)
roles3, states, differences, results
Time (2) 4 days after CCI, at later timepoints
or after PSNL
Note: the numbers at the upper right hand of the words indicates the occurrence times of the word.
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Table 5.3-2 Entity types and realizations in sample text 4-6
acetylcholine acetyl: a (prefix for emphasis) + cet(yl)=cut (acid); choline: chol (call) + ine (suffix)
Acetylcholine is a combination of acetate (acetic acid) and choline. The root ‘choline (calling)’ means demanding something essential and in the context of chemistry, choline (calling) refers to a natural amine, an essential nutrient in the Vitamin B group.
thalamus thala=tall + mus (suffix) The root ‘thala (tall)’ itself suggests ‘space’ and the lexis ‘thalamus’ is from Greek θάλαμος, meaning ‘chamber’ , which is also related to ‘space’. In the context of neuroscience, ‘thalamus’ refers to the large mass of gray matter in the dorsal part of the diencephalon of the brain.
analgesia an (prefix for negation) + alge (act) + sia (suffix for symptom)
In the context of describing physical symptom, the root ‘alge (act)’ is used to refer to ‘pain’, i.e. something conflicting, acting or moving around against each other inside the body, and ‘analgesia’ means ‘no pain’ , i.e. the loss of the ability to feel pain while still conscious.
hyperalgesia hyper ( prefix indicating ‘above’) + alge (act) + sia (suffix for ‘symptom’)
The symptom of showing over reaction or increased response to noxious stimulation.
As for the meanings of the CLs, the situation can be generalized into two types: i) CLs that
has the same meaning in daily life and in pharmaceutical context, e.g. ‘pain’, ‘spinal cord’,
‘antibodies’, etc. Some CLs might be exclusively used in pharmaceutical discipline but become
familiar to people because of frequent daily use of the word. For instance, in the context of
pharmacy, the technical definition for nicotine is ‘a potent parasympathomimetic stimulant and
an alkaloid found in the nightshade family of plants’. This discipline word is now known to all
because it is related to smoking, a common daily phenomenon. ii) Field-specific CLs that appear
to have different meanings from its common usages. In traditional lexicology, some lexis is
categorized as ‘polysemy’ to be able to express two or more different meanings when used in
different contexts. For example, the polysemy ‘reward’ has a discipline sense here meaning the
brain structures and neural pathways that are responsible for reward-related cognition. However,
this field sense of ‘reward’ still derives from the original meaning of the affix plus root, i.e.
‘mental response with a tendency of care (ward) moving back (re)’. In other words, the lexical
realization of this technical term is not polysemy but morphemes with its derivative applications
in the context. Examining roots and affixes might prove to be a practical means to understand
cancer-related entities is then ‘class-member’ (as shown below)
Morphologically speaking, among these technical words, there is a pattern related to ‘cancer’,
the object of study in oncology (Table 5.5-1).
Table 5.5-1 The FO taxonomy in sample text 4: cancer & oncology
Entity Semantic relation to ‘cancer & oncology’
Lexical realization of meaning
cancer cell lines one area of study in oncology The cell line that will generate canceration. 5’
-nucleotidase II (cN-II)
The text itself indicate that 5’- cN-II ‘has been considered as a therapeutic target in oncology’, denoting explicitly that 5’- cN-II is one area of study in oncology.
‘Nucleo’ means center or importance; ‘tide’ means emerging; ‘Nucleotide’ plays a central role in life-form metabolism at the fundamental, cellular level and ‘nucleotidase’ is a type of enzyme that catalyzes ‘nuclotide’.
cN-II expression level
The text itself indicates that cN-II expression level has associations with anticancer agents in terms of resistance, which is related to oncology.
See above for cN-II; Expression is a distilled metaphor referring to a major type of enzymatic activity similar to ‘moving something out (ex) through pressing (press)’.
Neoplasian the formation and growth of a tumor ‘Neo’ means new; ‘pla’means place implying the meaning of things being put there or things being formed; ‘ia’ is a suffix indicating decease symptom; ‘Neoplasia’ means new thing/mass has been formed and in this context it refers to cancer tumor.
malignancies a characterization of cancer Malignancy (from Latin male, meaning 'badly', and -gnus, meaning 'born') is the tendency of a medical condition to become progressively worse.
lymphoma a type of blood cancer ‘Lymphoma (lymph- + -oma)’ is any neoplasm of the lymphatic tissues. ‘Lymph’refers to ‘blood in the vessel; Etymologically, ‘lymph’ is derived from the name of the ancient Roman deity of fresh water, Lympha, which is associated with blood; Morphologically, ‘Lymph’ is ‘line shaping’ vessel and ‘Oma’ is a suffix for tumor or morbid growth.
leukemia a cancer of the white blood cells ‘leuk’ can be considered as a morph of ‘leak’ implying that people with leukemia may easily become bruised, bleed excessively; ‘ia’ is a suffix indicating decease symptom.
patient In the text, ‘patient’ refers to cancer patient.
‘Pa’ derives from the root ‘path’ meaning that patients are people with pathological problems.
cell In the text, ‘cell’ refers to cancer cell. Cancer cells are cells that divide relentlessly, forming solid tumors or flooding the blood with abnormal cells.
‘Cell’ derives from the root ‘cut’ meaning the smallest unit that cannot be further cut or divided. Healthy cells stop dividing when there is no longer a need for more daughter cells, but cancer cells continue to produce copies.
The therapy taxonomy is made up of 12 cancer drug-related entities: ‘drug’, ‘therapeutic
by clause complex made of ranking clauses (Halliday, 1985), the 6 sample text exhibits a
combination of ranking and embedded clause nestings. Basically every text contains a number of
embedded clauses within the limited space ranging from 119 words to 374 words (see Chapter 3)
and sometimes the embedded nesting plays key roles in knowledge construction. One of such
examples is the implication sequence construed by layers of embeddings in sample text 1, which
is demonstrated in Chapter 3 and repeated here for stressing the typicality of this kind of
construal in scientific writing.
from process to thing, 49%
from quality to
thing, 41%
from process to
quality, 10%
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The projecting clause The projected clause
This model assumes that
(Process: Mental)
The healing process occurs by viscous flow (Process: Relational))
〔embedding〕resulting from the deviatoric stress field (Process: Relational, 1st layer qualifier)
〔embedding〕induced by the interaction (Process: Relational, 2nd layer qualifier) 〔circumstance〕between the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA
(tension=becomes intense, 3rd layer qualifier)
This kind of embedded nesting is also exemplified by sample text 4 shown below:
(1)For several years the IMP/GMP-preferring cytosolic 5’
-nucleotidase II (cN-II) has been considered as a therapeutic target in
oncology.
(2)Indeed, various reports have indicated associations between cN-II expression level and resistance to anticancer agents in
several cancer cell lines and in patients affected with neoplasia, mainly by hematologic malignancies.
(3)In this paper we present evidence showing that, among the commonly used cytotoxic nucleoside analogs, fludarabine can act
as a cN-II inhibitor.
(4)In vitro studies using the wild type recombinant cN-II demonstrated that fludarabine inhibited enzymatic activity in a mixed
manner (Ki 0.5 mM and Ki0 9 mM),
(5)whereas no inhibition was observed with clofarabine and cladribine.
(6)Additional experiments with mutant recombinant proteins and an in silico molecular docking indicated that this inhibition is
due to an interaction with a regulatory site of cN-II known to interact with adenylic compounds.
(7)Moreover, synergy experiments between fludarabine and 6-mercaptopurine in human follicular lymphoma (RL) and human
acute promyelocytic leukemia (HL-60) cells transfected with control or cN-II-targeting shRNA-encoding plasmids, showed
synergy in control cells and antagonism in cells with decreased cN-II expression.
(8)This is in line with the hypothesis that fludarabine acts as a cN-II inhibitor
(9)and supports the idea of using cN-II inhibitors in association with other drugs to increase their therapeutic effect and decrease
their resistance.
Source: The purine analog fludarabine acts as a cytosolic 50-nucleotidase inhibitor, Biochemical Pharmacology, 94 (2015)
In this text, the embeddded clauses outnumber the ranking clauses (13 vs. 9). In clause (4) & (5)
and (8) & (9), embedded clauses (highlighted in grey) can be found in clause complexes. Along
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with this embedding domination in the text, several symptoms are reflected. The 9 congruent
ranking figures construe the FR activities in an objective way realized by 7 VGs: ‘be considered
as’ construing background knowledge;‘indicate’ and ‘demonstrate’ showing results; ‘is’ and
‘support’ discussing findings; ‘present’ and ‘observe’ construing research behavior on the part of
the researcher. However, for the description of activities happening in the FO, most processes are
hidden in embeded figures (‘affected’, ‘using’, ‘interact’, ‘transfected’, ‘increase’, ‘decrease’)
and in metaphoric figures (‘inhibition’, ‘interaction’, ‘association’). Metaphoric figures are
similar to embeded figures that they are both rank-shifting phenomena by nature. The difference
is that metaphoric figure not only involves down-shifting in rank but also transcategorization
between word classes. In other words, metaphoric expressions driven by the need of forming
technicality increase the uses of embedding in academic discourse.
Metaphoricity and staticness are interrelated phenomena that constitute the feature of
academic discourse like pharmaceutical RAA, echoing the salience highlighted in sample text 1
before Section 5.3 begins. At surface level, it is the static state that is perceived about these texts.
At deep level, it is the critical resource of GM in NG plus the deployment of embedding at some
points that is at play in these texts. And at even deeper probing level, it is the three semiotic
powers that produces this discourse effect: the ‘referring’ and ‘expanding’ capacity inherent in
nouns (Halliday, 1998:195); the flexibility in the grammar of transcategorization in enabling the
generation of nouns from other word classes; and rank-shifting in creating ‘new potential at
lower ranks in the system by making it available from higher ranks’ (Matthiessen, 1995:100).
Synthesizing all these three grammatical resources, the most productive logogenetic journey of
meaning compression in these texts can be figured out: Nouns can refer to happenings/events by
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way of nominalization; Once the actional verb has been morphed into noun, it gains the
unlimited meaning expansive ability by having layers of pre and post modifiers (see Chapter 3)
including embedding if necessary, which means embedded figures may contain metaphoric NGs
(NGs that have GM as head or other components); lastly, the newly-formed expanded NG can
serve as participants in the clause and is related to the other participants which can be an NG of
this kind mostly by way of relational process.
In sum, findings concerning the figure types running in the sample tests reveal the overall
semiotic effect of stillness created by the critical resource of GM and the related syndrome.
Figures in relation to field building
Since field refers to how the experiential world is divided up into institutional areas of
activity (Halliday & Martin, 1993), at the level of text semantics, the areas of activity construed
in figures can be categorized according to the two interacting field types of academic discourse
that have been discussed in this thesis, i.e. the FR projecting the FO. Table 5.12-1 to 5.12-6
investigates how figures construe the two types of field of experience and a preliminary profiling
of figure types is calculated and presented in Table 5.11.
Table 5.11 Figure types and field of experience in 6 sample texts
Figure type FR (78) FO (97)
CDR 55 10
CSR 2 0
MDE 13 53
CDE 6 24
MSE 2 7
CSE 0 3
It is obvious to see from Table 5.11 that the two types of ‘field of experience’ are construed
by very different profiles of figure types. The MDE-dominated FO (53 in 97) has far more
figures than the CDR-dominated FR (55 in 78), which demonstrates that the FO tends to be
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construed in a metaphoric way and the FR in a congruent way. The reason for this phenomenon
can be understood that FR in RAAs are recounting and reporting research processes which is of
universal characteristics regardless of the specific knowledge-oriented FO. Knowledge
construction by language is a process of abstraction and the resource of GM is critical in this
process. The least frequent figure types in both fields are CSR, MSE and CSE, which reflects
that dynamic figure is prevalent in the construal of field. The second high frequent figure type in
the FO is CDE, which couples with MDE (the highest frequent) showing that the construction of
the FO tends to rely more on the resource of embedding to collocate with the deployment of GM.
The combination of CDR+CSR in the FR and MDE+CDE in the FO mirrors another fact that the
FR construal is more balanced in terms of static-dynamic dichotomy thus a more ‘natural’ or
congruent perspective in reflecting the state of reality. The FO, however, condenses knowledge
and disguises the inherent dynamism through GM, the designed way that fits the convention of
scientific discourse ever since the Darwinian era (Halliday & Martin, 1993). Despite the different
combinations of figure types, the MDE is also often exploited in the construal of the FR, another
manifestation of the dynamism in the disguise of GM. All in all, the finding concerning profiling
figure types in these 6 sample texts shows clearly how GM plays the key role in the construal of
the field of experience, particularly the knowledge construction in the discipline.
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Table 5.12-1 Figures in relation to field in sample text 1
CS Seq. Figure type Field FR (12) FO (23)
I 1 a: CSR 1-2: MDE
…plays an important role in … 1. Self-healing of pores in PLGA 2. the encapsulation and…of drugs from PLGA
microparticles. NG: controlled release
2 b:MSE c: CDR 3-4: MDE
b: Despite the importance of … c: neither…nor…have been fully studied.
3. the mechanics of the deformation 4. the …that control it
3 d-f: CDR 5: CDR
d:In this study, …have been characterized e: using mechanical tests e: and a … model has been developed f: to predict…
NG: the material properties of PLGA 5: how pores heal.
P
4 g: CDR 6, 10, 11: MDE 7-9: CDE
g: This model assumes that…. 6: the healing precess 7: occurs by viscous flow 8: resulting from the … 9: induced by 10: the interaction between the … 11: and the surface tension of the PLGA.
5 h-i: CDR 13,15: MDE 14: MSE
h: The simulation, show… i: which incorporate…,
12: measured material properties 13: good agreement 14: with experimental observations
6 j-k: CDR 15, 17-19: MDE 16: CDE
j: However, …increase … k: and slow…
15: annealing processes 16: that occur 17: over prolonged times 18: the viscosity 19: the healing times of PLGA films at …
D 7 l: CDR 20-23: MDE
l: These findings may be reasonably applied towards…
20: the prediction 21: of healing processes in PLGA 22: and in related … 23: for…applications such as…
c: A computational model …was used d: based on quantum mechanical calculations e: to predict…
NG: the miscibility of various drugs… 1: by predicting the binding strength between…
3 f-h: CDR
f: The…was also estimated g: by using traditional approaches h: in comparison to the…
NG: drug/polymer miscibility NG: molecular modeling approach. NG: Van Krevelen/Hoftyzer and Bagley solubility parameters or Flory–Huggins interaction parameter
4 i: CDR 2: MDE
i: The …studies predicted successfully… NG: molecular modeling NG: the drug–polymer binding energies 2: and the preferable site of interaction between the functional groups.
5 j: CDR j: …were determined by… NG: The drug–polymer miscibility and the… NG: thermal analysis and X-ray diffraction.
6 k-l: CDR 3: MDE
k: …were analyzed by…, l: ,which confirmed not only…but also… m: by estimating…
3: The produced solid dispersions NG: X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) NG: the exact type of the intermolecular interactions between… NG: the binding strength NG: the N coefficient values.
D 7 n: CSR o: MDE 4: MDE 5: CSR 6: CDR
n: The findings demonstrate that … o: for the development of…
4: QM-based molecular modeling 5: is a powerful tool 6: to predict the strength and type of…in a range of drug/polymeric systems NG: solid dispersions.
Table 5.12-3 Figures in relation to field in sample text 3
CS Seq. Figure type Field FR (9) FO (8)
I 1 a: CSR b: CDR
a: are known to play important roles in… b: …and (are known to)modulate…
NG: Nicotinic receptors in … NG: pain processing NG: behavioral responses to analgesic …
2 c: CDR 1: MSE
c: …is increasingly understood to modulate…
1. The presence of the a5-neuronal nicotinic accessory subunit in the nicotinic receptor complex
NG: reward and aversive states, addiction, and possibly pathological pain.
3 d-e: CDR d: In the current study, we assess… e: using…
NG: the role of a5-containing … PP: in neuropathic pain and in the analgesic response to nicotine. NG: a5-knockout (KO) mice and subunit-specific antibodies
P 4
f: CDR f: …no differences in…were found in…
PP: After CCI or PSNL PP: in mechanical, heat, or cold… NG: wild-type (WT) …
5 g: CDR g:…was decreased (rather than increased)…
NG: The number of … PP: after CCI in the spinal cord and in the thalamus.
6 h: CDR i: CDR
h: …was marginally reduced… i: but (was) not (reduced)…
NG: thermal analgesic response to… PP: in CCI a5-KO mice PP: at 4 days after CCI PP: at later timepoints or after PSNL.
7 2-3: MDE 4: CDR 5: MDE 6: CDE
2: upon daily intermittent nicotine injections in… 3: unoperated mice, 4: WT animals developed … 5: tolerance … 6: to a larger extent than a5-KO mice (does).
D 8 j: CDR 7: CDE 8: CSE
j: Our results suggest that… 7: a5-containing nAChRs mediate… 8: but do not play a major role in neuropathic pain.
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Table 5.12-4 Figures in relation to field in sample text 4
CS Seq. Figure type Field FR (10) FO (17)
I 1 a: CDR a:…had been considered as… NG: IMP/GMP-preferring cytosolic… NG: a therapeutic target in oncology
2 b: CDR 1: MDE
b: … various reports have indicated…
1. associations between cN-II expression…
3 c: CDR d: CDE 2: MDE 3: CDE
c: In this paper we present evidence d: showing that…
2: among the commonly used cytotoxic… 3: fludarabine can act as a cN-II inhibitor.
P 4 e, f: CDR 3: CDE 4, 5: MDE
e: In vitro studies… demonstrated that f: was observed with…
3: using the wild type recombinant cN-II 4: fludarabine inhibited enzymatic… 5: whereas no inhibition NG: clofarabine…
5 g: CDR 6, 8: MDE 7: CSE 9: CDE
g: Additional experimets…..and .. indicated that…
PP: with mutant recombinant proteins… 6: this inhibition 7: …is due to… 8: an interaction with a regulatory site of 9: cN-II known to interact with …
6 h: CDR 10: CDE 13: MSE 11, 12,14: MDE
h: …synergy experiments…show… PP: between…and … 10: transfected with control 11. or cN-II-targeting 12. shRNA-encoding plasmids NG: synergy in control cells 13: and antagonism in cells 14: with decreased cN-II expression.
D 7 i: CSR j: CDR 15,16,18,19: CDE 17: MDE
i: This is in line with… j: and supports the idea of…
15: the hypothesis that fludarabine acts as… 16: using cN-II inhibitors 17: in association with other drugs 18: to increase their therapeutic effect 19: and decrease their resistance.
Table 5.12-6 Figures in relation to field in sample text 6
CS Seq. Figure type Field
FR (5) FO (21)
I 1 a: CSR a: …is a major factor in… NG: Early cancer detection 1: the reduction of …. 2: and management cost.
2 b: CDR 3-4: MDE 5: CDE 6: MSE
b: Here we developed… 3: a smart and targeted 4: micelle-based … 5: able to turn on … 6: …in the presence of ….
P 3 7: CSR 8: CDE 9: MDE 10,11: CDR
7: This smart contrast agent consists of … 8: formed by… 9: self-assembly of a diblock copolymer 10: ,loaded with a …complex 11: and exploits the acidic pH …
4 c: CDR 15:MDE 12: CDE 13: CSR 14: CDR
c: …experiments showed that… NG: In vitro MRI 12: tBuBipyGd-loaded micelles 13: were pH-sensitive 14: as they turned on… 15: their imaging capability only in…
5 d: CDR 16,17: MDE
d: …was enhanced by… 16: The micelle-targeting ability toward… 17: conjugation with …
D 6 e: CDR 18: MDE 19-21:CDE 22, 23: MDE
e: …reveal… 18: ability of our antibody/-decorated micelles… 19: to be switched on in acidic microenvironments 20: and to target cancer cells 21: expressing specific antigens PP: together with its high Gd(III) content and its… 22: their potential use 23: for early cancer detection by MRI.
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Table 5.12-5 Figures in relation to field in sample text 5
CS Seq. Figure type Field
FR (28) FO (15)
I 1 1: CDR 2: MDE 3: MSE
1:…display … 2:a decreased... 3: susceptibility towards antibiotics
4: antibiotic susceptibility of planktonic bacteria NG: the biofilm response.
3 d: CDR 5: MDE
d: In this study, …were subjected to…
NG: in vitro biofilms of ... 5: treatment with…
4 e: CDR 6: MDE
e: …were subjected to… NG: the biofilms 6: combinations of an antibiotic with rifampicin.
P 5 f-h: CDR f: The effects on …were assessed g: to determine … h: to determine…
NG: the biofilms PP: by crystal violet staining NG: the total biofilm biomass, NG: staining with XTT NG: bacterial cell viability, NG: …and microscopy.
6 i: MDE j, k: CDR l: CSR 7-9: MDE
i: Combining these methods j: showed that… k: …increased… l: and that …were not effective
7: treatment of S. epidermidis biofilms with… NG: the total biofilm biomass NG: these antibiotics 8: in killing bacteria 9: embedded in biofilms.
7 m,n: MDE o: CSR 10: CDE
m: The decreased n: killing efficacy o: was more pronounced in…
10: biofilms produced by strains 11: that were classified as …
8 p: CDR 12,13: MDE
p: …effectively killed… NG: Rifampicin, oxacillin and gentamicin 12: biofilm-associated bacteria of 13: all tested strains.
9 q: MDE r: CDR s: CDE
q: Combining…with… r: increased the killing efficacy s: without influencing
NG: antibiotics NG: rifampicin NG: the total biofilm biomass.
10 t: CDR u, w: MDE v, x: CDR
t: When…were combined with… u: the increase in… v: was neutralised w: and also the killing efficacy x: was influenced in a positive way.
NG: vancomycin or teicoplanin NG: rifampicin NG: biofilm biomass
D 11 y, B: CDR z: MDE A: CDE 12: CDE 13, 14: MDE 15: CDE
y: We conclude z: that the combined methodology A: used in this study B: showed that…
14: glycopeptides were not effective 15: in eradicating S. epidermidis biofilms 16: but that combination with rifampicin 17: improved the killing efficacy in vitro.
The second findings emerges that non-finite clauses (italicized) is adopted in every text,
showing another linguistic feature in meaning making. These non-finites appear in the texts to
serve the following functions: i) hypotactic enhancement as dependent clause denoting means
(e.g….using mechanical test), purpose of research activities (e.g. …to predict how pores heal), or
conditions of research activity (e.g…. increased the killing efficacy without influencing the total
biofilm biomass.…), etc.; iii) embedding clause as postmodification of the head noun in a NG
(e.g. …cN-II known to interact with …); iv) embedding clause as participant in prepositional
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phrase (e.g….were not effective in eradicating S. epidermidis biofilms.). With non-finites, the
subject is by default ellipsed thus saving spaces in the discourse and the meaning is less specific
by reducing the negotiability thus the typicality of written discourse. Furthermore, the
combination of non-finite and embedding is closely related to nominalization in texts dominated
by NGs where GM is frequently an essential element in the meaning making. To a certain degree,
the phenomenon of non-finite contributes to the compactness of meaning in linguistic construal
of the reality.
Finally, the interaction between the two field types is both an inter-figure phenomenon and
an intra-figure one. The pattern runs in the way that the more congruently-construed FR is
exclusively made up of figures and the more metaphorically-construed FO is composed by
figures and figure elements (e.g. NG or PP underlined in Table 5.12-1 to 5.12-6). This is another
reflection of the deployment of GM in knowledge construction.
Lexicogrammatical realization: process and verb
The system of PROCESS TYPE offered in IFG 2014 (Fig 5.7 and also see Chapter 3 for the
demonstration on identifying the 6 process types) was adopted in the analysis of the
lexicogrammatical realization of figures.
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Figure 5.7 Types of process in English (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014: 216)
As has been analyzed above, figures can not only be realized congruently by ranking clauses of
finite and non-finite types, but also incongruently through GMs that bring about a series of
symptoms including embedding. Therefore, the lexicogrammatical realizations of figures can be
examined in two steps: i) process types and verbs in ranking clauses; ii) process types and verbs
in embeddings. In the first step, the investigation was carried out on the whole corpus (the 100
RAAs) in order to generate a general pattern of verbs used in congruent wordings in this text
type. In the more complicated second step, based on the detailed analysis on metaphoric figures
reported above, the analysis is carried out within the 6 sample texts selected to gain a better
understanding of the metaphoric mechanism in the construal of this text type.
Quantitative counting of process types in the 1433 ranking clauses that constitute the whole
corpus reveals that material (75%, 1078 out of 1433) and relational (19%, 271 out of 1433)
processes are the two major processes, a result that is roughly in line with findings reported in
Matthiessen (1999, 2014) but a marked difference in terms of occurrence times between the two
processes. As material is the highest frequent process in the corpus, a detailed examination on
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this process is then followed and the result will be reported later in this section. The third
frequent process is mental (4%, 58 out of 1433) followed by verbal (2%, 26 out of 1433), and
basically no behavioral or existential processes. The absence of behavioral processes in the
corpus indicates no description of ‘manifestations of inner workings, the acting out of processes
of consciousness and physiological states’ (Halliday, 1994: 107). This is related to the
non-human characteristic of technical writings that are different from genres like personal
recount and story. The conscious beings construed in these pharmaceutical academic texts are the
researchers (mostly represented explicitly by the pronoun ‘we’ or implicitly signaled through
passive voices), the patients who receive trial treatment, which is very rare at least within the
contexts described in the collected 100 texts, and the mice that are under human control for
purpose of research. It is comprehensible that in the context of scientific research, these three
types of conscious beings have few chances to exhibit physiological behaviors or conscious
states, which may be observed and described in the texts in an objective way through nominal
structures like ‘pathological pain or physiological pain’ rather than construing the spontaneous
behavioral processes acting out by the conscious beings.
Next, the verbs that realize the processes are examined. The verbs for the three low
frequency processes in the corpus are investigated first (Table 5.13). Although relational
processes constitute a much larger part than verbal and mental processes, they are realized by a
relatively small set of verbs denoting the state of ‘being & having’ with the several different
forms of the copular verb ‘be’ being the most frequent followed by the possessive verb ‘have/has’
and the verb ‘contain’ indicating possessing/having the third frequent. This corresponds to
previous findings that ‘Relational clauses usually have high frequency verbs, in particular be and
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have, and the ‘lexical content’ is located within nominal groups serving as participants rather
than within the verbal groups serving as process.’(Matthiessen 2014:156). While the issue of
NGs serving as participants has been explored in unpacking the metaphoric figures in the
previous section, here, the focus is how the verbs construe relations. As relational verbs
represented by the copular verbs construe a world of static and equal tendency, it is
understandable that in a world of dynamism their appearing frequency is much lower than the
action-oriented material (physical actions) plus verbal (linguistic actions) and mental (invisible
actions in the consciousness) verbs. However, in a world of conditional or ecological happenings,
the meaning of relatedness between actions can be realized by processes other than the static
relational processes: verbal processes realize the relation of projection between the sayer and the
verbiage; mental processes realize the relation of projection between the senser and the
phenomenon; and material processes realize the relation of expansion between the actor and the
goal, which will be explored next.
Table 5.13 Verbs in verbal, mental and relational processes in the corpus
As for the second step of examining the lexicogrammatical realization of embedded figures
including metaphoric figures embedded in NGs or PPs, the analysis is carried out within the 6
sample texts to gain a better understanding of the metaphoric mechanism in the construal of this
text type. According to Table 5.9, 104 embedded figures (69 metaphoric and 35 congruent) are
found in the 6 sample texts, 33 more than the 71 ranking figures running in the texts whose
realizations have been explored above. Among the 104 embedded figures, the make-up of the
realizing processes shows a similar percentage pattern with that of the ranking clauses reported
above (Table 5.16). 12 static figures are realized by relational verbs (11%); 88 dynamic figures
are realized by material verbs (85%); 2 dynamic figures are realized by verbal verb (2%), i.e.
‘predict’ appearing in text 1 as ‘prediction’ and as ‘predict’ in text 2; and 1 dynamic figure is
realized by mental verb ‘observe’ (1%) appearing as ‘observation’ in text 1. Within the
metaphoric figures, the percentage make-up shows a slightly stronger tendency towards the
material end.
Table 5.16 Percentage make-up of process types in ranking figures and embedded figures
Process Ranking figures in the whole corpus Embedded figures in 6 sample texts Metaphoric figures in 6 sample texts
Material 75% 85% 87%
Relational 19% 11% 10%
Mental 4% 1% 1.5%
Verbal 2% 2% 1.5%
The material-oriented feature of metaphoric figures is in consistent with findings reported in
Figure 5.7 that 90% GMs are formed from process to thing (49%) or quality (41%) and only 10%
GMS are formed from quality to thing. In judging the process types for metaphoric figures, one
criterion can be adopted that static figures are realized by relational processes which are in turn
realized by ‘categorical shift from quality to thing’, as this kind of shift usually involves copula
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verbs in unpacking, which is exemplified below.
e.g. Metaphoric: Despite the importance of this phenomenon,…
Congruent: This phenomenon is important, …
The last aspect concerning linguistic realization of figure is the agency representation. The
expressing of agency is normally done through the Actor/Subject in an English clause of material
process (refer to Matthiessen, 1995: 214, 235, 773–774; Matthiessen et al., 2010:49 for the
system of AGENCY). However, such expression can be obscured by a number of grammatical
means including passivization, non-finite clause, use of ergative verbs, and GM (Schleppegrell,
1997). Examples of deploying these resources in avoiding human agency abound in the present
self-compiled corpus and judging from linguistic evidence in the 6 sample texts selected for
qualitative analysis in this chapter, the suppression of agency seems a ubiquitous linguistic
phenomenon in this text type. Three ways of agency obscuring can be detected: i) combinations
of grammatical means, e.g. passivization +nominalization or other means of forming GMs; ii)
mental verb, e.g. ‘assume’; iii) transformative type of material verbs, e.g. the elaborating verb
‘show’, ‘demonstrate’, ‘reveal’, ‘suggest’, and the extending verb ‘support’, as listed in Table
5.13. Some examples are drawn from the corpus and demonstrated below to illustrate these ways
of agency suppression.
In the listed examples, the agencies are either avoided by receptive clauses coupling with
the employment of GMs, or obscured by using transformative type of material verbs. While
passive voice and nominalization has widely been recognized as major characteristics of EAP,
the phenomenon of using non-human Actors in material clauses has not received enough
attention or exploration. Probed into the real agents that cause the actions of showing, suggesting,
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assuming, confirming, demonstrating, modeling, etc., the implicit human actors can be traced. In
these pharmaceutical texts, while there is only 77 occurrences of the pronoun ‘we’ (and basically
no ‘I’) to explicitly signal the human agency, the majority of the grammatical Actor in the corpus
data is represented as two other major categories: i) the medication; ii) the research
instrumentation or procedure. Medicine or any other kinds of materials that human beings are
using can be considered as the extension tools implemented by human beings, thus these
instrumentations can be considered as representation of the human mind. And this is exactly
what the language is doing in its ‘natural’ way, i.e. the flexibility of the grammar allows the real
actors/agents to be left implicit, which fits the purpose of the conscious being who creates that
language.
Passivization + nominalization: a. These findings may be reasonably applied towards the prediction of healing processes in PLGA and in related biomaterials
for important biomedical applications such as drug delivery.
b. In this study molecular modeling is introduced as a novel approach for the development of pharmaceutical solid
dispersions.
c. After chronic constriction injury (CCI) or partial sciatic nerve ligation (PSNL), no differences in mechanical, heat, or cold
hyperalgesia were found in wild-type (WT) versus a5-KO littermate mice.
d. In addition, the biofilms were subjected to combinations of an antibiotic with rifampicin.
e. The presence of the a5-neuronal nicotinic accessory subunit in the nicotinic receptor complex is increasingly understood to
modulate reward and aversive states, addiction, and possibly pathological pain.
adjetivation+Passivization+transformative material verb+non-finite clause a. The produced solid dispersions were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), which confirmed not only the
exact type of the intermolecular interactions between the drug–polymer functional groups but also the binding strength by
estimating the N coefficient values.
Mental verb: a. This model assumes that the healing process occurs by viscous flow resulting from the deviatoric stress field induced by the
interaction between the surface curvature and the surface tension of the PLGA.
Transformative type of material verb: a. The molecular modeling studies predicted successfully the drug–polymer binding energies and the preferable site of
interaction between the functional groups.
b. Our results suggest that a5-containing nAChRs mediate analgesic tolerance to nicotine but do not play a major role in
neuropathic pain.
c. Moreover, synergy experiments between fludarabine and 6-mercaptopurine in human follicular lymphoma (RL) and human
acute promyelocytic leukemia (HL-60) cells transfected with control or cN-II-targeting shRNA-encoding plasmids, showed
synergy in control cells and antagonism in cells with decreased cN-II expression.
d. The ability of our antibody/-decorated micelles to be switched on in acidic microenvironments and to target cancer cells
expressing specific antigens, together with its high Gd(III) content and its small size (35–40 nm) reveals their potential use for
early cancer detection by MRI.
230
5.4.2 Sequence
Sequence is a combination made up of figures (See Chapter 3). Since there are generally
several elements involved in a combination (components and their realizations, relations between
components and the realization of relations), we can explore the system of sequence in the
sample text from two successive steps: i) identifying both congruent and metophric figures in
sequence; ii) unveiling logical relations between figures and recognizing lexicogrammatical
realizations of these relations, which involves examining how figures are connected to form
sequence. While the 1st step has been investigated in Section 5.4.1, this section focuses on the 2nd
step of examining the logical relations.
Relations in sequences
At the stratum of lexicogrammar, a sequence is realized congruently by a clause complex
but metaphorically by a clause simplex or clause with circumstance that contains metaphoric
figures (Matthiessen, 1995: 162). The interdependency relation between constituting figures is
of two types—paratactic and hypotactic and the logical-semantic relations between figures is
also of two types—projection and expansion (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999). Recognizing the
realizations of taxis and logico-semantic relations in clause complexing basically equals to
examining the external rhetorical relations at clause rank, a local angle to scrutinize the RST
system running through the text. Based on the external rhetorical relations defined in Table 3.9
and summary on both congruent and incongruent lexicogrammatical realizations of rhetorical
relations provided in Table 3.10 in Chapter 3, the figure relations and divergent
lexicogrammatical resources in realizing the logical relationships between figures in sequence,
which includes conjunction, circumstance, processes at the clause rank, and elements at the
231
group rank, are analysed with results presented in Table 5.17(1)-(6).
Table 5.17-2 Sequences, figures and relations in sample text 2
Sequence Figures Relation Relation Realization 1 In …modeling is
introduced1 as…for the
development2 of …
figure 1: clause
figure 2: embedded NG in
the PP
enhancement: purpose
prep.: for●
2 A computational model based on1 QM calculations was used2 to predict3 the …
by predicting4 the …
figure 1: post-modifier enhancing ‘model’:
condition
embedded non-finite:
v.+ed ●
figure 2: clause—figure 3:
clause
enhancement: purpose non-finite clause
figure 2: clause—figure 4:
clause
enhancement: means non-finite clause
3 The …was estimated1 by
using2 …approaches such
as… in comparison to3
the …
figure 1: clause—figure 2:
clause
enhancement: means non-finite clause
figure 1: clause—figure 3:
embedded NG in the PP
extension: contrast prep.: in ●
4 The molecular modeling
studies predicted1 …and the
preferable site of interaction2
between …
figure 1 : clause—figure 2:
postmodifier of ‘site’ in the
NG complex
projection verb: predict ●
5 The… were determined
by1….
one figure
6 The produced1 …dispersions
were analyzed2 by…, which
confirmed3…by
estimating3 the …
figure 1: pre-modifier
elaborating
‘dispersion’
v.+ed as adj. ●
figure 2: clause—figure 3:
clause
enhancement: means non-finite clause
7 The findings demonstrate1
that QM-based molecular modeling is3 a powerful tool to predict4 …in… for the
development5 of solid
dispersions.
figure 1: clause-figure 234
elaboration verb.:demonstrate (that)
●
figure 2: pre-modifier enhancing
‘modeling’:
condition
v.+ed as adj. ●
figure 4: post-modifier enhancing ‘tool’
purpose
embedded non-finite:
to+v. ● figure 12345—figure 5: head
of the NG in the PP
enhancement: purpose prep.: for ●
Note: 1. The metaphoric figures are highlighted in grey, the congruent figures are bolded and the embedded clauses are
italicized. 2. logical metaphor, i.e. metaphoric realization of relation is marked ●. 3. Prepositional phrase (PP) nesting is underlined.
4. Relations within the NG is both bolded and underlined. .
232
Table 5.17-1 Sequences, figures and relations in sample text 1
Sequence Figures Relation Relation Realization
1 Self-healing1 of pores in PLGA
plays2 an important role in the
encapsulation3 and controlled
release of…..
figure 1: NG—figure 2: clause
elaboration verb: play ●
figure 12—figure 3: embedded
NG in the PP
enhancement: condition prep.: in ●
2 Despite the importance1 of this
phenomenon, neither the
mechanics of the deformation2
nor the material properties that
control it3 have been fully
studied4.
figure 1:NG—figure 234
enhancement: concession prep: despite ●
figure 2: post-modifier
figure 3: post-modifier
figure 2—figure 3
extending ‘mechanics’
extending ‘properties’
extension: additive
prep.: of ●
embedded finite clause
conj.: neither…nor
figure 23—figure 4: clause projection verb: study ●
3 In this study, the material
properties of PLGA have been
characterized1 using2
mechanical tests, and a
finite-element model has been
developed3 to predict4 how pores
heal.5
figure 1: clause—figure 2: clause enhancement: means non-finite ranking clause
figure 1: clause—figure 234 Elaboration v.+ conj.: (suggest) that
●
figure 2: clause—figure 3:
NG
extension verb: mediate ●
figure 2: embedded
clause—figure 4: embedded
clause
extension: disjunction conj.: but
234
Table 5.17-4 Sequences, figures and relations in sample text 4
Sequence Figures Relation Relation Realization
1 For …the … cN-II has been
considered1 as a … one figure
2 Indeed, various reports have
indicated1 associations2 between cN-II expression level and resistance to anticancer agents in several cancer cell lines and in patients affected3 with neoplasia, mainly by hematologic malignancies.
figure 23: clause—figure 4 enhancement: condition prep.: among ●
4 In vitro studies using1 the wild type recombinant cN-II demonstrated2 that fludarabine inhibited3 enzymatic activity in a mixed manner, whereas no inhibition4 was observed5 with clofarabine and cladribine.
5 Additional …and an in silico molecular docking indicated1 that this inhibition2 is due to3 an interaction4 with a regulatory site of cN-II known to interac5 with adenylic compounds.
figure 4: head of the NG figure 5: post-modifier of ‘cN-II’ figure 4—figure 5
elaborating ‘cN-II’ enhancement: condition
embedded non-finite : v.+ ed ● prep.: with ●
6 Moreover, synergy experiments between fludarabine and 6-mercaptopurine in…cells transfected with1 control or cN-II-targeting2 shRNA-encoding3 plasmids, showed4 synergy in control cells and antagonism5 in cells with decreased6 ...
figure 123—figure 456 elaboration verb : show ●
figure 1: post-modifier of ‘cells’ enhancing ‘cells’: condition
embedded non-finite : v.+ ed ●
figure 2: post-modifier of ‘plasmids’ figure 3: post-modifier of ‘plasmids’
enhancing ‘plasmids’: condition2
v.+ing as adj. ● v.+ing as adj. ●
figure 2 –figure 3 extension: addition implicit
figure 1—figure 2+3 extension: alternation conj.: or
figure 5: head of the 2nd NG of the NG complex
7 This is1 in line with the hypothesis that fludarabine acts as2 a cN-II inhibitor and supports3 the idea of using4 cN-II inhibitors in association5 with other drugs to increase6 their therapeutic effect and decrease7 their resistance.
figure 1+2—figure 3+4+5+6+7 extension: addition conj.: and
figure 1: clause—figure 2: clausal nominalization in the NG
extension VG: is in line with●
figure 4: embedding as postmodification of the NG—figure 5: metaphoric figure in PP
figure 56—figure 78 extension: alternation conj.: but (that)
figure 7: head of the NG
figure 8: pre-modifier of the NG
figure 7—figure 8
elaborating ‘effacacy’
extension
v.+ing as adj. ●
verb: improved ●
236
Table 5.17-6 Sequences, figures and relations in sample text 6
Sequence Figures Relation Relation Realization
1 Early cancer detection1 is2 a major factor in the reduction3 of mortality and cancer management4 cost.
figure 1: head of the NG + figure 2:clause—figure 3+4
elaboration verb.: is ●
figure 3: head of the NG—figure 4: pre-modifier of ‘cost’ in the PP that acts as post-modification of the NG
elaboration prep.: of ●
2 Here we developed1 a smart and targeted2 micelle-based3 contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), able to turn on4 its imaging capability in the presence5 of acidic cancer tissues.
figure 1:clause—figure 2345 Extension verb: developed ●
figure 1 & 2: pre-modifiers of ‘agent’ figure 1—figure 2
enhancing ‘agent’: condtion2
extension: addition
v.+ed as adj. ● v.+ed as adj. ● implicit ●
figure 4: post-modifier of ‘agent’ embedded non-finite clause
figure 4—figure 5: head of the NG in the PP
enhancement: condition prep. : in ●
3 This smart contrast agent consists of1 pH-sensitive polymeric micelles formed2 by self-assembly3 of a diblock copolymer, loaded with4 a gadolinium hydrophobic complex and exploits5 the acidic pH in cancer tissues.
figure 2: post-modifier of the NG—figure 3: head of the NG in the PP
enhancement: means prep.: by ●
figure 1—figure 234 elaboration VG: consist of ●
figure 4: post-modifier of ‘micelles’
enhancing ‘micelles’: condition
embedded non-finite: v.+ed
figure 1: clause—figure 5: clause extension: addition conj.: and
4 In vitro MRI experiments showed1 that tBuBipyGd-loaded2 micelles were3 pH-sensitive, as they turned on4 their imaging5 capability only in an acidic microenvironment.
figure 3: clause in the embedding nesting—figure 4: clause in the embedding nesting
enhancement: cause conj.: as
figure 5: pre-modifier elaborating ‘capability’ v. +ing as adj. ●
5 The micelle-targeting1 ability toward cancer cells was enhanced2 by conjugation3 with an antibody against the MUC1 protein.
figure 1: pre-modifier elaborating ‘ability’ v.+ing as adj. ●
figure 2: clause—figure 3: embedded NG in the PP
enhancement: means prep.: by ●
6 The ability of our antibody-decorated1 micelles to be switched on2 in acidic microenvironments and to target3 cancer cells expressing4 specific antigens, together with its high Gd(III) content and its small size (35–40 nm) reveals5 their potential use6 for early cancer detection7 by MRI.