A discourse analysis of two gothic stories through Halliday's functional grammar in language teaching

The purpose of this study is to provide a functional approach to the study oftexts and to develop the EFL students? critical reading skills needed to understandand assess information as well as the motives of the writers. Two Gothic stories,`The Black Cat? (Edgar A. Poe) and `The Mortal Immortal? (Mary W. Shelley) werechosen as the corpus of the functional grammatical analysis. In each text, ranking andembedded clauses were identified. Then, the functional constituents were determinedin each clause and ascribed three sets of functional labels, for each text was analyzedwith respect to the three systems of the Ideational, Interpersonal and Textualmetafunctions in Functional Grammar: Transitivity, MOOD (and Modality), andTheme systems. Finally, the sum of the functional constituents representative of thelinguistic event under investigation was calculated and tables of frequency wereformed out of the input from the sum total of the functional units in each category.The following conclusions were reached through the evaluation of theempirical data derived from the frequency count in the functional text analysis. Whenthe two texts were studied in terms of:1. the MOOD selections in the Interpersonal system: the most frequent typeof MOOD class was found to be the declarative. The domination of the declarativeand the sparse population of the interrogative and imperative MOOD was a definingcharacteristic of texts `in the written mode?, where the writers adopted `a monologicstyle of narration?.2. the mode of the MOOD choice: it was found that the congruent mode ofMOOD choice was dominant in both texts yet the writers made use of theincongruent realizations of the Mood especially in the expository and rhetoricalquestions.3. the Modality system: it was found that there was a low use of modality inboth texts, for the writers didn?t need to modify their propositions by hedging in thespecific genre.4. the mode of expression in the modality: it was found that Mary Shelleyused subjective modality more and so, the writer?s degree of `affective involvement?and `dogmatism? was increased in the text.5. the use of adjuncts: both texts were found to draw on the linguisticresources of adjuncts to a great extent to provide the reader with `non-negotiableinformation?.6. the types of adjuncts: vocative and continuity adjuncts were used more inThe Mortal Immortal because the mode of conversation switched from `monologue?to `dialogue? in the narration.7. the personal pronouns used in the interpersonal system: it was found thatthe writers used `the inclusive we? or `synthetic personalisation? in order to extendthe readership.8. the types of themes used in the textual system: it was found that simplethemes outnumbered multiple themes, which is not uncommon in the textualorganization of texts produced in the `written mode?.9. the types of themes used in the textual system: it was noted that the textualthemes were used frequently in both texts to show the readers the movement ofreasoning and to characterize the narrative as an argumentative exposition.10. the types of themes: it was found that the writers used interpersonalthemes to indicate the stance of their narrators on their propositions and although theinterpersonal meanings of modality were made in the two texts, the non-thematicmodal finites were used to assert the writers? authority over the texts.11. the types of themes: it was found that the overwhelming majority of thetopical themes consisted of the first-person singular pronoun in order for the writersto maintain a consistent point of view.12. the types of themes: both writers were found to highlight thecircumstantial elements by foregrounding to draw the reader?s attention to thelocative orientation in the thematic progression of the two stories and to convey theimplicated meanings effectively in the marked themes.13. the process types selected from the Transitivity system: the materialprocesses were found to dominate in the specific genre and the participant thatassumed the role of the Actor frequently was the male narrator in Poe?s story, for heconstructed the male narrator as more powerful than the female participant. Suchrepresentations of women reveal the ideological concerns of the writers in the texts;i.e. gender-stereotypes hidden in the grammar of the material clauses at work.14. the process types: it was found that the density of the behaviouralprocesses was lower than that of the mental processes in the two texts, for the first-person narrator couldn?t observe his behaviour from outside. As a result, the all-knowing narrator would have given a more pictorial representation of theparticipants? behaviours in the two texts if the story had been told from the`omniscient point of view?.15. the density of the circumstances used in the ideational system: it wasfound that Edgar A. Poe used circumstances more frequently to divert arguabilityaway from the particular participants and to supplement the experiential content ofthe story by providing evidential data about the circumstances in which the eventstook place.Keywords: The Ideational, Interpersonal and Textual Metafunctions.