Registerial cartography: context-based mapping of text types and their rhetorical-relational organization

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Reporting war: Grammar as 'covert operation'

While it is often said that 'truth is the first casualty of war', this aphorism covers only one feature of how wars are reported, namely the deliberate use of misinformation by parties to a war. But language is by its nature a higly plastic resource: there is never just one way to report a set of events, even when the 'facts' may be uncontested. Drawing on data from newspaper reports and media briefings of the recent war in Iraq, we illustarte some of the basic grammtical systems which underlie the choice a journalist has to make, particularly in reporting 'high impact' events of the war. Using a functional apporach to grammar—where grammar is seen not as rules but as a theory of reality— we introduce some basic grammatical concepts or undertsanding the idelogical impact if different gramatical choices in contruing the events of war.&nbsp

Modelando contexto e registro: o projeto de cartografia de registro a longo prazo

This paper presents the outlines of a long-term project concerned with the modelling of context and register along the lines originally drawn by M.A.K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) — thus with “register” in its original sense of a functional variety of language, i.e. the meanings at risk in a given type of context. The topic of this project can be characterized as register cartography. Section 1 presents the background to work on the modelling of context and register, noting different uses in SFL of the term “register” locating the notion of register as functional variation in terms of the two semiotic dimensions of the hierarchy of stratification and the cline of instantiation. Section 2 sets out alternative models of context and register, identifying the key semiotic dimensions involved in these models. It then compares and contrasts the models. Section 3 adds to this account of work on context and register by summarizing work that has been done in computational linguistics informed by SFL — important work that has sometimes been overlooked by researchers concerned mainly with manual discourse analysis. Based on the background sketched in Sections 1 through 3, Section 4 then reports on the long-term project of registerial cartography, giving a general account with examples of findings such as differentiation of registers in terms of relative text frequency of terms in certain major systems. Section 5 focusses on one aspect of the long-term project — viz. the description of different fields of activity: eight primary fields of activity, each differentiated into more delicate subtypes — illustrated by means of variation in the deployment of pictorial resources. The more delicate subtypes are then used to related the field-based cartography to the genres identified and described within the “Genre Model” of the “Sydney School”, in the work led by J.R. Martin. Field of activity is compared and contrasted with genre in the sense of goaloriented social process. Building on the account of fields of activity, Section 6 adds tenor and mode consideration, illustrating how fields of activity can be intersected with tenor and mode values. Section 7, the Conclusion, summarizes the presentation, and relates it to considerations of institutions as domains of culture consisting of arrangements of situation types, and of persons as aggregates of personae operating in different relationships in different social groups — including a reference to Gu Yue-guo’s work on discourse geography.Este artigo apresenta esboços de um projeto de longo prazo referente à modelagem de contexto e registro através das linhas originalmente traçadas por M. A. K. Halliday e Ruqaiya Hasan em Linguística Sistêmico-Funcional (LSF) – portanto com “registro” em seu sentido original de uma variedade funcional da linguagem, isto é, o sentido em questão em um dado tipo de contexto. O tema deste projeto pode ser caracterizado como cartografia de registro. A Seção 1 apresenta o pano de fundo para o trabalho com a modelagem de contexto e registro, observando-se diferentes usos em LSF do termo “registro”, localizando a noção de registro como variação funcional em termos das duas dimensões semióticas da hierarquia de estratificação e do continuum de instanciação. A Seção 2 apresenta modelos alternativos de contexto e registro identificando as dimensões semióticas principais envolvidas nesses modelos. A seguir, comparam-se e contrastam-se os modelos. A Seção 3 contribui para a descrição do estudo acerca de contexto e registro ao resumir o trabalho que tem sido feito em linguística computacional baseada em LSF – importante tarefa às vezes negligenciada por pesquisadores que se dedicam principalmente à análise manual do discurso. Com base no esboço apresentado nas Seções 1 a 3, a Seção 4 relata um projeto de longa duração acerca da cartografia de registro, dando uma visão geral com exemplos de achados tais como diferenciação de registros em termos de sua relativa frequência em textos em listas de termos em certos sistemas importantes. A Seção 5 enfoca um aspecto do projeto a longo prazo – qual seja a descrição de diferentes campos de atividade: oito campos primários de atividade, cada um agrupado em subtipos mais específicos – ilustrados por meio de variação no emprego de recursos pictoriais. Os tipos mais específicos são a seguir usados para relacionar a cartografia baseada em campos específicos identificada e descrita segundo o “Modelo de Gênero” da “Escola de Sydney”, no trabalho liderado por J. R. Martin. O campo de atividade é comparado e contrastado com o gênero no sentido de processo social orientado para objetivos. Construído na descrição de campos de atividade, a Seção 6 acrescenta considerações sobre relações e modo, ilustrando como campos de atividade podem estabelecer intersecção com valores de relações e modo. A Seção 7, a Conclusão, resume a apresentação e a relaciona com considerações acerca de domínios da cultura, consistindo em arranjos de tipos de situação e de pessoas como agregados de personae operando em diferentes relações em diferentes grupos sociais – incluindo uma referência ao trabalho de Gu Yue-guo sobre geografia do discurso

The Effect of Dietary Fish Oil in addition to Lifestyle Counselling on Lipid Oxidation and Body Composition in Slightly Overweight Teenage Boys

Objective. n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs) have shown potential to increase lipid oxidation and prevent obesity. Subjects. Seventy-eight boys aged 13–15 y with whole-body fat% of 30 ± 9% were randomly assigned to consume bread with fish oil (FO) (1.5 g n-3 LCPUFA/d) or vegetable oil for 16 weeks. All boys were counselled to improve diet and exercise habits. Results. Lifestyle counselling resulted in decreased sugar intake but did not change the physical activity level. Whole-body fat% decreased 0.7 ± 2.5% and 0.6 ± 2.2%, resting metabolic rate after the intervention was 7150 ± 1134 kJ/d versus 7150 ± 1042 kJ/d, and the respiratory quotient was 0.89 ± 0.05 versus 0.88 ± 0.05, in the FO and control group, respectively. No group differences were significant. Conclusion. FO-supplementation to slightly overweight teenage boys did not result in beneficial effects on RMR, lipid oxidation, or body composition