Following is an article from yesterday's "The Japan Times". I gave it to a
couple of my adult classes here in Tokyo for discussion; for my students it
perhaps was a long rather difficult sentence - but interesting from the
current political position:

 

     "Amid dismal approval ratings, Prime Minister Taro Aso is trying hard
these days to shed his public image as an aloof, rich politician from an
extremely wealthy family, perhaps with an eye toward appealing to voters
when the time comes to call an election".

 

I try to discuss parts of interesting newspaper articles and I encourage the
students to finish the rest of the article in their spare time.
Unfortunately most Japanese students read with a moving finger and pursed
lips and my objective is to try to encourage them to recognize the 'chunks'
of language from a mainly functional perspective. Chunks of language in the
form of noun groups (including their adjectivals), adverbials (Circumstances
in Systemic Functional Linguistic jargon) and etc. This is how I went about
analyzing the newspaper text:

 

 

    Amid dismal approval ratings,

    prepositional phrase, Circumstance - adverbial (how?), 

 

    Prime Minister Taro Aso

    Noun group, subject, Participant (in Systemic Functional language)

 

    is trying

    predicate verb, present continuous verb, action Process (in Systemic
Functional language)

 

    hard these days

    adverbials,(Circumstances)

 

    [[to shed his public image as an aloof, rich politician from an
extremely wealthy family]]

    Complement (is trying what?)   embedded clause functioning as a
Participant in Systemic Functional language.

 

    perhaps with an eye toward appealing to voters when the time comes to
call an election

    adverbial - Circumstance modifying the previous clause.

 

 

I read aloud with the students and ask them relevant wh? questions to elicit
the 'chunks' of language. Comments please on this?  Has anybody the ability
to show this in Kellog Reed diagram form in the forum?

I like to see it diagrammed!

 

 John

    

 

   

 

 


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