Following is an article from yesterday’s “The
Japan Times”. I gave it to a couple of my adult classes here in
“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