Junction mechanisms in academic texts: a systemic-functional approach.
Junction. Conjunction System. Logic-semantic relation. Systemic-functional grammar. Academic text.
The observation of how the academic texts are organized provides the understanding of the meaning construction mechanisms in the different strata of the discursive systems. Besides the lexicogrammatical characteristics which configure on the surface of the texts, the contexts recognition in which they are produced also make it possible to understand them as a result of a complex process of meaning construction and articulated in these systems according to the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The theoretical frameworks of this study are the discursive system model suggested by Martin and Rose (2007), the cohesion studies carried out by Halliday and Hasan (1976) and the Systemic-Functional Grammar by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014). The focus and objective of this research is the phenomenon of the junction with overt markers - here conceived as different lexicogrammatical realizations which, regardless their status or length, act in the confluence of clause complexes. In this specific case, the focus is shifted towards the text written by undergraduate and graduate students of Letras. It aims at: i) Identifying the relation of junction in academic texts written by undergraduate and graduate students; ii) comparing the usages of relation of junctions within the texts written by undergraduate and graduate students; iii) presenting a typology of the relations of junctions in academic texts in Portuguese language, following a systemic-functional approach. To achieve these objectives, the research analyzes a corpus of 9,8 million words composed of research articles, monographs, master’s dissertation and doctoral theses in linguistic area. The data were compiled with the support of the tools available for use on wordsmith tools (SCOTT, 2012), specifically on the quantitative treatment of the samples. By way of results, it is possible to state that the junction with overt marker shows a higher recurrence in the undergraduates’ texts, but cooperate, indistinctly, with the undergraduate’s and graduate’s works, for the meaning construction in discourse because they configure relations and activities in the text itself and beyond, as much for the argumentative passages of a given topic or another, as for the usage of resources such as metaphrase, transposition and/or amplification of meanings when these semantic functional components point out towards the experience or ideation and, in other cases, for the sequential organization of the text.