This is the first collection of studies to apply the theory and techniques of Systemic Linguistics to the topics of phonology: descriptions of the pronunciation systems of languages – consonants, vowels, word accent, rhythm, intonation – and applications in speech synthesis, genre studies and broadcasting.

This long-awaited volume presents thirteen original contributions by some of the leading scholars in Systemic Phonology. The chapters present both theoretical and applied studies with analyses of wide-ranging texts including news readings, children's stories, literary classics, classroom discourse, and sung texts. The volume also includes some theoretical contributions, such as an explication of the generative model of intonation and punctuation of the Cardiff School of SFL. The last chapter in the volume is an interactive chapter where readers can listen to, read, and obtain a first-hand guided experience of analyzing texts using the systemic model of intonation. Systemic Phonology: Recent Studies in English is of value to scholars and students in the fields of phonology, phonetics, music studies, semiotics, and media studies, and is of particular interest to those working within the Systemic Functional model of language. This volume will also be of interest to any researchers analysing meaning in relation to sound and music.

Language is a stratified system, and phonology belongs in the stratum of expression, where language physically manifests as phonic substance. It is the most unconscious of all the language systems, the one we usually refer to when we say "it is not what s/he said, but the way s/he said it". Although the term "expression" might be misleading, the stratum of expression is an integral part of language. Sounds are not the expression of something else which exists independently from them; they are the form and essence of language and have a function in its meaning potential. Intonation features constitute a set of resources available in speakers' voices which, in many languages such as English or Spanish, signal textual and interpersonal meanings in discourse. Phonological features do not project specific meanings by themselves but rather situationally, at a certain stage in the discourse, and in combination with choices at other strata of the language system. Intonation patterns constitute a meaning-making prosody, which quite often accompanies and reinforces similar meanings realised in other strata. There are instances, however, in which the different grammars come into tension and the intonational choices become the carriers of interpersonal and textual meanings in discourse. Phonology in Systemic Functional Linguistics provides an account of the intonation systems in SFL and their meaning-making functions in oral discourse. It proposes a way of interpreting phonological choices as integral to language in context and discourse meanings. In addition, the book puts SFL in dialogue with other approaches that also consider the role of phonology in discourse.

This book introduces the notion of system as the foundation of the systemic functional architecture of language.

"This book provides an original, full-scale, exploration in applying the principles and practices of Systemic-Functional Linguistics at the level of word phonology in English, German, Welsh and Tera (Nigeria)"--

This book provides an overview of the dialectic of theory and practice through which SFL positions itself as an appliable linguistics with reference to the theory of Verbal Art. A concise history of the linguistic study of literature tout court is sketched, as well as the roots of specifically SFL approaches to it. A detailed theoretical description is given of the emergence of systemic functional stylistics and, in particular, of the overall architecture of Systemic Socio-Semantic Stylistics (SSS), the central descriptive-analytical model created by Ruqaiya Hasan. Subsequently, the correspondences between Hasan's framework and what Jakobson theorized as the empirical linguistic evidence of his 'poetic function', grammatical parallelism and with what he calls 'pervasive parallelism', are delineated and illustrated via the analysis of one poem by D.H. Lawrence, 'Bei Hennef' (1913). Further, the teaching of the language in literature with the tools of SFL/SSS is addressed, and a case study of the experience of guiding students towards this 'special' register awareness in an undergraduate EFL curriculum in Bologna, Italy is offered. Aiming to provide as wide-ranging a view of systemic functional stylistics studies as possible, the volume also presents a synopsis of stylistics research wedded to multimodal/multisemiotic, corpus and translation approaches, broaching certain of the many theoretical issues intrinsically entailed. With special attention to Hasan's stylistic legacy, in closing the author speaks to the future directions systemic functional stylistic studies might take.