Analysis of “Sure” in “The Blackwater Lightship” from the Perspective of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics

Thandar Zan

doi:10.56868/jadhur.v4i4.326

Authors

Thandar Zan School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai University, P.R. China

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.56868/jadhur.v4i4.326

Keywords:

“Sure”, Discourse Marker, Irish English, The Blackwater Lightship, Irish Novel, Systemic Functional Linguistics

Abstract

This study examines how the word “sure” has been used in the characters’ dialogue in the Irish novel “The Blackwater Lightship” by Colm Tóibin. Four dialogue excerpts containing the keyword “sure” were identified through a targeted keyword search of the novel. The paper employs the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) framework by Halliday to examine “sure” at two levels. “Sure”, at the micro level is examined as both a discourse marker and a modal adjunct in the clause. It is compared with the patterns of usage in other types of English as provided by concordances of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the British National Corpus (BNC). At the macro level, following Halliday’s notion of “Beyond the Clause”, sure is discussed within short dialogue interactions, focusing on its function. “Sure” functions both as a clause-initial modal adjunct and as a turn-prefacing discourse marker that organizes responses in interactional contexts. These functions in the novel assist in the interactions of the characters and govern interpersonal positioning in the dialogue. The study brings out a unique characteristic of the Irish English language and its contribution to the interaction discourse in literary dialogue.

References

Amador Moreno, C. P. (2005). Discourse markers in Irish English: An example from literature. In A. Barron & K. P. Schneider (Eds.), The pragmatics of Irish English (pp. 73–100). Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110898934.73

Amador-Moreno, C. P. (2015). “There’s, like, total silence again, roysh, and no one says anything”: Fictional representations of new pragmatic markers and quotatives in Irish English. In A.

Barron & K. P. Schneider (Eds.), Pragmatic markers in Irish English (pp. 370–389). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.258.16ama

Arum, P. (2014). A discourse analysis on dialogues in novels and its implication to improve students’ reading comprehension. In Proceedings of the International Seminar on English Language and Teaching (pp. 53–61). Universitas Negeri Padang. https://www.arcjournals.org/pdfs/ijsell/v3-i2/6.pdf

Cambridge University Press. (2005). Cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary. Cambridge University Press. http://books.google.ie/books?id=fyW5QgAACAAJ

Carregal-Romero, J. (2012). Colm Tóibín and post-nationalist Ireland: Redefining family through alterity. Estudios Irlandeses, 7, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.24162/ei2012-1527

Clancy, B., & Vaughan, E. (2012c). It’s lunacy now. In R. Hickey (Ed.), Irish English in today’s world (pp. 225–246). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g44.11cla

Davies, A., & Elder, C. A. (Eds.). (2005). The handbook of applied linguistics. Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405138093

Davies, M. (2004). British National Corpus [Corpus]. Oxford University Press. https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc/

Davies, M. (2008–). The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) [Corpus]. https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/

Dean, J. (2009, September 24). Also by Colm Tóibín. The Sunday Times. https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/also-by-colm-toibin-c7pdn636zvw

Diskin, C. (2017). The use of the discourse-pragmatic marker ‘like’ by native and non-native speakers of English in Ireland. Journal of Pragmatics, 120, 144–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.08.004

Easterlin, N. (2017). Place-in-process in Colm Tóibín’s The Blackwater Lightship: Emotion, self-identity, and the environment. In Springer eBooks (pp. 827–854). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63303-9_32

Fraser, B. (1999). What are discourse markers? Journal of Pragmatics, 31(7), 931–952. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00101-5

Fuller, J. M. (2003). The influence of speaker roles on discourse marker use. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(1), 23–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00065-6

Halliday, M. A. (1978). Language as social semiotic (p. 136). Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203783771

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2014). An introduction to functional grammar (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203783771

Hendricks, W. O. (1973). Methodology of narrative structural analysis. Semiotica, 7(2), 163–184. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1973.7.2.163

Kallen, J. L. (2006). Arrah, like, you know: The dynamics of discourse marking in ICE-Ireland (Master’s thesis, Trinity College Dublin). TARA. https://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/50586

Kim, S. (2022). The Blackwater Lightship: Modernity and the idealism of family bond in the era of the Celtic Tiger. Jeimseu Joiseu Jeoneol/Jeimseu Joi’seu Jeo’neol, 28(2), 139–165. https://doi.org/10.46258/jjj.2022.28-2.139

Labov, W. (1973). Sociolinguistic patterns. University of Pennsylvania Press. http://books.google.ie/books?id=hD0PNMu8CfQC

Large, D. M. (1937). Talk in the townlands. Talbot Press.

Matthews, G. J. (2018). Family caregivers, AIDS narratives, and the semiotics of the bedside in Colm Tóibín’s The Blackwater Lightship. Critique, 60(3), 289–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2018.1538100

McCafferty, K., & Amador-Moreno, C. P. (2019). ‘But a[h] Hellen d[Ea]r sure you have it more in your power in every respect than I have’ – Discourse marker sure in Irish English. In A. Barron & K. P. Schneider (Eds.), Studies in language variation (pp. 73–94). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.21.05mcc

Miller, J., & Weinert, R. (1995). The function of like in dialogue. Journal of Pragmatics, 23(4), 365–393. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(94)00044-F

Müller, S. (2005). Discourse markers in native and non-native English discourse (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, Vol. 138). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.138

Murphy, R. (2020). ‘Pain comes in waves’: Eroding bodies in Colm Tóibín’s The Blackwater Lightship. Critique, 62(5), 552–563. https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2020.184231

Nestor, N., Ní Chasaide, C., & Regan, V. (2012). Discourse ‘like’ and social identity – A case study of Poles in Ireland. In R. Hickey (Ed.), Irish English in today’s world (pp. 327–354). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g44.16nes

Nicora, F. (2022). The corpus of Irish English speech. Teanga - Irish Association for Applied Linguistics/Teanga: The Journal of the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics, 29, 133–168. https://doi.org/10.35903/teanga.v29i.2676

Quirk, R. (1972). A grammar of contemporary English. Longman.

Romaine, S., & Lange, D. (1991). The use of like as a marker of reported speech and thought: A case of grammaticalization in progress. American Speech, 66(3), 227–242. https://doi.org/10.2307/455799

Roy, C. B. (2000). Interpreting as a discourse process. Oxford University Press.

Schiffrin, D. (1987). Questions: Why analyze discourse markers? In Discourse markers (pp. 49–72). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611841.004

Schiffrin, D. (1994). Approaches to discourse (Vol. 8). Blackwell.

Severiche, G. (2017). The political embodiment of AIDS: Between individual and social bodies in Colm Tóibín’s The Story of the Night and The Blackwater Lightship. Estudios Irlandeses, 12, 115–128. https://doi.org/10.24162/ei2017-6941

Taniguchi, J. (1956). A grammatical analysis of artistic representation of Irish English. https://books.google.ie/books?id=K8CkgAACAAJ

Tóibín, C. (1999). The Blackwater Lightship. Picador.

Yebra, J. M. (2014). The interstitial status of Irish gayness in Colm Tóibín’s The Blackwater Lightship and The Master. Estudios Irlandeses, 9, 96–106. https://doi.org/10.24162/ei2014-4392