The Interpersonal meaning in IELTS exposition and discussion essays in the light of functional grammar
Abstract
Interpersonal meaning is concerned with the way language users build up or maintain appropriate relationships with others in society. In Halliday (2014)’s view, it is through the interpersonal metafunction that users of language establish, and take a position on people, things, and situations in social relationships. Interpersonal expectations, which are implicit in the IELTS assessment criteria (Nakamura, 2009), are widely recognized as contributing to the quality of IELTS essays. Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics developed by Halliday as an analytical tool, the present study explores how interpersonal meaning has been deployed by IELTS candidates in IELTS high-scoring exposition and discussion essays. 90 sample essays from published books and official IELTS websites are selected as data for text analysis. The descriptive method is used to give a detailed description of interpersonal meanings under the two major systems: mood and modality in the light of Functional Grammar with a view to illuminating the salient linguistic features of IELTS academic essays written by highly successful test-takers, thereby providing IELTS test-takers with a better understanding of how to tactically manipulate the aspects of modality and mood choice, thus attaining success in writing IELTS academic essays.
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