Artikel Journal: The Realization of Interpersonal Meaning of Spoken Texts in An EFL International Textbook: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective

Interpersonal metafunction is an important concept in describing interactions in terms of responding to the act of giving or demanding goods, services, or information (Halliday and Mathiessen (2004). However, very little research has been done on how mood and modality resources in the spoken texts of textbooks can be used to communicate with other people. This article explores interpersonal meanings realized in the mood and modality resources of an interchange series textbook—the fourth edition textbook used for students at level 3 or intermediate. The research employed discourse analysis and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as the main theoretical framework, and the analysis employed the mood element as a central resource for the realization of interpersonal meaning. The findings reveal that declarative clauses dominate (146, or 53.09 percent) among the 275 clauses in the 16 texts. Interrogative clauses are much less common (64, or 23.27 percent). None of the texts, therefore, utilize any of the imperative clauses. Additionally, the number of modalization used in the sixteen texts is probability (26, or 9.45%), usuality (10, or 3.64%), and obligation (9, or 3.27%). This research suggests that the upcoming language textbooks could incorporate examples of interpersonal meaning in terms of speech functions as resources for interaction. The implication is that language teachers could explicitly and systematically teach students interpersonal grammar of exchange dealing with the semantics of speech functions and modality. Teachers and students should be able to think critically about textbooks as socio-semiotic agents because interpersonal meaning grammar helps people learn to deconstruct or make interactive spoken texts.

Keywords: Declarative clause, imperative clause, interpersonal meaning; modalization, systemic functional linguistics