系统功能语言学视角下的易读度研究

Readability Studies from the Perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics

在美国,易读度研究至少可以追溯到20世纪初以Thorndike[1]为代表的学者掀起了以词频作为标准探索易读度的热潮。时至今日,这一研究还在继续。系统功能语言学(SFL)是Halliday创建的语言学理论,被广泛用于语言及相关领域的研究。易读度本身并不是SFL中的一个概念,从这一理论视角对它进行探索是新趋势。为使易读度的概念融入SFL的理论框架,文章首先通过梳理文献,试图从定义与维度、影响因素、传统研究方法等方面把握易读度的本质;然后结合SFL中Halliday关于"意义"的论述以及该学派在21世纪初的三大发展趋势,初步探讨这一理论为何能为易读度研究提供广阔的前景。研究表明,SFL能为易读度研究提供理论支持,易读度能扩展SFL的研究范围,未来这方面研究将成为检验SFL是否是普通语言学、适用语言学,甚至是普通意义学(或者意义的自然科学)的试金石之一。

Studies on readability in America date back to the early 20th century,when Thorndike[1]the phycologist published the first book in which English words were arranged in accordance with their frequencies.This set a trend toward researches of this paradigm based upon words as a variable.As yet,readability researches have been continuing across the world.Fathered by M.A.K.Halliday,systemic functional linguistics(SFL)is a powerful linguistic theory widely used to solve language or language-related problems.Readability is not an SFL concept,so researches in this regard represent a new perspective.To fuse the concept into the theory,this article first tries to capture the essence of readability through revisiting such aspects as its definitions and dimensions,influencing factors,and the traditional approach to it;and then goes on to discuss to what extent SFL can expand the scope of readability studies,with reference to Halliday's accounts of“meaning”,and of the three orientations of the theory in the early 21st century.It is concluded that readability and SFL are complimentary in that the latter provides a theoretical framework for the former,while the former broadens the research scope of the latter.Future explorations will serve as a touchstone of the validity of SFL as a general theory of language,an appliable linguistics,and a general theory of meaning or natural science of meaning.