Abstract

There has been much discussion about semantics and ideology in systemic-functional linguistics, which has significant implications for critical discourse analysis. This paper attempts to explore the early Hallidayan concept of semantics, contemporary notions of text semantics as proposed by Jay Lemke, and Michel Foucault's discussion of discursive formations, sexuality, the confession, and normalising judgement, to analyse a small corpus of letters to agony aunts in contemporary Britain. Through an analysis of transitivity, hypotaxis, aspect, and modality, the paper constructs a system network which attempts to show how ideology is realised in the text semantics which is then realised in the lexicogrammar.