Browsing by Subject "synnytysdiskurssi"

The goal of the thesis is to investigate, by studying grammatical subjects and predicate verbs, which kind of processes are carried out by human referents in the texts and to detect their representative roles. Also the modality inside the verb phrases is being investigated. The material for the thesis consists of total 12 text written in Finnish language, which are descriptions of 8 different events of birth. Eight of the texts are personal birth stories written by the one who gave birth, and the rest four are official epicrises written by the hospital staff. Evidence is presented in the thesis which suggests that these texts belong to two separate written genres. The material is analysed through the means of discourse analysis and systemic functional linguistics. The analysis is limited to human referents and processes carried out by them in the texts. It turns out in the analysis that in both written genres the same referents are often mentioned, but there is also some variation found. The main difference between epicrises and personal birth stories is that no mental or behavioural processes are being mentioned in epicrises, unlike in the personal birth stories. Also verbal processes are rare in the section of epicrises. In epicrises, the hospital staff members are only expressed in the representative role of actor in processes that are both material and transitive, whereas in personal birth stories they also are presented as actors of material intransitive processes, in which case the process does not result oriented. The new born baby, on the other hand, is being expressed in the epicrises solely as actors of material intransitive processes, whereas in the personal birth stories this referent is also being mentioned as an actor of material, transitive processes. In the epicrises the modalisation is being expressed only through deontic verb phrase including saada-verb, and the total amount of modalisation is smaller than in the birth story texts. Mostly in the epicrises, the level of modality is representing the events as certain or neutral by tone. In the birth stories modality is being expressed as a way to show stance by the author towards te processes that the author herself, her spouse, or the hospital staff are carrying out. In the personal birth stories the author is expressing difficulty of carrying out certain material and mental processes by using modalisaton as a resource, but on the other hand, the verbal processes are usually being expressed certain and definite by modality.