A systemic functional-corpus approach to mapping generic structure

Abstract In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), register is understood as the product of the interplay among context, meaning, and grammar. While various methodological approaches have explored this relationship, few studies demonstrate how corpus methods can enhance the explanatory power of SFL’s multi-stratal model of register. This paper presents a corpus-assisted analysis of contemporary Slovenian Catholic sermons, using Hasan’s model of register as the analytical framework. A small, specialized corpus of televised sermons was compiled, grammatically annotated, and analysed using computational tools that generated discourse semantic patterning graphs. The analysis focuses on visualizing semantic shifts and structural movements within and across texts to identify genre-relevant structures. The findings are interpreted in terms of ethical reasoning and argumentation, highlighting distinctive generic features of the texts. Beyond genre-specific insights, the study offers a methodological contribution to genre analysis by demonstrating how linguistic inquiry can be grounded in semantic criteria and operationalized through corpus tools.