From functional to cognitive grammar in stylistic analysis of Golding’s The Inheritors

Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) is one of the most influential grammars used in stylistics, but more recently the discipline has witnessed a growing body of work using cognitive grammars to explain stylistic effects. This research has tended to make the positive case for cognitive grammar (CG) by demonstrating its similarity to functionalist approaches. However, it is also necessary to say how CG adds to an SFG account of literary effects. To do so, I return to Halliday’s seminal analysis of Golding’s novel, The Inheritors. I use CG to investigate the conceptual processes involved in the reader’s interpretation of the character’s deviant mindstyle and outline some of the ludic and dramatic effects of these reconstrual operations. Thus, whereas SFG focuses on describing the ideational structure of the representations proffered by texts, I argue that a unique affordance of CG is its focus on the readerly construction of meaning.