Unpacking logical meaning in disability-themed children’s books: A Systemic functional linguistic analysis
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study investigates the realization of logical meaning in disability-themed children’s books through the lens of systemic functional linguistics (SFL). Employing a qualitative descriptive design, the data consist of clauses extracted from 5 selected children’s books that explicitly address disability themes. The analysis focuses on the types of clause-complex relations, particularly parataxis and hypotaxis, as well as the logico-semantic relations of expansion and projection. The findings reveal that clause-complex constructions are predominantly realized through paratactic relations. Out of 80 identified clause complexes, 72 instances (90%) are parataxis, while only 8 instances (10%) are hypotaxis. This dominance indicates a preference for equal-status clause relationships, reflecting a tendency toward simpler, more linear information organization. Such structuring aligns with the cognitive and linguistic accessibility required for child readers. Furthermore, in terms of logico-semantic relations, expansion types (elaboration, extension, and enhancement) occur in relatively limited proportions compared to projection, which emerges as a more prominent strategy in the texts. These findings suggest that disability-themed children’s literature tends to prioritize clarity, directness, and dialogic representation, potentially to facilitate comprehension and engagement.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This open-access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
How to Cite
Share
References
Bartlett, T., & O’Grady, G. (Eds.). (2017). The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (0 ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315413891
Braid, S., & Bernstein, J. (2015). Improved Cognitive Development in Preterm Infants with Shared Book Reading. Neonatal Network, 34(1), 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1891/0730-0832.34.1.10
Dewi, S. I. K., Ramadhani, A. R., & Kitri, A. (2025). Reflecting Inclusivity: Disability Narratives in Indonesian Children’s Literature. Poetika, 13(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.22146/poetika.v13i1.106804
Dickinson, D. K., Griffith, J. A., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2012). How Reading Books Fosters Language Development around the World. Child Development Research, 2012, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/602807
Eggins, S. (2004). An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics (2nd edition). Continuum.
Erisyerico, M. L., & Luardini, M. A. (2025). Exploring Clause Complexity: A Comprehensive Analysis of a Student’s Narrative Text on Central Kalimantan Folklore. EBONY: Journal of English Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature, 5(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.37304/ebony.v5i1.17440
Fasya, N. F., & Sari, R. P. (2023). How Clause Relationships in Narrative Relieve Children from the Covid-19 Crisis. Proceeding of International Conference on Business, Economics, Social Sciences, and Humanities, 6, 875–884. https://doi.org/10.34010/icobest.v4i.403
Gilmore, L., & Howard, G. (2016). Children’s Books that Promote Understanding of Difference, Diversity and Disability. Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools, 26(2), 218–251. https://doi.org/10.1017/jgc.2016.26
Hajar, S., & Sinar, T. S. (2019). Projection Analysis of Business Text in The Jakarta Post. KnE Social Sciences. https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v3i19.4901
Hakim, H. (2020). Seeking “Unity in Diversity”: Contemporary Children’s Books in Indonesia. In B. Wilson & S. P. Gabriel (Eds.), Asian Children’s Literature and Film in a Global Age (pp. 245–287). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2631-2_12
Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2014). Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (4th edition). Routledge.
Hayden, H. E., & Prince, A. M. (2023). Disrupting ableism: Strengths-based representations of disability in children’s picture books. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 23(2), 236–261. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798420981751
He, Q. (2019). A Systemic Functional Approach to Clause Combining in English. In Q. He, A Corpus-Based Approach to Clause Combining in English from the Systemic Functional Perspective (pp. 11–42). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7391-6_2
Hoang, V. V. (2025). Clause complex resources realising logical meanings in a literary text: A systemic functional linguistics analysis. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 41(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.63023/2525-2445/jfs.ulis.5311
Kalb, G., & Van Ours, J. C. (2014). Reading to young children: A head-start in life? Economics of Education Review, 40, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2014.01.002
Kristanti, F. (2016). Dignifying Children through Inclusive Children’s Literature. Journal of Language and Literature, 16(1), 63–69. https://doi.org/10.24071/joll.v16i1.152
Martin, J. R. (2017). The Discourse Semantics of Attitudinal Relations: Continuing the Study of Lexis. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 21(1), 22–47. https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-9182-2017-21-1-22-47
Mujahidah, M., Tarigan, F. N., Dj, M. Z., Mat Husain, M. P., Sanjaya, D., & Yusuf, M. (2025). Teachers Perceptions & Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) Integration in Suburban School. Journal of Curriculum and Teaching, 14(2), 98. https://doi.org/10.5430/jct.v14n2p98
Nicolopoulou, A. (2008). The elementary forms of narrative coherence in young children’s storytelling. Narrative Inquiry, 18(2), 299–325. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.18.2.07nic
Niklas, F., Cohrssen, C., & Tayler, C. (2016). The Sooner, the Better: Early Reading to Children. Sage Open, 6(4), 2158244016672715. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016672715
Pane, I. I. I., Izan, M. S. M., Yusuf, M., & Sanjaya, D. (2025). Exploring the Fluency in Reading among Rural Primary School Students and Parents’ Role. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(4), 588–600. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i4.8998
Pardeck, J. T., & Musick, J. A. (2002). Recommended Children’s Books on Disabilities. Journal of Social Work in Disability & Rehabilitation, 1(3), 73–77. https://doi.org/10.1300/J198v01n03_07
Parvin, M. (2025). The Effect of Storybooks on Language Development. International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, 7(5), 58423. https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i05.58423
Pennell, A. E., Wollak, B., & Koppenhaver, D. A. (2018). Respectful Representations of Disability in Picture Books. The Reading Teacher, 71(4), 411–419. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1632
Prater, M. A., Dyches, T. T., & Johnstun, M. (2006). Teaching Students About Learning Disabilities Through Children’s Literature. Intervention in School and Clinic, 42(1), 14–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/10534512060420010301
Rachmawati, E. (2025). Celebrating International Disability Days: Improving Concern for People with Disabilities in Indonesia. Indonesian Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.36803/indojpmr.v14i2.533
Sarip, S. K., Fitriati, S. W., & Rukmini, D. (2020). The The Paratactic and Hypotactic Constructions in Research Article Abstracts at 2018 ISET Proceedings. English Education Journal, 10(2), 201–207. https://doi.org/10.15294/eej.v10i1.34182
Schoonover, H. (2021). Disability Represented in Children’s Literature. Kansas English, 102(1), 3–8. https://doi.org/10.62704/617t0162
Shin-Mei, K. (2015). Methods of Eliciting and Measuring Children’s Narratives. In S.-M. Kao, Narrative Development of School Children (pp. 53–64). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-191-6_4
Sinar, T. S., Zein, T. T., Huszka, B., Yusuf, M., Maharani, P., & Sanjaya, D. (2024). Learning English Literacy through Video Games: A Multimodal Perspective. Journal of Curriculum and Teaching, 13(1), 102. https://doi.org/10.5430/jct.v13n1p102
Sorenson Duncan, T., Mimeau, C., Crowell, N., & Deacon, S. H. (2021). Not all sentences are created equal: Evaluating the relation between children’s understanding of basic and difficult sentences and their reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 113(2), 268–278. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000545
Sugiarto, T. (2020). Reading Disability in Indonesian Children’s Literature. Indonesian Journal of English Language Studies (IJELS), 6(1), 25–34. https://doi.org/10.24071/ijels.v6i1.2693
Tejero Hughes, M., & Talley, C. (2026). Disabilities in children’s literature: Is the representation accurate and authentic? Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 26(1), 417–449. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687984251333544
Ulya, M., Basthomi, Y., & Febrianti, Y. (2025). Revisiting inclusivity and cultural representation of disability within EFL textbook in Indonesia. Abjadia: International Journal of Education, 10(1), 46–57. https://doi.org/10.18860/abj.v10i1.29963
Umek, L. M., Fekonja, U., Kranjc, S., & Musek, P. L. (2003). The impact of reading children’s literature on language development in the preschool child. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 11(1), 125–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/13502930385209111
Wilkins, J., Howe, K., Seiloff, M., Rowan, S., & Lilly, E. (2016). Exploring elementary students’ perceptions of disabilities using children’s literature. British Journal of Special Education, 43(3), 233–249. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8578.12138
Yaqub, H., & Shakir, A. (2019). A Corpus-Based Study of Hypotactic and Paratactic Thematic Relations in English and Urdu Clause Complexes. International Journal of English Linguistics, 9(5), 430. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v9n5p430
Yusuf, M., Widayati, D., Mbete, A. M., & Aswani, A. (2021). Eco-lexicon Forms in Children Book of North Sumatran Folktales. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2000(1), 012004. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/2000/1/012004
Zhou, Y., & Bin Zainol Abidin, M. J. (2023). Identifying Taxis and Logico-Semantic Relations in Chinese EFL Writing Samples. English Language Teaching, 16(9), 1. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v16n9p1
Zipoli, R. P. (2017). Unraveling Difficult Sentences: Strategies to Support Reading Comprehension. Intervention in School and Clinic, 52(4), 218–227. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053451216659465