Introduction
1.1 Background to the Study
The central object of study in linguistics is language which is a term that covers several rather different concepts that need to be carefully distinguished. The word ‗language‘ can be described from different points of view, which suggests that there are many definitions attached to it. In fact, Syal and Jindal (2008) say ‗‗Everybody knows the answer to the question ‗What is language?‘ but nobody has so far been able to come out with any standard definitions that fully explains the term language‖
Language is a network of systems that convey meaning. The basic meaning is in an independent clause and each clause has three strands of meaning. These three strands of meaning are ideational, interpersonal and textual (Dawning & Locke, 2006). In this work, the researcher focuses on the interpersonal meaning of language, which deals with exchange between interlocutors. It is assumed that when somebody speaks, he assigns a role to another interlocutor in a dialogue, and the role can be that either of a giver or a receiver of information (cf. Dawning & Locke, 2006). This depends largely on what the speaker intends to do with his/her proposition. The grammatical aspect that determines a particular proposition is Mood.
‘Mood’ and ‘modality’ are separate components of grammar, but they are related in origin and to some extent in meaning. ‘Mood’, as used in grammar, is also derived from ‘mode’, but at some stage the vowel changed by association with the completely different word ‘mood’, meaning a state of mind (e.g. a good/bad mood). Mood, from the perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar, is a grammatical entity that conveys the interpersonal meaning of language at the clausal unit of language.
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