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= Systemic functional grammar =
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Introduction
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Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a form of grammatical description
originated by Michael Halliday. It is part of a social semiotic
approach to language called 'systemic functional linguistics'. In
these two terms, 'systemic' refers to the view of language as "a
network of systems, or interrelated sets of options for making
meaning"; 'functional' refers to Halliday's view that language is as
it is because of what it has evolved to do (see Metafunction). Thus,
what he refers to as the 'multidimensional architecture of language'
"reflects the multidimensional nature of human experience and
interpersonal relations."
Influences
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Halliday describes his grammar as built on the work of Saussure, Louis
Hjelmslev, Malinowski, J.R. Firth, and the Prague school linguists. In
addition, he drew on the work of the American anthropological
linguists Boas, Sapir and Whorf. His "main inspiration" was Firth, to
whom he owes, among other things, the notion of language as system.
Among American linguists, Whorf had "the most profound effect on my
own thinking". Whorf "showed how it is that human beings do not all
mean alike, and how their unconscious ways of meaning are among the
most significant manifestations of their culture".
From his studies in China, he lists Luo Changpei and Wang Li as two
scholars from whom he gained "new and exciting insights into
language". He credits Luo for giving him a diachronic perspective and
insights into a non-Indo-European language family. From Wang Li he
learnt "many things, including research methods in dialectology, the
semantic basis of grammar, and the history of linguistics in China".
Basic tenets
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Some interrelated key terms underpin Halliday's approach to grammar,
which forms part of his account of how language works. These concepts
are: system, (meta)function, and rank. Another key term is
lexicogrammar. In this view, grammar and lexis are two ends of the
same continuum.
Analysis of the grammar is taken from a trinocular perspective,
meaning from three different levels. So to look at lexicogrammar, it
can be analyzed from two more levels, 'above' (semantic) and 'below'
(phonology). This grammar gives emphasis to the view from above.
For Halliday, grammar is described as systems not as rules, on the
basis that every grammatical structure involves a choice from a
describable set of options. Language is thus a 'meaning potential'.
Grammarians in SF tradition use system networks to map the available
options in a language. In relation to English, for instance, Halliday
has described systems such as 'mood', 'agency', 'theme', etc. Halliday
describes grammatical systems as closed, i.e. as having a finite set
of options. By contrast, lexical sets are open systems, since new
words come into a language all the time.
These grammatical systems play a role in the construal of meanings of
different kinds. This is the basis of Halliday's claim that language
is 'metafunctionally' organised. He argues that the raison d'être of
language is meaning in social life, and for this reason all languages
have three kinds of semantic components. All languages have resources
for construing experience (the 'ideational' component), resources for
enacting humans' diverse and complex social relations (the
'interpersonal' component), and resources for enabling these two kinds
of meanings to come together in coherent text (the 'textual'
function). Each of the grammatical systems proposed by Halliday are
related to these metafunctions. For instance, the grammatical system
of 'mood' is considered to be centrally related to the expression of
interpersonal meanings, 'process type' to the expression of
experiential meanings, and 'theme' to the expression of textual
meanings.
Traditionally the "choices" are viewed in terms of either the content
or the structure of the language used. In SFG, language is analysed in
three ways (strata): semantics, phonology, and lexicogrammar. SFG
presents a view of language in terms of both structure (grammar) and
words (lexis). The term "lexicogrammar" describes this combined
approach.
Metafunctions
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From early on in his account of language, Halliday has argued that it
is inherently functional. His early papers on the grammar of English
make reference to the "functional components" of language, as
"generalized uses of language, which, since they seem to determine the
nature of the language system, require to be incorporated into our
account of that system." Halliday argues that this functional
organization of language "determines the form taken by grammatical
structure".
Halliday refers to his functions of language as metafunctions. He
proposes three general functions: the 'ideational', the
'interpersonal' and the 'textual'.
Ideational metafunction
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The ideational metafunction is the function for construing human
experience. It is the means by which we make sense of "reality".
Halliday divides the ideational into the logical and the experiential
metafunctions. The logical metafunction refers to the grammatical
resources for building up grammatical units into complexes, for
instance, for combining two or more clauses into a clause complex. The
experiential function refers to the grammatical resources involved in
construing the flux of experience through the unit of the clause.
The ideational metafunction reflects the contextual value of 'field',
that is, the nature of the social process in which the language is
implicated. An analysis of a text from the perspective of the
ideational function involves inquiring into the choices in the
grammatical system of "transitivity": that is, process types,
participant types, circumstance types, combined with an analysis of
the resources through which clauses are combined. Halliday's 'An
Introduction to Functional Grammar' (in the third edition, with
revisions by Christian Matthiessen) sets out the description of these
grammatical systems.
Interpersonal metafunction
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The interpersonal metafunction relates to a text's aspects of 'tenor'
or interactivity. Like field, tenor comprises three component areas:
the speaker/writer persona, social distance, and relative social
status. Social distance and relative social status are applicable only
to spoken texts, although a case has been made that these two factors
can also apply to written text.
The speaker/writer persona concerns the stance, personalisation and
standing of the speaker or writer. This involves looking at whether
the writer or speaker has a neutral attitude, which can be seen
through the use of positive or negative language. Social distance
means how close the speakers are, e.g. how the use of nicknames shows
the degree to which they are intimate. Relative social status asks
whether they are equal in terms of power and knowledge on a subject,
for example, the relationship between a mother and child would be
considered unequal. Focuses here are on speech acts (e.g. whether one
person tends to ask questions and the other speaker tends to answer),
who chooses the topic, turn management, and how capable both speakers
are of evaluating the subject.
Textual metafunction
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The textual metafunction relates to 'mode'; the internal organisation
and communicative nature of a text. This comprises textual
interactivity, spontaneity and communicative distance.
Textual interactivity is examined with reference to disfluencies such
as hesitators, pauses and repetitions.
Spontaneity is determined through a focus on lexical density,
grammatical complexity, coordination (how clauses are linked together)
and the use of nominal groups. The study of communicative distance