Chapter 10: Systemic-Functional Grammar 1. Introduction
In this chapter, we will give a brief introduction to the work of M.A.K. Halliday and Systemic-Functional grammar. Systemic-Functional Grammar is also named as Systemic-Functional Linguistics.
Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday has sought to create an approach to linguistics that treats language as foundational for the building of human experience. His insights and publications form an approach called systemic-functional linguistics. Halliday's work stresses that language is closely associated with meaning. Systemic-functional linguistics (SFL), as its name suggests, considers function and semantics as the basis of human language and communicative activity. Unlike structural approaches that privilege syntax, SFL-oriented linguists begin an analysis with social context and then look at how language acts upon, and is constrained and influenced by, this social context. A key concept in Halliday's approach is the "context of situation" which obtains "through a systematic relationship between the social environment on the one hand, and the functional organization of language on the other" (Halliday, 1985:11).
According to Halliday’s systemic-functional linguistics, language, a kind of tool used for human communication, has many functions. In its system, language has three matafunctions, which are ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction and textual metafunction. Each of the three metafunctions is about a different aspect of the world, and is concerned with a different mode of meaning of clauses.
2. Ideational Metafunction
The ideational metafunction refers to the fact that language is used to express people’s experiences in the real world including the experiences in their internal world or the experiences in their mind. Namely, ideational metafunction is about the natural world in the broadest sense, including our own consciousness, and is concerned with clauses as representations. Ideational metafunction has three sub-systems, which are transitivity, voice and polarity. Here, we just talk about the first system, transitivity.
Transitivity is a semantic system to show the ideational metafunction of language.
It divides people’s experiences in the natural world and in their internal world into six processes. In each process, both the participant and the circumstantial element are presented. The six processes are material process, mental process, relational process, behavioural process, verbal process and existential process.
Material process refers to the process of doing something. The process consists of process verbs, often verbs of action, Actor, and Goal.
Tom broke the glass.
3. Interpersonal metafunction
In addition to the use of language to talk about their experiences about the real world and their internal world, people also use language to communicate with other people or they just use language to build the relations between them. The function of language in this aspect is called interpersonal metafunction. The interpersonal metafunction is about the social world, especially the relationship between speaker and hearer, and is concerned with clauses as exchanges. Language can often indicates the speaker’s status, social position, attitude, motivation, and it can show the relationship between speaker and listener.
Mood consisting of Subject and Finite is essential factor when we analyze the interpersonal metafunction.
4. Textual metafunction
Apart from the metafunctions talked above, we still use language to organize the information or linguistic elements into a complete text or discourse. This is the textual metafunction of language. Therefore, the textual metafunction is about the verbal world, especially the flow of information in a text, and is concerned with clauses as messages.
There are three sub-systems in the textual metafunction, which are Theme-Rheme system, Given information and New information system and cohesion system. Theme-Rheme system is also called thematic structure, and Given information and New information system is also called information structure. Here, we will mainly talk about the Theme-Rheme system.
