Systemic functional grammar
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Systemic functional grammar (SFG) or systemic
functional linguistics (SFL) is a model of grammar that
was developed by Michael
Halliday in the 1960s.[1]
It is part of a broad social semiotic
approach to language called systemic
linguistics. The term "systemic" refers to the view
of language as "a network of systems, or interrelated sets
of options for making meaning";[2]
The term "functional" indicates that the approach is concerned
with meaning,
as opposed to formal
grammar, which focuses on word
classes such as nouns and verbs, typically without reference
beyond the individual clause.
Systemic functional grammar is concerned primarily with
the choices that the grammar makes available to speakers
and writers.[3]
These choices relate speakers' and writers' intentions to
the concrete forms of a language. Traditionally the "choices"
are viewed in terms of either the content or the structure
of the language used. In SFG, language is analyzed in three
different ways, or strata: semantics, phonology, and lexicogrammar.[4]
SFG presents a view of language in terms of both structure
(grammar) and words (lexis). The term "lexicogrammar" describes
this combined approach.
Metafunctions
According to SFG, functional bases of grammatical phenomena
are divided into three broad areas, called metafunctions:
the ideational, the interpersonal and the
textual.[5]
Written and spoken texts can be examined with respect to
each of these metafunctions in register
analyses.[6]
The ideational metafunction
The ideational metafunction relates to the field
aspects of a text, or its subject matter and context of
use.[7]
Field is divided into three areas: semantic domain, specialisation,
and angle of representation.[8]
Within the semantic domain, SFG proponents examine the
subject matter of a text through organizing its nouns,
lexical verbs,
adjectives,
and adverbs.
These are the words which carry meaning in a text, as opposed
to function
words, whose purpose is grammatical.
Specialization is partially determined through attention
to jargon
or other technical vocabulary
items.[9]
Examining the angle of representation involves a close
look at types of processes, participants, and circumstances.[10]
The interpersonal metafunction
The interpersonal metafunction relates to a text's aspects
of tenor or interactivity.[11]
Like field, tenor comprises three smaller areas: the speaker/writer
persona,
social distance, and relative social status.[12]
Social distance and relative social status are applicable
only to spoken texts.[13]
The speaker/writer persona concerns the stance, personalization
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 use of positive or negative language.
Social distance means how close the speakers are, e.g. how
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 forming evaluations
on the subject.[14]
The textual metafunction
The textual metafunction relates to mode; the internal
organization and communicative nature of a text.[15]
This comprises textual interactivity, spontaneity and communicative
distance.[16]
Textual interactivity is examined with reference to disfluencies
such as hesitators, pauses and repetitions.
Spontaneity is determined through focus on lexical
density, grammatical complexity, coordination
(how clauses are linked together) and the use of noun
phrases. The study of communicative distance involves
looking at a text’s cohesion,
that is, how it hangs together, as well as any abstract
language it uses.
Cohesion is analysed in the context of both lexical and
grammatical as well as intonational
aspects[17]
with reference to lexical
chains[18]
and, in the speech register, tonality, tonicity, and tone.[19]
The lexical aspect focuses on sense relations and lexical
repetitions, while the grammatical aspect looks at repetition
of meaning shown through reference, substitution and ellipsis,
as well as the role of linking adverbials.[20]
Systemic functional grammar deals with all of these areas
of meaning equally within the grammatical system itself.
Children’s grammar
Michael Halliday (1973) outlined seven functions of language
with regard to grammar used by children:[21]
- The instrumental function serves to manipulate the environment,
to cause certain events to happen.
- The regulatory function of language is the control of
events.
- The representational function is the use of language
to make statements, convey facts and knowledge, explain,
or report to represent reality as one sees it.
- The interactional function of language serves to ensure
social maintenance.
- The personal function is to express emotions, personality,
and “gut-level” reactions.
- The heuristic function used to acquire knowledge, to
learn about the environment.
- The imaginative function serves to create imaginary
systems or ideas.
Relation to other branches of grammar
The theory sets out to explain how the continuous emission
of sounds or the continuous concatenation of characters
(wordings) construes meanings. This is a radically different
approach to language from Noam
Chomsky's and it is not intended to answer his question
of "what is the finite rule system which generates all
and only the grammatical sentences in a language?" In
SFG, adult human language is not viewed as a finite
rule system, but rather as a system realized by instantiations
which is back-feeded by the very instantiations that realize
it.
Another way to understand the difference in concerns between
functional and generative grammars is through Chomsky's
claim that "linguistics is a sub-branch of psychology."
Halliday investigates linguistics as though it were a sub-branch
of sociology.
SFG therefore pays much more attention to pragmatics
and discourse semantics,
at the expense of an easily computable formalism.
Systemic functional grammar has been used to derive further
grammatical accounts —for example, the model has been used
by Richard
Hudson to develop word
grammar.
See also
Other significant systemic functional grammarians:
Linguists also involved with the early development of the
approach:
Notes
- ^
http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/Definition/definition.html,
accessed 30 July 2008
- ^
Halliday, M.A.K. Introduction to Functional Grammar
Second Edition (1994) London: Edward Arnold., p.15
- ^
http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/Definition/definition.html,
accessed 30 July 2008
- ^
http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/Definition/chapelle.html,
accessed 30 July 2008
- ^
Elke Teich, Systemic Functional Grammar in Natural
Language Generation (1999) Continuum International
Publishing Group Ltd, p.21.
- ^
O’Halloran, K. A. (ed.) English Grammar in Context,
Book 2, Getting Inside English (2006) The Open University,
pp.13-4.
- ^
O’Halloran, K. A. (ed.) English Grammar in Context,
Book 2, Getting Inside English (2006) The Open University,
p.31.
- ^
O’Halloran, K. A. (ed.) English Grammar in Context,
Book 2, Getting Inside English (2006) The Open University,
p.178.
- ^
O’Halloran, K. A. (ed.) English Grammar in Context,
Book 2, Getting Inside English (2006) The Open University,
p.32-3.
- ^
Coffin, C (ed.) English Grammar in Context, Book
3, Getting Practical (2006) The Open University,
pp.68-86
- ^
O’Halloran, K. A. (ed.) English Grammar in Context,
Book 2, Getting Inside English (2006) The Open University,
p.15.
- ^
Coffin, C (ed.) English Grammar in Context, Book
3, Getting Practical (2006) The Open University,
p.11
- ^
O’Halloran, K. A. (ed.) English Grammar in Context,
Book 2, Getting Inside English (2006) The Open University,
p.22.
- ^
Coffin, C (ed.) English Grammar in Context, Book
3, Getting Practical (2006) The Open University,
pp.22-3
- ^
O’Halloran, K. A. (ed.) English Grammar in Context,
Book 2, Getting Inside English (2006) The Open University,
p.36.
- ^
Coffin, C (ed.) English Grammar in Context, Book
3, Getting Practical (2006) The Open University,
p.245
- ^
Coffin, C (ed.) English Grammar in Context, Book
3, Getting Practical (2006) The Open University,
p.158
- ^
Coffin, C (ed.) English Grammar in Context, Book
3, Getting Practical (2006) The Open University,
p.158
- ^
Coffin, C (ed.) English Grammar in Context, Book
3, Getting Practical (2006) The Open University,
p.184
- ^
Coffin, C (ed.) English Grammar in Context, Book
3, Getting Practical (2006) The Open University,
p.158
- ^
Butler, Christopher S., Structure and Function
(2003) John Benjamins Pub Co, p.415
External links
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_functional_grammar
Published - December 2008
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