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Chapter 2 English Discourse Autosaved

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CHAPTER 2

Systemic
Functional
Linguistics and
Register
 Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a theory
of language and discourse developed by M.A.K.
Halliday and his followers. Systemic in SFL refers to
a conception of language as a network of systems, or
choices, for expressing meaning.

 Functional refers to a concern for what language


does and how it does it, in contrast to more structural
approaches.

 Halliday began to develop his theory in the 1960s.


He was influenced by the British linguist Firth, his
teacher, from whom he inherited the notions of
language as a set of systems and the importance of
context in the interpretation of meaning.

 Malinowski, a social anthropologist of Polish


origin, also had an important impact on Halliday,
with his emphasis on the relation between language
and context, that is, his idea that you need to be in
the particular context to understand the meaning
of an utterance, and his notion of multiplicities of
languages according to situations. 2
 Another influence on Halliday was the American linguist, Whorf, who also insisted on how language was influenced by
environment.

 Another body of work drawn upon by Halliday was that of the Danish linguist, Hjelmslev, and his notion of language as the level
of expression of a higher-level semiotic system. A final influence on Halliday was the functional approach of the Prague school of
linguistics, especially with regard to the textual metafunction .

 Although first and foremost a linguist, Halliday is very much concerned with the role of language in society, particularly
education.

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A FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON
CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

 Through a diary study of his child, Nigel, Halliday (1975) developed a


theory of language development. The theory is a functional one, as
might be expected with a title such as Learning How to Mean, with
development seen as taking place in a social context, through
interaction, rather than as some innate biological process.

 The first stage of Nigel’s language learning is described by Halliday as


a protolanguage; this is when Nigel developed a small set of words
which he developed to express certain functions. The proto-words that
made up this set were not learned from the social environment but
came from Nigel himself, words such as da, na, a and yi.

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 Nevertheless, these words were discovered to perform particular functions, of which Halliday identified six, as follows:

1. Instrumental: to obtain goods or services – the ‘I want’ function.

2. Regulatory: to control the behaviour of others – the ‘do as I tell you’ function.

3. Interactional: to interact with others – the ‘me and you’ function.

4. Personal: to express the personality of the child – the ‘here I come’ function.

5. Heuristic: to explore and learn about the environment – the ‘tell me why’ function.
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 Later, a seventh function is added to the child’s
repertoire, the informative function – the ‘I’ve got
something to tell you’ function.

Halliday explains the development of the


protolanguage as follows:

 A child begins by creating a proto-language of his


own, a meaning potential in respect of each of the
social functions that constitute his developmental
semiotic. (Halliday, 1978: 124)

 As the various functions of the protolanguage


develop, so does the need for a language code
through which they can be expressed:

 The text-in-situation by which [the child] is


surrounded is filtered through his own functional-
semantic grid, so that he processes just as much of
it as can be interpreted in terms of his own
meaning potential at the time.(Halliday, 1978:
124)
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• To the meaning that the child wishes to express. As the child begins to be involved in more and
more complex social relations, so do the demands grow greater and so does the language system
increase to cope with them.
• The young adult is introduced to the concept of grammatical metaphor, how one type of process
is represented in the grammar of another, to use a noun to refer to a process.

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SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS
 The term systemic in SFL refers to how language is viewed as a network of interrelated systems or set of choices for making
meanings.

The term functional is in opposition to formal, that is, language is construed as a practical means of expressing meanings rather than
as an abstract set of relations, grammar. SFL views grammar and lexis (vocabulary) as working together in making meanings: this
combination is referred to as lexicogrammar.

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 The metafunctions are related to, or realise, features of what in
SFL is called the context of situation. These features are
referred to as contextual parameters.

 Ideational meanings realise what is called the field of


discourse (the purpose of the communication and what it is
about), interpersonal meanings realise what is called the tenor
(the relations between the participants in the text) and textual
meanings realise what is referred to as the mode (how the
language is organised and functions in the interaction, for
example, whether it is written or spoken or some combination
of the two (as in various electronic modalities), whether it is
expository, or didactic or persuasive, and so forth.

 Hudson (1980: 49) offers an aide-mémoire to help understand


these contextual features: field refers to ‘why’ and ‘about
what’ a communication takes place; tenor is about ‘to whom’
the communication is directed, that is, how the speaker or
writer sees the person with whom s/he is communicating; and
mode is about ‘how’ the communication takes place

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 In any given context of situation, a certain set of
contextual parameters comes together in what is
called a register.

 Halliday and Hasan (1985/1989: 38–39),


accordingly, define register as ‘a configuration of
meanings that are typically associated with a
particular situational configuration of field, mode,
and tenor’.

 Register is a set of linguistic choices associated


with a particular situation.

 With regard to registers identified according to


tenor – the relations between the participants
level of formality is a primary distinction,
colloquial and formal registers being
differentiated, although they are related on a cline,
rather than as distinct categories.

 As for mode, the primary distinction here is


between spoken and written.
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Thank You!
JANETTE C. PALEB

[email protected]

Xiamilove!

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