SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS (SFL)
● also known as Systematic
Functional Grammar (SFG) or
Systematic Linguistic (SL)
● a model of grammar developed by
Michael Halliday in the 1960s
● a theory of language centered around
the notion of language function
● deeply concerned with the purpose of
language use
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL)
The study of the relationship
between language and its functions in social
settings.
Systemic functional linguistics
treats grammar as a meaning-making resource
and insists on the interrelation of form and
meaning
It attempts to combine purely structural
information with overly social factors in a
single integrated description
Observations:
"While individual scholars naturally have
different research emphases or application
contexts, common to all systemic linguists is
an interest in language as social
semiotic(Halliday 1978)--how people use
language with each other in accomplishing
everyday social life. This interest leads
systemic linguists to advance four main
theoretical claims about language:
1. that language use is functional
2. that its function is to make
meanings (semantic)
3. that these meanings are influenced
by the social and cultural context in
which they are exchanged (contextual)
4. that the process of using language
is a semiotic process, a process of
making meaning by choosing.
“These four points, that language
use is functional, semantic,
contextual and semiotic, can be
summarized by describing the
systemic approach as a functional-
semantic approach to language.“
(Suzanne Eggins, An Introduction to Systemic
Functional Linguistics, 2nd ed. Continuum, 2005)
SYSTEMIC
● derives from the word
SYSTEM
● refers to the view of language
as a network of systems, or
interrelated sets of options for
making meaning
FUNCTIONAL
It indicates that the
approach is concerned with
the contextualized, practical
uses to which language is
put.
FUNCTIONAL
■ It places the function of
language as central
● what language does
● how it does it
FUNCTIONAL
It is functional and semantic rather
than formal and synthetic in
orientation. (It takes the text rather
than the sentence as its object.
● It defines the scope of the text by
reference to usage rather than
grammatically.
"According to Halliday
(1975), language has
developed in response to
three kinds of social-
functional 'needs.'
● to be able to construe experience in
terms of what is going on around us and
inside us.
● to interact with the social world by
negotiating social roles and attitudes.
● to be able to create messages with
which we can package our meanings in
terms of what is New or Given, and in
terms of what the starting point for our
message is, commonly referred to as
the Theme.
Halliday (1978) calls these language
functions metafunctions, and refers to
them as ideational, interpersonal and
textual respectively.
•"Halliday's point is that any piece of
language calls into play all three
metafunctions simultaneously.“
(Peter Muntigl and Eija Ventola, "Grammar: A Neglected Resource in
Interaction Analysis?" New Adventures in Language and Interaction,
ed. by Jürgen Streeck. John Benjamins, 2010)
Three Functions of
Language /Metafunctions
[Link] (or experiential) Function
● The conveying of
semantic content representing
information about our experience of the
external world (including our own
minds)
2. Interpersonal Function
● The establishment and
maintenance of social relations,
including persuading other people to
do things or to believe things.
● Concerned with the
speech-function, exchange structure,
expression of attitude
3. Textual Function
● The linking of linguistic
elements to other linguistic elements so
that the various parts of a text can be
integrated into coherent and cohesive
whole and related to the wider content
of our speech or writing.
● How the text are analysed in
terms of roles such as actor,
agent/medium, theme, mood
Questions frequently asked by
Systemicists
● What is the writer (or speaker)
trying to do?
● What linguistic devices are
available to help her (or him) to do
it.
● On what basis does she make
her/his choices?
A key concept in SFL is the
CONTEXT OF SITUATION
which obtains through a
systematic relationship between
the social environment on one
hand and the functional
organization of language on the
other
The ANALYSIS OF
CONTEXT is broken
down into FIELD, TENOR
and MODE (These
constitute the register of a
text.)
Field:
● What is happening?
(the nature of social
interaction taking place)
● What it is that the
participants are engaged in?
(in which language figures as
an essential component)
Tenor:
Who is taking part
The social roles and
relationships of
participants, the status and
roles of participants.
Mode:
The symbolic organization of a text,
rhetorical modes (persuasive,
expository, dialogic, etc.)
The channel of communication
(spoken/written monologic/dialogic,
computer-mediated
communication/telephone
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS (SFL)
In systemic functional linguistics
(SFL), three strata make up the
linguistic system:
1. meaning (semantics),
2. sound (phonology), and
3. wording or lexicogrammar
(syntax, morphology, and lexis).
Lexico-grammar
Concerns the syntactic organization of
words into utterances
Utterances are analyzed in terms of
roles such as actor, agent/medium,
theme, mood.
