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Metafunction of Language

Halliday conceived of language as having three metafunctions - the ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions. The ideational function represents experiences of the external world and includes experiential and logical functions. It involves processes like material processes describing actions, relational processes identifying and characterizing, and mental processes construing internal experiences like emotions, perceptions, and desires. The interpersonal function provides a means for people to interact, while the textual function organizes language into a coherent text.

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115 views2 pages

Metafunction of Language

Halliday conceived of language as having three metafunctions - the ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions. The ideational function represents experiences of the external world and includes experiential and logical functions. It involves processes like material processes describing actions, relational processes identifying and characterizing, and mental processes construing internal experiences like emotions, perceptions, and desires. The interpersonal function provides a means for people to interact, while the textual function organizes language into a coherent text.

Uploaded by

obi
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© © All Rights Reserved
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METAFUNCTION OF LANGUAGE

Halliday conceives of language as social semiotic, that is to say, language is a system of signs
developed to express social meanings.

In Halliday's words, language has to have an Ideational Function. Another necessity is for
language to provide a means for people to interact with each other, for the first person to cope
with the second person, to establish a basis for cooperative action social relations: so
language needs to discharge an Interpersonal Function as well.

The ideational function is language concerned with building and maintaining a theory of
experience. It includes the experiential function and the logical function.

1. MATERIAL PROCESS

Material process clauses refer to experiences of the external world and describe processes of
doing and happening, answering the question ‘What did he/she do?’ or ‘What happened?’

2. RELATIONAL PROCESS

Relational process types serve to identify and characterize, and are further subdivided into
processes of ‘being’ (intensive or circumstantial) and ‘having’ (possessive). Attribution
specifies the class the Carrier belongs to, while identification narrows the class down to one.

OTHER TYPES OF RELATIONAL PROCESS

3. MENTAL PROCESS

Serving to construe processes of sensing, happenings within our consciousness, mental


processes are subdivided into processes of emotion, perception, cognition, and desideration
(ibid).

Notice that in mental processes of emotion and perception, what is loved or hated, seen or
heard, is labelled Phenomenon, even when the fact is realised as an embedded clause.
However, mental processes of cognition and desideration often bring wishes and ideas into
existence by projecting a separate clause (Thompson, 2004).

Pairs such as ‘like/please’, which show a different direction in Sensor-Phenomenon


relationships, are often unaccounted for in traditional grammar, but commonly occur in
cognitive and emotive mental processes (ibid).

OTHER PROCESS TYPES:

Between material and mental are behavioural processes, while existential processes are
between relational and material. Verbal processes share the ability of mental processes to
project what is said or thought in a separate clause.

Metafunction consists of:

 Ideational Function
 Interpersonal Function
 Textual Function.

The ideational function includes the experiential function and the logical function.

 Types of Process
 Material Process
 Mental Process
 Relational Process
 Behavioral Process

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