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Systemic Functional Linguistics (M

Michael Halliday developed systemic functional linguistics (SFL), which views language as a system for making meaning in social contexts. SFL analyzes the ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions/metafunctions of language. It also considers context of culture and situation, including field, tenor, and mode. Key aspects of SFL include semantics, lexico-grammar, register, genre, and the relationship between language and context. Halliday's SFL approach influenced linguistics by emphasizing language use over structure.

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Maria Ragie Tabotabo
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322 views17 pages

Systemic Functional Linguistics (M

Michael Halliday developed systemic functional linguistics (SFL), which views language as a system for making meaning in social contexts. SFL analyzes the ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions/metafunctions of language. It also considers context of culture and situation, including field, tenor, and mode. Key aspects of SFL include semantics, lexico-grammar, register, genre, and the relationship between language and context. Halliday's SFL approach influenced linguistics by emphasizing language use over structure.

Uploaded by

Maria Ragie Tabotabo
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© © All Rights Reserved
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SYSTEMIC

FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS
(M.A.K.
HALLIDAY)

MA. RAGIE P. TABOTABO


M.A.K.
HALLIDAY
Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday
(13 April 1925 – 15 April 2018)
He was an English-born linguist who developed the internationally influential
systemic functional linguistic SFL model of language. He took a BA honors
degree in modern Chinese language and literature (Mandarin) through the
University of London—an external degree for which he studied in China. He
then lived for three years in China, where he studied under Luo Changpei at
Peking University and under Wang Li at Lingnan University, before returning to
take a PhD in Chinese linguistics at Cambridge under the supervision of Gustav
Hallam and then J.R. Firth. Having taught languages for 13 years, he changed his
field of specialization to linguistics, and developed systemic functional
linguistics, including systemic functional grammar, elaborating on the
foundations laid by his British teacher J.R. Firth and a group of European
linguists of the early 20th century, the Prague school. His seminal paper on this
model was published in 1961.
7 FUNCTIONS OF
LANGUAGE
Instrumental
language is used to communicate preferences, choices, wants, or needs
Personal
language is used to express individuality
Interactional
language is used to interact and plan, develop, or maintain a play or group activity or social relationship
Regulatory
language is used to control
Representational
Use language to explain
Heuristic
language is used to find things out, wonder, or hypothesize
Imaginative
language is used to create, explore, and entertain
WHAT IS SFL?
• Systemic Functional Linguistics is an approach to
language developed mainly by Michael Halliday in the
UK and later in Australia.
• While American-style linguistics evolved in the
modelling of the world’s languages, SFL was
developed to address the needs of language
teaching/learning.
WHAT IS SFL?
• Central: language use must be seen as taking
place in social contexts. Language is not good or
bad, it is appropriate or inappropriate to the
context of use.
• Language function (what it is used for) is often
more important than language structure (how it is
composed).
CONTEXT
Context is classified as one of the central concerns
since because it is integral to the overall process of
making meaning. When language occur in a
context, it will relate to or is linked to a number of
contexts. They are:
– Context of Culture
– Context of the Situation
CONTEXT OF
SITUATION/REGISTER
THREE STRANDS:
– FIELD (gives indication of the topic or what is being talked about)
– TENOR (gives us an indication of who is/are involved in the
communication and the relationships between them)
– MODE (gies us an indication of what part the language is playing in
the interaction and what form it takes (written or spoken)
EXAMPLE:

A. Xin Nien Kwai Le! Buy this lucky charm bracelet for 249 pesos only.
It will bring you good health and wealth this new year!
B: Happy New Year, too! Is that the last price? Can I just have it for
150 pesos?
A. No, this is fixed price already.
B. Hmm, 200?
A. I’m sorry, no.
B. Oh, okay! Happy New Year, anyway.
SEMANTICS
Responsible for the meanings in the texts. In
SFL, semantics has three metafunctions:
– ideational metafunction
– interpersonal metafunction
– textual metafunction
IDEATIONAL
METAFUNCTION
It is the function for construing human experience. It is the
means by which we make sense of "reality". Halliday divides the
ideational into the logical and the experiential metafunctions.
– The logical metafunction refers to the grammatical resources for
building up grammatical units into complexes, for instance, for
combining two or more clauses into a clause complex.
– The experiential function refers to the grammatical resources
involved in construing the flux of experience through the unit of
the clause.
INTERPERSONAL
METAFUNCTION

This focuses 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 evaluating
the subject.
TEXTUAL
METAFUNCTION
how the text is organized as a message
– Generic Structure: the staging of a text, e.g., as
Introduction, Body, Conclusions
– Rhetorical Structure: organizing of sentences as
facilitating others (e.g., Evidence, Example, Result, etc.)
– Thematic Progression: How the selections of themes
throughout a text are organized to help the reader
understand what the text is about.
– Includes both LEXICO-GRAMMAR
grammar and
vocabulary in
one stratum and
represents the
view of language
in both lexis and
grammar
– Emphasizes that
it is words and
their
combination that
makes sentences
PHONOLOGY/
GRAPHOLOGY
This refers to the sound system, the
writing system, and the wording
system of language.
Genre Context of Culture

Register
Context of Situation
field

Discourse
tenor Semantics mode
experiential
inter- textual
personal
Lexico-grammar
Transitivity
Language
Mood Theme

Phonology
Graphology
References:
– An Introduction to Halliday’s Systemic Functional
Linguistics by Wael Abdhulrahman Almurashi (pdf)
– Critical Issues in Information Systems Lecture 1 Text and
Context Buss 951 (ppt)
– Systemic Functional Linguistics Part 1-3 by Mick
O’Donnell (pdf)
– Wikipedia.com

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