The 31st International Systemic Functional Congress

Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan

August 30th September 4th 2004

Plenary
Speakers

(in alphabetical order by surname)

Suzanne Eggins
University of New South Wales, Australia
S.Eggins@unsw.edu.au
Funny Fictions and Semiotic Empowerment: towards a systemic narratology of humorous fiction
for children
Systemic functional grammar (Halliday 1994, Halliday & Matthiessen 1999) and systemic discourse
analysis (Martin 1992, Martin & Rose 2003) provide powerful analytical and conceptual tools for uncovering how
texts mean and the cultural work that texts do. In theory, these tools are applicable to texts from all genres. In practice,
much early systemic work focused on texts that were at least two of the following: written, short, non-fiction and
serious. While work in SFL has now moved across an extraordinary range of registers and genres, SFL analysis of
sustained fictional narrative remains suggestive, deeply indebted to Hallidays early stylistic studies of adult literary
texts (1964/2002, 1971/2002). The SFL analysis of humorous written fiction and fiction for children has hardly begun.
In this paper I look at a very practical question that has arisen for me in my university teaching of childrens
literature: how useful is SFL in analyzing some of the most popular contemporary fiction for children? More
specifically, what can SFL tell me and my students about childrens fiction that we couldnt discover through the
conventional literary approaches used in the field, those of structuralist narratology (eg Bal 1997, Rimmon-Kenan
2003), post-structuralist literary theory (eg Belsey 2002) and Bakhtinian-oriented blends of cultural studies (eg
Stephens 1992, McCallum 1999)?
Contemporary children are reading novels by writers including Terry Pratchett (eg The Amazing Maurice
and His Educated Rodents), Morris Gleitzman (eg Bumface, Two Weeks with the Queen), Phillip Gwynne (eg Deadly,
unna?), and the ubiquitous JK Rowlings Harry Potter series. Texts like these raise three substantial questions for
SFL:
1.

how can SFL offer a critical exploration of humour as a semiotic resource in fiction?

2.

how can SFL deal with the special realisational components of sustained fictional narratives?

3.

how can SFL help make explicit the ideological work achieved through childrens books?

In exploring such questions I am trying to formulate for myself what we might mean by a systemic
narratology, a form of positive and critical discourse analysis of how fictional texts mean. In this
plenary talk I will use analysed textual excerpts from these popular childrens writers to demonstrate
some of the outcomes of this narratology, suggesting that writers of realist inversion (eg Gleitzman,
Rowling) use humour to position the implied reader to accommodate to existing social structures,
while writers who use more metafictive and intertextual humorous strategies (eg Pratchett,
Gwynne) offer the child reader awareness of the semiotics of culture and some tools to participate as
an active social agent. In the process, I hope to show that SFL does indeed have as much to offer
conventional narrative approaches as they have to offer us in our common enterprise to uncover how
narrative fiction works in cultural life.
References:
Bal, M 1997 Narratology : introduction to the theory of narrative 2nd edition University of Toronto Press, Toronto
Belsey, C 2002 Critical Practice 2nd edition Routledge, London
Halliday, MAK 1964/2002 The Linguistic Study of Literary Texts republished in Webster, J (ed) 2002 Linguistic
Studies of Text and Discourse, vol 2 in the Collected Works of MAK Halliday Continuum, London, pp22

Halliday, MAK 1971/2002 Linguistic Function and Literary Style: An Inquiry into the Language of William
Goldings The Inheritors republished in Webster, J (ed) 2002 Linguistic Studies of Text and Discourse, vol
2 in the Collected Works of MAK Halliday Continuum, London, pp88-125
Halliday, MAK 1994 Introduction to Functional Grammar 2nd edition xxxx
Halliday, MAK & CMIM Matthiessen 1999 Construing Experience Through Meaning: a language-based approach
to cognition Cassell, London
McCallum, R Ideologies of identity in adolescent fiction: the dialogic construction of subjectivity Garland, NY
Martin, JR 1992 English Text: system and structure Benjamins, Amsterdam
Martin, JR & D Rose 2003 Working with Discourse Continuum, London
Rimmon-Kenan, S 2003 Narrative Fiction 2nd edition Routledge, London
Stephens, J 1992 Language and Ideology in Childrens Fiction Longman, London

Robin P. Fawcett
Cardiff University, U.K.
Fawcett@Cardiff.ac.uk
Systemic Functional Linguistics in the Twenty-First Century: Some prerequisites for the
globalization of the theory
How do theories develop?
By expansion, by evolution or by revolution? How did Systemic
Functional Linguistics (SFL) develop in the last half century, and why did it take the path (or paths) that it did? What
forces are likely to shape its development over the next half century? What does the concept of 'globalizing' SFL
entail? There are different possible answers, each relevant in its way, e.g. 'globalization' in terms of theory,
description, application and political organization. Is the 'globalization' of the theory in fact desirable in any or all
of these dimensions? And, most fundamentally of all, what are the great theoretical questions for the next few decades
to which we need answers, if progress of any kind, let alone globalization, is to be achieved?
I shall address these large and difficult questions, and in doing so I shall try to offer a broad perspective on
SFL as a developing theory. Then I shall narrow my focus to one of the great theoretical and descriptive questions to
which there is still no agreed answer among those who work in this theory. This is 'How do we choose?' Or, more
fully: 'How does the Performer of a text - and so the Performer of a contribution to an interactively constructed text 'choose' between the features in a system network, such as those for transitivity, mood, theme the 'validity' type of
'modality', and so on?' Our theory of language is a theory about 'choice between meanings' - but we are in a weak
position if we don't have a good answer to that question.
In broad terms, there are two SFL models of what drives the choices in the system networks. I will offer
a brief overview of each (including some variants within the Sydney group), and I will then say which of the two I
find more insightful. I will then explain why I do, and I will show how the insights of the alternative model can be
given an appropriate and honourable place within the model that I prefer.
In the final section of the paper, I shall draw on work by my research students and myself (much of which
remains unpublished beyond dissertation format), in order to illustrate the detailed working of one aspect of the model.
I have selected the concept of 'theme', and I shall focus specifically on the decision to make an entity the 'Subject
Theme' in English. It seems appropriate to consider 'theme' at a congress held in Japan, because of the interest in this
topic (no pun intended) in Japanese - and it will be interesting to see how far the proposals that I shall make about
what motivates the decision to treat an entity as 'theme' in English correspond to those that speakers of Japanese think
would apply in Japanese.
The overall model that I shall describe is both cognitive and interactive. It is a problem-solving model in
which the Performer's planner (or 'text planner') consults the relevant parts of the belief system. Different parts of it
may suggest different decisions. But each has its own weighting, and the planner calculates the total weighting for
each of the alternatives and decides and that decision then predetermines one or more choices in the system network.
From one viewpoint, this may be seen as a 'globalization' of the theory, in that it provides a 'global'
framework that is able to include all aspects of the theory. But there are other aspects to globalization, and the paper
concludes with a reminder of other possible prerequisites for other types of globalization.

Peter H. Fries
Central Michigan University, U.S.A.
PeterHFries@cs.com
Over the years, linguists have described the goals of linguistics in various ways. These include: (a) the
efficient description of patterns in the language (Bloch and Trager 1942); (b) the separation of all the grammatical
sentences of a language from all the ungrammatical sequences and the analysis of the grammatical sequences
(Chomsky 1957); (c) The grammar is a system of rules and principles that determine the formal and semantic
properties of sentences. (Chomsky 1975.28) (d) the description of the signals which lead listeners to understand
language the way that they do. (C. Fries 1952, 1967). While position (c) logically includes (d), there is a significant
difference of emphasis. Linguists within the systemic tradition, although coming from a quite different tradition
from Fries, generally accept as one of their goals for analysis a position very similar to that of position (d). For
example, Halliday (1994:xv) has described one of his goals for text analysis as an attempt "to show how, and why, the
text means what it does." In his view, the technique by which this goal is to be achieved is to relate the choices made
in the text to the language system as a whole (Webster 2002:6).
Once one adopts this goal for language description, one's success depends critically on the usefulness of the theoretical
constructs used in the analysis. This raises the question as to how we validate the constructs. The techniques of
validation are particularly important in areas such as the textual metafunction, where the meanings of the constructs
are difficult to determine in any but a very general way. Since the goal of the description is to determine the meanings
of these constructs, it seems unhelpful to attempt to test the constructs against random, unanalyzed texts. Rather, a
more productive approach would seem to be to test the constructs against texts which have been analyzed, and which
are perceived to express known meanings. The goal of the analysis, then, would be to discover to what degree the
theoretical constructs relate to the perceived meanings expressed in the texts. In some cases (such as the
investigation of information structure in written text), the evidence used can only provide indirect cues as to the
constructs.
References:
Bloch, Bernard and George Trager. 1942. Outline of Linguistic Analysis. Baltimore: Linguistic Society of
America.
Fries, Charles C. 1952. The Structure of English. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
Fries, Charles C. 1967. Structural Linguistics. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Inc.
Halliday, M. A. K. 1994. Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.
Webster, Jonathan (ed.). 2002. Linguistic Studies of Text and Discourse. Volume 2 in the collected works of M. A. K.
Halliday. London: Continuum.

Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

Macquarie University, Australia
cmatthie@mac.com
Describing a language systemic-functionally: typological guidance and theoretical strategies
Relating to the theme of ISFC 2004, I will discuss the challenge of describing the lexicogrammar of a
language systemic-functionally. In particular, I will be concerned with how the process of describing a particular
language can be facilitated by the general theory of language and by descriptions of other particular languages and
typological generalizations based on these descriptions (see Caffarel et al, in press).
One key issue here is the division of labour between the general theory and particular descriptions. In the
development of systemic functional linguistics since the 1960s, the general theory has been expanded considerably.
This expansion has involved extending the range of phenomena being covered by the theory by moving further along
existing dimensions such as stratification and delicacy and by adding new dimensions such as the spectrum of
metafunctions; but it has not involved building descriptive categories specific to particular languages such as tense,
aspect, mood, Subject, Theme, Actor into the general theory of language.
Generalizations about such descriptive categories are empirical in nature; they are based on comparing and
contrasting the growing number of descriptions of particular languages. Thus drawing on extensive analysis of
dialogue, systemic functional linguists have interpreted the interpersonal clause grammar of one language after
another in terms of a system of mood a grammatical system based on the semantics of exchange and relatable to the
fundamental principle of reciprocity, which seems to be the foundation of human societies in general. However, at the
same time, these descriptions also show that while descriptive categories such as Mood and Residue, Subject and
Finite bring out the nature of the interpersonal structuring of the clause as an interactive event in a number of
languages, they are by no means of the same order of generality as the system of mood. For example, Motoko Hori
and Kazuhiro Teruya have shown that the interpersonal clause grammar of Japanese can be interpreted by reference to
one element in the interpersonal structure that embodies a kind of interpersonal elevation and which might thus be
called Subject, while Jim Martin has shown that the interpersonal structure of the clause in Tagalog is organized along
different lines.
The general theory of language provides us with a multidimensional map for organizing our descriptive
exploration of a particular language. This map is comprehensive, indicating what semiotic labour will be done in a
given language in terms of construing experience, enacting social roles and relations, and organizing meaning as text
in context. At the same time, we can also use the map to shunt in the development of our description of a language
that is, to adopt complementary angles of approach, moving in along some dimension or other from above, from
below and from around. This theoretical map can be filled in by generalizing across descriptions of particular
languages, thus providing us with descriptive guidance indicating what we might look for in the development of the
description of a specific system of a language such as the transitivity system, where we might expect to find variation,
how we can use texts from different registers to develop a general account and when we might need to probe the
organization of the system by constructing or eliciting examples.
In this talk, I will try to provide general guidance along these lines, drawing on the work on different
languages by the Sydney systemic functional typology group, including Ernest Akerejola (Oko), Mohamed Ali Bardi
(Arabic), Alice Caffarel (French), Abhishek Kumar (Bajjika), Jim Martin (Tagalog), Pattama Patpong (Thai), David
Rose (Western Desert), Kazuhiro Teruya (Japanese), Minh Duc Thai (Vietnamese), Wu Canzhong (Chinese).
Reference
Caffarel, Alice, J.R. Martin & Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen (eds.). in
press. Language typology: a functional perspective. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.

Michio Sugeno
Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, Japan
msgn@brain.riken.go.jp
Systemic Functional Linguistic Approach to Creating the Brain
The human brain consists of a neural system as hardware and a language system as software.
It is, therefore, possible to take two approaches to create the human brain. While the hardware-centered
approach is based on the theory of neuro-computing, it is possible to base the software-centered approach on the
theory of language.
At the Laboratory for Language-Based Intelligent Systems, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, we have
adopted Systemic Functional Linguistics as the basic theory for the software-centered approach. Following Hallidays
four principles in the design of human language, we have implemented the computational model of language in
context, called the Semiotic Base, and we have developed a set of algorithms of text understanding and generation
using this model. The language used in this project is Japanese.
As an application of the models, we are developing the Everyday Language Computing Environment
under which we can manage and execute all kinds of computing through meanings. The idea is to verbalize
computers by constructing linguistic models of software and hardware applications.
In this talk, I shall discuss some linguistic issues in creating the brain. There are three higher-order
functions of the language-brain concerned with language: processing, utilizing, and learning language. Processing
language such as understanding and generation is a basic function with the internal models of language itself and its
processing. SFL could reveal what the internal models must be like. SFL could also play an essential role in
elucidating the brain functions of language utilization, for instance, thinking with language, and learning language.
I shall show some clinical evidence obtained from studies on aphasia which support the SFL perspective
on the system of language. I shall also refer to the brain internal models for motor control and some learning
mechanisms in the brain which might be related with language functions.

Eija Ventola
University of Salzburg, Germany
University of Helsinki, Finland
XXX email XXX
Globalization, the Media & the Internet SFL Challenges for English Language Teaching Materials
and the Classroom
Non scholae sed vitae discimus We are learning for life, not for school. This applies also to learning
English as a foreign language. Sometimes, when we look at English language teaching materials, it is hard to belief
that this has indeed been stated as our aim. This is of course not to say that foreign language teaching, its materials and
methods have not improved over the years. But too often we still find that the main driving force behind the teaching
philosophy and organisation principle in the materials is behaviouristic, formal, grammatical motivation, however
discourse oriented and multimodal materials on the surface appear to be. Grammar is not to be neglected in foreign
language teaching, but contextual meaning construal is what students need to practise and in a new millennium in new
ways.
This paper looks at the past, the present and the future of teaching English in a global society. Examples of
teaching English as a foreign language will be drawn from three major European contexts: Finland, Germany, and
Austria. The theories of linguistics and language teaching are closely intertwined with the technological developments
and the changing society but has English teaching kept the pace? What will be demanded in the future in the global,
multimodal society? How are we to meet the challenges of the media & Internet world, the globalization how
should we respond as systemic-functional linguistic theorists and as language teachers?