What is Systemic-Functional Linguistics?

For a good introductory article by Matthiessen and Halliday, see: here.

Other introductory descriptions are available:

● Some notes on Systemic-Functional linguistics, by Carol A. Chapelle

● Systemic Functional Theory. From the Systemic Modelling Group at Macquarie University.

The Theory

Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a theory of language centred around the notion of language function. While
SFL accounts for the syntactic structure of language, it places the function of language as central (what language does,
and how it does it), in preference to more structural approaches, which place the elements of language and their
combinations as central. SFL starts at social context, and looks at how language both acts upon, and is constrained by,
this social context.

A central notion is 'stratification', such that language is analysed in terms of four strata: Context, Semantics, Lexico-
Grammar and Phonology-Graphology.

Context concerns the Field (what is going on), Tenor (the social roles and relationships between the participants), and
the Mode (aspects of the channel of communication, e.g., monologic/dialogic, spoken/written, +/- visual-contact, etc.).

Systemic semantics includes what is usually called 'pragmatics'. Semantics is divided into three components:

● Ideational Semantics (the propositional content);

● Interpersonal Semantics (concerned with speech-function, exchange structure, expression of attitude, etc.);

● Textual Semantics (how the text is structured as a message, e.g., theme-structure, given/new, rhetorical structure
etc.

The Lexico-Grammar concerns the syntactic organisation of words into utterances. Even here, a functional approach is
taken, involving analysis of the utterance in terms of roles such as Actor, Agent/Medium, Theme Mood, etc. (See
Halliday 1994 for full description).

Formalism

Central to SFL is the use of 'system networks', an inheritance network used to represent the choices present in making
an utterance. The 'choices' in this network are called 'features'. e.g., a simplified lexico-grammatical network.

- finite...
- clause -|
| - nonfinite...
|
 | -nominal-group...
| |
-|- group -|-adjectival-adverbial-group...
| |
| -prep-phrase...
|
- word...

The choices on each stratum are constrained by those on others. Thus the decision to use a nominal-group (= noun-
phrase), rather than a clause, to express a semantic 'process' will be determined by both the textual structure of the text
as a whole, and also by the social context (e.g., nominalisation is more functional in a science text than in casual
conversation).

Each feature is also associated witht the structural consequences of that choice, e.g., the feature 'finite' might have
realisations: +Subject; +Finite; Subject: [nominal-group]; Finite: [finite-verb], meaning a Subject and Finite element are
required, the Subject is filled by a nominal group, and the Finite by a finite-verb. Further selections in the clause
network will more tightly constrain the fillers of these roles, and specify the presence, fillers, and ordering of these
elements.

History of Systemics

SFL grew out of the work of JR Firth, a British linguist of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, but was mainly developed by his
student MAK Halliday. He developed the theory in the early sixties (seminal paper, Halliday 1961), based in England,
and moved to Australia in the Seventies, establishing the department of linguistics at the University of Sydney. Through
his teaching there, SFL has spread to a number of institutions throughout Australia, and around the world. Australian
Systemics is especially influential in areas of language education.

SFL teaching and research also continued in the UK, with main proponents including Margaret Berry, Dick Hudson
(before moving on), Chris Butler, Robin Fawcett, and many others. Another branch was established in Toronto,
Canada, under Michael Gregory (a British colleague of Halliday), and later Jim Benson, Michael Cummings, and Bill
Greaves. SFL teaching is now taught around the globe (click here for details).

Child Language Development

Some of Halliday's early work involved the study of his son's developing language abilities. This study in fact has had a
substantial influence on the present systemic model of adult language, particularly in regard to the metafunctions. This
work has been followed by other child language development work, especially that of Clare Painter. Ruqaia Hasan has
also performed studies of interactions between children and mothers. See an attached annotated bibliography by Peter
Fries.

Systemics & Computation

SFL has been prominent in computational linguistics, especially in Natural Language Generation (NLG). Penman, an
NLG system started at Information Sciences Institute in 1980, is one of the three main such systems, and has
influenced much of the work in the field. John Bateman (currently in Bremen, Germany) has extended this system into a
multilingual text generator, KPML. Robin Fawcett in Cardiff have developed another systemic generator, called
Genesys. Mick O'Donnell has developed yet another system, called WAG. Numerous other systems have been built
using Systemic grammar, either in whole or in part.

One of the earliest and best-known parsing systems is Winograd's SHRDLU, which uses system networks and
grammar as a central component. Since then, several systems have been developed using SFL (e.g., Kasper,
O'Donnell, O'Donoghue, Cummings, Weerasinghe), although this work hasn't been as central to the field as that in
NLG.

References

Halliday, M.A.K. 1961. Categories of the theory of grammar. Word 17. Reprinted in Bertil Malmberg (ed), .... .
Abridged version in Halliday (1976).

Halliday, M.A.K. 1994 Introduction to Functional Grammar, Second Edition, London: Edward Arnold.

Martin, James R. 1992 English Text: system and structure. Amsterdam: Benjamins.