Rega Detapratiwi
2201409057
405-406
Summary of
Systemic Functional Linguistics
Systemic, or Systemic-Functional,
theory has its origins in the main intellectual tradition of European
linguistics that developed following the work of Saussure. It is functional and
semantic rather than formal and syntactic in orientation, and its immediate
source is as a development of scale-&-category grammar. In systemic theory
the system takes priority; the most abstract representation at any level is in
paradigmatic terms. Syntagmatic organization is interpreted as the realization
of paradigmatic features.
Systemic-Functional Linguistics
(SFL) is a theory of language centered around the notion of language function. 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. 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.
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. Australian Systemics is especially influential in
areas of language education. 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. SFL has been prominent in computational
linguistics, especially in Natural Language Generation.
SFL treats language and social context
as complementary levels of semiosis, related by the concept of realization. The
interpretation of social context then includes two communication planes:
·
Genre (context of culture)
The
context of culture can be thought of as deriving from a vast complex network of
all of the genres which make up a particular culture. Genres are staged, goal
oriented social processes in which people engage as members of the culture.
·
Register (context of situation)
The
genres occur in particular situation types and it is the characteristics of
this situation type that influence the forms of language that realize the
genre. So the context of situation (register) is the second aspect of social
context that influences the linguistic realization of the genre.
(Martin, 1992:495)
The
context of situation of a text has been theorized by Halliday (Halliday and Hasan,
1985:12) in terms of the contextual variables of:
·
Field: refers to what is happening, to the
nature of the social action that is taking place: what is it that the
participants are engaged in, in which the language figures as some essential
component?
·
Tenor
·
Mode
Language bridges from the cultural meanings
of social context (the social hierarchies and role relationships, the
institutional activities, and the related distribution of language use within
these) to sound or writing. It does this by moving from higher orders of
abstraction to lower ones. These orders of abstraction are organized into three
levels or strata:
·
Semantics
is the interface between language and context of situation (register).
Semantics is therefore concerned with the meanings that are involved with the
three situational variables Field, Tenor and Mode.
·
Lexicogrammar
is a resource for wording meanings, for example realizing them as
configurations of lexical and grammatical items.
·
Phonology
(or graphology)
Ideational (experiential and logical)
meanings construing Field are realized lexicogrammatically by the system of
Transitivity. This system interprets and represents our experience of phenomena
in the world and in our consciousness by modeling experiential meanings in
terms of participants, processes and circumstances.
Interpersonal
meanings are realized lexicogrammatically by systems of Mood and Modality and
by the selection of attitudinal lexis. The Mood system is the central resource
establishing and maintaining an ongoing exchange between interactants by
assuming and assigning speech roles such as giving or demanding goods and
services or information. Modality is
the resource concerned with the domain of the negotiation of the proposition or
proposal between the categorical extremes of positive or negative. The
negotiation may be in terms of probability, usuality, obligation or
inclination.
Textual meanings are concerned with the
ongoing orchestration of interpersonal and ideational information as text in
context.
Lexicogrammatically textual meanings are realized
by systems of Theme and Information.
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