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Linguistics
is typically conceived as a description of language forms and structures,
which can be described outside of any social context. Systemic Functional
Linguistics is a description of language that begins with the meaning
that is communicated in context -- and then describes the forms and structures
of language used to communicate that meaning in a way that shows the linkage
-- More simply, it is a theory of language that describes how linguistic
signs are linked to the meanings they make. For a good, simple description
of the contrast between formal linguistics and a Systemic Functional Grammar,
see the first chapter to Introducing Functional
Grammar by Geoff Thompson (1996. NY: Arnold). SFL is designed
to be applied in fields outside linguistics, like education.
Systemic
Functional Linguistics differs from other linguistic theories in two important
ways: 1. It follows a tradition of text analysis (stylistics), beginning
with texts-in-context (what is said or written -- what language means
when used) to describe the language system below the level of text (its
grammar and other constituent features). 2. It is different in another
important way (related to the first): It begins with the premise that
there is more than one kind of meaning. Anyone who has looked at
a transcript of talk knows that there are many things happening when people
talk to each other -- they are interacting while they are talking about
something, and they are using language to regulate (i.e., negotiate) their
interaction and simultaneously to talk about whatever topics are of interest.
SFL
attempts to describe the way language works to enable people to engage
with one another while talking about something else. The study of meaning
concerned with ways of interacting, with "intention" and attitude,
acts of control and politeness, is ordinarily split off from the study
of grammar, producing disciplines such as speech act analysis, pragmatics,
and discourse analysis. All of these disciplines have made important contributions
to what we know and can say about language. They are not, however, systematically
related to the study of grammar. Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) attempts
to interrelate a description of how language works interpersonally with
a description of how language represents experience.
SFG
defines still one more kind of meaning. What makes a text coherent? What
makes a text a single text rather than many little texts? How do we know,
in a written text, that one paragraph has anything to do with another?
The resources of language that stick text together, that tie different
kinds of meanings together, provide what Halliday calls textual
(integrative) meaning. The grammar is designed to show how the grammatical
system is exploited in different ways by the different kinds of meanings
we make.
SFG
is a complex and elaborate description of language. Imagine a sentence
diagram that has three different but related lines of analysis -- a triple
diagram. If you are a teacher, perhaps already you see the difficulty
of using SFG in classrooms. And yet, SFG has informed wonderful curricular
materials produced in Great Britain and Australia. One such resource,
"The Little Red Book," is
available here.
More SFL-related issues
LINKS ON THIS PAGE
Systemic
Functional Linguistics SFL
-- Educational applications
Systemics
and education -- resources Introducing
Functional Grammar
"The Little Red Book," More
SFL-related issues
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