Questions posed by SFL

1. How can the inexact meanings of everyday communication be systematically defined? Aren't they specific to a social context, and even within one setting, don't different participants define them differently?

       It is unproblematic now, since Saussure, to accept a formal definition of language as a system of signs at the level of morphemes. Morphemes are relatively easy to identify and their semantic value can be generalized from many instances of relatively stable patterns of use. The same cannot be said of language at the level of communicative meaning (Saussure's "parole" -- speech in context; dynamic and open to interpretation -- in contrast to "langue" -- language viewed synoptically, as a sign system frozen in time and viewed from "above"; an analytical artifact). It is much more difficult to accept that the endlessly generative meanings that people make in communicative settings can be defined systematically. Fortunately, linguists working with vast stores of data from various situational contexts and in different media, are showing the patterned nature of spoken as well as written language -- patterned both internally and in relation to the occasion of use. As in any analysis of a large corpus of data, the story is told through probabilities, but the story can be clearly discerned nevertheless. Language is a resource for making meaning and the meaning-making system can be described synoptically, in terms of form-function relations at different levels of the system.
        Nevertheless, like any analytical artifact, a synoptic description obscures a great deal while making certain patterns of relations visible. For instance, there is a well-established tradition of formal analysis of written texts, especially literary texts, known as "stylistics." Traditionally, text analysis is aimed at relations internal to the text. But over the last several decades,

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