SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR CHRIS BUTLER hlm 527 533
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR CHRIS BUTLER (hlm. 527 -533)
A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH context of culture MALINOWSKI (antrpolog) C. of situation c. of utterance linguistic context (grammatical items were functioning or having meaning Prague school J. R. Firth SFG glossematics C. of situation (meaning was the function of a unit in its context) whorf
• FG related to interpretations of (1) text, (2) system, (3) element of linguistic structures. • Appear in the needs of a tool to analyze a text. • A way in looking at the grammar in term how grammar / language is used (natural grammar).
• Three metafunctional component of all languages : (1) ideational (what is it talk about? ), (2) interpersonal (show the attitude of speaker into the language or into another participants), (3) textual (produce cohesive and coherence of the text to be understood by the readers). Which are the manifestation of the linguistic system. • Each element in a language is explained by reference to its function in the total linguistic system.
Differences… Functional: • Use ‘grammar’ consisting of syntax, vocabulary, & morphology. • Focuses on the development of grammatical systems as a means for people to interact with each other Formal: • Use ‘syntax’ opposed to semantics • The ways in which our genes constrain the shape of our grammars (what we can and cannot say)
Differences… • Using labels like N, V, Adj and functions labels like actor, process, goal, etc to make the grammatical analysis semantically revealing. • Not prescriptive but as tools for understanding why a text is the way it is. • Using labels like N, V, Adj, but not functions labels. • Prescriptive, which tell you what you can and what you can not say and provide you for correcting what are often referred to as grammatical error
EMBRIO OF SFG SCALE AND CATEGORY LINGUISTICS (HALLIDAY 1961) FORM (grammar and lexicon) THREE LEVELS Substance (phonology, orthography Situational context (Semantics) Unit (sentence, word, morpheme) Structure (Syntagmatic order) LANGUAGE FOUR BASIC CATEGORIES Class (Noun, verb, etc. ) System (Paradigmatic order) Rank (hierarchical ordering of units) THREE ABSTRACTION SCALES Exponence ( rel. cat and ling. Data) Delicacy (distintions on all level)
Choice and constituency clause Process Actor n. group Deictic det those Thing noun shoe v. group Finite verb are clause rank choices resulting in function structure Goal n. group Event Deictic group rank choices resulting in function structure Thing verb pronoun wrecking my feet word rank choices resulting group function
Characteristics of SFG 1. Language as meaningful choice in social contexts To construct social meaning 2. The interpretation of function in SFG 3. The proposed relationship between metafunction and register 4. The central importance of text: cohesion and discourse/text structure in SFG 5. S F G and Pragmatics
Language as meaningful choice in social contexts To construct social meaning Language is used To negotiate social meaning To transmit culture
Function in SFG 1. To serve in communication and to motivate the shape of the grammar in functional term. 2. To refer to relational elements (microfunction or functional role): Subject, Object, Agent, Recipient, etc. 3. To refer metafunction (macrofunction): ideational (experiential and logical) (to represent the world) interpersonal ( to set up and maintain social relations) textual (to enable the construction of situatonally relevant and internally coherent passages)
John Ideational Interpersonal Textual will AGENT SUBJECT FINITE give Mary PROCESS (Material) RECIPIENT The BLEU books PREDICATOR COMPLE MENT THEME GOAL COMPLE MENT today CIRCUMSTANCE (Location in time) ADJUNCT RHEME GIVEN NEW GIVEN
Levels of a text Semantics Meanings / Messages grammar encoded wordings Nonarbitrer/ natural The form of the grammar relates naturally to the meanings that are being encoded recoded arbitrer Sound or writing
The proposed relationship between metafunction and register Context Text Semantics (meanings) Field (What’s going on) Tenor (Social relations) Mode (Contextual coherence Ideational Interpersonal Textual Lexicogrammar (Wordings) Transitivity (Processes, Participants, Circumstances) Mood and Modality (Speech roles, attitudes) Theme , Cohesion
The central importance of text: cohesion and discourse/text structure in SFG Ø SFG emphases on text analysis as a mode of action using theory of language ØA discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis a all, but simply a running commentary on a text. (Halliday 1994: xvii) Ø A text is a passage of discourse which is coherent with respect to the context of sitation (register) and with respect to itself (Cohesive). Ø An analysis of textual structure is done using several types of approach: hierarchical models of discourse structure (Brimingham school) or generic structure potential. (See Butler 531)
SFG and Pragmatics Halliday Pragmaticians 1. sociologically-oriented works 1. Philosophically-oriented works 2. Clause as excange 2. Speech functions (illocution) 3. Interpersonal grammatical metaphor 3. Indirect speech acts 4. 4. Interpretation of indirection of various kinds 5. Discourse structure such as deictic and cohesion has pragmatic relevance.
Criteria of adequacy in SFG Ø The grammar needs to be explecit, if it is to go on being useful; it must be able to generate wordings from the most abstract grammatical categories by some explicit set of inteermediate steps. (H 1994: xix) Ø The test of a theory of language, in relation to any particular purpose, is: does it go? does it facilitate the task in hand?
Functional and class unit Nominal group Deictic determiner a Nominal group Classifier Thing verb noun running shoe ‘A shoe for running’ Deictic determiner a Epithet Thing verb noun running shoe ‘A shoe which is running’
Application of FG • Analysis of texts, spoken or written • Styllictics • Computational linguistics (Matthiessen and Bateman, 1991) • Developmental linguistics and study of socialization • Study of functional variation in language and the relation between language and the context of situation and of culture.
Application of FG • As the basis of CDA (Fairclough, 1992) • A number of educational applications: initial literacy (Cope and Kalantzis, 1993), children’s writing, language in secondary education, classroom discourse analysis, teaching of foreign languages, analysis of textbooks, error analysis, teaching of literature and teacher education. • Click sysfling@u. washington. edu.
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