SYSTEMIC-

FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS
 Introduction
Systemic Functional Linguistics is an approach to language
developed by Halliday (1985). Many of the linguistics theories today are
concerned with language as a mental process but Systemic Functional
Linguistics is more into sociology that explores how language is used in
social contexts to achieve particular goals. Instead of addressing to how
language is processed or represented within the brain, it is more
looking at the text produced (whether spoken or written) and its
contexts. Since it concerns with language use, it places more emphasis
on language function (what it is used for) than on language structure
(how it is composed). Systemic Functional Linguistics starts at social
context, looks at how language acts upon it and is constrained by it
(O’Donnel in Fauziati, 2016).
 Systemic-Functional Linguistics
Semantics
Context The SFL semantics component
Halliday (1978) in Fauziati states is construed of three
that the environment of language
seen as texts and their component
metafunctions: ideational,
.
parts is called the context of Context interpersonal and textual. Each
situation, whereas the environment is about a different aspect of
of language seen as a system (its Semantics the world, and is concerned
lexical items and grammatical with a different mode of
categories) is context of culture.
meaning of clauses.
Lexico-Grammar Phonology-Graphology
The term lexicogrammar has two Lexico-Grammar Phonology-
Dealing with how text is
distinct but related notion: (1) Graphology
organased as a system of
the typical lexical and
sounding and concerns how
grammatical environment of a
the text is organised as a
sign
. as it is usually used in
system of written symbols..
naturally occurring texts or
stratum of and
discourse, ‘wording’
(2) theincore
Halliday’s model of language,
which serves to mediate between the lower stratum
of ‘sounding’(graphology/phonology) and higher
‘meaning’
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 Context

Context of Context of culture

situation

context of culture
Field Mode deals with the society
the characters live in
Tenor and at how their
culture can affect their
behavior and their
opportunities.

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Field
Field concerns on what we talk or the text is about. For typical
field there are science, education, war, medicine, sports and for specific
fields are biology, microbiology, language education English language
education, etc.
Field plays an important role. It can be non-technical or
technical or specialist as in linguistics, law, engineering, physics,
computer science, and many other fields. In specialist field lexical
mutuality of text, specific structures and certain grammatical patterns
belonging to the field are employed in an appropriate way, for example,
terms like plasmodium, anthelmintics and prophylactics in medicine;
terms like hydrogen, neutron, molecule in physics. (Halliday & Hasan,
1985:10)
To analize text for its field, we can examine lexical items and its
process and circumstance types. The field also can be easily examined
through its specialization, how well known the lexical words to a general
audience and to a specialized audience.

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 Tenor
Tenor refers to the people involved in the communication and the
relationships between them. According to Halliday and Hasan, tenor of
discourse refers to “who is taking part, to the nature of participants, their
statuses and roles: what kinds of role relationship obtain among the
participants, including permanent and temporary relationships of one kind or
another, both the types of speech role that they are taking on in the dialogue
and the whole clusterof socially significant relationships in which they are
involved?” (Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 12). It includes power relations
(unequal: doctor/patient, teacher/student, equal: friend/friend,
student/student), formality (formal/informal), and closeness
(distant/neutral/close).

Interactive Text Non-Interactive Text

1. Relative status (Equality/Inequality) 1. Personalisation

2. Social distance 2. Standing

3. Stance

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 Mode
Mode points out to what parts language is playing in unteraction
and what form does it take (spoken or written). It includes Role (Ancillary:
language accompanying nonverbal activity, as when we talk as we cook
together or constitutive the event is defined by language, as in a speech),
Channel: written vs spoken, or some mix, directionality: uni-directional
channel or bi-directional (unidirectional allows only monologue, while a
bi-directional channel allows dialogue), Media: +/- visual contact (e,g -
visual for a telephone conversation); use of multimedia (video,
powerpoint, etc), Preparation: spontaneous vs prepared; rushed vs time
for reflection (O’Donnel, 2011)

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 Semantics
Ideational Metafunction

Interpersonal Metafunction

Textual Metafunction

Halliday (1985) in
8 Fauziati
 Ideational Metafunction

Ideational metafunction (the proportional content) is about the natural world in the
broadest sense. In informal term it refers to the content of the message. It concerns with
the process involved (i.e actions, events or states, entities) and the circumstances within
which they take place. A major component of the ideational metafunction is transitivity.
Transitivity functions to to link grammar to metafunctions related to the context. It deals
with transmission of ideas representing processes or experiences (Halliday, 1985: 94). In
addition, transitivity is the rel;ationships established between the processes, the
participants, and the circumstances encoded in the clause. In traditional grammar,
transitivity was developed as the concept of transitive or intransitive verb whether the verb
takes an object or not (Halliday, 1976: 159), but in SFL it functions to link grammar to the
metafuncions. In Halliday’s term, transitivity deals with the “transmition of ideas
representing processes or experiences: actions, events, processes of consciousness and
relations” (1985: 53).

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 Interpersonal Metafunction
Interpersonal metafunction is about the social world, especially the
relationship between the speaker and the hearer, and is concerned with clauses as
exchange. It includes speech function, exchange structure, expression of attitude,
etc.). A major feature of it is mood. Grammatical mood (mode) is a grammatical
feature of verbs, used for signaling modality, that is, the use of verbal inflections that
allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying (e.g a
statement of fact, of desire, of command, etc.). in broader sense, mood is used to
describe the syntactic expression of modality, that is, the use of verb phrases that
do not involve inflexion of the verb itself. Halliday (1981: 30) defines mood parallel
to interpersonal communication which embraces three grammatical categories:
speech function, modality, and tone. The interpersonal metafunction concentrates
on social roles and relation through formality degree, pronouns, clausal mood
(whrther declarative, imperative or interrogative), etc.

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 Textual Metafunction

Textual function is about the verbal world, especially the flow of information
in a text, and is concerned with clauses as messages. It deals with how the text is
structured as a message, involving thematic structure, information structure and
cohesion (Halliday, 1985). ).
One of the major elements of textual metafunction is thematic structure
which is an analysis of the clause in terms of theme (the speaker’s starting point)
and rheme (where the clause goes from there). Other term are the old and new
information structure and topic and comment. Any component in a clause (subject,
predicator, complement or circumstantial adjunct) can be topicalized and placed in
thematic position (the beginning of the clause which is more significant than other
locations in a sentence).

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Lexico-Grammar
The term lexicogrammar has two distinct but
related notion: (1) the typical lexical and grammatical
environment of a sign as it is usually used in naturally
occurring texts or discourse, and (2) the core stratum of
‘wording’ in Halliday’s model of language, which serves to
mediate between the lower stratum of
‘sounding’(graphology/phonology) and higher ‘meaning’
(Semantics/discourse) (Halliday, 1961 Fries et al. 2002,
Halliday & Matthiessen 2004).
Lexis is a structured system of signs which serves
to organize the vocabulary of language while grammar is a
structured system of choices which serves to organize
sequences of signs into texts.
Phonology-Graphology
Phonology => How the text is organised as a system of
soundings (Phonemes, tone units, turns, etc).
It is applied for speech/ spoken text.

Graphology => How the text is organised as a system of

written symbols (Characters, sentences,
paragraphs, etc). It is applied for writing/
written text.
 Pedagocical Implication
The contribution of systemic functional linguistics to the language education is centered on its
relevance to the explanation and interpretation of texts.
Systemic Functional Linguistics highlights the relationship between language, text, and context. It is
both a theory of language and a methodology for analyzing texts and their contexts of use. Because of its
dual nature, it aims to explain how individuals use language and how language is structured for its
differentusages (Eggins, 1994).
In relation to language education, Lock (1996:1) states “the systemic functional perspective does
not focus on the distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical linguistic forms, but rather on
appropriateness of each lexicogrammatical choice for a particular communicative purpose in a particular
social context”. In learning a foreign language the learners are expected to develop the ability to
communicate effectively with other speakers or writers of the new language. To do so, they need a
grammatical description of the language that goes beyond listing forms and structures and includes a
description of the available linguistic resources and of how they are used in social interactions.