SYSTEMIC

FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS

Michael Halliday

Australian linguist

Halliday (1975) identifies

seven functions

Children are motivated to

acquire language

Michael Halliday
* The first
four functions
Halliday calls
them:

Instrumental: This is
when the child uses
language to express
their needs (e.g.'Want
juice')

Regulatory: This is
where language is
used to tell others
what to do

Interactional: to
make contact with
others and form
relationships

Personal: use to
express feelings,
opinions and
individual identity

* The next
three functions
are:

Heuristic: is used
to gain knowledge
about the
environment

Imaginative: to tell
stories and jokes,
and to create an
imaginary.

Representational:
to convey facts
and information.

MICHAEL HALLIDAY
Some of Michaels Halliday early work involved the study of child
language development.

What is language?
Language is a systematic
resource for expressing meaning
in context.
What is the role of
linguistic structure?
-When Linguistic
Structure occurred in
text, are considered
natural because

How should be described?

In linguistics description,
language is a system rather
than structure.

What is the relevant

unit of analysis?
For SFL is the text,
because the functional
meaning potential of
language is realized in
units no smaller than texts

How is Linguistic
variation explained?

What about language acquisition?

Is learning how to express meanings acquiring the
functions one can perform with human language.

 -The label "Systemic" is related to the

System Networks used in the description of
the Lexico- grammar of human languages.

- Is an approach to linguistics that considers

language as a system.

SFL:

Michael Halliday

SFL: Michael Halliday

-SFL

Is the study of
functions and
semantics
-Oriented linguists
begin with the analysis

Context of the
situation:
-Social envioronment
Functional
organization of
language.

Hallidays approach:

Systemic-Functional Linguistics
THEORY
(what language does, and how it does it)
language is analyzed in terms of four strata:
-Context, concerns the Field (what is going
on)
Field: What
is happening.
The Nature of
the social
interaction
taking place.

Tenor: who
is taking
part; the
social roles
and
relationships
of participant

Mode: the
symbolic
organization
of the text,
rhetorical
modes

Systemic-Functional Linguistics
THEORY
-Semantics, divided into Ideational Semantics,
Interpersonal Semantics and Textual Semantics.

-Lexico-Grammar concerns the syntactic organization

of words into utterances.

SFL: Michael Halliday

FORMALISM
Central to SFL is the use of 'system networks', an inheritance
network used to represent the choices present in making an
utterance. The 'choices' in this network are called 'features'.
e.g., a simplified lexico-grammatical network.
- finite...
- clause -|
|
- nonfinite...
|
|
-nominal-group...
|
|
-|- group -|-adjectival-adverbial-group...
|
|
|
-prep-phrase...
|
- word...

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

Halliday proposes a linguistic theory:

Semantics: The speaker does not choose between forms

but between meanings.

Functionalisms: The language is organized by functions,

It is functional because the organization of the system
becomes on the base of the functions of the language.

The language in use: Those options become in context.

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

The speaker has a meaning potential that it updates when it chooses

by some of them when producing a text in a specific situational
context.
Every time we produce a text, we are choosing from the set of options
that provides the linguistic system. Each user of the language makes
his elections within the grammar, in contexts of types of situation.

What is the registry?

Registry is called to the adjustment of the text to the context. It is the

variety of language determined by the communicative situation.
The users consider the variables of field, tenor and way to carry out
their elections from the system.

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

Which are the primary functions of the language?

Ideational: The language organizes our experience and aid

to conform our vision of the world.

Interpersonal: The language serves to establish and to

maintain relations social, to determine communicative rolls,
social groups and to consolidate the identity of the speakers.

Textual: The language offers to the users appropriate means

to create coherent messages or texts.