Functions of language

Halliday’s Systemic Functional

Linguistics
 Systemic Functional Grammar or Linguistics, first introduced
by Michael Halliday (1985), refers to a new approach to the
study of grammar that is radically different from the
traditional view in which language is a set of rules for
specifying grammatical structures.
 Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is an approach to
linguistics or a social theory of language developed by Halliday
in the twentieth century and it continues to evolve in this
century in which Halliday sees language in a social context.
This theory considers language as a resource used for
communication and not as a set of rules. It offers a number of
structures that can be modified according to our needs in
order to be functional or applicable in our real life. Halliday
shows the way we use language to interpret our experience
Language functions
 Cohesion leads to coherence but according to
Halliday, this is not the only way for a text to be
coherent.
 A text can be coherent if the writer was cognizant
of the functions of the language and how he or she
can make use of these functions in the writing
process.
 According to Halliday, The functions of the
language are divided into three:
 1- Ideational
 2-Interpersonal
 3-textual
Ideational metafunction
 Halliday (2004) provides us with a useful tool
for distinguishing between possible meanings
of words, and thus for explaining how we
make language coherent. He explains that
when we speak and write we use words to
represent ideas and experiences. There is
more than one way to describe any idea or
experience.
 Imagine, for example, that you see two people
wearing suits shaking hands in an office
 How could you describe this event? You have
to make choices about the language you use
to describe that seemingly simple experience.
 Two people shook hands
 a man and a woman shook hands
 a black man and an Asian woman shook hands
 two people in suits made a deal
 a business meeting ended
 All of these are possible, as would be many
more choices. Do you describe the event as a
very short event (a handshake) or as part of a
larger event (business meeting)? Do you
describe the people very generally (a man) or
in detail (a tall, balding, black man in a blue
suit)? Do you describe where they are, how
they are posed, the expressions on their
faces, or not? The list of things you could say
is potentially very long, so you make choices.
 Once you have made your language choices
about the idea or experience you wish to
describe, we can analyse the language you
used in terms of how it represents those ideas
and experiences. This is the essence of
Halliday’s ideational metafunction, a short list
of six possible choices that you make for each
clause that you produce.
 You can mostly ignore the prefix meta in the
word metafunction. Just remember that
language has a function of representing ideas.
 let’s look at an example that shows how this tool
(ideational metafunction) is useful in distinguishing
between possible meanings and actual senses of words.
Explain the sense of call in the two sentences in 2.3.
 1-Call me Jane.
 2. Call me tomorrow.
 In the first example, the meaning of the word “call”
determines the sense of the whole sentence. The
meaning is : call me by my name Ishmael”
 You realize that the person’s name is not “ tomorrow” in
the second example and that instead the sense is “use
your telephone to contact me tomorrow.”
 Using the ideational function of language could
make two identical groups of words mean
different things by realizing them differently.
 The two sentences are similar in several ways:
both are made up of three words, both begin
with the imperative form of the verb call, both
have the object me following the verb and both
have one additional word following me. The
difference between the two final words, Jane
and tomorrow, cause us to make sense of call
in different ways.
 Halliday’s ideational metafunction provides us
with a useful tool for clarifying the difference
between these two senses. He explains that we
should think of each verb in a clause as
representing one of six possible processes. Call
in “Call me Jane ” is a verbal process, meaning it
is a process that involves producing sound with
your mouth: saying, speaking, singing, shouting
and so on. Call in “Call me tomorrow” is a
material process, meaning it is a process that
involves physical action: jumping, kicking,
swimming, driving and so on
The six processes
 01. Material processes – Verbs of doing, such as jump,
kick and drive. These are verbs in the sense that most
people describe them; someone is doing something
physical.
 A material clause is characterized by particular structural
configurations, such as Process+ Actor+ Goal
(+Recipient).
 For example,
 [the policeman (=Actor) hunted (=Process) the
demonstrator (=goal)],
 Or not [the policeman (Actor) ran (=Process)].
 There may be a Recipient [the judge (Actor) gave (Process)
the demonstrator (Recipient) a legal document (Goal)].
 02. Mental processes – Verbs of thinking and feeling,
such as wonder, love and worry. A mental process
construes sensing, perception, cognition, intention,
and emotion. These are verbs in which something is
being done, but the process can’t be seen by
outsiders.
 It is structured as Process+ Senser+ Phenomenon
 There is always a Senser, which is realized by a
nominal group denoting as being endowed with
consciousness.
 She saw them crossing the street.
 She felt pain. (sensor+process+phenomenon)
 03. Relational processes – Verbs of being, such as be, seem
and appear. Verbs of this type often don’t mean anything;
they just show a relation between two things. The verb “is” in
the film title “Life Is Beautiful” is not describing a process
involving action of any sort; it simply relates a concept, life,
with an attribute, beautiful. When we learn another language
we can often skip over relational processes and still make
ourselves understood. I can say, “I… Sean” and “I… hungry”
and you can guess that I’m omitting am. This doesn’t occur
if I try to skip over other processes. If I were to say, “I…
Buckingham Palace” it is impossible to know if the missing
verb is saw, visited, photographed or something else entirely.
 They model any experience as ‘being’ or ‘having’ rather than
as ‘doing’ or ‘sensing’
Relational processes
 They are concerned with the relationship set up
between two things or concepts, e.g. ‘Edward is clever’,
‘Mary is the doctor’. Relational processes are expressed
in two modes: ‘attributive’ and ‘identifying’. In the
attributive mode, an Attribute is ascribed to some
entity (carrier), while in the Identifying mode, one
entity (identifier) is used to identify another (identified).
In the example, Edawrd is clever, Edward is the Carrier;
the verb is signifies an Attributive relational process
and clever is the Attribute. But, in the example, Mary is
the doctor, Mary is the Identified element, is
represents an Identifying Relational process, and the
doctor is the Identifier
 04. Verbal processes – Verbs of saying, such as talk,
sing and shout. “Verbal” here is in the sense of “relating
to words”, not in the sense of “nouns and verbs”.
 The verbalization (the message) itself is termed
‘verbiage’ and the participants associated with it are
‘sayer’, the one who gives out the message, and
‘Receiver’, the one to whom the message is addressed.
 For example, “she told me a story”
 she Sayer,
 the verb told represents a ‘Verbal Process’,
 me is the ‘Receiver’ told of the message,
 and finally is “ a story” the ‘Verbiage.’
 05. Behavioural processes – Verbs of conscious but often invisible
action, such as stare, listen and watch. Think about the difference
between hear and listen. They both relate in meaning to our aural
sense, but hear is used for unconscious, unfocused processes,
while listen implies that the process is conscious, focused and
intentional.

 We might ask “Did you hear that?” after a strange noise is

produced from somewhere. We’re asking if the noise was heard,
despite the fact that it was unexpected. Hear is usually a mental
process. This is different from when we use “Listen to this”, which
prompts someone to consciously focus their aural sense. Listen is
a behavioural process.
 They are processes of physiological and psychological behavior,
like smiling, coughing, laughing, breathing, etc.. They usually have
one participant only- the Behaver; for example, John gently smiled
 06. Existential processes –The word existential
simply means “related to existence”. These are verbs
that point out the existence of something. As
discussed briefly in Chapter 1, “There’s a funny
smell in this room” means something like “A funny
smell in this room exists.” The word there is the
subject of that sentence, but it doesn’t mean
anything. There and is work together to mean exists.
 Existential processes will typically begin with there
and be followed by a form of the verb be. The
Smith’s song title There Is a Light That Never Goes
Out means “A light that never goes out exists.”
 Existential processes show that something exists or
happens.
 The word there is frequently used in such clauses,
but it has no identified function or meaning, and is
merely a subject filler. The
 Typical verbs used in these clauses are ‘be’, ‘exist’,
‘arise’ and other verbs expressing existence. The
nominal group that follows these verbs is called
‘Existent’.
 For example, There was no choice
 No choice is the ‘Existent’ and
 Was the ‘Existential Process.’
 Using the ideational metafunction does give
analysts a precise tool to use when they want to
explain what a text is about, meaning what types
of ideas and experiences are being expressed in
the discourse. This tool, combined with the
cohesive relations described in Chapter 1, allows
us to say clearly what kind of discourse we are
analyzing.
 Instead of relying on general feelings about the
topic, we can use accurate metalanguage
(language used to talk about language) to explain
the discourse.
Reference
 A beginner’s Guide to Discourse Analysis
 Pages 44-50