Perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics

Akila Sellami-Baklouti, Lise Fontaine, Akila Sellami-Baklouti, Lise Fontaine

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781315299853
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This innovative collection brings together contributions from established and emerging scholars highlighting the "appliability" of Systemic Functional Linguistics and the ways in which theoretical and analytical conclusions drawn from its applications can inform and advance the study of language. The book discusses SFL's theoretical foundations and development in recent years to demonstrate its evolution into a more effective analytical tool. Building on this theoretical framework, the volume showcases the theory's applications in case studies exploring four sub-disciplines of language study: multilingual studies; translation studies; language learning and language teaching; and genre analysis. This all-inclusive volume demonstrates both Systemic Functional Linguistics' efficacy as a means of theoretical analysis, but also its value as a unique approach to the study of language and meaning, making this an indispensable resource for researchers and scholars in applied linguistics, discourse analysis, genre studies, translation studies, and multilingualism.

1
Perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics

Lise Fontaine and Akila Sellami-Baklouti

1. Introduction

Since its advent in the 1960s, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) has tried to “provide something to think with, a framework of related concepts that can be drawn on in many different contexts where there are problems that turn out to be, when investigated, essentially problems of language” (Halliday, 2009, p. viii). Like any other linguistic theory, SFL has endeavoured to seek answers to problems related to language. However, what distinguishes it from many other linguistic theories is that this endeavour has not been restricted to theoretical questions but has been extended to applications to other fields, offering thus new perspectives and trying to provide a framework that is appliable to other domains of study where language is involved.

In his preface to the fourth edition of Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (2014: xviii), Matthiessen expresses his gratitude to Halliday for “daring to develop appliable linguistics when application was a sign of theoretical impurity”. Six decades after the development of SFL in the 1960s, this appliability is no longer seen as a sign of theoretical impurity, but rather as a sign of richness in linguistic studies. The continual progress and evolution of SFL as a fully developed linguistic theory has made of it more than just an efficient analytical tool as it has gained the power to contribute to the development of many domains. This volume has been motivated by the need to highlight some of the SFL theoretical perspectives which have made of it an ‘appliable’ theory, as it has been intended, and to show these applications at work.

The compilation of chapters in this volume is an attempt at showing how theoretical and analytical perspectives from SFL have helped achieve major advances in some fields of study. In addition to theoretical perspectives (Section 1.1), this volume has thematized three other main perspectives on language, namely multilingual and translation studies (Section 1.2), language learning and teaching (Section 1.3) and genre analysis (Section 1.4).

1.1. Theoretical Perspectives

The first part of the volume explores the theoretical space created by the openness and functional orientation of SFL by considering its potential for interaction with other related theories. To begin this exploration, François (Chapter 2) situates SFL in its functional and systemic backgrounds by considering the historical place of SFL among functional theories of language and by evaluating ‘system’ vs ‘systemicity’ in terms of a theory of systemics. François argues that SFL, while generally systemic in terms of structural linguistics, is not compatible with general system theory due to its preoccupation with motivations which are primarily, or solely, inherent to the semiotic system rather than by its interactions with embodied cognition and the extraneous world. Following this, Bartlett (Chapter 3) examines the theoretical place of the context of culture within SFL by considering the complex interactions of language and society. He discusses how SFL theory might be able to account for perpetual socio-cultural change and argues for viewing texts as “the intersection of multiple semiotic histories”. His work provides an account of how SFL can contribute to and benefit from other models (e.g. critical theory and linguistic anthropological models), arguing that we should be “moving beyond our cultural silos”. In Chapter 4, Williams, Irwin and Russell similarly develop an approach that explores the interface between SFL and other theories, but here it concerns cognitive science. The authors build on the theoretical notions of stratification, instantiation, delicacy and rank to show how cognition can be modelled as a stratified semi-otic system. In the last chapter of this section, Triki and Triki (Chapter 5) move into literary traditions by considering the interface between SFL, stylistics and pragmatics. Focusing on projection in particular, they propose a two-step analysis of text, drawing on these three theoretical approaches, which can offer an interpretation of literary texts in socio-cultural, psychological and ideological terms.

1.2. Perspectives on Multilingual and Translation Studies

Different from the quest for structural universals advocated by generative theory, the multilingual dimension in SFL has rather focused on the investigation of the collective human meaning potential. Although Halliday worked first on Chinese before adding English to his descriptive range of tasks, he was at the same time developing a general theory of grammar, and of language, that could be applied to any language under description, leading thus to a body of research providing accounts of the grammars of different languages. An attempt at sketching the theoretical foundations of such accounts is offered by Matthiessen in Chapter 6, where he locates the notion of meaning potential in a typology of systems and introduces its multilingual version, and then uses pairs and sets of languages to show how this SFL perspective, combining a view ‘from below’ and a view ‘from above’ can be helpful in studying similarities and difference among languages. More examples of contrastive studies adopting this perspective are provided in the subsequent chapters. In Chapter 7, Sellami-Baklouti argues for the relevance of SFL notions of register and choice to the description and analysis of user-related varieties in a literary text and concludes that variation between languages can originate in the context, hence the need for a “contextual adaptation of meaning” (Matthiessen, this volume). The notion of choice in translation is also addressed in Chapter 8 by Wang and Ma, who discuss four different kinds of metafunctional translation shift related to the textual and logical metafunction in two English translations of the dramatic monologue in a Chinese drama entitled Teahouse. In Chapter 9, Arús Hita provides a contrastive description of projection across ranks in English and Spanish, highlighting similarities and dissimilarities. Another contrastive description—between English and Japanese—is provided in Chapter 10 by Chik, who draws on SFL perspectives to compare written corporate legal texts in a bilingual corpus (Japanese and English). In the last chapter in this section, Chapter 11, Mwinlaaru studies the role of clause initial and final particles in Dagaare and gives a profile of eighteen unique particles, identifying the various attitudinal meanings they enact in exchange and their systemic relationship with one another.

1.3. Perspectives on Learning and Teaching

The third section of this volume, a second type of application of SFL is addressed; this section focuses on educational applications, which according to Halliday (1994) are “probably the broadest range of its applications; it includes experience in initial literacy, 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”. The chapters in this section address two main SFL applications in educational settings, namely models of register and register variation (Chapters 12 and 13) and models of functional grammar (Chapters 14 and 15). In Chapter 12, Miller and Luporini discuss the implications of teaching Systemic Socio-Semantic Stylistics in ESL literary criticism classes. In Chapter 13, Benítez, Barletta, Chamorro, Mizuno and Moss describe an institutional proposal implemented at Universidad del Norte (Barranquilla, Colombia) designed to provide teachers from various disciplines with theoretical and practical tools to guide their students’ comprehension and writing of discipline-specific texts. The descriptive models of the functional grammar are used to depict and address difficulties encountered by EFL learners when lexico grammatical realizations in English are different from those of their mother language. In Chapter 14, Martínez Insua studies Theme in the oral discourse of native and non-native users of English, arguing that gaining awareness and knowledge of the thematic structure of native English may help learners/teachers in the process of learning/teaching English. In Chapter 15, Moalla addresses the challenges that Tunisian learners face in the translation of nominal groups from English to Arabic, hypothesizing that these difficulties are mainly due to the lack of equivalence in experiential classification and patterns of modification across the two languages.

1.4. Perspectives on Genre Analysis

The perspective taken in the fourth section of the volume concentrates on genre and discourse analysis. For Halliday (1994, p. xv) “the aim has been to construct a grammar for the purposes of text analysis”. He further argues that “a discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all”. On the one hand, discourse analysts recognize the textualization of lexico grammar as one of the three phases of discourse analysis, along with organization of discourse and contextualization of discourse (Bhatia, 2004). Hyland (2011, p. 175) argues that the analysis of typical textual structures can help genre analysts reveal the preferences of disciplinary communities, and he recognizes the influence of “Halliday’s view of language as a system of choices which link texts to particular contexts through patterns of lexico grammatical rhetorical features”. The chapters in this section take this research direction and map generic typicality by exploring lexico grammatical recurrences in different genres pertaining to medical, scientific, academic and legal discourse.

Karimi, Moore and Lukin (Chapter 16) open this section with their work on consultations between an oncologist and patients with advanced, incurable cancer. Their application of the SFL contextual system networks in the study of palliative oncology consultations reveals important aspects of consultation communication, including indicators of good practice for both expert practitioner and patient experience. Banks (Chapter 17) shows how the discourse analysis of historical texts can reveal ideological differences between exact sciences and the humanities in terms of the use of process types. In particular, Banks analyses the use of perception processes from the period 1665–1700 in texts taken from the Philosophical Transactions and the Journal des Sçavans, showing how his detailed grammatical analysis informs our understanding of these historical scientific texts. In Chapter 18, Benelhaj turns to academic writing and considers the way space is construed in comparative registers. Her work shows how a detailed analysis of spatial prepositions reveals different uses in different contexts. Continuing with academic writing as the focus, Ktari (Chapter 19) shows, through a detailed analysis of elaboration post-modifiers, how lexico grammatical structure is genre-driven. Her results shed light on the differing uses of elaboration in relation to generic variations. The legal discipline is taken up in Chapters 20 and 21. Hlioui (Chapter 20) studies the use of personal reference in Medrano burglary court hearings. The lexico grammatical analysis both experientially and interpersonally shows how sensitive these expressions are as an index that reflects the ultimate goals of the speaker in terms of their role in the courtroom as well as the way in which the speaker chooses to represent their experience. Fki (Chapter 21) presents work on international treaties, where she provides detail about the function of hypotactic enhancing clauses. Her work shows how the communicative purposes of the specific sections of the treaties are construed by these constructions.

1.5. Future Perspectives

The chapters in this volume testify to the richness of SFL perspectives and its appliability to other fields of study. The holistic model offered by SFL makes of it a suitable framework for the description of human languages, and such comprehensive descriptions can be fruitful in translation studies, educational settings and genre analysis. Although some of the applications have been investigated by contributors to this volume, the list is far from exhaustive, and more research should be pursued not only in each of the study fields outlined in the sections of the volume, but also in other study fields such as critical discourse analysis, semiotics, clinical linguistics and ecolinguistics, to cite a few. The breadth of these perspectives that SFL can offer both on and to other disciplines shows that it is moving forward with the objective it was first developed to fulfil: to “provide something to think with” (Halliday, 2009, p. viii).

References

Bhatia, V. K. (2004) Worlds of Written Discourse. London and New York: Continuum.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K. (2009) Preface. In J. J. Webster and M. A. K. Halliday (Eds.), Continuum Companion to Systemic Functional Linguistics. London and New York: Continuum.

Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2014) Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar. London and New York: Routledge.

Hyland, K. (2011) Academic Discourse, in Ken Hyland and Brian Paltridge Continuum Companion to Discourse Analysis, London and New York: Continuum. pp. 171–184.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics
• 2 The Stance of Systemic Functional Linguistics Amongst Functional(ist) Theories of Language and Its ‘Systemic’ Purpose
• 3 Rethinking (Context of) Culture in Systemic Functional Linguistics
• 4 Pushing the Boundaries of Appliability: Conceptual Frameworks in Cognitive Science and Functional Linguistics
• 5 The Interface of SFL and Pragmatics: Reporting Strategies in Poe’s “William Wilson”
• 6 The Notion of a Multilingual Meaning Potential: A Systemic Exploration
• 7 Maintenance versus Shift in Literary Translation: SFL Perspectives on the Translation of User-Related Varieties in Socio-Cultural Contexts
• 8 Textual and Logical Choices in the Dramatic Monologue of Teahouse and Its English Translations
• 9 A Contrastive Description of Projection in English and Spanish Across Ranks: From the Clause Nexus to the Group
• 10 Towards a Systemic Functional Contrastive Analysis of Japanese and English Corporate Legal Discourse
• 11 Grammaticalising Attitude: Clause Juncture Particles and NEGOTIATION in Dagaare
• 12 Systemic Socio-Semantic Stylistics (SSS) as Appliable Linguistics: The Cases of Literary Criticism and Language Teaching/Learning
• 13 Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum
• 14 On the Relevance of the Textual Metafunction for Spanish Learners/Teachers of English
• 15 Nominal Groups in Arabic and English: Experiential Differences and Effect on Tunisian EFL Learners’ Translations
• 16 Cancer Care as an Integrated Practice: Consultations Between an Oncologist and Patients With Advanced, Incurable Cancer
• 17 The Process of Perception in the Early Academic Article
• 18 Construing Space in Academic Writing
• 19 Elaboration Postmodifiers in Academic and Popular Medical Articles
• 20 A Systemic Functional Analysis of the Use of Personal Reference in the Medrano Burglary Court Hearings
• 21 Hypotactic Enhancing Clauses in International Treaties
• Contributors
• Index