Historical Linguistics (3)M.A.K. Halliday

Dr. Ansa Hameed

Previously….

History of LinguisticsPreludeStructuralism: Ferdinand de

SaussureGenerative Linguistics: Chomsky

Today’s Lecture

FunctionalismM.A.K. Halliday

Functionalism as New Paradigm

FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS vs. STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

Functional linguistics focuses on language with perspectives different from structuralism.

Language

Structure Function

Structuralism Functionalism

Functionalism vs. StructuralismSTRUCTURAL

LINGUISTICS Language is a linguistic

system made up of various subsystems: from phonological, morphological, lexical to sentences

Each language has a finite number of such structural items

To learn a language means to learn these structural items to be able to understand and produce a language

FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS Language is a linguistic

system but also a means for doing things

Most of our day-to-day language use involves functional activities: offering, suggesting, advising etc.

To learn a language in order to be able to do things with it. To perform functions learner needs to know how to combine grammatical rules & vocabulary to express different notions (present, future, possibility…)

Functionalism

Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (M.A.K. Halliday):

Halliday’s Brief Introduction1925, born in Leeds, England;1940s, taking his BA at London University

in Chinese language and literature;1940s-50s, studying linguistics as a

graduate student, first in China (Peking University and Lingnan University, Canton) and then at Cambridge, where he received his PhD in 1955

1955-63, holding appointments at Cambridge and Edinburgh;

1963-70, teaching at University College London;

1973-75, teaching at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle;

1976-2000 or so, teaching at the University of Sydney;

Up to now, lecturing around the world, mainly in England, China, Hongkong, Japan and India.

FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS: M.A.K. Halliday

An important figure in Functional LinguisticsFamous for

Systemic Functional Linguistics Systemic functional linguistics is also

"functional" because it considers language to have evolved under the pressure of the particular functions that the language system has to serve. Functions are therefore taken to have left their mark on the structure and organization of language at all levels.

FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS: M.A.K. Halliday

He described language as a semiotic system, “not in the sense of a system of signs but a systemic resource for meanings” (Halliday, Systemic perspectives on Discourse)

So, Linguistics is study of “how people exchange meanings by languaging” (Halliday, Systemic perspectives on Discourse, 193).

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday1. According to this approach ‘Functional’: focus

on what things do rather than how the things are composed (structural)

Structure-informed Analysisa handful of rice

head of NP

Function-informed Analysis ◦ A handful of rice

quantifier

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday

2. Systemic separates Choices and Structure:

Speech consists of what choices we can make and show to what extent these choices are contextually conditioned

According to Halliday, ,structure is an output device, the mechanism for expressing the choices that have been made’

Chomskian grammars provide sets of rules, where choices and structural configurations are mixed together: ( To generate a sentence, one starts with a symbol (e.g., ‘S’), and choose one of the rules to expand it.)

S→ NP VP VP → vS→ v NP VP VP → v NPNP→ NP1 VP → v NPNP→ det NP1 VP → VP PP

For Systemic Functional Linguistics, unit/ Grammatical unit has following levels:

Sentence <…..Clause <……Phrase (group) <………Word <.........Morpheme

The choice of unit which is based on meanings that we want to convey rather than structure so choice is an initial and different step from structure

Levels of Language:1st level is unit2nd level is structure3rd level is class4th level is system

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): HallidaySystemic Grammar separate choices

from their structural consequences: Grammatical unit

Clause Group Word

Clause type Group Type

(finite / nonfinite) (nominal / Adjectival / prepositional)

Declarative infinitive determined

Interrogative present participle not determined

past participle

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): HallidayA “systemic” approach allows you to focus

on meaningful choices in language (e.g., active vs. passive) without needing to think of the particular structure that realizes it.

Basic tenet: “meaning implies choiceA grammar consists of a set of choices, or

“systems”, organized as a tree (some choices depend on others): For example ‘voice’ is a system with two choices: ‘active’ and ‘passive’. What meaning you want to convey will be represented through your choice

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday3. Meta-Functions of Language

Language performs several functions. On basis of this idea, Halliday defines three metafunctions of language namely,

Ideational metafunction (field)Interpersonal metafunction

(tenor)Textual metafunction (mode)

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday

When I got home last night, I could not believe what ………….. had done.

What choices are possible?

To understand how Functional Linguistics approach meta-functions in language, observe the pictures below:

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday

The choice of answers depend on: Context (what had happened)Relationship (what is relationship between

speaker and addressee)attitude to the thing/person (what is attitude)mode of communication (formal/informal)

What is implied about what a language system has to encapsulate.

Language has to encapsulate culture/context, genre, topic, relationship and mode (PTO)

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday

What is implied about what a language system has to encapsulate?

Culture

Genre

Topic

Relationships

Mode

What is the broad and specific context? How does that impact on the text?

What is the specific purpose of the text? How is it organised to achieve this?

What is being discussed / written about?

Who is taking part? What is the nature of their relationship? What are their statuses and roles?

Is it spoken, written or multimodal?

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday To get it more clearly look at the following and try to

answer the questions:

A: Yes Please

B: Can I have those two?

A: Yes. One’s forty five. One’s twenty five.

B: And have you got …………………..

A: Yes. How many would you like?

B: I’ll take two

A: Right. That’s four dollars twenty altogether.

B: Here you are.

A: Thankyou.

B: Thankyou.

What’s the context of the text?

What kind of a text is it? (genre)

What is it about? (topic/field)

Who is involved? (tenor/relationship)

Mode of communication? (mode)

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): HallidayThe last three questions determine

metafunctions separately as field, tenor and mode.

Now we can examine these three metafunctions further:

I. Ideational metafunction (field)It is the function for construing human experience. It is the means by which we make sense of "reality". Halliday divides the ideational into the logical and the experiential metafunctions.

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday The logical metafunction refers to the

grammatical resources for building up grammatical units into complexes, for instance, for combining two or more clauses into a clause complex.

The experiential function refers to the grammatical resources involved in construing the flux of experience through the unit of the clause.

The ideational metafunction reflects the contextual value of "field", that is, the nature of the social process in which the language is implicated. 

II. Interpersonal metafunction (tenor)The interpersonal metafunction relates to

a text's aspects of tenor or interactivity.Like field, tenor comprises three component areas: the speaker/writer persona, social distance, and relative social status.

III. Textual metafunction (mode)The textual metafunction relates to mode;

the internal organisation and communicative nature of a text. This comprises textual interactivity, spontaneity and communicative distance.

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday4. Context of Language: In SFL, context is one

of the central concerns. It is top level. CULTURE

SITUATION

REGISTER

LANGUAGE

field

tenor

Mode

GENRE

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday Context of a Language language has meanings in relation to context at

different levels. To understand, observe the following picture:

What do they mean?

Why can we make meaning from them?

Do they mean the same to everyone?

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday

As all of these pictures have different meanings for different contexts thus we can interpret visuals are meaning making systems dependent on context/culture

Reading is a dynamic process involving author, text as well as reader

Some visuals also have genres or topicsThus we can say the same way ‘Language

is also a meaning making system and it too may be influenced by culture/context’

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday

•In SFL, the appropriateness of linguistic options is conditioned by the current “context of situation” (Halliday & Hassan, 1989).Context of situation: the situation in which the language event unfolds, at least those parts of the situation which condition that language use.Example: request

statement

command

Studenttalking toteacher

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday Halliday models “context of situation”, those aspects

of the context relevant to the unfolding language event, in terms of three strands:

– Field: what is being talked about – Tenor: the people involved in the communication

and the relationships between them – Mode: what part the language is playing in the

interaction (is it accompanying action or ALL of the action), what form does it take (spoken or written).

Example: a recipe in a cook book Field: cooking (ingredients and process of preparing food) Tenor: expert writer to a learner, learner is beneficiary of

the advice Mode: written, prepared

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday4. Stratification in Language SFL starts at social context and looks at how language

both acts upon and is constrained by this social context. So central notion is stratification. A language is a semiotic system in terms of three strata:

SEMIOTIC SYSTEM

meaning (discourse / semantics)

words and structures (lexico – grammar)

sounds / letters (phonology / graphology)

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday

Strata 1: Semantics SFL includes at this level what is generally known as

‘pragmatics’. It has again three kinds of meanings (meta-functions with reference to meanings):

1. Experiential:(field) the way we use language to represent our experiences of the world

2. Interpersonal: relationships (tenor) the way we use language to interact with others

3. Textual: relation to mode (mode) the way we use language to organise our spoken or written texts so that they make sense

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): Halliday

Strata 2: Lexico-GrammarBetween the content of form pairing of

simple semiotic systems emerged the 'organizational space' referred to as lexicogrammar.

It concerns the syntactic organization of words in to utterances. It involves analysis of utterances in terms of roles: Actor, Medium, Theme, Moods

Called “Lexico-grammar” to emphasize that it is words and their combination that makes sentences.

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): HallidayStrata 3: Phonology-

Graphology the way oral sounds are the way

written sound

uttered & organized symbols are organized

that language unfolds syntagmatically – as structure laid down in time (spoken) or space (written).

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS (SFL): HallidaySystemic Model of Language

Strata

C

Language

Semantics

Grammar

Phonology-Morphology

context

Meanings

Wordings

spellings

Recap

FunctionalismM.A.K. Halliday

References Halliday, M.A.K. (1994), An Introduction to Functional

Grammar,  London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). Systemic Background. In "Systemic

Perspectives on Discourse, Vol. 1 Halliday and Hasan (1989) Language, Context, and Text:

Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Oxford, OUP.

Mick O’Donnell, (2010), Language, Function, Cognition:Part 2: systemic Functional Linguistics

http://web.uam.es/departamentos/filoyletras/filoinglesa/Courses/LFC-SFL/LFC-SFL-2010.pdf Parsad, Tarni, A Course in Linguistics, 2012, New Dehli: PHI Rajimwale, Sharad, Elements of General Linguistics, 2006. Simpson, Geoffery, Schools of Linguistics The Prague School, Britannica Encyclopedia online The Prague School, All about Linguistics https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/all-about-linguistics/

branches/phonology/where-is-phonology-studied/the-prague-school