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The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Tom Bartlett, Gerard O’Grady

What is a system? What is a function?

Publication details https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 Elissa Asp Published online on: 12 Jan 2017

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The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The publisher shall not be liable for an loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 tures. Forexample, differences betweenprototypical intransitives ( and transitives (tickle of orderingsis.Dependency relations, on the other hand, may be and sometimes even why –alanguagehasacquired a feature and whattheallowable range arbitrary squid eats),andsoon. *miracle a);verbsprecedetheircomplements in unmarkedorders(Sameatssquid cles precede, rather than follow, nounswith which they are in construction ( /s/ can precede, but not follow, a voiceless stop /t/ in a syllable onset (/st/ but not */ts/); arti are languageparticular. For example, in English,except in afew loanwords,thephoneme constrain constituency. Serialorderinvolvesbothpermissibleandimpossiblesequences that tions) withaspectsofserial order anddependencies between items that allow, signifyor of one or more others) – but also (and perhaps more significantly in de Saussure’sformula relations have todowithcombinatorial possibilities – withconstituency (one unitcomposed syntagmatic andparadigmatic(or‘associative’) relations (de Saussure1986). Syntagmatic linguistics in the twentieth century. Among hiscontributions was the distinction between Ferdinand deSaussure(1857–1913)articulated some ofthekeyconcepts that framed Introduction relation mayappearbetween items thatare such relationsareexpressed.Thesedifferent typesofsyntagmatic terms ofwhetherandhow gender isreferentially arbitrary, whilenumberismotivated. And, again, languages vary in be construedasmotivated insofar asthey index structural relations, although grammatical the meaning of the verbs. Similarly, features such asnumber and grammatical gender may Viewed synchronically, such serial ordering forcanonical syntagms islargely with aviewtoexaminingthelimitationsofarbitrariness. Everything havingtodowithlanguagesassystemsneedsbeapproached,weareconvinced, , althoughhistorical and comparative linguistics may provideaccounts ofwhen– A studyincontrastsandconvergences , exclude , slice ) are grounded in the participant roles associated with What isafunction? present inaconstruction. What isasystem? 1 motivated bysemantic fea laugh, (de Saussure1986:131) collapse a miracle Elissa Asp not *Sam , sneeze) 3 not 27 - - -

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 language islimited. that suggest that systems and functions are among the ways in which thearbitrariness of the other.Despitecontrastive positioningofmodels,thereare extremity offunctional-formal andparadigmatic-syntagmaticaxes,whileMPoccupies in theminimalistprogram(MP). Arguably,SFLoccupiesthefunctionalandparadigmatic ment inSFL.Itthenbrieflyexploresapproachestosystems andfunctionsinrecentwork present tense; contrasts forsemantic features of sion insofaraslinguistsidentifymodelseitherprimarily formalorfunctional. ancient andpersistinmodernlinguistics,markingdifferences thatshapetheoretical discus- tion and language form, and debates about the relative importance of each, appear equally relationships between language, thoughtandreality. Distinctions between language func use inlogic, rhetoric and poetry,aswell as withontological questions bearing, broadly, on dates backtoantiquity insofar asclassical and later scholars were concernedwithlanguage SFL developed,whichgiveprominencetothe tem networks.Thisreflects the largely European andBritishintellectual traditions inwhich extensively on formalisingparadigmatic options inparticular languages assystemsandsys- linguistic (SFL)modelstreatparadigmatic relations asdefiningfocus forlanguage,andso potentials –althoughtheseareturningouttoberathermany.Incontrast,systemicfunctional to onlythosecontrastive features necessarytodefinegrammatical classes andstructural generative component of language, which hadtheeffect of limiting paradigmatic relations research, theassociatedcharacterisation from Chomsky’sofsyntaxastheautonomous ments that foregrounded the importance of structure over meaning and, inworkderiving cognitive salience of structural units. Itmayalsofollowfromtwentieth-century develop- most framegrammarsintermsofsyntagmatic structures. Thisfocusmayfollow fromthe linguistic relationstobeaccountedfor. axes –thesyntagmatic and theparadigmatic; the arbitraryandmotivated – werethecentral ates, butalsobythesyntagmatic environments in whichtheyappear.FordeSaussure,these or phoneticfeatures.Considerthefollowingexample. for verbsordeclensions ofnouns,but also items related via semantic, lexical, phonological which mayinclude notonlymorphosyntactic associates such astheinflectional paradigms What ispresentinasyntagmgetspartofits Elissa Asp 28 with whichitisincontrast: the referent In example (1), the value of anyparticular item is partially determined by the absent items example (1) nying time adjunctcanpushinterpretation towards oneofthese.Soapartial paraphrase of ambiguous betweenhabitual and single-instance interpretations. Featuresofanaccompa affected by itemscopresentinasyntagm.Forexample, simple pasttenseverbsmaybe for theotherselections. This valueispartial since selection and interpretation may also be syntagm canbeseenasfunctionallymotivated environment leaves the interpretation ambiguous. Thus the selection of items present in a This chapteroutlines,first,whatsystemsandfunctionsare, andsketchestheirdevelop Interest in the uses or functions of language has a history in the Western tradition that Curiously, although all linguistic modelsrecogniseparadigmatic contrasts tosomeextent, In contrast, de Saussure(1986:122)describesparadigmatic relations in termsof (1)

Sam sleptthroughanafternoon with singularindefinite an isonsomeoccasionSamdidthis Sam value fromitsassociatesor‘mnemonic group’,

functions oflanguage. not onlybycontrastwiththeirabsentassoci versus relevant other participants; past not sleep versus,forinstance,

points ofconvergence , but doze; andsoon the in thesame absence. - - - -

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 systems theory. to sociology,psychologyandcybernetics,and,followingvonBertalanffy(1968),ingeneral systems, andarestudiedinspecificdisciplinesrangingfromthermodynamics and biology natural physical andbiological systems, but alsonatural and designedsocialsemiotic physical world(Kolesnikovetal.2001:136).Systemsinthesebroadsensesinclude not only genuine isolation appears tobehypothetical or approximate, rather than a real state in the Closed systemsare environments in otherways,suchastheaddition or lossofheatinclosedphysicalsystems. ments (they neither lose nor gain elements – matter in physical systems), but interact with we see system failures of one sort and another. Systems are in continued existence and/or improved performance of the system, it is adaptive; otherwise, clause andsooninaconstituent hierarchy or rankscale.Forinstance, in English,the ments weregrammatical construction typessuch asnominal/verbal group, major/minor scale and category models (such as Halliday 1961; Gregory 2009 [1966]), these environ small, though not necessarily binary. All systems are specified for environments. In early Matthiessen (2014). taken up, forexample by Hasan(1987),Tucker (1998), Neale (2002), Fawcett (2014) and Investigation into the possibility of realising the grammarian’s dream has periodically been the extensionofsystemnetworkstoencompasslexicon as‘mostdelicate’ grammar. relations of thelexicon, early on Halliday (1961) described ‘the grammarian’s dream’ as and, although theclosed systemsofthegrammar have often been contrasted with openset ventionally begins with closed systems asrepresentations of grammatical phenomena losses change they may gain or lose elements through interaction with their environments. Such gains or tion of items, affects the system asawholeorsomepart of it. Systems are with each othersuchthatchanging somepartofthesystem,forinstancebyremoval or addi of elements (concrete or abstract; living or not; designed or natural) that are interconnected In itsbroadestsense,theterm ‘system’ referstotherelationships between any collection What isasystem,broadlyspeaking? Definitions andcontexts and cognition. poses that the emergenceof language provides the basis for evolving human consciousness of languageanditsrelationshipstohumanevolution.Halliday (1995),forexample,pro- sation processesindevelopment).Therehasalsobeenaresurgenceofinteresttheorigin and ontogenetic(languageasbothinstrumentresultofprimarysecondarysociali interest havebeensocial(languageasasemiotic),instantial(discourseininteraction) shaping theenvironmentswithwhichitinteracts.InSFL,primaryof adapting inresponsetoenvironmentaldemands(theusesspeakersmakeofit)andalso the onehand,languageisdefinedasalarge,open,dynamicsystemnetwork,evolvingand The notionthatlanguagemaybecharacterisedbysystemstakesbothformsinSFL.On What isasysteminSFL? Grammatical systems areclosed On theother hand, the characterisation of systemsinparticular languages in SFLcon

the internal structure, function and/or output of the system. If change results isolated iftheydonotinteract with theirenvironmentatall,although insofar asthenumberofoptions isfinite and relatively What isasystem?function? closed if they have finite ele open insofar as 29 - - - - -

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 Elissa Asp 30 through asystemleadstofinerclassification and isreferred to as‘increasing the (such ascount) can function as anentry condition for another. Movement from left to right terms in the count system.Since some choices are dependent on others,aterm in onesystem rated systemnetworks,somesystemsmaybe brackets (thatis,[and])indicateamutuallyexclusive‘or’relation.Inmoreelabo Figure 3.1a,inwhichtheenvironmentisspecifiedfornominalgroupsand(square) (−modal) andpositive some feature is optional(suchas+/−modality), the system-network willinclude negative plural in asystemthat includes these optionsandnoothers.Insystemsinwhichselection of insofar asonecannot,forexample, choose acountnounandnotselecteither singularor descriptions’. Thechoicebetweentermsinasystemis personal pronounsonlywiththefeaturessingularandthirdperson.Thesethusforma right braceinFigure3.1bindicatesthatselectionofgenderisavailableasachoicefor (curly brackets–thatis,{and})areconventionallyusedforconjunctsystems.The of number,whileselectionthird-personsingularopensupoptionsforgender.Braces both systems be represented as involving conjunctive systems of case and person. Selections from ordered. Figure3.1brepresentsbothsituations.ModernEnglishpersonalpronounsmay +verb) for constitute indicative or imperative and so on. One or more features of such syntagmatic environments nouns; major clause is theenvironment for thesystem( nominal group isthe environment forasystem( Figure 3.1 a systemof Thus asimplesystemforthenumberfeatureinmodernEnglishmightlooklike (a) (b)

PRONOUN GROUP NOMINAL PERSONAL (a) Asimplenumber system;(b)Aconsolidated personalpronounsystem mood entry condition(s) forsystems: clauses must have the feature +major (that is, number must be made. If first orthirdpersonare selected, there is a further option optionstobeavailable, while thefeature . Thechoicesinasystemarereferredtoasits‘terms’ NUMBER +modal) options. PERSON 1 CASE non-count count – objective nominative possessive other second plural singular person 2 number conjunct, whileothersare number mutually exclusiveandobligatory mood ) contrasting count and non-count +nominal istheentrycondition for singular third plural first ) thatspecifies clause types as gender : singular/plural are hierarchically delicacy general – neuter masculine – feminine of -

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 exponence, orlater ceptualised as abstract‘formalitems/exponents’ related toothercategoriesbythescaleof features such asthose for personal pronouns. The features (or feature bundles) were con features of classes units and their output was a feature (such assingular) or a bundle of would simplysubstituteabracket(‘or’)forthebrace(‘and’). conjunct entryconditionforgender.Adisjunct–‘ifaorb,thencd’ be overtlyrealised onaheadnounordeterminer (or both)ornotatall. may havemoredistributed realisations. A feature such aspluralinthenominal group might In othercases,suchasthe sations arewords. that for personal pronouns, the ultimate exponents define single item subclasses whosereali developed this approach, as weshall see later in the chapter. to syntaxandphonologybyrealisation rules. TheCardiffGrammar(CG)has explicitly potential. One interpretation of thisisthat thesystemsareexclusively semantic and related Halliday argued that linguistic systems are‘deeper’ semantic characterisations of meaning for probabilityofoccurrence the optionsinsystemscharacterising thegrammarofalanguage willideallybe phonology andsemantics)as‘lexicogrammar’. became extensively semanticised andultimately Halliday relabelledthisstratum(between lexicogrammar and phonology.Thechange,inthelate1960s,wasthatsyntactic systems actually continued toworkwithdistributed systems, primarily, although not exclusively, in foreground language function as the primary object of interest. Halliday (1966, 1995, 2013) foreground language functionastheprimary objectofinterest.Halliday(1966, 1995,2013) als on any specific occasion nor to suggestconscious choice on the part of speakers, but to the idea thatspeakersmake choices from themnot as predictive of the behaviour of individu formal representationsofsemiotic potentialrelevantatthelevelofapopulation,emphasising available tospeakers.Halliday (1966,1970,2013)statesthatsystemnetworksareabstract ability distributionsinchildren’sinput. hypothesise, andindeed empirically test, feature-systems acquisition stages basedonprob grammatical systems turn out to be either equiprobable or maximally skewed, one might unmarked status ofpast/present mayprovideitwithan‘acquisitional advantage’. If other also that the markedness ofnegation – and perhaps also its affective salience – relative to the and tenseare,obviously,that positive will be acquired before either tense ornegation, but He doesnot pursue this particular line, but the implications for English systems ofpolarity (0.1:0.9), might be easier to learn than one inwhichskewnessismore variably distributed. that abimodal system, inwhichtermsareeither equiprobable (0.5:0.5) ormaximally skewed (hence morefrequentlyencountered) constructions beingacquired first. Healsosuggests abilities with frequency of occurrence and itsimportance for acquisition, with more probable marked. With respect tolanguage learning, Halliday (2013) pointstotheassociation of prob marked than its 0.9 alternative and none of the terms in an equiprobable system will appear somewhat with text types, the selection of a 0.1 option in a low-entropy system will be more theories ofmarkedness.Forexample, with thecaveat that probability distributions willvary ther points out that probability distributions have implications forlanguage learning and systems, linksthem to entropyininformation theory (ShannonandWeaver 1949), andfur 0.5:0.5. Halliday (2013)observesthatsuchprobabilities are inherentfeaturesofsemiotic 0.9:0.1, whereasinthetensesystemsimplepastversuspresentareequiprobableat the probability of selecting positive versus negative in apolarity systemasapproximately In earlyscaleandcategorymodels,systemswereusedforconventional morphosyntactic Three furtherfeaturesarenecessarytocomplete this sketchofsystemsinSFL. First, Second, systems and system networks are conceptualised as representations of choices Second, systemsandsystem networks areconceptualisedasrepresentationsofchoices realisation rules . Forinstance, Halliday and James(2005 [1993]) estimated (for example Halliday 1961, 1968).Ina system like number systemorthe What isasystem?function? 3 However, Halliday himself has mood 2 From1966onward, system,exponents weighted 31 ------

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 ceptualisation oflanguagefunctions,soweturnnowtothese. Exploration of these points and the metafunctional hypothesis necessarily refers to the con- language typology andpotential neural instantiations of language that deserveinvestigation. engaged –butalsoinvitespredictions about language acquisition, historical change, analyses ranging from instance to genre – workin which SFL linguists have extensively opens thewaytousingsystemsnotonlyasaninterpretative linguistic basefor discourse sion ofthe environment for system networks –and motivated by usein context. This in turn systems inSFLarefunctionally localised – themetafunctions constituting another dimen should expect, so it may not seem particularly novel or insightful. However,it means that the tions (Halliday 1968). Fromthe point of view of systemstheory, this isexactly what one localised to thesamefunction,butnotvalueoftermsinsystemslocalised to otherfunc through addition or deletion of terms for instance, may affect the value of terms in systems ferent functions arerelatively independent of each other. Similarly, change in asystem, are morelikelytobemutuallyorhierarchically constraining, whereaschoices fromdif- pendence amongst systemsservingthesamefunction such that choices within afunction common toallnatural languages. Specifically, the expectation isforsignificant interde naturally cluster into networks whoseboundaries are specified by broad aspects ofthesequestionsinFontaine,BartlettandO’Grady(2013). choice asinvolvingconsciousagentsornot,isevidencedinthepapersdirectlyaddressing abstract representationsofpotentialorasproceduralalgorithms,andaroundthenotion chooses thisandthenthat.Thatthereissomeambivalencearoundthestatusofsystemsas in thehabitofdescribinghierarchicsystemicstructureastemporal,sequentialselection:one text production(forexampleFawcett2013;O’Donnell2013),butalsogenerallyasreflected rithms guidingproduction,perhapsespeciallyincomputationallyimplementedmodelsfor choices themselvesareoftenreferredtoasprocessesforwhichsystemsproceduralalgo ing thisorthatfromanexplicitlyknownarrayofoptions,onlyexceptionally.However,the choice andchoosingcharacterisespeakersasagentsoftheirdiscourse,consciouslychoos brought toconsciousawarenessandconsciouslymade,shouldcircumstancesdemandit.Thus normally qualifiesstatementsaboutunconsciouschoicetotheeffectthatchoicesmaybe Elissa Asp 32 functions. Among these,CarlBühler’s(1934) organonmodelwasexplicitly instrumental. European andBritishthinking aboutlanguagereflecteddifferentdimensionsofthesebroad inform bothcommonsenseand theoreticalmodelsoflanguageinsomemeasure. Collectively, these three perspectives on language function as instrument, action and system of language as systems – the contrasts internal to languages that are the bases forvalue. (storytelling, lying, joking, gossiping andsoon).The third sense isrelated to the notion an instrument (variously of thought, emotion, communication and contact) and asaction of three senses in which language is broadly understood as ‘functional’: it is construed as were justtalking’), to makepoems,tothink,andsoon.Theseexamples foreground two and jokes, to index identity, to get others to do things, to engage in social interactions (‘we lists offunctionsoruses.Weuselanguage to expressthoughtsandemotions,tell stories If onepressesformorespecific characterisations, one mayget,amongotherpossibilities, munication – thatis, a definition that refers toaglobal function or purpose(andtosystem). If oneasks‘whatislanguage?’, acommonsortofresponseisthatitsystemforcom What isalanguagefunction,broadlyspeaking? Third, and relatedly, SFL modelsposit In additiontothepervasive influence ofdeSaussure,early-to-mid-twentieth-century intrinsic functionality: that linguistic systems metafunctions ------

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 of situation. tion oflanguagefunctionasamodeaction.Hemade twomainpointsaboutcontext ‘context ofsituation’and‘phaticcommunion’tonamefactors relevanttoconceptualisa century British scholars. For instance, anthropologist Malinowski (1923) coined the terms discourse consequences. through characterisations of language-internal resources formessage organisation and its options for markedness. Thus Prague school linguists developed Bühler’s functional insights and Rheme(themessagehighlight,newinformation),thevarioussyntacticprosodic the speaker’sperspective,intoTheme(amessagestartingpoint,typically given information) between theunmarkedformofasentenceanditscoherentorganisationindiscourse,from and signalling(shapedwiththeaddresseeinmind)isconsonantdistinctionsmade simultaneously symbolic (representational and arbitrary), indexical (of the speaker’s state) school theoriesofinformation structure insofarastheformer’snotionofcomplex signas Firbas 1964; Vachek 1966; Mathesius 1975).Bühler’s organon model complemented Prague mation asgivenornew,andmarkedunmarkedforthematic prominence (for example the 1920s onprosodicandsyntactic variations that signal speakers’ presentation of infor tions ofinformationstructure.Ofparticular importance Mathesius’workbeginning in was tions thatshapeandmotivatediscourse. as automatareactingtoexternalstimuli,butthesourceofconativeandexpressivefunc addressee intothesignifyingprocess,notmerelyassendersandreceiversofmessagesnor The organon model was influential in part because it projected the rolesof addresser and tive functionsareequallyimportantinsofarastheywarrantlanguageinthefirstinstance. the representationalfunctiontakesprecedence,hearguesthatexpressiveandcona presented assimultaneouslyconfiguredinspeechevents,andalthoughBühlersaysthat and theconativefunctionasappeal(orsignal)toaddressee.Thethreefunctionsare (Bühler 1990[1934]:37).Theexpressivefunctionindexicallymarkedstatesinthespeaker in thesensethatassociationsofphonologicalformandrepresentationarearbitrary with ‘objectsandstatesofaffairs’(amodificationPlato’s‘things’)assymbolic, tions’ thatconfiguredincomplexlanguagesigns.Therepresentativefunctionhadtodo and (1953) developed related arguments that word meaning is defined by use(s)incontext(s). other activities; rather, it actional character of language. Phatic communion differs only because it is not an adjunct to lar toestablish and maintain social contact – isaspecial case ofthissecond, moregeneral, Malinowski (1923) argues that phatic communion – that is, talking about nothing in particu (tool) forcommunication,Bühler(1990[1934]:35)proposed Modelled onPlato’sdiscussionin 2 1

Focus onlanguageasactionwasaprimarypreoccupationofearly-to-mid-twentieth- Among many contributions, Prague school linguists developed functional characterisa conative functions,whichhedescribedas‘largelyindependentvariablesemanticrela coordinating jointactivities. marily an instrument for theexpressionofcomplex thought, but amodeofaction for Observation to thepragmatic and interactional features ofthesituation in which speechisembedded. ethnographic description relating the context of situation to its ‘context of culture’ and coherent equivalence for translationsrequiresnotonlyaccesstoalanguage, but also Speech situationsaffect of language use in many contexts of situation suggests that it is not pri is the social activity. In the philosophy of language, Wittgenstein language use andfunction to suchanextent that achieving Cratylus ofthefunctionlanguageasan What isasystem?function? expressive, representative organum 33 ------

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 matic structures. Theoretically, structural representations could then be relatively simple, represent ‘underlying’paradigmatic specifications of featurecontrasts forsurfacesyntag- (1966) paper‘Somenoteson “Deep Grammar”’inwhichheproposedthatsystemnetworks 2009 [1966]).Thefirst shift away from this ‘distributed systems’ approach was Halliday’s syntactic systems withstructural outputs (for example Halliday 1961, 2002[1964]; Gregory functional insofar astheyformalisedfeatures such astransitivity, mood,voice and soonas elaborated and synthesised many of Firth’sproposals,and(saliently) were polysystemic and understandably inherits much from them. The ‘scale and category’ models of the 1960s linguistics emerged out oftheconfluencetheseEuropeanandBritishtraditions, ‘meaning’ isanemergentproperty. sent, hemightbeadvocatingforparalleldistributed,bottom-up competitionmodelsinwhich Firth – unchanged in his views, butwillingtoengagewiththe neurosciences – intothe pre the contextofsituation,wouldcumulativelycharacterisemeaning. Ifoneweretotransport systemic values(contrastivefeatures),which,correlatedwith eachotherandwithfeaturesof into systemsofcontrastsindifferentlevels,isanaccount meaningintextthatreferredto (Firth 1957b:170).Whatheseemstohaveenvisioned, given thedispersionofmeaning process, buttheinterrelationsofterms–setupasconstituentssituationitself’ that ‘does not emphasise the relation betweentheterms of a historical process orof a mental he arguesthatweshouldapproachmeaningwitha‘thoroughgoingcontextualtechnique’ (to paraphrasehim)wedonotunderstandandcannotobserve(Firth1957b:169).Instead, municative”’ becausethat would ‘imply that it is aninstrumentof inner mentalstates’ which stance, forexamplethinkingitinappropriateto‘regardlanguageas“expressive”or“com 1955). WherehedifferedfromBühlerandPragueschoollinguistswasinhisanti-mentalist object oflinguisticinquiryistextandthegoaltoelucidatemeaning(forexampleFirth (Firth 1957b).In common with other functionalists of his time, he believed that the proper a language),withsystemsdispersedthroughthedifferentlevels(fromcontexttophonetics) argued forapolysystemicapproachtotheanalysisoflanguage(orpreferablyvarietieswithin tion (Firth 1955), and the relational and stratified character of language (Firth 1957b). He evident inFirth’sinsistenceontheimportanceofsystemiccontrastandsyntagmaticcolliga and Hasan1980).Continentalinfluences,especiallyofdeSaussureHjelmslev,were ciated with specialised fields and contexts of situation (for example Gregory 1967; Halliday idea ofrestrictedlanguagesevolvedinlaterworkintofunctionalvarietiesor Collocation anticipatesprobabilistic and concordancestudies in corpus linguistics, while the meaning of individual words, stylistic patterns and that is, the determination ofwordmeaningsinfluencedFirth’selaborationtheidea primarily amodeofactionratherthanreflection.Wittgenstein’sinsightsonthecontextual tion inaccountingfortextmeaningandtextualvariation,onthenatureoflanguageas 137–67) adoptedandadaptedMalinowski’sinsightsontheimportanceofcontextsitua developing SFL,andsharedmuchwithEuropeanBritishfunctionalism.Firth(1957a: initiated, the‘Londonschool’,informedmanyaspectsofHallidayandcolleagues’workin the SchoolofOrientalandAfricanStudies(1944–56).Theapproachtolanguagethathe University CollegeLondon(1928–44)andlaterholdingthechairingenerallinguisticsat of addressees. utterance performs an action the interpretation of whichrequires inferential work onthe part And Austin(1962)presentedhistheoryofspeechactsinthelate 1950s–arguingthatevery Elissa Asp 34 The functional aspect that transformed ‘systemic linguistics’ to systemic- British linguist J.R. Firth was a major figure in this milieu, as professor of phonetics at British linguistJ.R.Firthwasamajorfigureinthismilieu,asprofessorofphoneticsat mutual expectancy of words co-occurring in texts – as a way of investigating the restricted languages (Firth 1957b: 181). registers collocation functional asso- – - - - - Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 resented inthe 1967; HallidayandHasan1980;Martin1992). of communication on) (Gregory (as spoken,written,signed,spontaneousornot,andso which talk is embedded, the tion conceptualised in termsoffieldsexperience that thelanguagemustrepresentandin demands oflanguage use. Thesebroadfunctionsreflect components of contexts of situa but alsointheclusteringofsystemsintofunctionally bounded networksthat answerto tional hypothesis thusclaims intrinsic functionality reflected not onlyinsystemic contrasts, discourse, to extra-textual context(s) or as anticipatory of upcoming news. The metafunc terms of speakers’assessmentsfocusandnewsworthiness,asrelated or nottoprior guages have a to enact attitudes, evaluations and soon.And,influenced by thePragueschool,natural lan- as socialaction, togetorofferinformation or goods,todirect the behaviourofothers,and Malinowski’s insights,Halliday also posited an components of an ture in Pragueschool work. Experiential and logical functions were later labelled as two (1968: 209) associates this with the representational function in Bühler and semantic struc ded, aswell as the states and relations, the participants in them and the circumstances in which they are embed an that correspond to four broadlanguage functions common to all languages. Languages have earlier, the hypothesis is that the systems of a language naturally cluster into system networks 1969a, 1969b,1970)madeexplicitargumentsforthemetafunctionalnoted hypothesis. As tic structure (forexample Firbas 1964,1966; Vachek1966),Halliday (1967a, 1967b,1968, somewhat earlier. InfluencedbyPragueschoolworkontheme and information and seman Halliday seems tohavefirstusedtheterm ‘metafunction’ in 1973–buttheideasappeared Sydney Grammar What isalanguagefunctioninSFL? related, syntagmsasstructuraltransformations. explicit alternative to Chomsky’s approach to characterising relations between different, but matic feature selections to surfacestructures.Thepaperandtheproject can beread asan of relatingsince theywouldnotberequiredtodoallofthework(deep/semantic) paradig evidenced in therelative freedom withwhichselections fromsystemssuchas tions, aresimultaneousand are contextually motivated. Metafunctional independence is relatively independent of each other, show dependencies between systems within metafunc they representfeatureselections fromsystemslocalised todifferentmetafunctions that are selections fromallfunctions. clause that are conflated with each other such that any clause simultaneously configures These differentfunctional selections contribute layers ofdifferent structuraltypestothe cal function accounts for structural recursion in terms of hypotactic and paratactic relations. systems indifferent functions contributing to different aspects of clause structure. The logi are posited as conjointly, rather than hierarchically, organised, with feature selections from function in the Illustrated from the perspective of the clause in English, the experiential function is rep The different layers ofstructural representation are saidtobefunctional in thesensethat experiential function discourse (later, transitivity mood ideational function (Halliday 2002 [1979]).DrawingonBühler’s and logical system and the textual function in the Theme system. These systems : theyallowtherepresentation of experience in termsofevents, relations between events andstatesinthat experience. Halliday networkinsystemsofprocesstypeandagency,theinterpersonal tenor that speakers take in relation to addresseesandthe 4 textual) function: they allow information to be organised in interpersonal function: languages are used What isasystem?function? mood mode and 35 ------Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 ferent metafunctions in theinteraction of systemssuchas and as transitivity Elissa Asp 36 suggests that, in fact, systemic contrasts andintrinsic functions are an inescapable part of odd to ask what role(s) systems and functions play within it. However, recent work in MP is robustly‘formalist’andarguably‘anti-functional’ The MP in manysenses,soitmayseem minimalist program? What rolesdosystems and functionsplayinthe about thesystemicandintrinsicallyfunctionalcharacteroflanguage. The CardiffGrammar(CG)developedbyFawcettandcolleaguessharesSFLassumptions Cardiff Grammar chapter, buttheyareworthkeepinginmind. other approaches to systems and functions. Not all of them can be addressed in this brief (some) other functional models and/or formal models, and isrelevant in comparisons of are thereanyemptyconstituents. Each ofthesepointsreflects a positionthatcontrastswith These includethatclausesarenot‘headed’(butgroupsare)andthereisnomovement nor demonstrates thatitispossibletowriteagenerativegrammar alongSFLlines. for the clause and the metafunctional hypothesis makes CG computationally tractable and recognised in imperatives and non-finite clauses. The move away from simultaneous systems movement; norareanyemptypositionsassociatedwithmovement, althoughnullsubjectsare (but groupsare),andsincethegrammarisorganisedrealisationally, thesyntaxinvolvesno ally labelled, constituent-like structures. Like the Sydney Grammar, clauses are not headed phonology areoutputsofthesemanticsinCG.Thesyntaxitself isrepresentedinflat,relation are actuallymade(Fawcett2013).Conceptually,thisorganisation meansthatthesyntaxand turn relatedtohigherorderconceptualanddiscourseplanning componentswherein‘choices’ far asmessageorganisationpresupposessomethingtoorganise. Thesemanticsystemsarein implementation, butFawcett(forthcoming)alsoarguesthatitisfunctionallymotivatedinso selections precedetextualselections).Thisispartlydrivenbythepragmaticsofcomputer differs innotpositingsystemsassimultaneous(forexampleexperientialandinterpersonal erogeneous (validity)strandstooneoranothermetafunction.TheCardiffGrammaralso also avoiding‘forcedchoice’assignmentofmetafunctionallyambiguous(polarity)orhet in including,forinstance,affect,validityandmoodasingleinterpersonalnetwork,while validity, affectandinformation.Thisorganisationsidestepssomeofthecomplexityinvolved to experiential,interpersonal,logicalandthematicnetworks,therearestrandsfornegativity, systems areorganisednot into metafunctions,buteight‘strandsofmeaning’. In addition production, withrealisationrulesrelatingfeaturestosyntaxandphonology.Thesemantic result isamodelthatlocatesallsystemsinthesemanticsasalgorithms(notchoices)guiding the researchtaskofdevelopingacomputationallyimplementedtextgenerationsystem.The tion ofthe‘anti-mentalist’stancethatHallidayseemstohaveinheritedfromFirthandby strata viarealisationrules.TheworkhasalsobeeninformedbyFawcett’sexplicitrejec ing systemsasthegenerativesemanticbase,weightingthemforprobabilityandrelating (2013) haspursuedaresearchagendathatrespectsHalliday’s(1966)argumentsfortreat to highlightsomeofthekeydifferenceshereinconsideringsystemsandfunctions.Fawcett mood mood and . Thestructuresalsoexhibitsomeunusualpropertiesfromformalistperspectives. maybemade, interdependence in the interaction of interpersonal systems such modality , andthe‘relative’ quality ofindependence ofsystemslocated in dif transitivity 5 However, it is useful However,itisuseful and voice orTheme ------Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 tion. However,inHolkomelemandBlackfoot(respectively), deictically ground reported events to the utterance event. In English, categories. Specifically, they argue for a universal function (inflection phrase) that serves to favour ofhierarchically ordered universalfunctions,butagainstfixedcontentfor functional Holkomelem, Blackfoot and English, Ritter and Wiltschko (2009) make an argument in contrastive featuresthatcorrespondtometafunctionalcomponents. Note that the cartographic approach proposes that UG hasa rich functional structure built on in partfromsemanticsandsayclosing: (or adjustment of the hierarchy). They observe that the features and their orders arise at least languages willexpressallfeatures anddifferences in orderswillarisethroughmovement estimate that theremaybesome400featuresintheworld’slanguages,although notall a universalstructuralhierarchy. They call this the‘cartographic’ approach tosyntax.They which every morphosyntactic feature will correspond to a functional head that is ordered in function, mood and modalities. Cinque and Rizzi (2008) hypothesise a version of UGin (1999), overtly textual (Topic and Focus) and interpersonal features associated with speech such as tense, agreement, aspects, voice and also, since the work of Rizzi (1997) and Cinque ture’ (the VP, averb and itsarguments) and afunctional layer of phrasesheaded by features by abottom-up process ( procedure that makes language possible. Its focus is formal syntax, which in MP is generated MP aredirected towards discoveryofuniversalgrammar (UG), assumedtobeagenerative starts. Inthe following, Ibriefly make the case for thisobservation. The research goals of language – towhichoneisinexorablyledregardlessofwhereorwithwhatassumptions that languages mustserveonewayoranother, plusMergeand‘theability to positformal sion ofUGgrounded in universal (experiential, interpersonal, textual and logical) functions the requirements ofserial or spatial ordering. Notice where we have arrived: this is a ver development of phonological contrasts, forinstance,andasourceofconstraints imposedby acter of events–andfromthearticulatory–perceptual interface as botharesourceforthe propositions, toexpressrelations betweenprocesses andparticipants and theaspectual char intentional interface) – suchastheneed to expressspeech functions, todeictically ground (which they do assume) arise from interpersonal and experiential functions (the conceptual– formal features of grammatical systems’ (CowperandHall 2014: 17). Universal functions the only mechanism required to account for the abstract building blocks that make up .the for systematic contrast in the linguistic input, by correlating differences at various levels, is features come from?’ Their delightfully de Saussureanresponseisthat ‘the ability to search able instantiations.CowperandHall(2014)takethingsabound furtherinasking,‘Wheredo notice that UGisbeing setupasdefining functional structures with cross-linguistically vari can applytoitsownoutput,soissaidberecursive. or asharedfeature (Chomsky1995).The features are checked by amatching process. Merge contrastive features, combines them into sets and labels them with one of the terms in the set Two recentstudieschallenge the cartographic approach toUG.Inastudycomparing In MP,clauserepresentations comprise alexical layer consistingofa‘barephrasestruc of meanings,butnotreducingtothem. way inwhich they areorganized into hierarchies, tailoredontheneeds of the expression of meaningfulunits:UGexpressesthepossibleitemsfunctionallexiconand Syntax isorganizedtoexpressmeaning,butdoesnotdissolveintothemereorganization Merge ) that selects pairs oflexical items defined by their formal What isasystem?function? location Cinque andRizzi2008:53 tense and serves this func person do.Here, 37 - - - - -

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 complexity), we shouldexpect that the systems belongtothesamefunctional domain. hypothesis suggeststhat, where there are significant interactions (and hence computational does not necessarily mean that they are cognitively intractable. Indeed, the metafunctional tationally intractable becauseofthecomplexities of theinteractions (Fawcett,forthcoming) Additionally, the factthatsystemnetworkswithsimultaneous entry conditions arecompu processes are neurally supported, using functional imaging and neuropsychological testing. ity, including experimental testing ofthetrifunctionalselection hypothesis, andintohow antithetical toSFL(andmanyotherfunctionalist)conceptionsoflanguageandlanguages. from culturalandneurobiological detach UGenvironments.Thesepositionsare,ofcourse, evolution from olderdomaingeneral neurocognitive systems andassociated attempts to dancy, and isolated. The ‘isolated’ status is an inference from his arguments against gradual further speculates that language (UG)may be a‘perfect’ system –closed, with no redun for Chomskythesetooappear as incidental by-products ofMerge.Chomsky(2005,2013) contexts asthegroundforphylogenetic and ontogenetic development oflanguage,whereas as theyalsoseelanguagecentralforthought.However,interaction in social 2005) –curiouslypositionshiminparallel with Halliday and Matthiessen (1999) insofar ter claim–bywhichhemeansthatMergemadethoughtpossible(forexampleChomsky and suggests instead that it is better conceptualised as ‘an instrument of thought’. The lat language is not for communication, is likely not evolved and is ill adapted for expression, which SFLlinguistshaveexcelled. Moreover, Chomsky(2005,2013)regularly statesthat descriptions of natural language texts as resources for the wide range of applications at still assumed inMPandthere is noevidence of anyinterest in usingfunctionally informed perspective provided by the metafunctional hypotheisis. The lexicogrammatical divide is specify structure. The‘bottom-up’ conception of functionsinMPcontrastswiththeglobal ment bygroundingthegrammarinparadigmatic contrasts andallowingrealisation rules to head binaryconstituent structures, overwhichmovement is ubiquitous;SFLavoidsmove- phosyntactic particles, akintophonological features (suchas+/–voice, from SFLinmanyfundamental ways. InMP,functionsareconceptualised as ‘atomic’ mor- ingly systemic,oratleastparadigmatic,andfunctionalview. features from correlated categorical differences’ (Cowper and Hall 2014: 17) – a surpris Elissa Asp 38 children’s input. empirically testfeature-systemsacquisitionstagesbased onprobabilitydistributionsin features. Anotherobvioustargetisexperimentalcorpus work inlanguageacquisitionto particularly insofarasitsuggestswheretoexpect(ornot) interactionsamongstfunctional metafunctional hypothesisasameansofinvestigatingdifferences thatmakeadifference, be warranted.Anobvioustargetismoretypologicaland historicalworkexploitingthe gests areasinwhichtheoreticallymotivatedresearch,debate andfruitfulinteractionmay to it,whateverone’sinterestsandpreoccupations.Theevidence ofconvergencealsosug tions andtheatomicfeaturesrealisingthem,arenotways ofseeinglanguage,butcentral that system,andthecontrastssystemsformalise,function,bothglobalmetafunc vergence amongstmodelswithverydifferenttheoreticalobjectsandgoals,suggesting scaffolding forseeingthetheoreticalcontrastslistedabove,butalsohighlightssomecon Looking atthetreatmentsoffunctionandsysteminSFLMPnotonlyprovidessome Prospects forsystemsandfunctions To besure,therepresentation and conception of language,andthegoals,MPdiffer There shouldalsobeempirical investigations into neuralbasesforintrinsicfunctional +/–corononal), which ------Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:40 26 Sep 2021; For: 9781315413891, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315413891.ch3 Firbas, J.1966.Non-thematic subjects incontemporary English. Firbas, J.1964.Ondefining the theme in functional sentence analysis. Fawcett, R.P. Forthcoming. Fawcett, R.P.2014.Thecultural classification of ‘things’:Towards acomprehensivesystemnetwork Fawcett, R.P. 2013. Choice and choosing in systemic-functional grammar. In L. Fontain, T. Bartlett de Saussure,F.1986.CourseinGeneralLinguistics its relationshipstocontextsandthelimitsofarbitrary. systems andfunctionsinaparticular classofdescriptionsandmodels,butalsolanguage, about thesekindsofquestionsshouldcontribute to ourunderstanding not onlyoftheroles ing or as limited to binary choices in local syntactic domains. 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