Towards Functional Grammar

ASSIGNMENT
Of Systemic Functional Grammar

School (social sciences)

Name:
Ayesha Ashfaq =03
Sana=04
Adeela Nisar =61
Presented to:
Maam Faiza
GC University for women Sialkot

Towards Functional Grammar

Towards Functional Grammar

Systemic Functional Grammar

Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a form of grammatical description originated by
Michael Halliday. It is part of a social semiotic approach to language called systemic
functional linguistics.
In these two terms, systemic refers to the view of language as "a network of systems, or
interrelated sets of options for making meaning";
functional refers to Halliday's view that language is as it is because of what it has
evolved to do. Thus, what he refers to as the multidimensional architecture of language
"reflects the multidimensional nature of human experience and interpersonal relations.

Classes and Functions

A class is a set of items that are in some respect alike. The most familiar, in our
traditional grammar, are classes of words: verb, noun, adjective, adverb, pronoun,
preposition, conjunction (and sometimes also interjection), in the usual list. But every
unit can be classified: there are classes of group and phrase, classes of clause, and, at the
other end of the rank scale, classes of morpheme.
Word classes were traditionally called parts of speech, through mistranslation of the
Greek term meroi logou, which actually meant parts of a sentence. These began, with
the Sophists, as functional concepts, rather close to the Theme and Rheme ; but they were
progressively elaborated into, and replaced by, a scheme of word classes, defined by the
kinds of inflexion that different words underwent in Greek.
Classical definition of word classes
Inflection for:
Number, Case

(defines)

Word classes:
Noun

Number, case, gender

Adjective

Tense, person

Verb

(none)

(other words)

For example the class of noun in English.

Towards Functional Grammar

A general definition would involve both grammatical and semantic considerations, with some of
the grammatical features having an overt manifestation and others not:
(semantic:) expresses a person, other being, inanimate object or abstraction, bounded or
unbounded, etc.
(grammatical:) is either count or mass; if count, may be either singular or plural, plural usually
inflected with -s; can be made possessive, adding -s/-s; can take the in front; can be Subject in a
clause, etc.
When we say that something is a noun, in English, we mean that it displays these characteristics,
or most of them, in common with some (but not all) other words in the language.
Word

Nominal

verbal

Verb
Noun

adverbial

preposition adverb conjunction

adjective numeral determiner

Conjunctive

Common proper

pronoun

lexical auxiliary finite

structural

Binder

continuative

cohesive(linker)

linker

[Word classes recognized in a functional grammar of English]

The class of an item indicates in a general way its potential range of grammatical functions.

Towards Functional Grammar

The functional categories provide an interpretation of grammatical structure in terms of the

overall meaning potential of the language. For example:
Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that ...
for a glorious life for all.

Our daily deeds as ordinary must produce

South Africans

An
actual
South
African reality that ...
for a glorious life for
all.

[Function]

Actor

Process

Goal

[Class]

Nominal group

Verbal group

Nominal group

[Function structure of clause with syntagm of classes realizing functions]

The functional labels could be further elaborated to show what kind of Process, what kind of
Goal, etc.; but this is not necessary to the description because these more delicate functions can
be derived from the systemic analysis, which shows the features selected by any particular
clause.

Subject, Actor, and Theme

One of the concepts that are basic to the Western tradition of grammatical analysis is that of
Subject. Since this is a familiar term, let us take it as the starting point for investigating the
functions in an English clause. Such as in this clause:
The duke gave my aunt this teapot.
Various interpretations have grown up around the Subject notion, ascribing to it a number of
rather different functions . These resolve themselves into three broad definitions, which can be
summarized as follows:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)

that which is the concern of the message

that of which something is being predicated (i.e. on which rests the truth of the
argument)
the doer of the acti

These three definitions are obviously not synonymous; they are defining different concepts.

Towards Functional Grammar

In the duke gave my aunt this teapot, it is reasonable to claim that the nominal group the duke
is, in fact, the Subject in all these three senses. It represents the person with whom the message is
concerned; the truth or falsehood of the statement is vested in him; and he is represented as
having performed the action of giving.
The terms that came to be used in the second half of the nineteenth century, when there was a
renewal of interest in grammatical theory, were psychological Subject, grammatical Subject,
and logical Subject.
(i)

(ii)

(iii)

Psychological Subject meant that which is the concern of the message. It was called
psychological because it was what the speaker had in his mind to start with, when
embarking on the production of the clause.
Grammatical Subject meant that of which something is predicated. It was called
grammatical because at the time the construction of Subject and Predicate was
thought of as a purely formal grammatical relationship; it was seen to determine
various other grammatical features, such as the case of the noun or pronoun that was
functioning as Subject, and its concord of person and number with the verb, but it was
not thought to express any particular meaning.
Logical Subject meant doer of the action. It was called logical in the sense this
term had had from the seventeenth century, that of having to do with relations
between things, as opposed to grammatical relations, which were relations between
symbols.

the duke gave my aunt this teapot.

The duke

gave my aunt this teapot

Psychological subject
Grammatical subject
Logical subject
[Same item functioning as psychological, grammatical and logical Subject]
In the second example, on the other hand, all three are separated. In this teapot my aunt was
given by the duke, the psychological Subject is this teapot. That is to say, it is this teapot that is
the concern of the message that the speaker has taken as the point of embarkation of the clause.
But the grammatical Subject is my aunt: my aunt is the one of whom the statement is predicated
in respect of whom the clause is claimed to be valid, and therefore can be argued about as true

Towards Functional Grammar

or false. Only the logical Subject is still the duke: the duke is the doer of the deed the one
who is said to have carried out the process that the clause represents.
this teapot my aunt was given by the duke.
This teapot
My aunt
Was given
By the duke
Psychological subject Grammatical subject
Logical subject
[Psychological, grammatical and logical Subject realized by different items]
Replace the earlier labels by separate ones that relate more specifically to the functions
concerned:

Psychological Subject: Theme

Grammatical Subject: Subject
Logical Subject: Actor

This teapot
Theme

My aunt
Subject

Was given

By the duke
Actor

If we keep the duke as Actor, we can have Theme = Subject with Actor separate, such as:
(a)
My aunt
Theme
Subject

was given

this teapot

by the duke
actor

the duke
Subject
Actor

Gave

To my aunt

(b)
this teapot
Theme

(c)
By the duke
Theme
Actor

My aunt
Subject

Was given

Different conflations of Subject, Actor and Theme

This teapot

Towards Functional Grammar

Three lines of meaning in the clause

What is the significance of there being these three distinct functions in the clause, Subject,
Actor and Theme?
Each of the three forms part of a different functional configuration, making up a separate
strand in the overall meaning of the clause. As a working approximation, we can define these
different strands of meaning as follows:
(i)

(ii)

(iii)

The Theme functions in the structure of the clause as a message. A clause has
meaning as a message, a quantum of information; the Theme is the point of departure
for the message. It is the element the speaker selects for grounding what he is going
on to say.
The Subject functions in the structure of the clause as an exchange. A clause has
meaning as an exchange, a transaction between speaker and listener; the Subject is the
warranty of the exchange. It is the element the speaker makes responsible for the
validity of what he is saying.
The Actor functions in the structure of the clause as representation. A clause has
meaning as a representation of some process in ongoing human experience; the Actor
is the active participant in that process. It is the element the speaker portrays as the
one that does the deed.

These three headings clause as a message, clause as an exchange, and clause as a

representation refer to three distinct kinds of meaning that are embodied in the structure of
a clause. Each of these three strands of meaning is construed by configurations of certain
particular functions. Theme, Subject and Actor do not occur as isolates; each occurs in
association with other functions from the same strand of meaning. A configuration of this
kind is what is referred to in functional grammars as a structure.
Metafunction
Textual
interpersonal

Clause as
message
exchange

system
theme
mood

experiential

representation

transitivity

structure
Theme ^Rheme
Mood [Subject +
Finite] + Residue
[Predicator
(+ Complement)
(+ Adjunct)]
process
+
participant(s)
(+
circumstances), e.g.
Process + Actor +
Goal

Towards Functional Grammar

[Three lines of meaning in the clause]
There are labelled these clause as message, clause as exchange and clause as
representation. In fact, the three-fold pattern of meaning is not simply characteristic of the
clause; these three kinds of meaning run throughout the whole of language, and in a
fundamental respect they determine the way that language has evolved. They are referred to
in systemic accounts of grammar as metafunctions (see Chapter 1, Section 1.3.5), and the
concept of metafunction is one of the basic concepts around which the theory is
constructed.

But the actual forms of structural organization depart from this prototype, each of them in
different ways.
(1) The general principle of exhaustiveness means that everything in the wording has some
function at every rank. But not everything has a function in every dimension of structure; for
example, some parts of the clause (e.g. interpersonal Adjuncts such as perhaps and textual
Adjuncts such as however, as in Figure 2-10) play no role in the clause as representation.

(2) The general principle of hierarchy means that an element of any given rank is constructed
out of elements of the rank. This is a feature of the constituent hierarchy made up of units and
their classes: clause, verbal group, and so on. But the configurations of structural functions
show further ramifications of this general pattern. Thus, in the clause as exchange there is
slightly more layering in the structure, while in the clause as message there is rather less.
(3) The general principle of discreteness means that each structural unit has clearly defined
boundaries. But while this kind of segmental organization is characteristic of the clause as
representation, the clause in its other guises as message, and as exchange departs from
this prototype. In its status as an exchange, the clause depends on prosodic features
continuous forms of expression, often with indeterminate boundaries; while in its status as
message it tends to favour culminative patterns peaks of prominence located at beginnings
and endings.

It may be helpful to try and summarize the picture as it is in English, so (with apologies for
the terminological overload!) introduces the technical names for the metafunctions, matches
them up with the different statuses of the clause, and shows the kind of structure favoured by
each. It will be seen that there is a fourth metafunctional heading that does not show up in the
clause column, because it is not embodied in the clause but in the clause complex clauses
linked together by logicosemantic relations to form sequences;

Towards Functional Grammar

Metafunction
(technical name)
Experiential
Interpersonal
Textual
logical

Definition (kind of
meaning
construing a model of
experience
enacting
social
relationships
creating relevance to
context
constructing logical
relations

Corresponding
Favoured type of
status in clause
structure
clause
as segmental (based on
representation
constituency)
clause as exchange
Prosodic
clause as message

Culminative

Iterative

It is the segmental kind of structure, with clearly separated constituent parts organized into a
whole, that has traditionally been taken as the norm in descriptions of grammar; the very
concept of structure, in language, has been defined in constituency terms. This is partly
because of the kind of meaning that is expressed in this way: experiential meaning has been
much more fully described than meaning of the other kinds. But there is also another reason,
which is that constituency is the simplest kind of structure, from which the other, more
complex kinds can be derived; it is the natural one to take as prototypical in the same way
as digital systems are taken as the norm from which analogue systems can be derived, rather
than the other way round.

Towards Functional Grammar

Conclusion
In conclusion, we present an overview of the lexicogrammatical resources of English in the
form of a function-rank matrix. Each cell represents the semiotic address of one or more
systems. This address is defined in terms of metafunction (columns) and ranks (rows);
group/phrase rank systems are also differentiated according to primary class. For example,
the matrix shows that the system of THEME is a textual system operating within the clause,
while the system of TENSE is a logical system operating within the verbal group. We shall
confine ourselves to systems at clause rank and group/phrase rank; systems at word rank and
at morpheme rank are also part of the overall meaning-making resources of lexicogrammar,
but their systems are, in a sense, subservient to the higher-ranking systems. We have also
included the highest-ranking phonological systems the systems of the tone group.

References

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Towards Functional Grammar

www.google.com
http//Systemic functional linguistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.mht

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