MID TERM PAPER

Systemic Functional Linguistic

Debby
Mulya
0203516013
This paper is a brief description or summary about what i have been learned during
this half semester. At the beginning, i would like to give an overview about SFL study. It tells
us what does this study about? what topics are being discussed in SFL?. Then, i divide it each
topic into several parts in order to give understanding about the topic. Due to the fact that,
SFL has complexity topic, I also provide a semantic mind mapping as my strategy in order to
make my self learn each topic in SFL easier as well as an analysis text as the realization of
what i have learned in the classroom. So, that is why this paper quite alot as it seen.
Unfortunately, this paper do not present the whole topic in SFL, i make this summary based
on the topics are discussed in the classroom activity.
Overview of Systemic Functional Linguistic
What does this study about?
Systemic functional linguistic (SFL) is a study concerned about how meaning are
made and language use in everyday interaction. Language is viewed as resource for making
meaning. According to Halliday, language can be seen as a social semiotic system or the
process of creating meaning and how the people use language each other to accomplish event
in everyday social life. So, language use is functional, its function is to make meaning, it is
influenced by social and cultural context, the process of using language is semiotic process,
the process of making meaning. SFL can be seen as modern linguistic study, it seek grammar
in terms of meaning. It doesnt focus only the structure of the language, but also how the
structure can construct the meaning. The main point is that what a language is used for (its
function) is more important than its structure. As stated by Halliday, social and cultural
context influence the language use. So, we can conclude that language and context
interrelated together.
The terms of context in SFL namely register, genre, and ideology. Register is dealing
with the context of the situation, genre is described as the context of culture in text, and the
ideology. In register theory, there are three dimensions of situation namely : mode ( the role
of language), tenor ( role relations of power and solidarity), and field ( topic or focus of th
activity ). When the situation is used to describe the stage, the structure in which people

achieve the goals of using language are called genre. Lastly, the ideology is how to encode
particular position and values in language. More exploration about these contexts will be
discussed on the next session of this paper.
As it has discussed above, SFL tell us how language making meaning. There are two
levels of making meaning are divided into upper lever of contents, which are semantic and
discourse semantic, whereas in intermediate level includes lexicogrammar.
Language is structured to make three kinds of meaning are known as first, ideational
meaning ( how to represent the experience in language ), second interpersonal meaning ( role
relationship with other people and attitude ), third textual meaning ( the way text is organized
as a piece of spoken or written).
These three strands of meaning are realized through the association of lexicogrammar
and register theory. In brief we can describe as follows : In term of field, it is associated with
ideational meaning, and realized through the transitivy and clause complex. Mode is
associated with textual meaning and realized through Theme. Whereas, tenor is associated
with interpersonal meaning and realized through Mood. As you can see in this chart below :

Genre : Context of the culture in Text

This part discuss about the culture of the text. Genre is described as stages, steps, or
goal oriented which has purposeful activity. In addition, Genres are how things get done,
when language is used to accomplish them (Martin 1985b:248). There are some types of
genre in our social everyday, such as buying and selling things, making appointment, going to
interview. In literary and educational area such romantic novels, short stories, tutorials,
report/essay writing, leading seminars, etc. Genre lies in three dimensions, which are the

occurance of register (mood, field, tenor), the schematic structure, and realization pattern..
Now we come to the first dimension. In register configuration especially in text, we
also deal with the three context of situation. Field will tell us about the topic of the text, tenor
will describe about who or what kind of person produced the text, and to whom, and mode
will inform the type of text in term of written or spoken.
Next, In schematic structure. It refers to the structures or stages of the text. In
describing the schematic structure of genres, there are two fundamental concept of linguistic
analysis, they are constituents and functional labelling. Constituentcy simply means genre is
made up constituens of stages, which are beginning, middle, and end. Functional labelling is
recognizing or identifying the stages which fullfil a function relative to the whole, about what
the stage is doing, and their function.
Some linguists state that language use as habitualization. Habitualization of
interactant has lead social behaviour to create the stage that must be jointly together to
achieve transaction succesfully. For example in social interaction, the transaction of buying
and selling thing. This interaction always occurs in our daily life and has some steps or stages
that become habitualized.
Last, realization of pattern. That is the way meaning become encoded or expressed in
semiotic system. It is through discourse semantic, lexicogrammatical and phonologycal
patterns of the language code. The example of realization is provided here.
If genres are different way of using language, it should be noted that some stages have
ritualistic of conventional realization. Text of different genres will reveal different
lexicogrammatical choices. The realization pattern will differ accross genre. The realization
pattern will differ accross schematic structure

Register : The Context of Situation

In this section, we are dealing with the theory of register. There are three familiar
aspects of register we have discussed earlier, which are known as field, tenor, and mode.
Field refers to the topic or focus of the activity, .mode as the role of language, and last tenor
as role relations of power and solidarity.
In mode dimension, there are two different aspects of distance between language and
situation. It involves spatial or interpersonal distance ( range of situations according to the
possibilities of immediate feedback between interactant) and experiential distance (range
ofsituations according to the distance between language and social process occuring. These
two situation of language use reveal very different dimension in spoken and written in
linguistic implication of mode as well as the situations of language use
Moreover, in tenor dimension. It includes power ( the position of situations, wheter
the role are playing equal or unequal power, contact ( wheter the role are playing bring us
into frequent or frequent contact, and affective involvement ( where the situation can be
positioned, wheter in which the affective movement is high or low. It also has the differences
typical situations of language use both formal and informal.
Similarly, in field dimension, there are differences situation which is considered as
technical or everyday knowledge about activity focus. In technical situation, the significant
degree of assumed knowledge among interactant is activity focus, deep taxonomy, and detail
sub classification. Whereas in everyday situation, it is basically common knowledge, shallow
taxonomy, and limited sub classification

Mood : How meaning are created through social relation

There are three main element of mood constituents. First, an expression of polarity
( either Yes ( positive polarity ) or No ( negative polarity). Second, a nominal type element
( subject ). Third, a verbal type element ( finite ).
Halliday mention four basic move types include statement, question, offer, and
command as speech function. These kinds of speech function have typical mood of clause.
Statement is typically declarative mood, question is interrogative mood, command is
imperative mood, offer is modulated intterogative mood, answer and knowledgement are
elliptical declarative mood, while accept and compliance as minor clause.
As a matter of fact, that clause is consist of mood and residu. The constituent of mood
has been explained above, whereas the constituent of residu ( clause component which is less
essential to the arguibility of the clause) consist of predicator ( lexical or content part of
group ), complement ( element whitin residu that has potential as subject), and adjunct
(clause element which contribute some additional, but non essential. There are four main
types of adjunct : Mood adjunct, polarity adjunct, comment adjunct, and vocative adjunct.
Mood adjuct has some categories, which are to express probability (e.g perhaps,
maybe, probably), usuality (e.g sometimes, usually), intensification or minimization (e.g
really,

absolutely,

just,

somewhat),

presumption

(e.g

evidently,

presumably,

obviously),inclination (e.g happily, willingly). Polarity adjunct (e.g YES or NO ), comment

adjunct, which are admission (e.g frankly), assertion (e.g honestly and really), desirable (e.g
luckily, hopefully ), valid (e.g broadly, speaking, generally), sensible (e.g understandably,
wisely), expected (e.g expected, amazingly )
Types of mood structures are declarative clause, polar interogative, wh interogative,
exclamative, modality (1) modalization which has two kind of meaning, probability and
usuality, modality (2) modulation which express meanings obligation and necessity.

Lexico grammar ( intermediate level of coding)

Lexicogrammar is the sequenced arrangement of constituents of the intermediate
stratum of language ( the stratum of word and structure ). It simply means how the meaning is
realized.
The unit of lexico grammar consist of highest rank and lowest rank. In highest rank, it
include clause, with upper boundary grammatical relations the clause complex or sentence.
Otherwise, the lowest rank in grammatical hierarchy is morpheme as the smallest unit of
phrases or group. So, basically lexicogrammar will analyze the elements of these rank and
describe the sequence and combination, where it can give us clause as possible as well as
usual to user of the code of English.
These grammatical rank defines as the unit of analysis and description the
grammatical stratum, and a complete grammatical description of language would describe
how each of those units are organized.
Since the grammar is composed of unit which has relationship each other. It is better
to see how grammar works by looking each grammatical constituents go together to make
structure. There are two types of fundamental analysis by using bracketing based on
grammatical constituent and functionallabelling.
Unfortunately, bracketing technique is very limited tool in grammatical analysis,
because it does not really tell us anything about structure. In order to see the description of
grammatical structure, we need more powerfull descriptive technique. Due to this case, we
use functional labelling, it classify each item in term of each role ( what it does in relation
each other ). It easier for us to describe or demonstrate the function each class.

Discourse Semantic
This section will focus on discourse semantic. It has been discussed earlier that
language has unit and stratum analysis. In term of grammatical rank, there are stratum which
divide language into highest, intermediate, and lowest rank. Discourse semantic is considered
as the highest level of language, lexicogrammar as intermediate level of language, and last,
phonological pattern ( morpheme) as the lowest level of language.
In discourse semantic, the main focus is analysing about how the meaning are being
made in text. Where the lexicogrammar tend to analyze the wording and structure, and last
phonologycal pattern analyze phoneme/grapheme.
A text ( spoken / written ) as a medium in discourse semantic. Halliday and Hasan
(1976:1) suggest that a text is: any passage (of language), spoken or written, of whatever
lenght, that does form a unified whole. Haliday and hassan also state that a text is considered
as semantic unit : a unit not of form but of meaning. In systematic term, text is a unit of
meaning, a unit which express, simultaneously, ideational, interpersonal, and textual
meaning. In addition Halliday and Hassan state that a text: has texture. Texture is what
holds the clauses of a text together to give them unity, which are cohesion and coherent.
Coherence ( contextual properties ) refer to the way a group of clause or sentence relate to the
context. There are two types of coherence : registerial coherence and generic coherence.
Registerial coherence includes field, tenor, and mode. Then, generic coherence deals with
recognizing text as an example of particular genre, through the schematic genre.
Whereas in cohesion, there are three types of cohesion in written language, which are
reference, conjuction, and lexical cohesion. In reference, we are dealing with endhoporic
reference and anaphoric reference, in lexical cohesion we discuss about taxonomic lexical
relations and expectancy relation. Then in taxonomy lexical relation, it relates to the
classification and composition. While in conjunctive cohesion, there are elaboration,
extension, and enhancement. Discourse sematic has a complex topic to discuss, but i just
write a brief description or summary about what components or main focus in discourse
semantic