This document discusses M.A.K. Halliday's systemic functional linguistics model and functionalist stylistics approach. It explains the three metafunctions of language according to Halliday - the ideational, interpersonal and textual functions. It also outlines Halliday's transitivity system of six process types and the participants involved. The document emphasizes that language enables the representation of experience and construction of meaning through the interweaving of these metafunctions and systems in the grammar of clauses.
5. Jens Martensson
Michael Alexander Kirkwood
Halliday
•(often M.A.K. Halliday; 13 April 1925 –
15 April 2018) was an English-born
linguist who developed the
internationally influential systemic
functional linguistics (SFL) model of
language.
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FUNCTIONALIST STYLISTICS
•is concerned with the relationship
between the FORMS OF LANGUAGE
as a system and the CONTEXT OR
SITUATION OF ITS PRODUCTION, as
well as the social, cultural and political
factors that impact upon its construction
and reception.
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ON POINT…
•Building on Malinowski’s (1923) work on
the importance of situational context in
language and society’ (1950), Halliday
(1971) has often been credited with
developing the key concepts of
functionalist stylistics
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According to Collins Cobuild
Advanced Dictionary (2009)
•Semiotics is the academic
study of the relationship of
language and others signs to
their meanings.
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HALLIDAY’S TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM
•is a system that develops old
conception about transitivity,
so whether a verb takes or
does not take a direct object
is not a prime consideration.
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Material processes
•ARE PROCESSES OF
‘DOING’. They express the
notion that some entity ‘does’
something –which may be done
‘to’ some other entity.
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Two Participants
•In the mental processes, there are
two participants, namely:
SENSER(the conscious being that
is feeling, thinking, or seeing) and
PHENOMENON(which is ‘sensed’ –
felt, thought or seen).
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There are three types of relational
process in the clause
1.Intensive ‘x is a’ (establishes a
relationship of sameness between two
entities)
2.Circumstantial ‘x is at a’ (defines the
entity in terms of location, time, manner)
3.Possessive ‘x has a’ (indicates that one
entity owns another)
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Two Modes
1. Attributive (‘a is an attribute of x’)
In this mode, there are two participants,
namely: carrier and attribute.
2. Identifying (‘a is the identity of x’)
In this mode, there are two participants,
namely: identified and identifier.
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Behavioral Processes
a.Intransitive (it has only one participant)
b.Indicates an activity in which both the
physical and mental aspects are
inseparable and indispensable to it. In
this process, there is only one
participant, namely: behaver (the agent
who behaves),
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Participants
1. Sayer (participant who speaks),
2. Receiver (the one to whom the
verbalization is addressed),
3. Verbiage (a name for the
verbalization itself).
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Participants
There is however one other type of
verbal process, in which the sayer is
in sense acting verbally on another
direct participant, with verbs such
as: insult, praise, slander, abuse,
and flatter. This other participant will
be referred to as the target.
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Existential processes
•Muhammad Rayhan Bustam Analyzing
Clause By Halliday’s Transitivity System
expressing existence, such as exist, arise,
followed by a nominal group functioning as
Existent(a thing which exists in the
process). The existent may be a
phenomenon of any kind, and is often, in
fact, an event.
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Participants• These processesrepresent that something exists or
happens. These clauses typically have the verb be, or
some other verb
• Muhammad Rayhan Bustam Analyzing Clause By
Halliday’s Transitivity System29expressing existence,
such as exist, arise, followed by a nominal group
functioning as Existent(a thing which exists in the
process). The existent may be a phenomenon of any
kind, and is often, in fact, an event.
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CATEGORIES OF MODALITY
•level of obligation or duty in a statement
(‘deontic’ modality),
•its truth-value (‘epistemic’ modality),
•level of desire (‘boulomaic’ modality)
•the degree of perception (‘perception’
modality).
(Uspensky, 1973)
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Halliday argues…
•‘It is the demands posed by the
service of these functions which
have moulded the shape of
language and fixed the course
of its evolution’.
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Sample text..
• There are four things a young child ought to learn
about fishing his first time out. First, hooks are sharp.
Demonstrate this by lightly pressing the point against
the fleshy part of his thumb. Second, a pole is held in
a certain way (usually at the end in two hands, one
above the other). Third, noise frightens the fish away.
Fourth, the fisherman must be patient. Perhaps the
best way to teach patience is to be patient yourself,
since his attitude will depend to a considerable extent
on how you behave.
63Schwartz, How to Fly a Kite, Catch a Fish, Grow a Flower1
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On focus…
•hooks are sharp,
•noise frightens the fish
away.
•since
64Schwartz, How to Fly a Kite, Catch a Fish, Grow a Flower1
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The point is…
•It is the MESHING OF THESE
METAFUNCTIONS IN THE
LEXICOGRAMMAR OF THE
CLAUSE that realizes the meaning
of the text as an act of
communication between the writer
and his readers
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The idea…
•The capacity for functionalist
stylistics to see through the text to
the underlying ideas that shape its
construction allows us to engage
with language in ways that go
beyond the words on the page.
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