ENG 435 LECTURE NOTES: WEEK 3

SYSTEMIC-FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR
In the last lecture, we delineated TG’s analysis of the simple sentence in English, with particular
reference to the mechanisms of PS-rules, T-rules, and subcategorisation rules. In this lecture, we will
focus on another significant modern grammar, Systemic-Functional Grammar (SFG).
SFG is the brainchild of the British linguist, Michael Halliday. The precursor of SFG is Scale-and-Category
grammar. Especially during the 1960s, the kind of grammar proposed by Halliday formally incorporated
a semantic and functional dimension, and it became known as SFG. In proposing SFG, Halliday’s central
thesis is that meaning or semantics cannot be divorced from syntax. In other words, syntactic
statements are essentially semantic statements. SFG thus interprets language as being an enormous
systems network of meaning potential. In contrast to scale-and-category grammar, SFG claims that any
sentence or clause in English performs three kinds of functions simultaneously: these are the so-called
ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions. According to Halliday, it is important to note that
in nearly all instances, a constituent has more than one function at a time. The key to a functional
interpretation of grammatical structure is the principle that, in general, linguistic items are
multifunctional. The significance of these three functional concepts is that each one corresponds to a
different mode of meaning in the clause. More recently, Halliday has expounded ideational function as
“clause as representation”, interpersonal function as “clause as exchange”, and textual function as
“clause as message”. Let us examine each of these metafunctons. (The following lecture notes are
largely derived from Halliday [1997] and Thompson [1996]).
(1) IDEATIONAL FUNCTION OR CLAUSE AS REPRESENTATION:
The ideational function serves for the expression of content, that is, of the speaker’s experience of the
real world, including the inner world of his or her own consciousness. The basic framework of ideational
function is very simple. Clause as representation consists of three components: the process; the
participants in the process; and circumstances associated with the process. The process is typically
expressed or realised by the verbal group. The participants are realised by nominal groups.
Circumstances are typically realised by adverbial or prepositional groups. Circumstances are often
optional, reflecting their background function in the clause. Note that what are known as “phrases” in
traditional grammar, structural grammar, and TG are called “groups” in SFG. There are six kinds of
processes: material; mental; relational; behavioural; verbal; and existential.
(i) Material processes are processes of “doing”. One of the most salient types of material processes are
those involving physical actions, such as running, throwing, scratching, cooking, sitting down, and so on.
A traditional definition of a verb is “a doing word”, and this describes such processes reasonably well.
The “doer” of this type of action is called the Actor, even though the actor may not actually be
mentioned in the clause. In many cases, the action may be represented as affecting or “being done to” a
second participant. This participant is called the Goal, since this action is, in a sense, directed at this
participant. The Actor may be human, inanimate, or abstract entity, and the Goal may be human or
inanimate. Let us look at a few examples:
(a) The boy kicked the ball
Actor Mat. Process Goal
(b) The car skidded off the road
Actor Mat. Process Circumstance
(ii) Mental processes refer to verbs of thinking, feeling, hearing, listening, liking, wanting, seeing, and so
on. Mental processes are grammatically distinct from material processes according to two main criteria.
First, in a clause of mental process, there is always one participant who is human: this is the one that
senses, feels, thinks, or perceives. For example, in the sentence, “Mary liked the gift”, “Mary” is the
human senser. Second, material and mental processes are different in terms of tense. For material
processes, the most natural tense is the continuous form, for example, “He’s mending the bicycle” or
“They are building a house”. For material processes, we do not normally say *”They build a house”. For
mental processes, on the other hand, the most natural tense is the simple present. We say “She likes
the gift”, not *”She is liking the gift”; “I see the stars”, not *”I am seeing the stars”. (The asterisk before
some examples indicates that such constructions are not acceptable in English). It is clear that the
participants in a mental process cannot be equated with Actor and Goal in a material process. For the
two participants in a mental process, we shall use the terms Senser and Phenomenon. The Senser is the
conscious being that is feeling, thinking, or seeing. The Phenomenon is that which is “sensed”: that is,
felt, thought or seen. Let us look at a few examples:
(a) He heard a faint sound
Senser Mental Pro. Phenomenon
(b) He could not see anything
Senser Material Pro. Phenomenon
(iii) Relational Processes: If material processes are those of doing, and mental processes those of
sensing, the third category, known as relational processes, are those of being, for example, the
constructions “Sarah is wise” and “Tom is the leader”. The central function or meaning of this type of
process is that something is. Linking verbs belonging to the BE category and verbs such as seem, turn,
and become regularly function as relational processes. There are two different types of relational
process. The first type is called an attributive relational process, and the two participants are the Carrier
and the Attribute. The Carrier is the entity which “carries” the Attribute. The formula or sentence frame
for an attributive relational process is “x is an attribute of y”, as in the following examples:
This bread is stale
He seems uneasy
The weather has turned nasty
Carrier Process Attribute
The second type is called an identifying relational process. The function of this kind of process is to
identify one entity in terms of another. For example, in the sentence “Tom is the leader”, Tom is
identified as the leader. The formula or sentence frame for an identifying relational process is “x is the
identity of y”. The participants are, therefore, labelled the Identified and the Identifier, as in the
following examples:
His immediate objective was the church
My name is Tom
Tomorrow is the tenth
Identified Process Identifier
What is the major difference between the attributive and the identifying modes? The fundamental
difference between the two is that identifying processes are reversible, whereas attributives are not. In
other words, the two participants – that is, the Identified and Identifier – in an identifying relational
process clause obey the switch rule. For example, for attributive sentences, we cannot say *”Stale is the
bread” or *”Wise is Sarah”. Conversely, the verb in identifying processes is equivalent in a way to an
“equals” sign (=). It is, therefore, not surprising that these processes are reversible according to the
formula, “If x = y, then y = x”. Thus our examples under identifying relational processes could all be
reworded, as follows:
“The church was his immediate objective”.
“Tom is my name”.
“The tenth is tomorrow”.
In our next lecture, we will consider the three remaining process types: behavioural; verbal; and
existential.