LSA Symposium
Functions, Functionalism, and Linguistics
Systemic Functional Linguistics
Basic Principles
The proof of the pudding is in the [piano] playing
Bill Greaves and Jim Benson
.
greaves@glendon.yorku.ca
jbenson@gmail.com
Outline
• Malinowski
• Metafunctions, strata, units, systems,
structures, instantiation.
• “Trinocular Vision”
• Ape-Human dialogue in English
• Literature: 18th C. Pope epigram
• References
2
Malinowski
3
METAFUNCTIONS
SFL is all about the work that language does
• Ideational work
–Experiential: Representing the world as
symbols
–Logical Sorting out the internal connections
in language.
• Interpersonal work: Enacting social
relationships
• Textual work: Weaving the ideational and
interpersonal work to engender a message
4
STRATA
• Context (Culture – Register – Instance)
• Semantics
• Lexicogrammar
• Phonology
• Phonetics
5
Where does context come from? 1. It comes from the
experiential meanings we create in our semantic choices.
1.
Experiential meanings and fields of discourse.
• Experiential choices construe (create) our fields of
discourse—and our fields of discourse push our
semantics and lexicogrammar as the field expands.
• “A fixed tripple of unit vectors, corresponding to a
fixed choice of a (right handed) xyz coordinate
system” is an instance of field restricted language
necessary to play a role in the context of mathematics.
6
Where does context come from? 2. It comes from the
interpersonal meanings we enact in our semantic choices.
2.
Interpersonal meanings and tenor of discourse.
• Interpersonal choices enact our tenors of discourse –
our role relationships.
• And as our society changes in social habits this puts
pressure on our semantics, lexicogrammar and
phonology to handle, for example, new norms of
politeness.
7
Where does context come from? 3 It comes from our
inventory of genres.
• 3.
Textual meanings weave interpersonal and
experiential meanings into the various genres we find
in our culture.
• Learning how to shape seminar presentations and
essays (Theme and Rheme and Given and New
information), for example, is as painful a part of
university education as learning the experiential
semantic categories of the various disciplines.
8
UNITS
• EXCHANGE: TURN: MOVE (in
interpersonal semantics)
• CLAUSE: GROUP/PHRASE: WORD:
MORPHEME (in lexicogrammar)
• TONE UNIT: FOOT: SYLLABLE:
PHONEME (in phonology)
9
SYSTEMS
• In semantics there is, for example, a MOVE
system network:
–[Give] / [Demand]
–[Goods & Services] / [Information].
• In lexicogrammar there is a MOOD system:
–[Indicative] (+Finite +Subject) / [Imperative]
–If [Indicative], then [declarative]
(Subject^Finite)/ [interrogative
(Finite^Subject]
• In phonology there is a TONE system:
• [tone 1] / [tone 2] / [tone 3] / [tone 4] / [tone 5]
10
An example: TONE choices in phonology
realizing delicate MOOD: KEY choices in
lexicogrammar
Consider the following
utterances all containing the
[declarative] wording I like it
(Subject^Finite^Predicator^Complement),
spoken in reference to a
painting seen at an art gallery
11
5 different DECLARATIVE: KEY CHOICES
Hallilday – Greaves Intonation in the Grammar of English, pg. 50
12
Realization chain:
lexicogrammar: phonology: phonetics: instance
13
STRUCTURES in
lexicogrammar
• Textual work:
– Theme ^Rheme: I like hamburg / hamburg I like
• Interpersonal work:
– Finite ^ Subject : Do you like hamburg? I don’t!;
– Subject ^ Finite: Everyone likes hamburg
• Ideational work:
– Actor Process Circumstance: Sue drove carefully
14
STRUCTURES
The structures vary independently:
– Sue drove carefully – Carefully, Sue drove
(around it)
• Same ideational work; different textual work.
– Sue drove carefully – Did Sue drive carefully?
• Same ideational work; different interpersonal
work
– Sue drove carefully – Sue drove a pickup truck
• Same textual and interpersonal work – different
ideational work.
15
INSTANTIATION
Climate and weather are the same thing, but they vary in
instantiation.
• The Canadian climate is the “big picture” built up by all of the instances of
Canadian weather that we have on record.
• As the instances change, the climate changes. (If global warming continues
the Canadian days (weather) will get hotter, and the Canadian climate will
support tropical plants.)
– Every time you (and I) (and students in English medium courses in
India) talk, it’s an instance of English.
• All the instances of English talk since, say the year 700? Have built the “big
picture” of global English.
• More locally, all the instances of English talk in Canada have built the “big
picture” of Canadian English.
• Every instance of a Canadian doctor talking with a clinician has helped build
the “tighter picture (register)” of Canadian medical English.
• Every instance of s/he is helping (or failing) to build an English that16
responds to our current social values.
The dimensions of Systemic Functional
Linguistics
17
Trinocular Vision
“No man is an island”
• Nor is any stratum a thing unto itself.
• A one dimensional view just won’t do.
• Each stratum exists as a set of relationships with the strata
above and below.
• Segmental phonemes, for example, exist as a construal
relationship with WORDS in lexicogrammar.
– /k/ is a phoneme class because it helps construe the word cat in the
stratum above.
– /k/ is a phoneme class because it can be realized as a recognizable
phonetic class of sounds in the stratum below: [k].
• Segmental phonemes exist as a realization relationship with
18
phonetic classes, e.g. IPA.
One dimensional vision
(for example SEMANTICS)
19
Trinocular Vision: Central eye on semantics
lexicogrammatical realizations
20
Central eye on lexicogrammar:
phonological realizations
21
Central eye on phonology
phonetic realizations
22
Central eye on phonetics
Instantial sound realizations, described through physics or anatomy.
23
Ape – Human
Dialogues
in
English
Two skulls From Benson and Greaves Functional
Dimensions of Ape-Human Discourse
http://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=5
25
So what is this a picture of?
• Brain sizes. 3/3 and 1/3.
– All sorts of biology is relevant. In this case inter-species
overlap. Bonobos and humans have 99.7% of their genes
in common. We diverged only about 6 million years ago.
– A bonobo brain is HUGE in terms of brain – body mass
ratio. (Humans are right off the scale.)
• Social context. The position represents dialogue.
– We work with enculturated bonobos.
– How Kanzi happened.
26
Marks (and sound) in a social context
How Kanzi happened
• Using a keyboard that “spoke”, Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
was trying to teach Matata, Kanzi’s 30 year old wild caught
mother, WORDS.
• Then, so it was thought, Matata could do SENTENCES.
• But Matata didn’t like her WORD lessons and didn't learn
WORDS much less do SENTENCES.
• Infant Kanzi was a pain in the neck. Always in the way.
• But when Mata was sent away Kanzi spontaneously used
the keyboard to communicate with Sue!
• Sue said “Skip the grammar lessons. Give him a warm
cultural context and the keyboard.” The rest is history. 27
PHONEMES are abstract classes—and
so are GRAPHEMES
We are all familiar with the English PHONEME and
GRAPHEME systems. But to make their abstract nature
perhaps a bit clearer, here is an alternative GRAPHEME
system.
It was developed by Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and used
by bonobo apes at the Language Research Center.
There are 384 GRAPHEMES. These directly realize a set
of 384 LEXICOGRAMMATICAL WORD choices. The
next slide shows a number of the tokens:
When one GRAPHEME token is pressed, a computer
speaker produces the sound of its word.
28
This is part of one of three panels of
GRAPHEME tokens
29
The lexigram system, which can be drawn on by
humans or enculturated bonobos
– These lexigrams constitute a SYSTEM: a choice must be made
from the 384 terms in the system
– It is a “flat” system: There is no rank scale. In formal terms,
/coffee/ simply means not any of the other 383 choices. It is not a
graphological WORD consisting of LETTERS. It is the grapheme
/coffee/. Full stop.
– Like other phoneme or grapheme systems, the lexigram system
exists as a set of construal and realizational relationships with the
strata above and below.
– Looking upwards, the lexigram /coffee/ construes the word coffee
in the lexicogrammar.
– Looking down, the word coffee is written on the computer
keyboard as one of 384 grapheme choices recognized by the size
color and shape of their graphetic realizations, but each word is
spoken by the computer speaker as a string of English phonemes
30
recognized by their phonetic characteristics.
Lexigrams: the graphemes /orange/ /Mary/
/melon/ /coffee/ and graphetic realizations
31
These graphemes are classes
• Now, here is evidence that a GRAPHEME is
a class, with widely differing allographs at
the PHON/GRAPHETIC stratum. In the
video on the next slide Panbanisha is
learning how to produce her allographs for
the grapheme [coffee] Click on the image in
the next slide.
Allographs of /coffee/—click below
33
Examples of language genre and music genre
Recipe
• The goal is to make cole
slaw
• The stages are labeled
INGREDIENTS ^
PREPARATION
• Each stage contributes a part
of the overall meaning: you
have to assemble the
ingredients before you can
combine them
• Predictable compositional
structure
Sonata form
• The goal is to make the first
movement of a sonata or
symphony
• The stages are labeled
EXPOSITION ^
DEVELOPMENT ^
RECAPITULATION
• Each stage contributes a part
of the overall meaning: you
have to have something to
develop, and you have to have
an end as well as a beginning
• Predictable compositional
structure
Panbanisha, Sue, and Peter Gabriel co-construct
a speech genre (Bakhtin 1986)
• A “jam session”. The goal is for Panbanisha to make music
at the keyboard interactively with Peter Gabriel
• The musical interaction is inherently dialogic
• The stages in the surrounding conversations:
• SONG TOPIC NEGOTIATION: Panbanisha
takes the lead in deciding on a song topic
• SONG PRODUCTION: Panbanisha plays the
song (with verbal FACILITATION by Sue and
Peter where necessary)
• EVALUATION: Sue and Peter appraise the song
• CODA: Sue and Peter discuss its significance
1. Ideational work:
Re-presenting
sense experience
as symbol.
FIRST ORDER (Dealing with “the world”)
1) Ideational: An ape and a piano
Peter Gabriel brought three members of his band to
interact with the bonobo apes (99.6% of our genes)
Kanzi and Panbanisha and their caregiver Dr. Sue
Savage Rumbaugh.
He presented them with an electronic keyboard.
Here is a clip of Panbanisha and the keyboard near the
beginning of the first day:
(Next slide)
Panbanisha and keyboard:
Day 1.
What happens next:
3 days of multi-modal bilingual trialogue
The media:
• Human voices
• Computer speaker emitting male English words
• Arbitrary Graphic computer keys
• Ape voice
The languages:
• English;
• Western music
The three participants:
• Panbanisha (bonobo)
• Sue Savage-Rumbaugh (human)
• Peter Gabriel (human)
FIELD OF DISCOURSE
Goal directed social action. Not the same thing as subject.
“What am I?” is a good test. If our goal is to make music, I’m a musician.
Ideational strata
Bending the Field of Discourse
Panbanisha makes a computer say Orange, Banana.
Opening field: Caregiving: dining: dining on fruit: dining on
orange and banana
Peter and Sue bend the field through qualification:
Song about oranges and bananas
The field is now music. oranges and bananas
together designate a class of songs.
Other “bends”
• Grape Song
• Grooming Song
2: Interpersonal work:
Enacting
social
Relationships
FIRST ORDER (Dealing with “the world”)
From Halliday-Greaves, Pg 50:
[declarative]:[key] system
(tone 5 has a second instance with Sue speaking)
Rank Scale: EXCHANGE:TURN:MOVE
“Grooming Song” EXCHANGE
• Upper case – sound from a LEXIGRAM
• Sue: QUIET. Quiet things, and grooming is a QUIET
THING. It's a quiet thing.
• Peter: That's true. Let's start it.
• Sue whisper: Quiet. Can you play a grooming song.
• Peter: Can you play a grooming song?
• Sue: whisper: I want to hear a grooming song. Play a
real quiet grooming song.
• Pan: GROOM.
• Pan (piano): 2 NOTES (followed by jam session)
“Grooming Song” exchange
(Upper case -- /*/1 QUIET=computer saying the word in male voice with falling
contour when Sue presses the lexigram key)
Sue: /*/1 QUIET /*/5 quiet things // 5 ^ and */grooming is a /*/
1QUIET /*/1THING // 5 ^ it's a */quiet thing //
Peter: // 1 ^that's */true //1 ^ let's */ start it //
Sue whisper: // 1 quiet // 2 can you / play a / grooming */ song
//
Peter: // 2 can you / play a / grooming */ song //
Sue: whisper: //1 I want to /hear a */grooming song. //1 Play a
/real /quiet /grooming */song //
Pan: // 1 GROOM // (Panbanisha presses lexigram)
Pan (piano): 2 NOTES
Grooming Song exchange
Bottom line:
The sight, touch and sound of the keyboard have been represented as components of Panbanisha’s new social role as a
musician involved in a jam session.
Language? Well, the trialogue didn’t take place in German!
Or Chinese! Pambanisha was, by selecting and pressing
computer lexigrams keys, producing sounds that were
English. The clauses to which she responded were English
clauses. The semantic network – the meanings which
changed her from a disinterested “couch potato” in front of
the keyboard into a full participation in a jam session was
enacted through choices in the English mood system. And
the culture which was created through this, although a
unique bonobo-human culture, was composed of English
speakers.
3: Textual work:
Weaving ideational and
interpersonal meaning together into
message.
SECOND ORDER (Dealing with the first order)
Textual work done in
different strata
Work done by the lexicogrammar stratum:
Theme – Rheme structure. Grammatical work realized
in lexicogrammatical structure
Work done by the phonology stratum:
Given – New structure. Grammatical work realized in
phonological structure.
Clause 1: // 5 ^ and */grooming is a /*/ 1QUIET /*/1THING
Clause 2: // 5 ^ it's a */quiet thing //
Grooming is Theme of the first clause. (Grooming is the first
ideational element.)
The word it is Theme of the second clause. (It is the first ideational
element.)
The first clause is spoken as three information units because the
computer speaker always gives a [tone 1] Tonic utterance. The
second clause is a single information unit.
Quiet is New in the second clause. (Why? Because the speaker is
boss. When she places Tonic (*/ indicates the most significant
pitch change) on the syllable quiet she forces us to treat the word
as New.)
Thing is Given. (Why? Anything after New is being treated by the
speaker as Given.)
PART TWO
DOG
and
COURTIER
Register in a written literary text:
two spoken interpretations
Frederick, Prince of Wales had a stately home at Kew.
In 1736 the poet Alexander Pope gave him a puppy
complete with a collar inscribed:
I am his Highness’ Dog at Kew;
Pray tell me Sir, whose Dog are you?
BG
JB
The way into the poem through CONTEXT
The functional questions are:
–what are the ideational and
–what are the interpersonal choices which
create this imagined world, and
– how are these choices woven together into a
recognizable literary genre?
GENERAL to SPECIFIC
Generality
• We can think of CONTEXT at any level of generality:
– All the contexts that have been created over time
• Commerce: The first attempt to barter
• Sport: snowboarding
• Gender based power relationships in Homer’s Greece
• An unlimited (we can always create new ones) number
– Contexts of a clearly defined “register”: a discussion between
skipper and crew about whether or not to set a spinnaker at the next
mark in the race. This is a slice towards the instance end. In such a
tight register huge ranges of language choice are simply not up for
grabs.
– The context being construed, enacted and engendered in these
instances: two particular readings of Pope’s epigram.
SFL focuses is on the three kinds of work
that language does
SFL is an “appliable” linguistic theory. That it to say, it
focuses on the three kinds of work that language does.
• Ideational work. Construing FIELD of DISCOURSE:
– Experiential: re-presenting, as symbols, the world we
encounter through our senses
– Logical: organizing our reasoning on the basis of our
experience
• Interpersonal work. Enacting TENOR of DISCOURSE:
Enacting our relationship with others.
• Textual work: Engendering MODE of DISCOURSE:
Weaving ideational and interpersonal meaning together to
create message.
FIELD, MODE and TENOR
Three dimensions of CONTEXT
Stratification: from CONTEXT to
PHONETICS
The FIELD component of REGISTER
EXPERIENTIAL WORK
Three views of a dog’s world
• HISTORY would shed light on cause and effect in the
linear flow of events unfolding in time: how “His
Highness” came to live in Kew, etc.
• POLITICAL SCIENCE might take a less linear view
and focus on the effectiveness of “His Highness’s”
place in the governance of England.
• SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS sheds
light on the role that language plays in creating and
maintaining the social world in which His Highness,
His Highness’ dog, and His Highness’ courtiers play out
their respective lives (just as language played a role
creating the three day context in which Panbanisha grew
to be a jazz pianist).
EXPERIENTIAL: construing FIELD
CONTEXT isn’t the material setting; it is something we make
• The tool we make field with is (mostly) language.
• This room has four walls, a floor, a ceiling, and rows of
chairs with people in them.
• The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one
holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire,
abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards
you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing
else, but to be cast into the fire . . .
• See! Just by language I have (sort of) changed the field to a
Eighteenth Century religious discussion in which I have
great social power because I’m preaching a sermon. But the
room hasn’t changed.
The Field of the epigram
In this epigram the work of construing field is done
primarily through lexis:
– His Highness (Lexical set: My Lord, Your
Majesty, Your Grace, etc.)
– Kew (Lexical set: Kew, Windsor, Buck House,
etc.)
– Whose dog (Important lexis because the vocative
“Sir” of “Pray tell me Sir,” predicts e.g.Whose
Private Secretary, but definitely not whose *dog.
INTERPERSONAL WORK
MOVE choice in dialogue creates
coupled roles
• The [statement] I am His Highness’dog
places the imagined audience (courtier at
Kew) in the complementary role of
acknowledger.
• The [command] pray tell me Sir places Sir
in the complementary role of complier.
• The [question] whose dog are you? places
Sir in the complementary role of answerer.
INTERPERSONAL WORK
SEMANTICS: MOVE system
[statement] I am His Highness’ Dog at Kew
[command] pray tell me Sir
[question] Whose dog are you?
Projected by the previous [command]
Pray tell me Sir!
[projected]:[question]:[lexical]
Whose dog are you?
How do we respond to the created situation?
We can read this as though we are
overhearing one half of a conversation
between the dog and a courtier
Or we can read it in the shoes of the courtier,
as though the dog is speaking to us.
In the first case, we may be amused.
In the second case, even though we know
full well that it is fiction, it might not seem
quite so funny.
TEXTUAL WORK: Weaving Field and
Tenor in the [spoken] Mode.
What follows are annotations in Praat of these two different
spoken version of the epigram.
The top tier displays the waveform and the second the
spectrogram.
The third tier displays the words, with */ indicating that a
particular word is Tonic.
The fourth tier distinguishes Given from New information
(Location of the Tonic).
The fifth tier explains interpersonal meaning (shape of the
Tonic).
The bottom tier identifies the speaker.
Summary of Praat displays
Similarities: Greaves and Benson wove field and tenor
together in identical ways in the first line of the couplet with
two information units, and the same distribution of Given
and New information.
Differences: In the second line they also had the same number
of information units, but these were distributing New and
Given information differently.
The main difference in sound was not textual but
interpersonal: Benson’s voice quality was markedly nasty
and signaled his ironic interpretation.
Greaves: I am His Highness Dog at Kew
Greaves: Pray tell me Sir, whose Dog are you
Benson: I am His Highness Dog at Kew
Benson: Pray tell me Sir, whose Dog are you
The End.
But if your appetite is whetted . . . . .
Amuse gueule
1) Functional Dimensions of Ape-Human Discourse
http://www.equinoxpub.com/equinox/books/showbook.asp?bkid=5&keyword=benson
Edited by: James D. Benson, William S. Greaves
Series: Functional Linguistics
Hardback Price
£60.00/$95.00
Paperback Price
£15.00/$25.00
Description
PAPERBACK PUBLISHED JULY 2009
Functional Dimensions of Ape-Human Discourse asks the question ‘what do interactions between apes and humans
mediated by language tell us?’. In order to answer this question the authors explore language-in-context, drawing on a
multi-leveled, multi-functional linguistics. The levels are context of culture, context of situation, semantics,
lexicogrammar, and phonology; and the functions are ideational, interpersonal, and textual.
2) http://onthehuman.org/2011/01/human-language-human-consciousness/comment-page-1/ “Human Language—Human
Consciousness” Sue Savage Rumbaugh. See also the comments by Tom Givon and Paul Thibault.
Appetizers
Leong Ping Alvin:
http://www.alvinleong.info/sfg/sfgtrans.html
This cheerful website is a great help when getting into the
lexicogrammatical stratum.
Key Terms in Systemic Functional Linguistics [Paperback]
(Continuum, 2010) by
Christian Matthiessen (Author), Marvin Lam (Author),
Kazuhiro Teruya (Author). This is very useful for all strata.
Working with Functional Grammar (Arnold, 1997) by J. R.
Martin, Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen and Claire Painter
also focuses on the lexicogrammar.
Appetizers
An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics.
(2nd ed. Continuum 2005) by Suzanne Eggins.
Intonation in the Grammar of English
(Equinnox 2008) by M.A.K. Halliday,and William S.
Greaves.
http://www.equinoxpub.com/equinox/books/showboo
k.asp?bkid=7
Focuses on phonology and phonetics, but is also an introduction to SFL
theory. Has a CD with “hot” sound and video icons.
Appetizers
Analysing Casual Conversation
by Suzanne Eggins, Diana Slade
http://www.equinoxpub.com/equinox/bo
oks/showbook.asp?bkid=96&keyword=
Introducing Functional Grammar (2nd ed
Arnold Publication) by Geoff Thompson.
Entrees LEXICOGRAMMAR: SYSTEM NETWORKS
Lexicogrammatical Cartography:
English Systems by Christian
Matthiessen (Tokyo: International
Language Sciences Publishers, 1995)
http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/Prin
t/Books/Book.lexcartog.
Expensive. Hard to get. Important.
Entrees SEMANTICS: IDEATIONAL METAFUNCTION
Construing Experience Through
Meaning: A Language-Based
Approach to Cognition (Open
Linguistics) [Paperback]
(Continuum 1999/2006) by M.A.K.
Halliday , Christian Matthiessen.
Important.
Entrees LEXICOGRAMMAR
(Although the title says “introduction”, this
is much more easily digested as an
entrée.)
An Introduction to Functional
rd
Grammar (3 ed Hodder Arnold
2004) by M. A. K. Halliday and
Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen
Important.
Other restaurants
• http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/index.ht
ml
• http://minerva.ling.mq.edu.au/
• http://www.yorku.ca/cummings/nasfla/l
inks/index.html