DEFINITION OF SYSTEMATIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR (SFG)

Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) is a grammar based on the view that language is a system for
making meaning. Systemic refers to the fact that when we use language, we make choices from sets of
available options. This is contrary to the traditional view of grammar as sets of rules. Functional assumes
that every time we make a choice from the available options, we are doing so in order to fulfill a
communicative purpose. And Grammar simply refers to the fact that there is an overall organisation to
all of these possible options.

SFG refers to the study of meaning construction through systems of lexicogrammatical choices that
serve functions within social and cultural contexts. It simply means study of relationships with language
and it’s functions. It is form of grammatical description introduced by Michael Halliday (1985). Halliday
considers grammar to be a network of systems of interrelated contrasts. It is a part of a social semiotics
approach to language called systemic approach to language called “systematic functional linguistic”.

HISTORY OF SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR.

The founder of systemic functional grammar is Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday also know as M. A.
K. Halliday; He was born 13 April 1925 and died 15 April 2018. Halliday. was a British linguist who
developed the systemic functional language (SFL) model of language. His grammatical descriptions go
by the name of systemic functional grammar.

It is a theory developed primarily by Michael Halliday and his colleagues while he was at the University
of London.

Halliday described language as a semotic system, "not in the sense of a system of signs, but a systemic
resource for meaning. For Halliday, he defined linguistics as the study of "how people exchange
meanings by 'languaging'"
Halliday described himself as a generalist, meaning that he tried "to look at language from every
possible vantage point", and has described his work as "wandering the highways and byways of
language.

Significant systemic functional grammarians:

* Ruqaiya Hasan

* Robin Fawcett

* James R Martin

* Sue Wharton

Ruqaiya Hasan is a professor of linguistics, born on the 3rd of July 1931- 24 June 2015 . She taught at
various universities in England. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas
of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Hasan followed but extended the model of linguistic context set out by Michael Halliday going back to
the 1960s, in which he proposed that linguistic context must be seen as a "semiotic construct" with
three essential parameters: field, tenor and mode. Hasan argued that context is essential to resolving
Saussure's dichotomy of 'langue' and 'parole'.

Hasan made a theoretical distinction between "relevant context" (aspects of context encapsulated in the
text), and what she called in 1973 the 'material situational setting'. 'Relevant context' she defines as
"that frame of consistency which is illuminated by the language of text" and "a semiotic construct".
Since relevant context is a "semiotic construct", she argued that it should be "within the descriptive
orbit of linguistics". Further, since systemic functional linguistics is a social semiotic theory of language,
then it is incumbent on linguists in this tradition to "throw light on this construct".

Hasan critiqued the typical application of Halliday's terms "field", "tenor" and "mode" by systemic
linguists, on the basis that the terms have been applied as if their meaning and place in the theory was
self-evident. She argued for the application of the system network as a mechanism for the systematic
description of the regularities across diverse social contexts.

METAFUNCTIONS OF SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR.

In the social semiotic approach to multimodality, a metafunctional hypothesis is posited. This hypothesis
states that all semiotic modes serve three metafunctions in order to function as a full system of
communication (cf. Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 40). These metafunctions organize the various
elements and systems that constitute a mode into three distinct domains of meaning, i.e. the ideational,
the interpersonal and the textual metafunction.

The ideational metafunction organizes the resources we use when we construe our experience of both
the inner (mental) and the external (social and physical) world. The ideational metafunction is

…concerned with the content of language [or any other mode], its function as a means of the expression
of our experience, both of the external world and of the inner world of our own consciousness –
together with what is perhaps a separate sub-component expressing certain basic logical relations
(Halliday 1973: 66).

It is possible to distinguish between two sub-components of the ideational metafunction (cf. the
quotation above), i.e. the experiential and the logical metafunction. The experiential metafunction
construes meaning as distinct, yet related parts of a whole (typically labelled ‘constituency’; cf. Halliday
1979: 63). An experiential configuration of meaning relates a process to one or more participants and
frames this relation circumstantially; viz. an experiential configuration signifies an ‘event’. The logical
metafunction is concerned with the connection between events and construes meaning in a more
abstract way than the experiential metafunction. Where a direct reference to things and states of affairs
in ‘real life’ is at play in the experiential metafunction, logical relations are “independent of and make no
reference to things” (Halliday 1979: 73). The logical metafunction is central to language but is more
difficult to describe in other modes; since only language has a clearly delineated, multivariate structure
(i.e. the clause) as its primary means of realizing events, and since the logical metafunction is realized by
those items which connect and combine events (i.e. conjunctions in and between clauses), it is
problematic to describe the logical metafunction in modes that do not operate with clauses.

The interpersonal metafunction concerns the interaction between the producer and the perceiver (of a
text). It organizes the resources we use when we take on different, complementary dialogical roles in an
exchange of meaning. In other words, it functions as
…the mediator of role, including all that may be understood by the expression of our own personalities
and personal feelings on the one hand, and forms of interaction and social interplay with other
participants in the communication situation on the other hand (Halliday 1973: 66).

Interpersonal meanings are not realized as distinctive parts making up a whole (such as it is the case for
experiential meanings); instead, interpersonal meaning is “distributed like a prosody throughout a
continuous stretch of discourse” (Halliday 1979: 66). The interpersonal metafunction is also concerned
with expressions of modality, i.e. the modal status of the represented ‘going-ons’ in a text.

The third metafunction, the textual, organizes the resources we use to create cohesive and context
sensitive texts when we choose to exchange a certain experiential meaning. The textual metafunction

…is the component that enables the speaker to organize what he is saying in such a way that it makes
sense in the context and fulfils its function as a message (Halliday 1973: 66).

Textual meaning is not realized by constituency or by prosodic structure:

What the textual component does is to express the particular semantic status of elements in the
discourse by assigning them to the boundaries (…); this marks off units of the message as extending
from one peak of prominence to the next (Halliday 1979: 69).

LEVELS AND CATEGORIES OF SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR.

Categories:

Clause: A clause is a basic unit of meaning in a sentence. It consists of a subject (who or what the
sentence is about) and a predicate (what is said about the subject).

Phrase: A phrase is a group of words that work together to convey a specific meaning. Examples include
noun phrases (e.g., "the red car"), verb phrases (e.g., "is running"), and prepositional phrases (e.g., "in
the park").

Structure: Structure refers to the way elements within a rank are organized. For example, within a
clause, the subject and predicate have a specific structural relationship.

Unit

Halliday defines unit as "that category to which corresponds a segment of the linguistic material about
which statements are to be made". According to Halliday, Unit can be recognized as (sentence, clause,
group, word, and morpheme). Units are arranged hierarchically on the rank scale. Unit at a

certain rank may consist of one sentence which consists of one or more clauses, a clause as consisting of
one or more groups, a group of one or more words, and a word as one or more morphemes. Rank scale
can be defined as the hierarchical arrangement of units.

Structure

Halliday defines Structure as is "the category set up to account for

likeness between events in successively". Structure describes the patterns of syntagmatic (horizontal or
linear) relations at the grammatical level and it captures the similarities between them.

3- Class

Halliday defines class as "that grouping of members of a given unit which is defined by operation in the
structure of the unit next above". Class is any set of items having the same possibilities of operation in
structure.Class takes into account the paradigmatic possibilities associated with particular elements of
structure.

4- System

Halliday defines system as "the occurrence of one rather than another from among a number of like
events". Systems are lists of choices which are available in the grammar of a language.

Levels and categories of systematic functional grammar

Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) is a linguistic framework developed by Michael Halliday. It focuses
on the functional aspects of language and analyzes how language is used to express meaning in various
social contexts. SFG consists of multiple levels and categories that describe the structure and
organization of language. Here are the main levels and categories of Systemic Functional Grammar:

Rank Scale:

The rank scale represents the hierarchical organization of language. It consists of different ranks or units,
each with its own characteristics and functions. The ranks in SFG include:

Clause: The highest rank, representing a complete thought or message.

Group: Intermediate rank, representing a combination of words that function together.

Word: The smallest rank, representing a single meaningful unit.

Clause Structure:

Clauses are the primary units of meaning in SFG. They are analyzed based on their structure and consist
of the following categories:

Subject: The participant or entity that carries out the action or experiences the state of being.

Predicator: The verb or verb phrase that represents the action or state of being.

Complement: Provides additional information about the subject or predicator.

Constituency Structure:

Constituency structure refers to the arrangement and grouping of words within a clause or group. It
includes the following categories:

Phrase: A group of words that function together as a single unit.

Head: The central word that determines the grammatical function of the phrase.

Modifier: Words that provide additional information or specify the meaning of the head.

Complement: Words or phrases that complete the meaning of the head.

Functional Categories:

Functional categories in SFG describe the different functions that language performs. They include:

Ideational Function: Expresses experiences, states, and events.

Interpersonal Function: Represents social relationships, attitudes, and interaction.

Textual Function: Organizes and connects language in written or spoken texts.

These levels and categories work together to analyze and describe the structure, organization, and
function of language within the framework of Systemic Functional Grammar. By examining how
language is used in different contexts, SFG aims to uncover the underlying meaning and communicative
intentions.

Exponence Scale
In systemic functional grammar (SFG), the term "exponence scale" refers to a continuum that represents
the way different grammatical elements or features are realized or expressed in a language. It is a
concept used to describe the relationship between abstract grammatical meanings and the actual
linguistic forms that express those meanings.

In SFG, grammar is seen as a system that operates at three levels: the interpersonal level (relating to the
speaker and the listener), the experiential level (relating to the content and meaning of the message),
and the textual level (relating to how the message is organized and structured). The exponence scale is
primarily associated with the textual level of grammar.

The exponence scale is a hierarchical arrangement of options or choices that a language has for
expressing different grammatical meanings. At one end of the scale, you have more explicit or overt
forms that clearly mark a particular grammatical feature or function. These overt forms may include
specific words, affixes, or other explicit linguistic markers.

At the other end of the scale, you have more implicit or covert forms that rely on context, inference, or
the surrounding linguistic structure to convey the grammatical meaning. These covert forms may involve
word order, intonation patterns, or other structural choices that don't have specific markers dedicated
to expressing a particular grammatical function.

The exponence scale helps describe the range of options between explicit and implicit forms for
expressing grammatical features in a language. It allows for the analysis of how different languages
prioritize or distribute the expression of grammatical meanings along this continuum. The position of a
particular grammatical feature on the exponence scale reflects its salience or prominence in the
language and its interaction with other features.

Overall, the exponence scale in systemic functional grammar provides a framework for understanding
how languages realize different grammatical meanings through a spectrum of explicitness and
implicitness.

REFERENCES
Halliday, M.A.K. Introduction to functional grammar, 2nd ed. (1994) London: Edward Arnold., p. 15

Hasan, R. 2009. The Place of Context in a Systemic Functional Model. In M.A.K. Halliday and J.J. Webster,
Continuum Companion to Systemic Functional Linguistics. London and New York: Continuum. pp. 179–
80.

Andersen, Thomas Hestbæk, Morten Boeriis, Eva Maagerø and Elise Seip Tønnesen ( 2015). Social
Semiotics. Key Figures, New Directions. London: Routledge.