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metafunctions; ideational meanings experiential and logical, interpersonal meanings, and textual meanings.
Eggins and Slade 1994: 49 give more explanations about how to analyze conversation based on the metafunctions. They are:
1 Ideational meanings: it focuses on the topics people talk about, when, by
whom, how topic transition and closure is achieved, etc. 2
Interpersonal meanings: it focuses on the kinds of role relations in the conversation, the attitudes that the interactants express to each other, the way
they negotiate with others, etc. 3
Textual meanings: it focuses on the cohesion in the conversation, different patterns of salience and foregrounding, etc.
Egins and Slade 1997: 51 then note that those three strands of meaning or tripartite structure of language is an encoding of the tripartite structure of the
context of situation in which we use language. Social context of situation based on Halliday Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 12 include field, tenor and mode.
2.1.1 Field
Halliday Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 12 defines field as the activity or focus of the topic, whereas Gerot and Widnell 1995: 15 define field as what is going
on. Meanwhile Eggins 1994: 67 gives definition of the field as the situational variable that has to do with the focus of the activity in which we are engaged.
Those agree that field is the thing which is going on.
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The situations based on Eggins 1994: 67 may be either technical or everyday in their construction of an activity focus, as indicated by Figure 2.1.
FIELD technical
commonsense specialized
everyday
Figure 2.1 The field continuum
Eggin, 1994: 67
It shows that field varies along a dimension of technicality. The field may be in the end of continuum; technical or commonsense. It can also be in the middle
of the two poles. Eggins also gives more differences between technical and everyday language
in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1 Technical vs. Everyday Language Technical Language
Everyday Language
technical terms - words only “insiders” understand
acronyms technical action processes
attributive descriptive process everyday terms
- words we all understand full names
standard syntax identifying processes
Table 1 gives an insight that not all people can understand the words in technical language, for example the word in architecture. Only insiders or those
who include in the same community will understand this technical language. It’s different from everyday language which all people understand.
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2.1.2 Tenor
Tenor according to Halliday Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 12 and Gerrot and Wignell 1994: 15 refers to role and role relationship, Whereas Eggins 1994: 63
defines tenor as the social role relationships played by interactans. It means that the kind of social role they are playing in a situation will effect on how they use
language. Pynton in Eggins, 1994: 64 suggests three different continua. They are
power, affective involvement, and contact. Those three will be elaborated as following.
a. Power POWER
equal unequal
Figure 2.2 The power continuum
Eggins, 1994: 64 The power continuum describes which position situation whether people are
equal or unequal. The example of equal situation is the interaction between friends while the example of unequal situation is the interaction between teacher and
student.
b. Affective Involvement AFFECTIVE INVOLVEMENT
high low
Figure 2.3 The affective involvement continuum
Eggins ,1994: 64 Figure 2.3 schematizes the affective involvement continuum, in which
situations can be positioned according to whether the roles interactants are playing
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are those in which the affective involvement is high or low. In other words, the involvement of their emotion is high or low. The example of high affective
involvement is between husband and wife, whereas between colleagues are not.
c. Contact CONTACT
frequent occasional
Figure 2.4 The contact continuum
Eggins , 1994: 64 The contact continuum describes the positions situations whether the roles
we are playing frequently takes place or not. For example, the frequent contact between spouses contrasted with distant acquaintance.
Based on the three continua, Eggins 1994: 65 then formulates the contrast between two situation types, the informal and formal according to their typical
tenor dimensions. The summary of the contrasts between formal and informal situation is on Table 2.2.
Table 2.2 Formal vs. Informal Situations Informal Formal
Equal power Frequent contact
High affective involvement Unequal, hierarchic power
Infrequent, or one-off, contact Low affective involvement
Eggins , 1994: 65 An informal situation would typically involve interactants who are equal
power, who see each other frequently, and who are affectively involved. A formal situation, in contrast, would typically involve interactants who are not equal, who
do not frequently see, and whose affective involvement is low.
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2.1.3 Mode
