Maitri Rahmadhani : The Translation Of Verbal Shifts Of Djenar Maesa Ayu’s Short Story Namanya…, Into Her Name By Michael Nieto Garcia: An Approach To Systemic Functional Linguistics, 2008.
USU Repository © 2009
27
2.1.3 A Brief Description of Systemic Functional Linguistics
Systemic Functional Linguistics is a theory of language rooted in anthropology Malinowski 1935. The earliest formulation of SFL as a linguistic
theory dates back to Firth 1957, and it has been developed further, notably by Halliday e.g. Halliday 1961, 1963, 1967, 1968, 1973, 1978.
Systemic Functional Linguistics SFL grew out from the work of Malinowski about context of situation and context of culture that, later, provide an interesting
starting point for the study of social man, since they encourage us to look language as a form of behaviour potential. According to him, the context of culture is the
environment for the some set of options in behaviour, while context of situation is the environment of any particular selection that is made from within them.
Later, this theory developed by Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday M.A.K Halliday and he proposed a theory that we call today as the Systemic
Functional Linguistic Theory SFLT. Systemic Theory 1985: XIV is a theory of meaning as a choice, by which a language or any other linguistics system is
interpreted as networks of interlocking options: ‘either this or that, or the other,’ ‘either more like this one or more like the other,’ and so on. In addition, Gerot and
Wignell 1994: 82 also stated that Systemic Functional Grammar talks about clauses and clause complexes other than sentences.
A sentence can be interpreted as a clause complex: a Head clause together with other clauses that modify it. There is the same kind of relationship between
sentence and clause as there is between group and word: the sentence has involved by expansion outwards from the clause. The clause complex will be the only grammatical
unit, which we shall recognize above the clause. Hence, there will be no need to bring in the term ‘sentence’ as a distinct grammatical category. We can use it simply to
Maitri Rahmadhani : The Translation Of Verbal Shifts Of Djenar Maesa Ayu’s Short Story Namanya…, Into Her Name By Michael Nieto Garcia: An Approach To Systemic Functional Linguistics, 2008.
USU Repository © 2009
28 refer to the orthographic unit that is contained between full stop. This will avoid
ambiguity: a sentence is a constituent of writing, while a clause complex is a constituent of grammar Halliday, 1994: 216. Clause is the constituent unit in the
grammar. The term ‘clause’ is still fairly technical, although it is quite widely known – more familiarly perhaps in its related sense of a clause in a contract Halliday, 1994:
23 In using language to express meaning, a speaker has a linguistic choice that
allows him to use any kinds of expression. For example, to know about the time, he ca use either request form, question form, commend from, etc. that he thinks more
suitable because each of those expressions will construct different meaning. There must be a great deal about the context in which occurs if the listener or the hearer can
understand a text. From the description, it can be said that SFLT puts a great interest in the relation between the language and the context. Therefore, SFLT has been
described as a functional semantic approach to language which explores how people use language in different context, and how language is constructed for the use as a
semiotic system. Halliday’s theory refers to ‘systemic grammar’ or ‘systemic linguistics’, since
the grammar of a language… is envisaged as a highly complex and delicate set of systems of options, some sequentially ordered, some simultaneous, through which one
must figuratively move in framing an utterance and in terms of which as a hearer one must interpret an utterance. These interrelated networks of choices…are
presumed to have taken the form they have, in all languages, in order that speakers and hearers can make use of their language to meet their requirements as determined
by the general human situation and by their own particular culture. In his theory,
Maitri Rahmadhani : The Translation Of Verbal Shifts Of Djenar Maesa Ayu’s Short Story Namanya…, Into Her Name By Michael Nieto Garcia: An Approach To Systemic Functional Linguistics, 2008.
USU Repository © 2009
29 Halliday…professes, as the central objective of his theory of language, to help answer
the question: ‘why is language as it is?’ Robins, 1967:245. The crucial characteristic of SFL is its orientation outside linguistics towards
sociology. This orientation brings with it a view of language as a social semiotic
Halliday 1978: we can only learn about how language works if we consider the way it is used in particular contexts, both cultural and situational. Essentially, SFL
advocates a view of language as a means of doing. In this sense, language provides a linguistic behaviour potential, which ultimately defined by the context of culture.
Using language is choice among the linguistic possibilities determined by the context
of culture in a particular context of situation. Language is thus considered primarily as a social resource with which speakers and hearers can act meaningfully.
The major theoretical concepts that follow from SFL’s view on language and from the central question governing all linguistic investigation are:
• Language is a behaviour potential;
• Language construes meaning;
• Language is multifunctional;
• Using language is choice in the potential and ultimately actualization of the
potential.
2.1.4 Metafunction of Language
