Birmingham School Systemic Functional Linguistics

different types of meaning and argued that general maxims of cooperation provide inferential routes to speaker’s communicative intention. He further developed some maxims which are implicative in cooperative principle. These maxims are: maxim of quality say only the required quantity, maxim of quality say honestly, maxim of relevant be relevant, and maxim of manner be brief, not being ambiguous. In describing conversation as cooperative, Grice did not mean to say that conversation is only and always nice and pleasant. Conversation is a cooperative activity in much the same way as football-playing. So, cooperative pribciples are not obligatory in that they are not attached to rules.

2.1.7 Birmingham School

This approach according to Eggins and Slade 1997 was established through the work of Sinclair and Coulthard 1975. Eggins and Slade 1994:44 say that it derived from socio-semantic linguistic theory of J.R. Firth 1957, particulary as developed by Halliday in the early description of scale-and-category grammar. The Birmingham School focus on discourse structure, whereas Halliday oriented in semiotic from the systematic perspective. Birmingham School distinguishes discorse as a level of language organization from grammar and phonology. Distinct discourse unit were indentified for analysis of interactive talk in terms of rank. The units are made of one or more of the units immediately below it. In classroom discourse study, Sinclair and Coulthard introduced the terms Acts which are combined to make up Moves which in turn combined to make up Exchanges. Then exchanges are combined to make up Universitas Sumatera Utara Transactions, and finally make up Lesson to be the largest units in teaching discourse. The Birmingham school present such conversational structure in pedagogic context in three moves: Initiation, Response and Feedback.

2.1.8 Systemic Functional Linguistics

Systemic functional linguistics is an approach developed by Halliday 1973, in Eggins and Slade, 1997 which is based on the model of language as Social Semiotic to which it is elaborated to a functional-semantic interpretation of conversation. Systemic approach offers major benefits in conversational analysis: 1 it offers an integrated, comprehensive and systematic model of language which enables conversational patterns to be described and quantified at different levels and in different digree of detail, 2 It theorizes the links between language and social life so that conversation can be approached as a way of doing social life. More specifically, casual conversation can be analysed as involving different linguistic patterns which both enact and construct dimensions of social identity and interpersonal relations Eggins, 1997:47. Halliday 1994 states that in a casual conversation there are simultaneously embedded three types of meaning; ideatioanal meaning, interpersonal meaning, and textual meaning. Ideational meaning concern with the topic being talked about, when, by whom, and how topic transition and closure is achieved. Interpersonal meaning focused om what kinds of role relation are established through talk, what attitudes interactants express to and about each other, what kinds of things they find funny, and Universitas Sumatera Utara how they negotiate to take turns. Textual meaning refers to different types of cohesion used to tie chuncks of the talk together. In contextual respect, Eggins and Slade 1997 related three types of meaning to register. Ideational meaning is related to Field, interpersonal meaning to Tenor and textual meaning to Mode. Genre is also included as a further level of context in analyzing conversations.

2.1.9 Critical Discourse Analysis