Systemic Functional Linguistics THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1. Systemic Functional Linguistics

Although it has been mentioned in the previous chapter that Appraisal Theory is a full-blown theory about emotion in text, the theory is still put ‘under the heading’ of another theory: Systemic Functional Linguistics SFL. SFL is the linguistics school that was first introduced and developed by the English linguist Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday, emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney, Australia 1 . SFL analyses language from the view point of meaning; SFL is a meaning- based linguistics theory. SFL, first and foremost, views language as a resource for making meaning. It discusses how language or, rather, elements of language functions to convey meaning that language-users want to communicate. In a clausal SFL does not recognize sentence level, for example, instead of discussing what categorizes as what Subjects and Objects are usually nouns, etc, SFL looks at who the participants are, what action is done, and in what circumstances it is done. SFL states that there are three modes of meaning, those that fall under the heading of metafunction of language. Metafunction is the function of the function of 1 After his retirement in 1987, Halliday has been visiting various universities, one of which is the Hongkong Polytechnic University 2009, as a visiting professor of linguistics [http:isfc2010. ubcconferences.comindex.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=16Itemid=5]. p d f Machine I s a pdf w r it e r t ha t pr oduce s qua lit y PD F file s w it h e a se Produce quality PDF files in seconds and preserve the integrity of your original docum ents. Com patible across nearly all Windows platform s, if you can print from a windows application you can use pdfMachine. Get yours now Universitas Sumatera Utara language. The term metafunction thus is used to avoid confusing the notion of what being talked about with the common word: function. As Halliday puts it “ We could have called them [i.e. the functions] simply ‘functions’; however there is a long tradition of talking about the functions of language contexts where ‘function’ simply means purpose or way of using language, and has no significance for the analysis of language itself…the systemic analysis shows that functionality is intrinsic to language…[thus] The term ‘metafunction’ was adopted to suggest that function was an integral component within the overall theory” 2004: 30-31. The three metafunctions of language are the ideationalexperiential metafunction, the textual and the interpersonal. It must be noted that these metafunctions work simultaneously, in the same time and space, in every utterance. This means that any utterance are equipped with all these three metafunctions, therefore the three must not be separated in analysing any utterance. By this view- point, any clause is regarded as a unit of experience, and hence grammar as a theory of experience 2 . In the analysis of ideational metafunction, SFL first looks at the process, going-on that is represented in the text; then what participants are involved in the process and the circumstance of the process. SFL categorizes 6 kinds of process: material the real, physical process that happens outside of human body, represented by verbs such as eat, kick, go, cut, etc, mental the psychological process, the process that takes place in the mind, using verbs such as think, like, want, hate etc, verbal the process of saying, of giving information verbally: talk, tell, instruct, say, etc, 2 Lecture on Systemic Functional Linguistics by Prof. Amrin Saragih at USU’s postgraduate school of linguistics. p d f Machine I s a pdf w r it e r t ha t pr oduce s qua lit y PD F file s w it h e a se Produce quality PDF files in seconds and preserve the integrity of your original docum ents. Com patible across nearly all Windows platform s, if you can print from a windows application you can use pdfMachine. Get yours now Universitas Sumatera Utara relational the process of being: is, become, stands for, symbolizes, etc, existential the process of existing, of being a being: is, am, come, go by, and behavioural the process made up of both mental and material activities: laugh, dream, cough. By textual metafunction, SFL means the function of language as a medium for a speaker to arrange his message. Textual function refers to how language-users encode their messages into texts, determine the flow of the messages, and relate the messages with the previous ones thus maintaining the cohesion among the messages. SFL analyses this by looking at the themes and rhemes parts of clauses, the types of the themes, and the unmarked-ness of the theme. Interpersonal metafunction is the metafunction that expresses a speaker’s attitude and judgements. Thus it is the metafunction that serves to be the basis of the whole enterprise of Appraisal Theory. In the analysis of interpersonal metafunction, we look at mood and modality. Mood in English is about the two elements subject and finite of a clause that determines the form of the clause: whether it is an imperative, declarative, or interrogative. Modality is about those words that mark necessity, possibility or impossibility such as should, probably, maybe, etc. Since interpersonal metafunction is the basis of Appraisal Theory, mood and modality are also objects of study in an appraisal research. p d f Machine I s a pdf w r it e r t ha t pr oduce s qua lit y PD F file s w it h e a se Produce quality PDF files in seconds and preserve the integrity of your original docum ents. Com patible across nearly all Windows platform s, if you can print from a windows application you can use pdfMachine. Get yours now Universitas Sumatera Utara Textual Ideational Interpersonal Figure 2.1. Ideational, Interpersonal, and Textual Metafunction Martin White, 2005: 8

2.2. Appraisal Theory