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HOW

M.A.K.

HALLIDAY

WHY

WHEn

1925-2018

facts

  • British linguist, teacher, and proponent of neo-Firthian theory who viewed language basically as a social phenomenon.
  • He describes language as a semiotic system. Language has a “meaning potential”; consequently, he defines linguistics as the study of “how people exchange meanings by ‘languaging’”.
  • He adopted the term ‘systemic-functional’ for his linguistic approach to describe two dimensions of language.
  • He extended the work of Charles Darwin and Karl Marx by drawing the study of language and ‘meaning’ further into the natural and social sciences.

Central Knowledge

Child language development has been an increasingly popular and important area of study. He highlights three aspects within a child’s language development.

1)Learning stage

2) Learning through language learning

3) Learning about language.

all human learning is essentially semiotic in nature.

SFL

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

WHAT

DOES SFL MEAN?

  • the study of the relationship between language and its functions in social settings.
  • Theory of language centered on the notion of language function. it places what language does, and how it does as central, in preference to more structural approaches; which place the elements of language and their combinations as their center. SFL starts at the social context and at how language both acts upon, and its constrained by it.

Three strata make up the linguistic system in SFL:

1. meaning (semantics),

2. sound (phonology),

3. wording or lexicogrammar (syntax, morphology, and lexis).

Systemic functional linguistics treats grammar as a meaning-making resource and insists on the interrelation of form and meaning.

EXAMPLES AND OBSERVATIONS

• "SL [systemic linguistics] is an avowedly functionalist approach to language, and it is arguably the functionalist approach which has been most highly developed. In contrast to most other approaches, SL explicitly attempts to combine purely structural information with overtly social factors in a single integrated description. Like other functionalist frameworks, SL is deeply concerned with the purposes of language use. Systemicists constantly ask the following questions: What is this writer (or speaker) trying to do? What linguistic devices are available to help them do it, and on what basis do they make their choices?"

  • that language use is functional
  • that its function is to make meanings
  • that these meanings are influenced by the social and cultural context in which they are exchanged
  • that the process of using language is a semiotic process, a process of making meaning by choosing.

THREE KIND OF SOCIAL-FUNCTIONAL NEEDS

  • EXPERIENCE
  • SOCIAL ROLES AND ATTITUDES
  • THE WORDING

Halliday calls these language functions metafunctions and refers to them as ideational, interpersonal and textual respectively.

Language functions

In contrast with Fillmore, Halliday studies language from the outside, asking “Why is language structured in the way it is and not in another?”

He introduces to us the Micro and Macro functions of language.

It refers to those functional, true, constant and underlying functions present in every language, whichever the cultural context may be. These are:

  • IDEATIONAL FUNCTION: It is the literal meaning
  • INTERPERSONAL FUNCTION: It has to do with expressive and connotative meaning
  • TEXTUAL FUNCTION: It has to do with theme and rheme

MACRO

VIDEO

For him the area that reflects the ideational function of language has to do with one of the major grammatical systems: TRANSITIVITY (the grammatical feature which indicates if a verb takes a direct object.)

  • TRANSITIVE VERBS
  • INTRANSITIVE VERB

In Halliday’s conception whether a verb takes or does not take a Direct Object is not the prime consideration. There are 3 components of what Halliday calls a “transitivity process”, namely:

a) The process itself, (realized by verbal groups)

b) Participants in the process; (realized by nominal groups be them subject or object)

c) Circumstances associated with the process (realized by the prepositional phrases or adverbials)

The concept of transitivity depends on how these components interact in the sentence.

FILLMORE CASES HALLIDAY ROLES

Agentive Actor

Objective Goal

Instrumental Instrument

Dative Recipient

Factitive Resultant

Benefactive Beneficiary

Source Force

Locative Place

So, for instance, in the sentence:

Mia bought Sebastian some curry at the market

Halliday Actor Beneficiary Goal circumstance

Participant process participant participant circumstance

Nom. group Verbal grp. Nom. Grp. Nom. Grp. Adverbial grp

Fillmore Agentive Benefactive Objective Locative

These functions are related to Child Language Acquisition. In an attempt to understand how humans develop language, M.A.K spent several months studying early childhood language development. He worked as a participant and observer, using paper and pencil to document Nigel’s utterances at six-week intervals from age 9 months to 2-1/2 years-old, with two points of focus in mind: the instance and the system.

MICRO

He aimed to document Nigel’s progression as an individual, across each stage of his linguistic development; at the same time, he proposed a systemic theory of language that unites our earliest meaningful utterances with those we enact as adults. Through his three-part stage-model, Halliday argued that humans develop language because we are creatures who need to mean, and language, above all else, is our primary source of meaning.

1ST PHASE

THE THEORY OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

3RD PHASE

2ND PHASE

Halliday identifies seven functions that language has for children in their early years. Children are motivated to acquire language because it serves certain purposes or functions for them. The first four functions or protolanguage stages: children pre-verbally convey intentions and desires. They are using protolanguage to construct meaning from their experiences.

• Instrumental: This is when the child uses language to express their needs (e.g.'Want juice')

• Regulatory: This is where language is used to tell others what to do (e.g. 'Go away')

• Interactional: Here language is used to make contact with others and form relationships (e.g 'Want play? /Love you, Mummy')

• Personal: This is the use of language to express feelings, opinions and individual identity (e.g 'Me good girl')

The next three functions help the child to come to terms with his or her environment:

• Heuristic: This is when language is used to gain knowledge about the environment (e.g. 'What the tractor doing?')

• Imaginative: Here language is used to tell stories and jokes, and to create an imaginary environment. (e.g. ‘Let’s play space’)

• Representational: The use of language to convey facts and information. (e.g. ‘I’ll tell you how the game works’)

18-24 MONTHS

Transitional stage. Functions are combined. Grammar and structure are developed.

  • Pragmatic: it comes from the instrumental, regulatory and interactive functions. Language as regards action is related to the development of syntax. It is used to satisfy needs and to interact with other people.
  • Mathetic: it comes from the personal, heuristic and imaginative functions. Language with the purpose of learning facilitates the acquisition of vocabulary.
  • Informative: language is a mean to transmit messages, to give information. It appears by the age of 22 months.

From the age of 24 months onwards

The adult system begins. There are two basic functions:

  • Ideational and iterative (evolution of the mathetic function). Language to speak about the real world. It includes the experience of the speaker and the interpretation of the world around him.
  • Interpersonal (evolution of the pragmatic function). Language as a means to participate in the act of speech, the speaker’s role, attitude, desires, etc. The speaker takes part in the situation.

systemics and computation

SFL has been used as a basis in computational linguistics,

especially in natural language generation (NLG). NLG is a software

process that automatically transforms data into written narrative.

Numerous other systems have been built using Systemic grammar,

either in whole or in part.

The pollen Forecast for Scotland system is a simple example of an

NLG system. This system takes as input six numbers, which give

predicted pollen levels in different parts of Scotland.

Other common implementations include:

• Written analysis for business intelligence dashboards

• Reporting on business data/data analysis

• Personalized customer communications via email and in-app messaging

MT

machine translation

During the 1940s, the first modern computers were created. They were extremely large, sometimes the size of small buildings. The first computers were programmed by setting switches on a panel. Gradually the computers became smaller, less expensive and easier to program. Time on these computers became available for a wider range of uses. Some considered that the raw power of these computers could be turned to machine translation (MT) between languages. During the 1950s in Britain, two projects in this direction were started, one involving Firth’s group in University College London, the other involving a group in Cambridge which included Halliday.

ANTI-LANGUAGES

Term created by M.A.K Halliday.

Anti-Language is a minority language or method of communicating

within a minority speech community that excludes members of the

speech community. This is the language of a social group which is

developed as a means of preventing people from outside the group

understanding it. The same vocabulary and grammar may be used,

but in an orthodox fashion, excluding outsiders.

These were originally used by criminals and people on the fringes of

society, who do not want to be understood by everybody.

A well-known example may be Nadsat which is a fictional register or

argot used by the teenagers in Anthony Burgess’s novel

A Clockwork Orange.

• Argot

• Black Slang

• Internet Slang

• Rhyming Slang

• Social Dialect

Anti-languages may be understood as extreme versions of social dialects. They tend to arise among subcultures/substandard use of the language, and groups that occupy a marginal or precarious position in society. These are created by a process of relexicalization, the grammar of the parent language may be preserved, but a distinctive vocabulary develops.

The concept was studied by Halliday who used the term for the lingua franca of an anti-society which is set up within another society, as conscious alternative to it, and which indicates linguistic accomplishments of the users in action. He compiled a list of criteria for an anti-language.

  • Early records of languages of exotic cultures, the information usually comes to us in the form of word lists.
  • The simplest form taken by an anti-language is that of new words for old: it is a language relexicalized.
  • The most important vehicle of reality-maintenance is conversation. All who employ this same form of communication are reality-maintaining others.
  • The anti-language is a vehicle of resocialization.
  • There is a continuity between language and anti-language.

thanks for watching!

Ruiz, micaela

suarez, camila

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