Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is an approach to linguistics developed by Michael Halliday that views language as a social semiotic system. In SFL, grammar is seen as a meaning-making resource that evolved to serve social functions. Halliday proposed that languages involve three metafunctions: using language to construe experience, enact social relations, and create coherent texts. SFL analyzes language from both a general semantic perspective as a system of options and a specific perspective as socially constructed texts.

1. Systemic Functional Linguistics – Assignment No. 02.
Name: Aleena Farooq.
Roll No. 07.
B.S. English – 6th Semester.
Topic: Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics. (SFL.)
Systemic Functional Linguistics is an approach to linguistics that considers language as a
social semiotic system. It was developed by Michael A. K. Halliday. The label "Systemic" is
related to the System Networks used in the description of the Lexico-grammar of human
languages.
Halliday states that language is the study of how people exchange meanings through the
use of language. Systemic Functional theory views language as a social semiotic a resource of
people use to accomplish their purposes by expressing meanings in context. Haliday wrote, “the
value of theory” lies in the use that can be made of it, and he has always considered a theory of
language to be essentially consumer oriented”.
SFL is the study of the relationship between language and its functions in social settings.
SFL treats grammar as a meaning-making resource and insists on the interrelation of form and
meaning. It considers language to have evolved under to pressure of the particular functions that
the language system has to serve. Functions are therefore taken to have left their mark on the
structure and organization of language at all levels which is said to be achieved via
metafunctions.
For Halliday, all languages involve three generalized functions, or metafunctions: one
construes experience (meanings about the outer and inner worlds); one enacts social relations
(meanings concerned with interpersonal relations), and one weaves together of these two
functions to create text (the wording). Because these functions are considered to come into being
simultaneously, language must also be able to bring these meanings together: this is the role of
structural organization, be that grammatical, semantic or contextual.
These metafunctions are simultaneously
expressed in one form – the clause, which, as
text, holds traces of these meanings. Analysts
recover these by identifying the strands of
meaning, metaphorically like using a prism to
refract white light; by separating them, their
semantic contributions to the text can be
understood.

2. In SFL, every act of language is an act of meaning and “to mean is to act semiotically.”
For Halliday “the internal organization of language is not arbitrary but embodies a positive
reflection of the functions that language has evolved to serve in the life of social man.” This is
unique because it means language must be explained as expressing meanings that are created
within a social system. For those of us who are interested in how language acts both socially and
semiotically, this is useful because it lets us describe and explain how social reality is encoded in
language, both in terms of how language is a means of reflecting on things and how it is a means
of acting (symbolically) on people.
 Within SFL, language can be viewed from two semantic perspectives:
 Generally as semiotic system; representing the full meaning potential available to
speakers (i.e. the full set of semantic options available to a speaker, what he or she can
mean in contrast to what he or she can’t mean)
 Specifically as text; representing a socially constructed instance of the system (this
simply means that ‘text’ is the result of the meanings that were actually selected, it is the
output of the semiotic system)
 Multidimensional Semiotic System:
Halliday has tried, then, to develop a linguistic theory and description that is applicable to
any context of human language. His theory and descriptions are based on these principles, on the
basis that they are required to explain the complexity of human language. There are five
principles:
1. Paradigmatic dimension: Meaning is choice, i.e. users select from "options that arise in the
environment of other options", and that "the power of language resides in its organization as
a huge network of interrelated choices"
2. Stratification dimension: In the evolution of language from primary to higher-order
semiotic, "a space was created in which meanings could be organized in their own terms, as a
purely abstract network of interrelations". Between the content of form-pairing of simple
semiotic systems emerged the "organizational space" referred to as lexicogrammar. This
development put language on the road to becoming an apparently infinite meaning-making
system.
3. Metafunctional dimension: Language displays "functional complementarity". In other
words, it has evolved under the human need to make meanings about the world around and
inside us, at the same time that it is the means for creating and maintaining our interpersonal
relations. These motifs are two modes of meaning in discourse—what Halliday terms the
"ideational" and the "interpersonal" metafunctions. They are organized via a third mode of

3. meaning, the textual metafunction, which acts on the other two modes to create a coherent
flow of discourse.
4. Syntagmatic dimension: Language unfolds syntagmatically, as structure laid down in time
(spoken) or space (written) Within the lexicogrammar, for example, the largest is the clause,
and the smallest the morpheme; intermediate between these ranks are the ranks of
group/phrase and of word.
5. Instantiation dimension: All of these resources are, in turn, "predicated on the vector of
instantiation", defined as "the relation between an instance and the system that lies behind it".
Instantiation is a formal relationship between potential and actual.
 The Notion of System In Linguistics:
As the name suggests, the notion of system is a defining aspect of systemic functional
linguistics. In linguistics, the origins of the idea go back to Ferdinand de Saussure, and his notion
of paradigmatic relations in signs. The paradigmatic principle was established in semiotics by
Saussure, whose concept of value (viz. “valeur”), and of signs as terms in a system, “showed up
paradigmatic organization as the most abstract dimension of meaning”.
System is used in two related ways in systemic functional theory. SFL uses the idea of
system to refer to language as a whole, (e.g. "the system of language"), a usage that derives
from Hjelmslev. In this context, Jay Lemke describes language as an open, dynamic system.
There is also the notion of system as used by J.R. Firth, where linguistic systems are considered
to furnish the background for elements of structure. Halliday argues that system in the sense in
which it was used by Firth was a conception only found in Firth’s linguistic theory.
In this use of system, grammatical or other features of language are considered best
understood when described as sets of options. According to Halliday, "the most abstract
categories of the grammatical description are the systems together with their options (systemic
features). A systemic grammar differs from other functional grammars (and from all formal
grammars) in that it is paradigmatic: a system is a paradigmatic set of alternative features, of
which one must be chosen if the entry condition is satisfied."
System was a feature of Halliday's early theoretical work on language; it was regarded to
be one of four fundamental categories for the theory of grammar, the others being unit,
structure and class. The category of system was invoked to account for "the occurrence of one
rather than another from among a number of like events". At that time, Halliday defined
grammar as "that level of linguistic form at which operates closed systems".
In adopting a system perspective on language, systemic functional linguistics have been
part of a more general 20th- and 21st-century reaction against atomistic approaches to science, in
which an essence is sought within smaller and smaller components of the phenomenon under

4. study. In systems thinking, any delineated object of study is defined by its relations to other units
postulated by the theory.
In systemic functional linguistics, this has been described as the trinocular perspective.
Thus a descriptive category must be defended from three perspectives: from above ("what does it
construe?" "what effect does it have in a context of use?"), below ("how is this function
realised?") and roundabout ("what else is in the neighbourhood?" "what other things does this
thing have to interact with?"). This gives systemic functional linguistics an affinity with studies
of complex systems.
 System Network in Systemic Linguistics:
The label systemic is related to the system networks used in the description of human
languages. System networks capture the dimension of choice at each layer of the linguistic
system to which they are applied. The system networks of the lexicogrammar make up Systemic
Functional Grammar. A system network is a theoretical tool to describe the sets of options
available in a language variety; it represents abstract choice and does not correspond to a notion
of actual choice or make psychological claims. System networks commonly employ multiple
inheritance and "simultaneous" systems, or choices, which therefore combine to generate very
large descriptive spaces.
 Conclusion:
According to Systemic Functional Linguistics, the approach of language teaching
consists of 2 grammars. There are systemic grammar and functional grammar. In systemic
grammar, language is a part of a system of society. We cannot separate between language and
society. Then, functional grammar is how to use language to perform different functions.
(metafunctions) Systemic Functional Linguistics also talks about context and register, i.e. Field,
Tenor and Mode.
 References:
http://www.slideshare.net/wahyupurnaningtyasnew/systemic-functional-linguistics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_functional_linguistics
http://semioticon.com/semiotix/2012/03/language-as-social-semiotic-in-hallidays-systemic-
functional-linguistics/