Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), developed by Michael Halliday, focuses on language as a social semiotic resource used to express meanings in various contexts. It emphasizes the functions of language over its structure and identifies three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. SFL has broad applications in education, including literacy, language teaching, and discourse analysis.

1. INTRODUCTION
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL
LINGUSTICS (SFL)

2. WHAT IS SFL ……
• Systemic functional linguistics is developed by Michael
Halliday (1985) with his Introduction to Functional Grammar
based on the model of language as social semiotic resources.
• People can use language resources to accomplish their
purposes by expressing meanings in context.
• Jakobson established a famous framework of language
functions, which includes six key purposes, that is referential,
poetic, emotive, conative, phatic, and metalingual function.

3. • However, Halliday identifies three metafunctions, the
ideational, the interpersonal, and the textual.
• Halliday stated that, “all languages are organized around two
main kinds of meaning, the ideational or reflective, and the
interpersonal or active and combined with these is a third
metafunctional component, the textual which breathes
relevance into the other two” (Halliday, 1994, p.39).

4. • According to Eggins (1994: p. 2), SFL is an approach to
language which is centered on how people use language with
each other in accomplishing everyday social life.
• SFL is interested in the authentic speech and writing of people
interacting in naturally occurring social contexts. In other
words, SFL places more emphasis on language function (what
it is used for) than on language structure (how it is composed).

5. THE ROLES OF SFL ……
Halliday declares that the educational application of SFL is “[…]
probably the broadest range of its applications; it includes
experience in initial literacy, children’s writing, language in
secondary education, classroom discourse analysis, teaching of
foreign languages, analysis of textbooks, error analysis, teaching
of literature and teacher education”. (Halliday, 1994)

6. Lock (1996, p.1) states “systemic functional perspective does not
focus on the distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical
linguistic forms, but rather on the appropriateness of each lexico-
gramatical choice for a particular communicative purpose in a
particular social context.”
---- In learning a language, the learners are expected to develop
the ability to communicate effectively social interactions.

7. References and Recommended Readings
• Celce-Murcia, M., Dörnyei, Z., & Thurrell, S. (1995).
Communicative competence: A pedagogically motivated
model with content specifications. Issues in Applied
linguistics, 6(2), 5-35.
• Slade, D., & Eggins, S. (1997). Analysing casual
conversation. London: Cassell.
• Eggins, S. (1994). An Introduction Systemic Functional
Linguistics. London: Pinter Publisher Ltd.
• Gerot, L and Wignell, P.(1995). Making Sense of Functional
Grammar: An Introductory Book. Sydney: Gerd Stabler.
• Halliday, M.A.K. 1984. Language as Code and Language as
Behaviour: A Systemic Functional Interpretation of the Nature
and Ontogenesis of Dialogue, in R. Fawcett, M.A.K Halliday,
S.M. Lamb and A. Makkai (eds.). The Semiotics of 52
Language and Culture Vol. 1: Language as Social Semiotics.
London: Pinter. 3 – 35.

8. • Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). An Introduction to Functional
Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
• Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and poetics. In Style in
language (pp. 350-377). MA: MIT Press.
• Lock, G. (1996). Functional English Grammar: An
introduction for Second Language Teachers.Cambridge:
Cambridge UP
• Matthiessen, C. (1995). Lexicogrammatical cartography:
English systems.Tokyo: Internat. Language Sciences Publ.