Halliday Why Short introduction to Functional Grammar? Language is inexhaustible.

It is an introduction to functional grammar because the conceptual framework on which it is based is a functional rather than a formal one. Interpretation of texts: it is designed to account for how the language is used . It is not arbitrary. Grammar is essentially a natural grammar, in the sense that everything in it can be explained, ultimately, by reference to how language is used. Interpretation of the system: the fundamental components of meaning in language are functional components. Language: two main kinds of meaning: ideational or reflective (to represent the world around) and interpersonal or active. These elements are metafunctions, that tries to understand the environment (ideational) and tries to act on the other in it (interpersonal). These two combined make a third one, called textual . Interpretation of the elements of linguistic structures: each element in a language is explained by reference to its function in the total linguistic system. Each part is represented as functional with respect of the whole. The levels of a language are semantics, grammar and phonology. Synesis: How are these meaning expressed? Scope and purpose Systemic theory: is a theory of meaning as a choice, it means starting with the most general feature and proceeding step by step so as to become ever more specific. It goes from general to specific but it does not make explicit all the steps leading from one feature to another. Discourse analysis: there are two possible levels of achievement to aim at:

1. understanding of the text: the linguistic analysis enables one to show how, and why, 2.
the text means what it does. evaluation of the text: the linguistic analysis may enable one to say why the text is, or is not, an effective text for its own purposes. Assumes an interpretation of context of situation and context of culture.

Grammar and the text It is necessary to insist on the importance of grammar in linguistic analysis, the current preoccupation is with discourse analysis or text linguistics. A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all. A text is a semantic unit, not a grammatical one. But meaning are realized through wordings ; and without a theory of wording that is, a grammar there is no way of making explicit ones interpretation of the meaning of the text. A discourse grammar needs to be functional and semantics in itrs orientation, with the grammatical categories explained as the realization of semantic patterns. Natural grammar A language is a system for making meanings. The meaning are encoded it wording : grammatical sequences, or syntagms . A functional grammar is a study of wording, but one that interprets the wording by reference to what it means. Wordings are purely abstract pieces of code. Meanings are firs coded into wording and these wording then recoded into expressions. Grammatical metaphor is a dominant feature of adult language, and it is learn rather late. Notion of congruence: language has evolved in such a way that our interpretation of experience (thinking with language) and our interpersonal exchanges (acting with language) are encoded

into semantic structures. A congruent expression is one in which this direct line of form to meaning to experience is maintained intact. Grammar an semantics There is no clear line between semantic and grammar, and a functional grammar is one that is pushed in the direction of the semantics. Grammar is organized in two ways: 1. ranks, not immediate congruents. 2. choice grammar, not a chain grammar. This means that there is a system-structure cycle. Grammar needs to be explicit. The fact that this is a functional grammar means that it is based on meaning; but the fact that is a grammar means that it is an interpretation of linguistic forms. The wording realizes, or encodes, the meaning. The wording, in turn, is realized by sound or writing. The relation is a symbolic one. Sentence and word Below the sentence, the typical relationship is a constructional one, of parts into wholes. One manifestation of this structural relationship is the sequence in which the elements occur. A sentence is the smallest unit that cannot be displaced in sequence. The fundamental unit of organization is the clause. A clause is the same unit whether it is functioning alone (as a simple sentence) or as part of a clause complex (a compound/complex sentence). A phrase is a reduced strain of clause, while a group is an enlarged strain of word. Sentence and word are units in the grammar. Speakers create new wordings at all ranks. System and text The grammar, then is at one botch a grammar of the system and a grammar of the text. Discourse analysis has to be founded on a study of the system of the language, only by starting from the system can we see the text in its aspect as a process. The spoken language The potential of the system is more richly developed, and more fully revealed, in speech. The unconsciousness of language [I SKIPPED THIS PART] Theoretical approach The systemic theory is largely based on Firths system structure theory, but derives more abstract principles from Hjelmslev and owes many ideas to the Prague school. A system network is a theory of language as a choice Theories of language

Formal: interpret a language as a list of structures they tend to emphasize universal features of language, to take grammar /which they call syntax) as the foundation of language (grammar is arbitrary), and so to be organized around the sentence. Functional: interprets a language as a network of relations they tend to emphasize variables among different languages, to take semantics as a foundations (grammar is natural), and so to be organized around the text, or discourse.