Applied Linguistics

Applied Linguistics I
The Systematic Functional Linguistics Theory.

Background
 M.A.K. Halliday
 Paper :1961
 Founder University

of Sidney.

 A grammarian.

Language
Systemic “A network of systems, or interrelated sets of options for making meaning”
Language
Functional “Language is as it is because of what it has evolved to do.”
Language
Language is metafunctionally organized. The raison d'être of language is meaning in social life.”
Grammar (Closed Systems)
Grammatical structure
Language

A choice
Meaning potential

Meaning
 Lexical set

Open system

Semantic components
1. Ideational component
2. Interpersonal component
3. Textual function
Ideational component
 The speaker`s meaning potential as an observer.

 The content function of language.
 Language encodes the cultural experience.
 Speakers encode their own personal experience
Meaning
 Lexical set

Open system

Semantic components
1. Ideational component
2. Interpersonal component
3. Textual function
Ideational component
 The speaker`s meaning potential as an observer.
 The content function of language.
 Language encodes the cultural experience.
 Speakers encode their own personal experience
Interpersonal component
 It represents the speaker`s meaning potential.
 Language as doing something
The speaker intrudes himself into the context of situation
Textual function
Resources for enabling the Ideational component and the Interpersonal component to come
together in coherent text.
The speaker`s text-forming potential.

Language Acquisition
 Language is a part of everyday life and through the child’s close relations with parents,
siblings and other constant figures
Learning language
Learning through language
Learning about language
Learning language
 A process of construction made up as a three-layered model.
 Semantic
 Lexicogrammatical
 Graphophonic
Learning through language
 “Learning through language refers to language in the construction of reality: how we use
language to build up a picture of the world in which we live.”
The outside language

Imagination

The inside language

Consciousness

Learning about language
 “Much of our learning about language is concerned with register variation, language and
society and different media of expression within a language”
Field: What the content of the text is actually about. Its function of language is ideational as it
puts forward information as to what ideas the author is trying to get across.
Tenor: The relationship between the speaker/writer and the listener/reader. This is an
interpersonal metafunction as the speaker is communicating to the listener either through
informal or formal language.
Mode: Which media is used to convey the message of the text. This is called the textual
metafunction.