Abstract
© A m Welcome to Functional Linguistics, a peer-reviewed open-access journal supported by the M.A.K. Halliday Library, Sun Yat-sen University, China and published by SpringerOpen. This open-access journal publishes scholarly articles and reviews in the broad area of functional linguistics, with a special focus on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Our aim is to provide a platform for the exploration of language and linguistic issues from a functional and meaning-oriented perspective. SFL is a functional model of language inspired by the work of linguists such as Saussure, Hjelmslev, Whorf, and Firth. The theory, as a general linguistics model of language, was initially developed by M.A.K. Halliday and his colleagues in London during the 1960s, and its development has been “one of continuous expansion of its ‘territory’ in terms of theory, description, application, interdisciplinary engagement, and so on” (Matthiessen 2010). As the name indicates, SFL distinguishes itself as a functional theory by the emphasis placed on system in relation to structure. Martin (1984) explains that “it is... the use of paradigmatically based metafunctional components in the grammar which most clearly distinguishes systemic from other functionalist approaches”. The theory has also been particularly concerned with modelling language in context. It is especially well-known for the work on discourse analysis, cohesion, genre and register, appraisal and so on, which have been taken up by scholars working in the humanities and social sciences. Since Halliday’s early work on Chinese and English, systemic functional linguists have also been increasing the coverage of the description of different languages over the decades, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Danish, Finnish, Persian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesian. SFL can be characterized as an “appliable” linguistics theory. Halliday (2008: 189) states that his aim is to work towards “a coherent account of language which is ‘appliable’, in the sense that it can be helpful to at least some of the large numbers of people who are in some way or other engaging with language in the course of their work”. SFL is wellknown for its application in a variety of fields, including education, translation, computational linguistics, multimodal studies, and healthcare, and scholars are always exploring new areas of application (Matthiessen 2010). As Fawcett (2013) points out, the development of SFL has benefited from the social structures that have been developed to maintain and nourish the theory. These include SFL associations and conferences (international, regional and national), teaching and research posts, MA and PhD courses and programs in universities, and
Highlights
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a functional model of language inspired by the work of linguists such as Saussure, Hjelmslev, Whorf, and Firth
The theory has been concerned with modelling language in context. It is especially well-known for the work on discourse analysis, cohesion, genre and register, appraisal and so on, which have been taken up by scholars working in the humanities and social sciences
SFL can be characterized as an “appliable” linguistics theory
Summary
SFL is a functional model of language inspired by the work of linguists such as Saussure, Hjelmslev, Whorf, and Firth. The theory, as a general linguistics model of language, was initially developed by M.A.K. Halliday and his colleagues in London during the 1960s, and its development has been “one of continuous expansion of its ‘territory’ in terms of theory, description, application, interdisciplinary engagement, and so on” (Matthiessen 2010). Since Halliday’s early work on Chinese and English, systemic functional linguists have been increasing the coverage of the description of different languages over the decades, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Danish, Finnish, Persian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesian.
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