Pushing SFL out of its comfort zone: The role of SPCA structure in English and Spanish

Abstract

For several years now, the application of systemic functional theory to the description of languages other than English has been helping to fine-tune descriptive practice. Typological work on Spanish, for instance, has shown some areas in which this language is very different from English and mere transfer comparison does not work. One example is the enactment of communicative exchange, given that the MOOD system does not play a role in Spanish. This paper revises the description of communicative exchange in Spanish, based on the existing literature, to propose a revision of the ‘interpersonal’ status of the SPCA structure (Subject, Finite, Complement, etc.) not only in Spanish but also in English. In this proposal this structure is not regarded as inherently interpersonal in either language. Rather, a point is made for its relocation in the lexicogrammar, specifically as the syntactic component of the logical metafunction, which deploys all its structural potential in close interaction with the other metafunctions. It is argued that the assignation of SPCA structure to the logical metafunction facilitates the contrastive description of the different resources used by English and Spanish for the construal of communicative exchange.