Systemic Theory

Abstract

Systemic, or systemic–functional, theory has its origin in the main intellectual tradition of European linguistics that developed following the work of Saussure. Like other such theories, both those from the mid-twentieth century (e.g., Prague school; French functionalism) and more recent work in the same tradition (e.g., that of Hagège), it is functional and semantic rather than formal and syntactic in orientation, takes the text rather than the sentence as its object, and defines its scope by reference to usage rather than grammaticality. Its primary source was the work of J. R. Firth and his colleagues in London. As well as other schools of thought in Europe such as glossematics it also draws on American anthropological linguistics, and on traditional and modern linguistics, and on traditional and modern linguistics as developed in China.