metafunction web

Metafunctions

From early on in his account of language, Halliday has argued that it is inherently functional. His early papers on the grammar of English make reference to the "functional components" of language, as "generalized uses of language, which, since they seem to determine the nature of the language system, require to be incorporated into our account of that system." ^[11] Halliday argues that this functional organization of language "determines the form taken by grammatical structure" ^[12]

Halliday refers to his functions of language as metafunctions. He proposes three general functions: the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual.

Ideational metafunction

The ideational metafunction is the function for construing human experience. It is the means by which we make sense of "reality"^[13]. Halliday divides the ideational function into two functions: the logical and the experiential metafunctions. The logical metafunction refers to the grammatical resources for building up grammatical units into complexes, for instance, for combining two or more clauses into a clause complex. The experiential function refers to the grammatical resources involved in construing the flux of experience through the unit of the clause.

The ideational metafunction reflects the contextual value of "field", that is, the nature of the social process in which the language is implicated^[14]. An analysis of a text from the perspective of the ideational function involves inquiring into the choices in the grammatical system of "transitivity": that is, process types, participant types, circumstance types, combined with an analysis of the resources through which clauses are combined together. Halliday's An Introduction to Functional Grammar (in the third edition, with revisions by Christian Matthiessen)^[15] sets out the description of these grammatical systems.

Interpersonal metafunction

The interpersonal metafunction relates to a text's aspects of tenor or interactivity.^[16] Like field, tenor comprises three component areas: the speaker/writer persona, social distance, and relative social status.^[17] Social distance and relative social status are applicable only to spoken texts.^[18] Note - this is not so, looking at the text of O´Halloran we are told that we no longer have the option to contrast the various speakers but we can examine "how the individual authors present themselves to the reader", therefore, we are able to look at social distance and relative social status in texts where there is only one author.

The speaker/writer persona concerns the stance, personalisation and standing of the speaker or writer. This involves looking at whether the writer or speaker has a neutral attitude, which can be seen through the use of positive or negative language. Social distance means how close the speakers are, e.g. how the use of nicknames shows the degree to which they are intimate. Relative social status asks whether they are equal in terms of power and knowledge on a subject, for example, the relationship between a mother and child would be considered unequal. Focuses here are on speech acts (e.g. whether one person tends to ask questions and the other speaker tends to answer), who chooses the topic, turn management, and how capable both speakers are of evaluating the subject.^[19]

Textual metafunction

The textual metafunction relates to mode; the internal organisation and communicative nature of a text.^[20] This comprises textual interactivity, spontaneity and communicative distance.^[21]

Textual interactivity is examined with reference to disfluencies such as hesitators, pauses and repetitions.

Spontaneity is determined through a focus on lexical density, grammatical complexity, coordination (how clauses are linked together) and the use of nominal groups. The study of communicative distance involves looking at a text’s cohesion—that is, how it hangs together, as well as any abstract language it uses.

Cohesion is analysed in the context of both lexical and grammatical as well as intonational aspects^[22] with reference to lexical chains^[23] and, in the speech register, tonality, tonicity, and tone.^[24] The lexical aspect focuses on sense relations and lexical repetitions, while the grammatical aspect looks at repetition of meaning shown through reference, substitution and ellipsis, as well as the role of linking adverbials.

Systemic functional grammar deals with all of these areas of meaning equally within the grammatical system itself.